Rattlin the Reefer Part 25

If this be jesting, thought I, the cream of the joke is to come yet.

"Beat to quarters, Mr Rattlin."

The lieutenants and more than half of the crew were away in the boats.

The men were soon at their guns, and, as they had been only slightly secured, they were ready to return the fire almost immediately. Upon looking up at the source of our annoyance, we found that it was a hopeless case. The height was so great, and so immediately above us, that, without heeling the frigate over, not a gun could be brought to bear. Another shot from the battery served to quicken our deliberations. There was no time to be lost.

Captain Reud sent the various commanders on board their respective vessels, with orders, as fast as any of their boats came in, to send them to us immediately, with their marines. For ourselves, all our boats were away except the gig. Into that I jumped, followed by the captain and six marines. Every man, except a quarter-master and a couple of look-outs, was piped down below, with strict orders that they were to stay there and not expose themselves, and the ship was left in charge of the gunner; whilst the carpenter and his crew were actively employed in the wings, in plugging the shot-holes; for every ball that was fired came in somewhere upon the decks, and made its way through the ship's sides, low under the water.

However, annoying as this was, there were but two guns playing upon us, which, though served with admirable precision, fired but slowly. We had not lain on our oars a quarter of an hour, between the ship and the sh.o.r.e, a s.p.a.ce of not more than forty yards, when we were joined by seven boats of various dimensions, crammed as full of jollies as they could possibly hold. We were on sh.o.r.e in a moment, and, without much care as to forming, we all scrambled up the hill as fast as we could.

It was very steep indeed, but we were not fired upon by any small-arms whatever; and the guns could not be sufficiently depressed from the embrasures to be made to bear upon us. They certainly must have perceived us, for the moon was shining with singular splendour; but they seemed to take no notice of our advance, but fired twice upon the frigate as we were climbing or rather scrambling up.

This a.s.sault was an affair got up with so little premeditation, that Captain Reud had no other arms than his regulation sword; and his aide-de-camp, my redoubtable self; no other weapon of offence than a little crooked dirk, so considerably curved, that it would not answer the purpose of a dagger to stab with, and so blunt, that I am sure, though it might separate, it could not _cut_ through a plum-pudding.

Though I was approaching _pari pa.s.su_ with my commander to a parapet, where there there was _no_ "imminent deadly breach," I was so much ashamed of my side-arms, that I would not expose them to the night air.

Up we tumbled close under the low, turf-constructed battlement, and, as we were in the act of scrambling over it, we received a straggling and ill-directed fire of musketry.

One hurrah from our party, and we were into the fort in a moment, and that on the two flanks as well as the front. For all the service that I could render, I might as well have charged, as a midshipman usually walks the decks, with my hands in my pockets. However, there we were face to face with our opponents, on the planked floor of the fort, just as they were making up their minds to run away. But they did not go quite as soon as they ought. In jumping over the turfy mound, it must be supposed, as was really the case, that it took us an instant or two to recover our equilibrium and ascertain the surety of our footing; but that instant was a very annoying one, for the Frenchman directly opposed to Captain Reud, deliberately put his musket against the said captain's face, and though I, unarmed as I was, actually did strike up this musket as much as I was able, it had only the effect of making the bayonet at the end of it score a deep wound from the bridge of his nose to the top of his forehead, when the trigger was pulled, and the whole crown of Captain Reud's skull completely blown away. The shot turned him round like a weatherc.o.c.k; I naturally half-turned also, giving the enemy the advantage of studying my profile, whilst I endeavoured to support my captain in my arms; and then the same man, being bent on mischief, thrust his bayonet right through the back of my neck, grazing the vertebra, and entering on the right and coming out on the left side.

Having, in this manner, made a sheath for his weapon, the blackguard left it there, and thus, having trussed me as with a skewer, showed me his back and fled. The b.u.t.t-end of the musket falling to the ground, gave me a terrible wrench of the head, but relieved me at the same time of my inc.u.mbrance.

