Rattlin the Reefer Part 31

CHAPTER FIFTY SEVEN.

THE CAT-OF-NINE-TAILS BEGETS A TALE THE MOST ANNOYING TO RALPH--THE STORY OF THE THREE CROWS BEATEN HOLLOW--SEVEN'S THE MAIN AND A LOSING CAST--A PROMISED TREATISE ON ORNITHOLOGY PUT AN END TO RATHER ABRUPTLY BY THE BIPLUMAL RESOLVING THEMSELVES INTO THE MERE BIPEDAL.

When fully secured, the poor wretch sent for me. He was in a paroxysm of fear: he protested his innocence over and over again: he declared that he should die under the first lash; that it was for love of me only that he had come on board of a man-of-war; he conjured me by the fellowship of our boyish days, by all that I loved and that was sacred to us, to save him from the gangway. The easiness of my nature was worked upon, and I promised to use my influence to procure for him a pardon. I went to Mr Farmer, but all my efforts were unavailing. The culprit pa.s.sed a sleepless night in the intolerable agony of lear.

Before he was brought up to be flogged, Mr Pigtop had been fully avenged.

The gratings are rigged, the hands are turned up, and Joshua Daunton is supported by two ship's corporals in a nearly fainting state, and stripped by another--he is too much paralysed to do it himself. The officers are mustered on the break of the quarter-deck, and the marines are drawn up, under arms, on the gangway. Captain Reud looks fierce and forbidding, and Mr Farmer, for his generally impa.s.sible features, really quite savage. I come forward shudderingly and look down. The wandering and restless eyes of the frightened young man meet, in an instant, what, most probably, they are seeking--my own.

"Ralph Rattlin, speak for me to the captain." The words were in themselves simple, but they were uttered in a tone of the most touching pathos. They made me start: I thought that I knew the voice, not as the voice of Joshua Daunton, the mischievous imp that had tormented us all so scientifically, but of some dear and long-forgotten friend. "Ralph Rattlin, speak for me to the captain--this must not be."

"But it shall be, by G---!" said the irascible Creole.

"Captain Reud," said I, "let me entreat you for this once only--"

"Boatswain's mate--"

"Oh, Captain Reud, if you knew what a strange sympathy--"

"The thief's cat."

"Indeed, sir, since he has been on board he has never stolen--"

"Mr Rattlin, another word, and the masthead. Stand back, Stebbins!-- let Douglas give him the first dozen."

Now, this Douglas was a huge, raw-boned boatswain's mate that flogged left handed, and had also a peculiar jerk in his manner of laying on the cat-o'-nine-tails, and that always brought away with it little k.n.o.bs of flesh wherever the knots fell, and so neatly, that blood would, at every blow, spout from the wounds, as from the puncture of a lancet. Besides, the torture was also doubled by first scoring over the back in one direction, and the right-handed floggers coming after in another. They cut out the skin in lozenges.

I looked in the captain's face, and there was no mercy; I looked below, and there appeared almost as little life. After the left-handed Scotchman had bared his brawny arm and measured his distance, and just as he was about to uplift it and strike, Daunton murmured out, "Ralph Rattlin, I knew your father! beware, or your own blood will be dishonoured in me!"

"That voice!--they shall flog you through me!" I exclaimed, and was about to leap into the waist, and cover him with my arms, when I was forcibly withheld by the officers around me; whilst the captain roared out, "He shall have another dozen for his impudent falsehood-- boatswain's mate, do your duty."

The terrific lash, like angry scorpions, fell upon the white and quivering flesh, and the blood spurted out freely. It was a vengeful stroke; and loud, and long, and shrill was the scream that followed it.

But, ere the second stroke fell, the head of the tortured one suddenly collapsed upon the right shoulder, and a livid hue spread rapidly over the face and breast.

"He is dead!" said those around, in a half-hushed tone.

