Idonia: A Romance of Old London Part 28

What course I might have followed herein I am not careful to imagine; enough that it was decided for me by one of the ship's company of the _Adventure_, who, observing us, came over a little way to see what should be the occasion of this argument. To him then, without delay, I dispatched my Moorish friend I had suborned, praying the mariner to hasten to my a.s.sistance. And no sooner did he see the English pieces in the fellow's hand than he understood it was a countryman of his in peril, and so called together the rest of his crew, or at least such as were within hail. A little after, therefore, I was set free, the whole company coming about me, and thrusting away the poor fat king, that they told me was but a petty chieftain, of no authority at all, except that he took the half of the harbour dues; which being a mere pittance, however, he was fain to eke out the stipend with the selling of sweet oil and justice, as either was called for.

But when they heard I was employed by the Turkey Company, as they were, and moreover was acquainted with Sir Edward Osborne, whom every one greatly honoured, there was no end to their protestations of friendship; and in especial the master of that voyage, one Captain Tuchet, offered to carry me with him to England; albeit he must first, he said, finish his trading in these waters, as he had engaged to do.

I thanked him very heartily for his kindness, and, at his request, opened with him at large of my imprisonment on board the _Saracen's Head_, and of all matters I have above set down, which he heard very patiently and advised himself of the princ.i.p.al outrages that were either committed or intended by Spurrier and the rest. He was a short, squat man, of a very heavy appearance and so dull an eye that I had set him down for almost a fool before he showed me pretty convincingly that he was not, but rather of a nature at once astute and undaunted, he being indeed at all points a commander and worthy of trust.

"So you tell me that these gentlemen purpose to join themselves to a certain pirate of note," he said, blinking his thick-lidded eyes, as we leaned over the rail of his high deck. "And where might he be found, prythee?"

"It was upon some island, as I remember, to the northward of Sicily," I answered.

"'Tis as I thought then," said he, "and having a part of our cargo to discharge at Amalfi, we will read our instructions something more liberally than we be wont to do, and shape our course toward--well, should we chance to make this island of yours upon the way, there's no harm done, Master Supercargo;" and he blinked again.

"You will give them chase?" cried I.

"We be men peaceably inclined at all times," replied Tuchet, closing his eyes altogether, "and I should be sorry if resistance to our demands led to bloodshed."

"But my uncle..." I said and hesitated.

"Is a reasonable villain by all accounts," replied the Captain, and so for that while dismissed me.

The news that we were to alter our course in order to the end I have named, soon spread amongst the crew, who one and all rejoiced at the prospect of fighting it offered them; that being a luxury not often to be indulged in upon a merchant ship and therefore the more highly prized. From the mate I learned that there was an infinite number of such secret nooks and fastnesses by pirates and desperate thieves infested, in this sea, and that to any ordinary man it would appear an absurd thing to attempt, from amongst so many, to discover the particular refuge that Spurrier might affect. "So that were it not for some hint we have to go upon, which our Captain thinks sufficient, we might indeed run far astray; though now, if we do, I shall greatly admire it."

"Upon what place hath he fixed as likely?" I asked.

"'Tis a little rock among the aeolian Islands," he answered me, "for it is indeed hardly more than a bare rock. The people name it the Three Towers, because of certain watch-towers formerly set up against the Saracens and yet remaining: as you may see them likewise in Amalfi, and other places too. It hath a fair anchorage and haven and a flat strip of good land where they used to cultivate vines before the robbers took the place and killed the islanders. There was a pleasant village there among the vineyards, and a temple, nigh perfect, of the old heathen G.o.ds. But now all is in ruins, except that those men have retained for their safeguard, or for the storage of their treasure."

"You seem to know their lurking-place pretty well," said I, with a smile.

He let the jest pa.s.s, it being none to him as I soon learned.

"I should know it, master," he replied, "having lived there, and there married and had children. 'Twas those devils of pirates drove me forth ... but not my wife. My children they slew in the room where the wine-press stood. I think if we fall in with that company, sir, by how much soever their number exceed ours, we shall yet get the better of them, G.o.d helping us."

All that day we held our course eastward, with a pretty strong wind following, so that we had got about seventy or eighty miles from the port by sunset. The night also continuing fair, with lucky weather, we made a further good progress, by which the Captain hoped, within two or three days at the most, we should make the Island of Tre Torre (that is, the Three Towers aforesaid), and therefore set every one to the preparing of his weapon, and the hauling up of the powder from the magazine.

For my part, while these preparations were making, I was full of heavy thoughts, for it must needs be in this imminent battle that my uncle and I should be opposites, who but lately were become friends.