That was the first time I ever _bled_ for my country. Indeed, I bled much more than my poor captain. However, the gentlemen of the fort rushed out, as we rushed in, and rolled head over heels down the other side of the hill. Three or four were killed on the platform; among whom, at the time, I devoutly wished was the inflictor of my wound; some were shot as they ran down the inland side of the hill, and the fort was ours with the loss of one man killed, and, I think, six wounded. My hurt was very trifling: a piece of adhesive plaster on the two orifices was all the surgical a.s.sistance that I either had or required. But the case with poor Reud was very different. I detest giving a revolting description of wounds; I shall only say, that this was a most dreadful one. He lay for a month almost in a state of insensibility; and, though he lived for more than half a year with his head plated with silver, I know that he was never afterwards perfectly sane.

Walking about for a couple of days with a stiff neck, which was all the inconvenience I experienced, I a.s.sumed no little upon my firmness in storming, and on my honourable scars. The next morning all the prizes were secured, the town formally taken possession of, and whilst Captain Reud lay in the torpor of what was all but death, it was deliberated what we should do with our conquest. It was a matter of some difficulty to decide upon. At this period, the two factions of the blacks, Petion's and Christophe's held the western parts of the fine island of Saint Domingo. The Spaniards had large possessions in the centre of the island, and the French still held a sway over the city of Saint Domingo, and had a precarious footing in the eastern division, where we now were.

The place was too insignificant to garrison for a permanent conquest for the English. Many of our officers, and all the men, wished very naturally to plunder it; but the captain of the other frigate, now the commander, would not listen to the proposal for a moment. However, we totally destroyed their small dock-yard, burned three fine schooners on the stocks, demolished the fort that had been so pernicious to Captain Reud, and which commanded the town; and then, the officers, and small parties of the ship's company were permitted to go on sh.o.r.e, and to live at free quarters upon the inhabitants. Strict orders were given to respect life and limb, and the honour of the ladies; and these orders were generally well enforced. It was certainly a pleasant thing to go on sh.o.r.e and walk into any house that pleased you, call for what you wanted, be very protecting, and after having eaten and drunk to satiety, to depart without having to cast up the items of a bill.

These brigands were treated much too leniently, for I verily believe, that, for a vast number of years, all the male population were born, bred, lived, and had died pirates. They were of all nations of the earth; and, I must say, that this blending of the various races had produced a very handsome set of men, and very beautiful women. There were many English females among them, who had been captured in our merchant vessels, and had been forced into marriages with their lawless captors. They were, for the most part, like the Sabine women, reconciled to their lot and loath to leave their lords, their mansions, and their children. The governor of the place, a French colonel, was captured as he endeavoured to make his escape in one of the schooner privateers. We had him on board of our ship for some time, and he confessed that the place flourished only by means of what he was pleased to designate as free trading.

The prizes, deeply laden, left the port one after the other, and then the men-of-war brigs, afterwards, the sloop of war, and at length our consort, the frigate. We now lay alone in these quiet waters, and there we remained for nearly three months. All this time our captain could hardly be said to be living. No one was allowed to come aft beyond the mizzen-mast. We always spoke with hushed voices, and walked about stealthily upon tip-toe. The bells ceased to be struck, and every precaution was taken to preserve the most profound silence. But our amus.e.m.e.nts on sh.o.r.e were more than commensurate for our restraints on board. Most of the officers and men took unto themselves wives, _pro hac vice_--chalked, or rather painted their names upon the doors of their mansions, and made themselves completely at home.

CHAPTER FORTY EIGHT.

LIAISONS DANGEREUSES--RALPH DIVETH INTO THE DILEMMA OF LOVE, AND ADMIRETH THE FATHERLY CONDUCT OF THE PARENT OF HIS DULCINEA--YET RAGETH AND WEEPETH THAT SHE IS A SLAVE WHO HATH ENSLAVED HIM.

At this time I had begun to look fierce, if anyone did not concede to me the rights and privileges of a man; and especially since I had received my bayonet wound: my vanity upon this score became insupportable.

