Tales from Blackwood Volume I Part 13

"I've bribed the sentry at Francisco's place of durance," returned the Ensign. "We shall get out of the town the instant the gates are opened; and the boat is tied to the steps, as before, only under the charge of a sentry whom we can easily evade. Every guarda costa in the place was sent out last night to blockade a noted smuggler who has taken refuge in Tangier; so, once out, we are safe from pursuit: I found it all out after you had gone to bed."

The disposition of Major Flinders, as the reader knows, was the reverse of enterprising--he wouldn't have given a straw to be concerned in the finest adventure that ever happened in romance. He paused with one stocking on, inclined, like the little woman whose garments had been curtailed by the licentious shears of the pedlar, to doubt his own ident.i.ty, and wondering if it could be really he, John Flinders, to whom such a proposition was broached, requiring him to a.s.sist in invading the peace of a family. As soon as he recovered his powers of speech, of which astonishment had for a moment deprived him, he began earnestly to dissuade the Ensign from the enterprise; but Owen knew his man too well, and had too much youthful vivacity of will to allow much time for remonstrance.

"Look you, Major," said he, "I'm positive I can't live without Juana.

I'll make a bold stroke for a wife. The thing's settled--no going back now for me; and I shall go through with it with or without you. But you're not the man, I'm sure, to desert a fellow in extremity, at a time, too, when the advantages of your experience and coolness are so peculiarly needed. 'Call you that backing of your friends?'"

The compliment, or the quotation, or both, softened the Major. "'Would it were night, Hal, and all well,'" said he, half mechanically following the Falstaffian train of ideas Owen had artfully conjured up, and at the same time drawing on the breeches which that astute youth obsequiously handed to him.

It was still dark when they issued forth into the narrow and dingy streets of Tarifa. My grandfather, totally unaccustomed to visit the glimpses of the moon in this adventurous fashion, was full of strange fears--heard as many imaginary suspicious noises and voices as Bunyan's Pilgrim in the dark valley--and once or twice stopt abruptly and grasped Owen's arm, while he pointed to a spy d.o.g.g.i.ng them in the distant gloom, who turned out to be a door-post. But Owen was now in his element; no tom-cat in Tarifa was more familiar with housetops and balconies at the witching hour than he, and he stepped gaily on.

Presently they were challenged by a sentry, to whom Owen promptly advanced and slipped into his itching palm a doubloon, when the trustworthy warrior immediately turned upon his heel, and, walking to the extremity of his post, looked with great vigilance in the opposite direction.

Owen advanced to a grated window and tapped. Immediately the burly face of Francisco showed itself thereat, his white teeth glancing merrily in a glimmer of moonshine. A bar, previously filed through, was removed from the window, and Owen, taking him by the collar to a.s.sist his egress, drew him through as far as the third b.u.t.ton of his waistcoat, where he stuck for a moment; but the substance was elastic, and a l.u.s.ty tug landed him in the middle of the narrow street.

Receiving Frank's instructions given in a hurried whisper, to go at once to where the boat lay, and cast her off, ready to shove off on the instant, he nodded and disappeared in the darkness, while Owen and the Major made for the Governor's house.

Arrived near it, Owen gave a low whistle--a peculiar one, that my grandfather remembered to have heard him practising to Juana on the previous day--when, to the unutterable surprise of the Major, _two_ veiled figures appeared on the balcony.

"Why, Owen, boy, d'ye see!" quoth the Major, stuttering with anxiety, "who can the other be?--her maid, eh?"--indistinct stage recollections of intriguing waiting-women dawning on him.

"Ahem!--why, you see, Major," whispered Owen, "she wouldn't come alone--couldn't manage it at all, in fact, without the knowledge of her aunt, who sleeps in the next room; so I persuaded Carlota _to come too_, and gave her a sort of half promise that _you_ would _take care of her_." Here, wishing to cut short a rather awkward explanation, he ran under the balcony--one of the ladies dropped a cord--and Owen producing from under his coat a rope ladder, (he had sat up all night making it), attached it, and, as soon as it was drawn up, ascended, motioning to my astounded grandfather to keep it steady below. The Major, after a moment's desperate half-resolve to make a hasty retreat from the perilous incidents which seemed momentarily to thicken round him, and leave his reckless friend to his fate, yielded to the force of circ.u.mstances, and did what was required of him. Then Owen lifted the ladies, one after the other, over the railing of the balcony, and they swiftly descended. First came Juana, who, scarcely touching the Major's offered hand, lit on the pavement like gossamer; then Carlota descended, and making, in her trepidation, a false step near the bottom, came so heavily on the Major, that they rolled together on the stones. By the time they were on their feet again, Owen had slipped down the ladder, and, taking Juana under his arm, set off rapidly towards the bay.

If anything could have added to the Major's discomfiture and embarra.s.sment, it would have been the pressure of Carlota's arm on his, as she hung confidingly on him--a pressure not proceeding from her weight only, but active, and with a meaning in it; but he was in that state of mental numbness from the successive shocks of astonishment, that, as with a soldier after the first two dozen, any additional laceration pa.s.sed unheeded. He was embarked in an adventure of which he could by no means see the end; all was strange and dark in the foreground of his future; and if he had been at that moment tried, cast, and condemned for an imaginary crime, he would have been too apathetic to say anything in arrest of judgment.