I doubted indeed whether Spurrier would grant him liberty to fight; but the alternative was rather to be feared, namely that, unwilling to be c.u.mbered with the ward of prisoners at such a time, the Captain would rid himself of him before the fight should begin. But either way I certainly could not refuse to draw my sword against these pirates merely because my uncle was kept prisoner by them, and especially since our quarrel was like to extend to all such robbers as should choose to take sides with Spurrier against us. It appeared indeed a mad impossible enterprise we undertook, and had it not been for the extreme faith all our crew had in Mr. Tuchet, I might perhaps have gone the length of protesting against the risk we ran.

However I did not, and am glad that I refrained, for no man loveth to be thought a coward, though some that are not be content to appear so in a n.o.ble cause; which I think is the greatest degree of courage a man can attain to.

Now, about the fourth morning, when the watch was changed, I being one of those appointed to serve that turn, we remarked that the sky, which until then had been quite clear, was now spread over with a thin haze, such as ordinarily intendeth an excessive heat; and indeed as the day wore on it became oppressively hot, the vapour remaining the while, or rather withdrawing to an unusual height, so that there was no mist upon the waters, but merely a white sky for a blue one. At noonday this strange whiteness of the heavens became charged with a dull copper colour particularly to the eastward, and the wind died away suddenly, leaving us becalmed.

Tuchet summoned the mate to him, to the upper deck, and held him long in consultation of this mystery, presently calling me too to join them there, when he put two or three brief questions to me as touching the rig and burden of the _Saracen's Head_, which, when I had answered, he resumed his conference with the mate, jerking his finger impatiently toward some object far out to sea.

I followed the direction of his finger, and at last perceived right upon the clear line of the horizon a grey blot, that might have been a rock or ship, or indeed anything, so great was the distance of it from us.

"I cannot tell," said the mate; "but I think 'tis not so big."

"Tush!" said the Captain. "Consider it more closely."

Again I strained my eyes for any indication of sail or hull that should resolve my doubt; but even as I gazed the thing was lost as completely as though the sea had opened to swallow it.

"Why, 'tis gone!" I cried.

Neither of the men spoke for a while, but after a full half minute the mate said in a low voice--

"Yonder comes the eagre," meaning, as I learned afterwards, that great wave that sometimes comes with the high tide, and is otherwise named the Bore; the cause of it none knoweth certainly, though it is said to follow upon an uncommon meeting of tides, or else is rolled back by earthquakes and such-like horrid disturbances and visitations of the Almighty.

"Strike sail, lads," shouted the Captain, "and close up all hatches; there's tempest at hand."

We did what we could, but the time was brief enough, so that before we had well concluded the wave struck us. The ship seemed to be lifted like a plaything and tossed about as lightly as though a giant had put forth his hand from the deep and flung us. Three men were washed overboard at the first a.s.sault and our mizzen mast burst asunder, which falling, grievously hurt one that stood by, who a little after died.

Meanwhile the calm that had previously held us bound, was exchanged for a furious hurricane worse almost to withstand than the shock of the eagre-wave itself. The sky was now as black as night, with great hurrying clouds urged on as it seemed by the pitiless goad of lightning that lacerated them as they thundered by. Wave after wave swept over us as we rose and fell, abject and waterlogged, now lying low in the lane of waters, now impelled to the summit from which we looked forth as from a falling tower in whose ruin we were presently to be involved....

I cannot relate all that followed, for a spar struck me senseless, and when I recovered we were riding in an untroubled bay, under a lee sh.o.r.e. Too sick and weak to question those that stood about me, I nevertheless could not but note the amazing beauty of the scene. Upon an eminence a grove of palm trees stood out against the blue of the sky, while upon the slope of this hill and below it to the water's edge extended the buildings of a city, dazzling white and magnificently builded with long arcades and lofty gateways and tiled domes. At first I supposed we had been carried by the storm backward to that Moorish port where I was held captive, but soon I perceived that this place greatly exceeded it in splendour and apparent wealth. The city, in fact, was Argiers, whither we had been carried wide of our course by the stress of the storm: but being here our Captain thought fit to make good our ship that was pretty near stove in. Some nine or ten days in all we stayed, during which I not only regained my health but took an infinite pleasure in going about in the town, which was like nothing I had ever seen or imagined, so white it was, and so strangely supported upon deep arches that caught the shade at all hours; and having high towers with balconies, from which a man called these poor infidels to prayer. The flies were abominable, and the stench incredibly offensive; but saving these things, Argiers is a good town, and the people of it (that is, the men, for I saw no women) very grave and orderly.

Our masts and timbers made good at length, Mr. Tuchet called the crew aboard, and bade them cast off the hawser that held us, which was soon done, and we departed. And because of the privilege extended to me and the favour of the Captain, I left the common seamen and went upon the deck that the Captain used, who spoke cheerily to me, saying he hoped we should meet with no more disasters on this voyage. I laughed and said I hoped not neither, and asked him when he thought we should come to Amalfi; for it never entered my mind that he would prosecute his old purpose of going against the pirates.

