One of Clive's Heroes Part 11

"Was the fellow attacking you?" asked Desmond.

"That to be sure was his intention. I was in truth in the very article of peril; I was blown; my breath was near gone, when at the critical moment up comes a gallant youth--'subvenisti homini jam perdito'--and with dexterous hand stays the enemy in his course."

"But what was it all about? Do you know the man?"

"Ods my life! 'twas a complete stranger, a man, I should guess, of hasty pa.s.sions and tetchy temper. By the merest accident, at a somewhat crowded part, I unluckily elbowed the man into the kennel, and though I apologized in the handsomest way he must take offence and seek to cut off my life, to extinguish me 'in primo aevo,' as Naso would say. But Atropos was forestalled, my thread of life still falls uncut from Clotho's shuttle; still, still, my boy, I bear on the torch of life unextinguished."

Desmond felt that all this fine phrasing, this copious draught from cla.s.sical sources, was intended to quench the ardour of his curiosity.

Diggle's explanation was very lame; the fury depicted on the pursuer's face could scarcely be due to a mere accidental jostling in the street.

And Diggle was certainly not the man to take to his heels on slight occasion. But after all Diggle's quarrels were his own concern. That his past life included secrets Desmond had long suspected, but he was not the first man of birth and education who had fallen into misfortune, and at all events he had always treated Desmond with kindness. So the boy put the matter from his thoughts.

The incident, however, left a sting of vexation behind it. In agreeing to accompany Diggle to the East, Desmond had harboured a vague hope of falling in with Clive and taking service, in however humble a capacity, with him. It vexed him sorely to think that Clive, whose memory for faces, as his recognition of Bulger after twelve years had shown, was very good, might recognize him, should they meet, as the boy who had played a part in what was almost a street brawl. Still, it could not be helped. Desmond comforted himself with the hope that Clive had taken no particular note of him, and, if they should ever encounter, would probably meet him as a stranger.

CHAPTER THE EIGHTH

*In which several weeks are supposed to elapse; and our hero is discovered in the Doldrums.*

The _Good Intent_ lay becalmed in the Doldrums. There was not wind enough to puff out a candle flame. The sails hung limp and idle from the masts, yet the vessel rolled as in a storm, heaving on a tremendous swell so violently that it would seem her masts must be shaken out of her. The air was sweltering, the sky the colour of burnished copper, out of which the sun beat remorselessly in almost perpendicular beams.

Pitch ran from every seam of the decks, great blisters like bubbles rose upon the woodwork; the decks were no sooner swabbed than--presto!--it was as though they had not known the touch of water for an age.

For two weeks she had lain thus. Sometimes the hot day would be succeeded by a night of terrible storm, thunder crashing around, the whole vault above lacerated by lightning, and rain pouring, as it were out of the fissures, in sheets. But in a day all traces of the storm would disappear, and if, meanwhile, a sudden breath of wind had carried the vessel a few knots on her southward course, the hopes thus raised would prove illusory, and once more she would lie on a sea of molten lead, or, still worse, would be rocked on a long swell that had all the discomforts of a gale without its compensating excitement.

The tempers of officers and crew had gone from bad to worse. The officers snapped and snarled at one another, and treated the men with even more than the customary brutality of the merchant marine of those days. The crew, lounging about half-naked on the decks, seeking what shelter they could get from the pitiless sun, with little to do and no spirit to do anything, quarrelled among themselves, growling at the unnecessary tasks set them merely to keep them from flying at each others' throats.

The _Good Intent_ was a fine three-masted vessel of nearly 400 tons, large for those days, though the new East Indiamen approached 500 tons.

When her keel was laid for the Honourable East India Company some twenty years earlier, she had been looked on as one of the finest merchant vessels afloat; but the buffeting of wind and wave in a dozen voyages to the eastern seas, and the more insidious and equally destructive attacks of worms and dry-rot, had told upon her timbers. She had been sold off and purchased by Captain Barker, who was one of the cla.s.s known as "interlopers," men who made trading voyages to the East Indies on their own account, running the risk of their vessels being seized and themselves penalized for infringing the Company's monopoly. She was now filled with a miscellaneous cargo: wine in chests, beer and cider in bottles, hats, worsted stockings, wigs, small shot, lead, iron, knives, gla.s.s, hubble-bubbles, cochineal, sword-blades, toys, coa.r.s.e cloth, woollen goods--anything that would find a market among the European merchants, the native princes, or the trading cla.s.ses of India. There was also a large consignment of muskets and ammunition. When Desmond asked the second mate where they were going, the reply was that if he asked no questions he would be told no lies.

On this sultry afternoon a group of seamen, clad in nothing but shirt and breeches, were lolling, lying, crouching on the deck forward, circled around Bulger. Seated on an upturned tub, he was busily engaged in baiting a hook. Tired of the "Irish horse" and salt pork that formed the staple of the sailors' food, he was taking advantage of the calm to fish for bonitos, a large fish over two feet long, the deadly enemy of the beautiful flying-fish that every now and then fell panting upon the deck in their mad flight from marine foes. The bait was made to resemble the flying-fish itself, the hook being hidden by white rag-stuffing, with feathers p.r.i.c.ked-in to counterfeit spiked fins.