"Younker" was now a term of bitternesss to me; on the word "lad" I looked with sovereign contempt; "boy" I had long done with. Heartily I prayed for a beard, but it came not; so, in order to supply the deficiency, I used to practise looking stern before my dressing-gla.s.s.

But all my efforts at an outward semblance of manliness were vain; my face was much too fair and feminine, though my stature, and the firmness of my frame, were just what I wished. I was not on board the vessel after the first week that she lay in the port of Aniana, nor did I rejoin her until she as in the very act of sailing out of it.

How am I to approach this subject, so romantic, so delicious, and so delicate! How can I record events, that, in proving to me that I had a heart, first destroyed its strength by the sweet delirium of ecstasy, and thus, having enfeebled, almost broke it! Before, the poetic ardour had often been upon me; but the fire was lighted up at the shrine of vanity, and I sang for applause. It was to be rekindled by love; but to burn with a concealed fury, to be whispered only to my own soul--a feeling too great for utterance, too intense for song, was to devour me.

I experienced ecstasies that were not happiness; I learned the bitter truth, that rapture is not bliss.

About a week after we had obtained a quiet settlement in the town, and very many of us a quiet settlement in the hearts, as well as in the houses, of the beautiful Creoles and half castes; I also went on sh.o.r.e, with Modesty walking steadily on my right-hand, whilst Madam Temptation was wickedly ogling me on the left. I looked in on the establishments of several of my brother officers, and certainly admired the rapidity with which they had surrounded themselves with all manner of domestic comforts, including wives, and, in some instances, large families of children. There was much more than ready-made love in these arrangements; anyone may buy that for ready-money; but a ready-made progeny, a ready-made household, and a ready-made wife, without one stiver of ready money, was the astonishment; but English sailors can do anything.

Well, at Number 14, Rue Coquine, I accepted the purser's invitation to dinner at four, _en famille_. It seemed quite natural.

"My dove," said he, "you'll get us a bit of fish. Mr Rattlin loves fish."

"Certainly, my love," said Mrs Purser _pro tempore_, looking a battery of amiabilities.

"Allow me to introduce you to my sister-in-law, Ma'amselle D'Avalonge,"

said the purser, presenting a very well dressed young lady to me, with all the ease of a family man.

The introduction took place immediately, and the lady and I found each other charming; indeed, we said so. After a few more compliments, and a very pretty song, accompanied by the guitar, from mademoiselle, I took my leave, promising to be punctual to my appointment. I was not punctual--I never saw their dear faces again.

I left the town, and strolled up into the interior, keeping, however, our small fleet in sight, and walking seaward. I found the environs well cultivated, and the houses in the various plantations solidly built, and of stone. From every habitation that I pa.s.sed I had pressing invitations to enter and refresh myself. These I declined. At length I arrived at a beautiful wood, evidently under the care of man; for the different trees were so arranged, as to produce a romantic effect. The shade that the lofty mahogany-trees afforded was very grateful, for it was now a little after noon; and in this grove I paced slowly up and down, nursing my pride with all manner of conceits.

At length, in the distance, and much below where I stood, I heard voices in violent altercation; among which the "'vast heavings," "blow me tights," "a stopper over all," with other such nautical expletives, were predominant. I broke from my cover, and found myself immediately on a slope, before a very respectable habitation, nearly surrounded by boiling-houses, and other out-buildings necessary to a sugar and coffee plantation. The group before me consisted of a small, energetic, old, and white-haired Frenchman, neatly dressed in a complete suit of nankeen with his broad-brimmed straw hat submissively in his hand, speaking all manner of fair and unintelligible French words to two Jacks, not of my ship, between which two, now pulled this way, now plucked that, was a timid and beautiful girl, of about fifteen years of age. There were several negroes, grinning and pa.s.sive spectators of this scene. I understood it in a moment. So did my gentlemen in the tarpaulin hats.

They were off to me in a less time than a top-gallant breeze takes to travel aft from the flying jib-boom, supposing the ship to be at single anchor.