"To Amalfi?" said Tuchet, scratching his grey stubble beard. "Oh, about a week hence, Mr. Denis, if we get done with your uncle by Thursday, as I expect to do."

Nothing deterred him when he had once resolved upon any course, and I am a.s.sured that had we lost half our complement of men and all our ammunition, he would have gone into it with his fists. The Thursday then, having doubled the Cape of Marsala, which is the westward point of Sicily, we came amongst the aeolian Islands to the very hour Tuchet had named; and towards evening we clearly descried the little rocky islet of the Three Towers; whereat every man grasped his weapon, and the gunner ran out his long bra.s.s piece. 'Twas no time for the conning over of moral sentences but rather of rapid silent preparation; yet I could not but feel the solemnity of this our slowly sailing onward through the still autumn evening, whose outgoing seemed so sweetly attuned to that praise for which the Scripture saith it was created, but which for us meant no more than an unlucky light to shoot by. For, as more than one stout fellow whispered, our ship having the sun behind it was a mark for any fool to hit, while we upon our part could distinguish nought upon that barren rock but the crumbled watch-towers that crowned it.

Without a word, we stole on. It was dangerous navigation, for there were said to be sunken reefs to the westward (that is the nearest to us as we came from the west), where the rock divided into two horns or spurs, that, jutting out into the sea, enclosed the little parcel of flat land where the vineyards used to be and the ruined temple. The harbourage lay a little to the southward behind the right-hand spur I have noted, and was therefore not yet to be seen; though we, approaching so closely, must have been perfectly visible to any one that lay concealed amidst the innumerable lurking-places and caves of the rock.

The mate, who knew the island but too well, had gone forward, but now returned to us, that is to Tuchet and me, upon the high deck. His face was very white.

"The sh.o.r.e hath sunk," he said.

"What do you mean?" cried Tuchet, turning about sharply.

"Vineyard and all gone; our cottage and the garden where my boys played.... The eagre hath whelmed them."

"But the wave hath long since receded, man; it cannot be! You have mistaken the place belike."

"Mistaken!" repeated the mate with a hard laugh. "I tell you the whole island hath been disturbed; its foundations shaken--Lo, there!" he cried out. "A whole cliff hath gone down in the earthquake; and there is driftwood under the headland, of wrecked ships."

And even as he had said, so it was.

For the late upheaval had had its origin in the recesses of this barren rock, which it had burst open as a robber bursts forth from his ambush, and loosed that charging hurricane upon the sea. And indeed not this island of Tre Torre only, but all these islands to the northward of Sicily be so eaten under by fire, and liable to sudden calamity therefrom, as none may properly be named habitable, though the most of them be inhabited in despite of almost constant threatenings, until, as this place was, they be at length in a night destroyed.

We sailed about the place in our ship, but found no living soul, and night soon after falling, we were fain to use the shattered remnant of the pirates' harbour, where we lay till the morning, very sad and perplexed.

But a great while before full day I rose up alone and went ash.o.r.e, in the hope to light upon some vestiges of my uncle, or if not of him, then of any of that infamous crew of the _Saracen's Head_. From the one of the watch-towers that I found to be the least shaken I surveyed the rock over every part, but could discover nothing more than that we had before espied, namely, the few broken boards of a ship and spars strewn about the sweep of ground betwixt the two promontories, and so descended slowly to where they lay. And having descended but a little of the broken path that led, as I judged, to the submerged hamlet amidst the vineyards, I looked out upon the waters of the bay; and on the sudden, clear beneath them, saw the hamlet, house by house, and the pergolas of hanging vines. So translucent and untroubled was the water at that hour that scarce anything the least was hid, but even the gra.s.s between the stones I saw, yet fresh and waving, and the rusted tools abandoned in the fields. An untended way led further off to the temple, of which I could dimly perceive the pillars, between which great silver fish swam in and out, and upon its steps the seaweed slightly stirred.

But caught in the weed on the steps of the temple I saw a drowned man lying, and when I had gone down to the edge of the sh.o.r.e, I knew him for my uncle....

Of the rest we could find at first no trace at all, but (having sent down divers into the deep water about the northward headland) we at length recovered the bodies of Spurrier and Attwood and one or two beside. When the ship had split, idly trusting to such pieces of the wreck as they could lay hold of, they had evidently been dashed against the rock, and so perished. But the prisoner in the hold had been carried forward, as it seemed, almost into safety, but at the last had been let slip. There was no hurt upon his body when we raised it, and the features were unclouded by any premonition of his fate.