As the big seaman deftly worked with iron hook and right hand, he spun yarns for the delectation of his mates. They chewed tobacco, listened, laughed, sneered, as their temper inclined them. Only one of the group gave him rapt and undivided attention--a slim youth, with hollow sunburnt cheeks, long bleached hair, and large gleaming eyes. His neck and arms were bare, and the colour of boiled lobsters; but, unlike the rest, he had no tattoo-marks p.r.i.c.ked into his skin. His breeches were tatters, his striped shirt was covered with parti-coloured darns.

"Ay, as I was saying," said Bulger, "'twas in these lat.i.tudes, on my last voyage but three. I was in a Bristol ship a-carryin' of slaves from Guinea to the plantations. Storms!--I never seed such storms nowhere; and, contrairywise, calms enough to make a Quaker sick. In course the water was short, an' scurvy come aboard, an' 'twas a hammock an' a round shot for one or other of us every livin' day. As reg'lar as the mornin' watch the sharks came for their breakfast; we could see 'em comin' from all p'ints o' the compa.s.s; an' sure as seven bells struck there they was, ten deep, with jaws wide open, like Parmiter's there when there's a go of grog to be sarved out. We was all like the livin'

skellington at Bartlemy Fair, and our teeth droppin' out that fast, they pattered like hailstones on the deck."

"How did you stick 'em in again?" interrupted Parmiter, anxious to get even with Bulger for the allusion to his gaping jaw. He was a thick-set, ugly fellow, his face seamed with scars, his mouth twisted, his ears dragged at the lobes by heavy bra.s.s rings.

"With glue made out of albicores we caught, to be sure. Well, as I was saying, we was so weak there wasn't a man aboard could reach the maintop, an' the man at the wheel had two men to hold him up. Things was so, thus, an' in such case, when, about eight bells one arternoon, the look-out at the mast-head----"

"Thought you couldn't climb? How'd he get there?" said the same sceptic.

"Give me time, Parmiter, and you'll know all about the hows an' whys, notwithstanding and sobeits. He'd been there for a week, for why? 'cos he couldn't get down. We pa.s.sed him up a quarter-pint o' water and a biscuit or two every day by a halyard. Well, as I was sayin', all at once the look-out calls down, 'Land ho!'--leastways he croaked it, 'cos what with weakness and little water our throats was as dry as last year's biscuit. 'Where away?' croaks first mate, which I remember his name was Tonking. And there, sure enough, we seed a small island, which it might be a quarter-mile long. Now, mind you, we hadn't made a knot for three weeks. How did that island come there so sudden like? In course, it must ha' come up from the bottom o' the sea. And as we was a-lookin' at it we seed it grow, mateys--long spits o' land shootin' out this side, that side, and t'other side--and the whole concarn begins to move towards us, comin' on, hand over hand, slow, dead slow, but sure and steady. Our jaws were just a-droppin' arter our teeth when fust mate busts out in a laugh; by thunder, I remember that there laugh to-day! 'twas like--well, I don't know what 'twas like, if not the sc.r.a.pin' of a handsaw; an' says he, 'By Neptune, 'tis a darned monstrous squid!' And, sure enough, that was what it was, a squid as big round as the Isle o' Wight, with arms that ud reach from Wapping Stairs to Bugsby Marshes, and just that curly shape. An' what was more, 'twas steerin'

straight for us. Ay, mateys, 'twas a horrible moment!"

The seamen, even Parmiter the scoffer, were listening open-mouthed when a hoa.r.s.e voice broke the spell, cutting short Bulger's story and dispersing the group.

"Here you, Burke you, up aloft and pay the topmast with grease. I'll have no lazy lubbers aboard my ship, I tell you. I've got no use for n.o.body too good for his berth. No Jimmy Duffs for me! Show a leg, or, by heavens, I'll show you a rope's end and make my mark--mind that, my lad!"

Captain Barker turned to the man at his side.

"'Twas an ill turn you did me and the ship's company, Mr. Diggle, bringing this useless lubber aboard."

"It does appear so, captain," said Diggle sorrowfully. "But 'tis his first voyage, sir: discipline--a little discipline!"

Meanwhile Desmond, without a word, had moved away to obey orders. He had long since found the uselessness of protest. Diggle had taken him on board the _Good Intent_ an hour before sailing. He left him to himself until the vessel was well out in the mouth of the Thames, and then came with a rueful countenance and explained that, after all his endeavours, the owners had absolutely refused to accept so youthful a fellow as supercargo. Desmond felt his cheeks go pale.

"What am I to be, then?" he asked quietly.

"Well, my dear boy, Captain Barker is rather short of apprentices, and he has no objection to taking you in place of one if you will make yourself useful. He is a first-rate seaman. You will imbibe a vast deal of useful knowledge and gain a free pa.s.sage, and when we reach the Indies I shall be able, I doubt not, by means of my connexions, to a.s.sist you in the first steps of what, I trust, will prove a successful career."