I took out my pocket-book, wrote down their names (most likely purser's ones), and ordered them on board their vessel directly. They obeyed, or rather appeared to do so, and departed, casting many "a lingering, longing look behind," leaving me the triumphant master of the field--the paladin, who had rescued the fair, for which I received much clapping of hands from the dark visages, and an intense look of grat.i.tude from the fair, pale creature, whom I had released from the very equivocal rudeness of her admirers. The thanks from Monsieur Manuel, the father, were neither silent nor few, and when he found that I could converse in French, he exhausted the vocabulary of that copious language of all its expressions of grat.i.tude. I hardly could perceive that I had rendered any service at all; I had struck no blows and had run no risk; I had merely spoken, and obedience followed. However, as I could not stem the torrent of his grat.i.tude, I determined to divert its course, by yielding to his urgent entreaties to accompany him to his house, and recruit myself after my perilous and heroic deed.

We were soon seated in the coolest room of his mansion, and every West Indian luxury was quickly produced to tempt my palate. In fifteen minutes he had acquainted me with his parentage, his possessions, and his history. He a.s.sured me, with gesticulations, and a few oaths, that he was not at all connected with the brigands that inhabited the town below--that he despised them, knew them all to be pirates, or abettors of pirates, revolutionists, and republicans--that he was at heart, yea, in heart and soul, a royalist, and devotedly attached to the _vieux regime_; that the estate he now cultivated he had inherited from his father, who had been one of the few spared in the revolt of the blacks; that he had been educated at Paris, but, for the last five-and-thirty years, had hardly been off his own grounds--that he had no wife, and, indeed, never married, had no family at all, excepting Josephine, who sat beside him, who was his very dear and only child.

He did not add, "a slave, and the daughter of a slave."

I now looked upon her steadfastly for the first time, and with the most intense emotion: but it was pity. I had been sufficiently long in the West Indies to know exactly the relation in which she stood to her father. However, he went on to relate how she had been born to him by a beautiful mulatto, for whom he had given a great sum; yet at this she startled not, moved not, blushed not. But hers was not the calmness of obduracy, but of innocence.

Strongly did I commiserate her, and gently strove to draw her into discourse. I found her ignorant, oh! how profoundly ignorant! She had no ideas beyond the estate in which she lived, and those that she had gathered from the gang of negroes that worked it. Her father had taught her nothing but to play a few tunes by ear upon the guitar, and sing some old French songs. Yet she had been accustomed to all the observances of a lady--had slaves to wait upon her, and was always elaborately, sometimes richly, dressed. Isolated as she had been, I soon discovered that she was a compound of enthusiasm, talent, and melancholy. She was little more than fifteen years old, yet that age, in those tropical climates, answers fully to a European one-and-twenty.

In form, she was a perfect woman, light, rounded, and extremely active; all her motions were as graceful, and as undulating as the gently-swelling billow. If she moved quickly, she bounded; if slowly, she appeared to glide on effortless through s.p.a.ce. She had taken her lessons of grace in the woods, and her gymnasium had been among the sportive billows of the ocean. It is but of little use me describing her face; for everyone supposes that, in these affairs, the author draws at once, as largely as he can, upon his own imagination, and as he dares, upon the credulity of his readers. Though a slave, she had but little of the black blood in her--in her complexion none. She was not fair, but her skin was very transparent, very pure, and of a dazzling and creamy sort of whiteness. I have seen something like it on the delicate Chinese paintings of the secluded ladies of that very secluded empire, and should imagine it just such a permanent tint as the Roman empress strove to procure by bathing every day in milk. Colour she had none, and thrilling must have been the emotions that could call it into her placid and pensive cheeks. Her features were not _chiselled_, and had any sculptor striven to imitate them on the purest marble, he would have discovered that chiselling would not do. They were at once formed and informed by the Deity. It is of no use talking about her luxurious and night-emulating hair, her lips, and those eyes, that seemed to contain, in their small compa.s.s, a whole sea of melancholy, in which love was struggling to support a half-drowned joy.