The surgeon felt his pulse, and placed his hand upon his breast to seek for the beating of the heart, and shaking his head, requested him to be cast loose. He was immediately taken to the sick-bay, but, with all the skill of the doctor, his resuscitation was, at first, despaired of; and only brought about, at length, with great difficulty. The fact was, not that he had been flogged, but very nearly frightened, to death.

And I was utterly miserable. The words that Daunton had spoken at the gangway, and the strange interest that I had taken in his behalf, gave rise to suspicions that I felt to be degrading. He had declared himself to be of my blood; the officers and crew construed the expression as meaning my brother. I was now, for the first time, looked coldly upon; I felt myself avoided. Such conduct is chilling--too often fatal to the young and proud heart; it will rise indignant at an insult, but guarded and polite contumely, and long and civil neglect, wither it. I was fast sinking into an habitual despondency. This confounded Joshua had previously completely ruined my outward man: the inward man was in great danger from his conduct, perhaps his machinations. I was shunned with a studied contempt; the more particularly as my messmates were the subjects of the constant jibes of the captain and the other officers, which messmates were of a unanimous opinion that Master Joshua ought to have been hung, inasmuch as it is now apparent that their ruined apparel was all derivable from his malice, and his "Practice of Chemistry made Easy." They all panted with impatience for his convalescence, in order that they might see Mr Rattlin's _elder brother_ receive the remainder of his six dozen.

I verily believe that, as I approached my native sh.o.r.es, I should have fallen into a settled depression of spirits, which would have terminated in melancholy madness, had I not been roused to exert my moral energies, and awaken my half-entombed pride, by a stinging and a very wholesome insult.

So soon as we were ordered home, Captain Reud's mental aberrations became less frequent; but, when they supervened, they were more extravagant in their nature. He grew roguish, fretful, and cruel.

Though he never spoke to me harshly, he addressed me more rarely. I had not dined with him for a long while: he had taken the mysterious destruction of my wardrobe as a valid excuse; and had gone so far, on one occasion, in a very delicate manner, as to present me with a complete change of linen, which perished like the rest, under the provident care of Joshua. But, after the claim of relationship by that very timid personage, there was no consideration in Reud's look; and, whenever he did speak to me, there was a contemptuous harshness in his tone that would have very much wounded my feelings at any other time.

But, just then, I took but little notice of and interest in anything.

When I say that we were reduced to rags in our habiliments, the reader is not to take the words _au pied de lettre_. By taking up slops from the purser, and by aid of the ship's tailor, we had been enabled to walk the quarter-deck without actual holes in our dress; but the dresses themselves were grotesque, for the imitation of our spruce uniform was villainous, and our hats were deplorable; they were greased with oil, and broken, and sewed, and formless, or rather multiform: bad as were our fittings-out, we had not enough of them.

Through the rude and the cold flying mists of winter, after we had struck soundings, we again saw England. It was in the inclement month of January: I was starved and half clad. A beggar of any decent pretension, had he met me in the streets of London, would have taken the wall of me, though I had, at the time, more than three hundred dollars in cash, Spanish doubloons and silver, a power for drawing bills for a hundred a year, more than three years' pay due, and prize-money to a very considerable amount.

Under these circ.u.mstances, my eyes once more greeted my native land.

I got into disgrace. I record it frankly, as my boast is, throughout this biography, to have spoken the truth of all the different variations of my life. Since the captain's incipient insanity, the _Eos_ had gradually become an ill-regulated ship. The gallant first-lieutenant, formerly so smart and so active, had not escaped the general demoralisation. He was a disappointed man. He had not distinguished himself. G.o.d knows, it was neither for want of daring nor expense of life. He had cut out everything that could be carried, and had attempted almost everything that could not. I am compelled to say that these b.l.o.o.d.y onslaughts were as often failures as successes. He was no nearer his next step on the ladder of promotion than before. His temper became soured, and he was now often lax, sometimes unjust, and always irritable. The other officers shared in the general falling off, and too often made the quarter-deck a display for temper.