"Then who is supercargo?"

"Unluckily that greatness has been thrust upon me. Unluckily, I say; for the office is not one that befits a former fellow of King's College at Cambridge. Yet there is an element of good luck in it, too; for, as you know, my fortunes were at a desperately low ebb, and the emoluments of this office, while not great, will stand me in good stead when we reach our destination, and enable me to set you, my dear boy--to borrow from the vernacular--on your legs."

"You have deceived me, then!"

"Nay, nay, you do bear me hard, young man. To be disappointed is not the same thing as to be deceived. True, you are not, as I hoped, supercargo, but the conditions are not otherwise altered. You wished to go to India--well, Zephyr's jocund breezes, as Catullus hath it, will waft you thither: we are flying to the bright cities of the East. No fragile bark is this, carving a dubious course through the main, as Seneca, I think, puts it. No, 'tis an excellent vessel, with an excellent captain, who will steer a certain course, who fears not the African blast nor the grisly Hyades nor the fury of Notus----"

Desmond did not wait the end of Diggle's peroration. It was too late to repine. The vessel was already rounding the Foreland, and though he was more than half convinced that he had been decoyed on board on false pretences, he could not divine any motive on Diggle's part, and hoped that his voyage would be not much less pleasant than he had antic.i.p.ated.

But even before the _Good Intent_ made the Channel he was woefully undeceived. His first interview with the captain opened his eyes.

Captain Barker was a small, thin, sandy man, with a large upper lip that met the lower in a straight line, a lean nose, and eyes perpetually bloodshot. His manner was that of a bully of the most brutal kind. He browbeat his officers, cuffed and kicked his men, in his best days a martinet, in his worst a madman. The only good point about him was that he never used the cat, which, as Bulger said, was a mercy.

"Humph!" he said when Desmond was presented to him. "You're him, are you? Well, let me tell you this, my lad: the ship's boy on board this 'ere ship have got to do what he's bid, and no mistake about it. If he don't, I'll make him. Now you go for'ard into the galley and sc.r.a.pe the slush off the cook's pans; quick's the word."

From that day Desmond led a dog's life. He found that as ship's boy he was at the beck and call of the whole company. The officers, with the exception of Mr. Toley, the melancholy first mate, took their cue from the captain; and Mr. Toley, as a matter of policy, never sided with him openly. The men resented his superior manners and the fact that he was socially above them. The majority of the seamen were even more ruffianly than the specimens he had seen at the _Waterman's Rest_--the sc.u.m of Wapping and Rotherhithe. His only real friend on board was Bulger, who helped him to master the many details of a sailor's work, and often protected him against the ill-treatment of his mates; and, in spite of his one arm, Bulger was a power to be reckoned with.

At the best of times the life of a sailor was hard, and Desmond found it at first almost intolerable. Irregular sleep on an uncomfortable hammock, wedged in with the other members of the crew, bad food, and over-exertion told upon his frame. From the moment when all hands were piped to lash hammocks to the moment when the signal was given for turning in, it was one long round of thankless drudgery. But he proved himself to be very quick and nimble. Before long, no one could lash his hammock with the seven turns in a shorter time than he. After learning the work on the mainsails and try-sails he was sent to practise the more acrobatic duties in the tops, and when two months had pa.s.sed, no one excelled him in quickness aloft. If his work had been confined to the ordinary seaman's duties he would have been fairly content, for there is always a certain pleasure in accomplishment, and the consciousness of growing skill and power was some compensation for the hardships he had to undergo. But he had to do dirty work for the cook, clean out the styes of the captain's pigs, swab the lower deck, sometimes descend on errands for one or other to the nauseous hold.

Perhaps the badness of the food was the worst evil to a boy accustomed to plain but good country fare. The burgoo or oatmeal gruel served at breakfast made him sick; he knew how it had been made in the cook's dirty pans. The "Irish horse" and salt pork for dinner soon became distasteful; it was not in the best condition when brought aboard, and before long it became putrid. The strong cheese for supper was even more horrible. He lived for the most part on the tough sea-biscuit of mixed wheat and pea-flour, and on the occasional duffs of flour boiled with fat, which did duty as pudding. For drink he had nothing but small beer; the water in the wooden casks was full of green, gra.s.sy, slimy things. But the fresh sea-air seemed to be a food itself; and though Desmond became lean and hollow-cheeked, his muscles developed and hardened. Little deserving Captain Barker's ill-tempered abuse, he became handy in many ways on board, and proved to be the possessor of a remarkably keen pair of eyes.

When, in obedience to the captain's orders, he was greasing the mast, his attention was caught by three or four specks on the horizon.

"Sail ho!" he called to the officer of the watch.

"Where away?" was the reply.

"On the larboard quarter, sir; three or four sail, I think."

The officer at once mounted the shrouds and took a long look at the specks Desmond pointed out, while the crew below crowded to the bulwarks and eagerly strained their eyes in the same direction.

"What do you make of 'em, Mr. Sunman?" asked the captain.

"Three or four sail, sir, sure enough. They are hull down; there's not a doubt but they're bringing the wind with 'em."