As I turned to converse with her, she looked up to me confidingly. She appeared, as it were, incessantly to draw me to her with her large black eyes; they seemed to say to me, "Come nearer to me, that I may understand thee. Art thou not something distinct from the beings that I see around me--something that can teach me what I am, and will also give me something to venerate, to idolise, and to love!" As I continued to speak to her, her attention grew into a quiet rapture, yet still a sublime melancholy seemed to hold her feelings in a solemn thraldom.

My name, my rank, and my situation were soon disclosed to the father and daughter; and the former seeing how entranced we were with each other's company, like a prudent parent, left us to ourselves. My French was much purer and more grammatical than hers, hers much more fluent than mine. Yet, notwithstanding this deficiency on both sides, we understood each other perfectly, and we had not been above two hours together alone, before I told her that I loved her for her very ignorance, and she had confessed to me that she loved me, because--because--the reader will never guess why--because I was so like the good spirit that walked gently through the forests and gathered up the fever-mists before they reached the dwellings of man.

I very naturally asked her if she had seen this being. She said no, but knew him as well as if she had; for old Jumbila, a negress, had so often talked to her about him, that her idea of him was as familiar to her as the presence of her father.

"You have much to unlearn, my sweet one," thought I, "and I shall be but too happy to be your preceptor."

At sunset, Monsieur Manuel returned, led us into another apartment, where a not inelegant dinner was served up to us. Knowing the habits of my countrymen, we sat over some very fine claret, after Josephine had retired. I took this opportunity to reproach him, in the mildest terms that I could use, with the dreadful ignorance in which he had suffered a creature so lovely, and so superior to remain.

His reply was a grimace, a hoisting of his shoulders above his head, an opening of his hands and fingers to their utmost extent, and a most pathetic "_Que voulez-vous_?"

"I will tell you, friend Manuel," I answered, for his wine had warmed me much, his daughter more; "I would have had her taught, at least, to read and write, that she had an immortal soul, a soul as precious to its Maker as to herself. I would have had her taught to despise such superst.i.tious nonsense as Obeoism, mist spirits, and all the pernicious jargon of spells and fetishes. I would, my dear Manuel, have made her a fit companion for myself; for with such beauty and such a soul, I am convinced that she would realise female perfection as nearly as poor humanity is permitted to do."

"_Que voulez-vous_?" again met my ears; it was attended by some attempt at justification of his very culpable remissness. He a.s.sured me, that, according to the laws, social as well as judicial, a person of her cla.s.s, were she possessed of all the attributes of an angel, could never be received into white society, nor wed with any but a person of colour.

The light of education, he a.s.serted, would only the more show her her own degradation: he said he felt for her, deeply felt for her, and that he shuddered at the idea of his own death, for in that event he felt a.s.sured that she would be sold with the rest of the negroes on the estate, and be treated in all respects as a slave--and she had been so delicately nurtured. She had, indeed: her long white fingers and velvety hand bore sufficient testimony to this.

"But can you not manumit her?" said I.

"Impossible. When the island was more settled and better governed than now, the legal obstructions thrown in the way of the act were almost insuperable: at present it is impossible. I have no doubt that our blood-thirsty enemies, the Spaniards, who are our nearest neighbours, immediately you English leave the town, as you have dismantled our forts, and carried away almost all the male population captive, will come and take possession of this place--not that I care a _sou_ for the brigands whom you have just routed out. I shall have to submit to the Spanish authority, and their slave laws are still more imperative than ours, though they invariably treat their slaves better than any other nation. No, there is no hope for poor Josephine."

"Could you not send her to France?"

"_Sacre Dieu_! they guillotined all my relations, all my friends--all, all--and, my friend, I never made gold by taking a share in those long low schooners that you have kindly taken under your care. I have some boxes of doubloons stowed away, it is true. But, after all, I am attached to this place; I could not sell the estate for want of a purchaser; and I am surrounded by such an infernal set of rascals, that I never could embark myself with my hard cash without being murdered.

No, we must do at Rome as the Romans do."

"A sweet specimen of a Roman you are," thought I, and I fell into a short reverie; but it was broken up most agreeably, by seeing Josephine trip before the open jalousies with a basket of flowers in her hand.