The third-lieutenant--yes, I think it was the third--had mast-headed me, about the middle of the first dog-watch; most likely deservedly, for I had lately affected to give the proud and sullen answer. Before I went aloft to my miserable station, I represented to him that I had the first watch; that there was now but three of the young gentlemen doing their duty, the others having very wisely fallen ill, and taken the protection of the sick-list. I told him, respectfully enough, "that if he kept me up in that disagreeable station from half-past five till eight, I could not possibly do my duty, for very weariness, from eight till midnight.

It was a physical impossibility." But he was inexorable. Up I went, the demon of all evil pa.s.sions gnawing at my heart.

It was almost dark when I went aloft. It was a gusty, dreary night, bitterly, very bitterly cold. I was ill-clad. At intervals, the fierce and frozen drifts, like the stings of so many wasps, drove fiercely into my face; and I believe that I must confess that I cried over my crooked and aching fingers as the circulation went on with agony, or stopped with numbness. It is true, I was called down within the hour; but that hour of suffering had done me much const.i.tutional mischief. I was stupified as much as if I had committed a debauch upon fat ale.

However, I was too angry to complain, or to seek relief from the surgeon. I went on deck at half-past eight, with obtuse faculties and a reckless heart.

The frigate was, with a deeply-laden convoy, attempting to hold her course in the chops of the Channel. It blew very hard. The waves were bounding about us with that short and angry leap peculiar, in tempestuous weather, to the narrow seas between England and France. It was excessively dark; and, not carrying sufficient sail to tack, we were wearing the ship every half-hour, showing, of course, the proper signal lights to the convoy. We carried also the customary p.o.o.p-light of the commodore.

Such was the state of affairs at a little after nine. The captain, the first-lieutenant, the master, the officer of the watch, and the channel pilot that we had taken on board off the Scilly Islands, with myself; were all on deck. Both the signal midshipmen were enjoying the comforts of sickness in their warm hammocks below. Now, I will endeavour to give a faithful account of what happened; and let the unprejudiced determine, in the horrible calamity that ensued, how much blame was fairly attributable to me. I must premise that, owing to shortness of number, even when all were well, there was no forecastle midshipman.

A dreadful gust of icy wind, accompanied by the arrowy sleet, rushes aft rather heading us.

"The wind is getting more round to the east. We'd better wear at once,"

said the pilot to the master.

"The pilot advises us to wear," said the master to the captain.

"Mr Farmer," said the captain to the first-lieutenant, "watch and idlers, wear ship."

"Mr Pond," said Mr Farmer to the lieutenant of the watch (a diminutive and peppery little man, with a squeaking voice, and remarkable for nothing else excepting having a large wife and a large family, whom he was impatient to see), "wear."

"Mr Rattlin," squeaked Mr Pond through his trumpet, "order the boatswain's mate to turn the watch and idlers up--wear ship."

"Boatswain's mate," bawled out the sleepy and sulky Mr Rattlin, "watch and idlers, wear ship."

"Ay, ay, sir--whew, whew, whittle whew--watch and idlers, wear ship!

Tumble up there, tumble up. Master-at-arms, brush up the bone-polishers."

"What an infarnal nonsensical ceremony!" growled the pilot, _sotto voce_; "all bawl and no hawl--lucky we have plenty of sea-room."

"Jump aft, Mr Rattlin," said the captain, "and see that the convoy-signal to wear is all right."

Mr Rattlin makes one step aft.

"Are the fore-topmast staysail halliards well manned, Mr Rattlin?--Jump forward and see," said the officer of the watch.

Mr Rattlin makes one step forward.

"Is the deep sea-lead ready?" said the master. "Mr Rattlin, jump into the chains and see."

Mr Rattlin makes one step to the right--"_starboard_, the wise it call."

"Mr Rattlin, what the devil are you about?--where's the hand stationed to the foresheet?" said the first-lieutenant. "Jump there and see."