With the silence and swiftness of a forlorn hope, they pa.s.sed through the town and along the sandy causeway. The succession of white rolling waves on their left, where extended the full breadth of the Straits, while the bay on their right was almost smooth, showed the wind to be still against them; but it was now so moderate that they might safely beat up for the Rock. Arrived at the head of the stairs leading to the water, they paused in the angle of the wall to reconnoitre. Francisco was lying coiled up in the head of the boat, his hand on the rope, ready to cast her loose, and the boat-hook projecting over the bow.

Above them, and behind the wall, at a little distance, they could hear the measured tread of the sentry, and catch the gleam of his bayonet as he turned upon his walk: a few vigorous shoves would carry them outside the sea-wall and beyond his ken. All depended on their silence; and like two stealthy cats did Owen and Juana descend to the boat--the Major and Carlota watching the success of their attempt with protruded necks. Cautiously did Owen stride from the last stair to the deck--cautiously did he transfer Juana to the bark, and guide her aft.

The Major was just preparing to follow, when a noise from the boat startled him: Juana had upset an unlucky wine-jar which Francisco had left there. The sentry put his head over the wall, and challenged; Francisco, starting up, shoved hastily off; the sentry fired his piece, his bullet shattering the wine-jar that had caused the mischief. Juana screamed, Owen swore in English, and Francisco surpa.s.sed him in Spanish. There was no time to return or wait for the other pair, for the guard was alarmed by the sentry's shot, and their accoutrements might be heard rattling near at hand, as they turned hastily out. Before they reached the wall, however, the boat had disappeared.

Major Flinders watched it till it was out of sight, and, at first, experienced a feeling of despair at being thus deprived of the aid of Garry's boldness and prompt.i.tude, and left to his own resources.

Presently, however, a gleam of comfort dawned upon him--perhaps Carlota would now abandon the enterprise, and he should thus, at any rate, be freed from the embarra.s.sment her presence occasioned him. In this hope he was shortly undeceived. To have added the shame of failure and exposure to her present disappointment, while an opening to persevere still remained, did not suit that lady's ardent spirit; and whether it was that the unscrupulous Garry had really represented the Major as very much in love, or whether such an impression resulted from her own lively imagination, she certainly thought her companion would be as much chagrined at such a denouement as herself. She displayed a prompt decision in this emergency, being, indeed, as remarkable for presence as the Major was for absence of mind. Taking the Major's arm, she caused him swiftly to retrace his steps with her to the inn where he had slept. As they retreated, they heard the boom of a gun behind them, fired, doubtless, from the Point, at the Fair Unknown. At Carlota's orders, a couple of horses, one with a side-saddle, were speedily at the inn-door; they mounted, and, before the sun was yet risen, had issued forth from the gate of Tarifa, on the road to Gibraltar.

The Major rode beside her like a man in a dream--in fact, he was partly asleep, having been deprived of a large portion of his natural and accustomed rest, and partly bewildered. A few days before he had been the most methodical, unromantic, not to say humdrum, old bachelor in his Majesty's service; and here he was, how or why he did not well know, galloping away at daybreak with a foreign lady, of whose existence he had been ignorant a week before, with the prospect of being apprehended by her relatives for her abduction, and incarcerated by the Government for a.s.sisting in the escape of a smuggler. When at length roused to complete consciousness by the rapidity of their motion, he positively groaned in anguish of spirit, and vowed internally that, once within the shelter of his own quiet quarters, nothing on earth should again tempt him forth on such harum-scarum expeditions.

It was near noon when they reached Algeciras, where they stopped to breakfast, both of them rather exhausted with fatigue and hunger. This town stands just opposite Gibraltar, across the bay--the road they had come by forms the base of a triangle, of which Cabrita Point is the apex, the bay washing one side of the projecting coast, the Straits the other. The Major was reserved and embarra.s.sed; there was a tenderness about Carlota's manner that frightened him out of his usual gallantry, and, to avoid meeting her glance, he looked steadily out of the window at the rock of Gibraltar, casting wistful glances at the spot where his quarters lay hidden in a little clump of foliage.

Immediately after the meal he quitted the room, on pretence of looking after the horses. He determined to protract their stay in Algeciras till late in the afternoon, that they might enter Gibraltar in the dusk, and thus avoid awkward meetings with equestrian parties from the garrison, who would then be hastening homewards, in order to be in before gun-fire, when the gates are shut.

On returning, still out of temper, to the room where he had left Carlota, he found her, quite overcome with fatigue, asleep on the sofa. Her head was thrown a little back on the cushion; her lips were just parted, and she looked in her sleep like a weary child. The Major approached on tiptoe, and stood regarding her. His ill-humour melted fast into pity. He thought of all her kindness to him, and, by a sudden soft-hearted impulse, took gently one of her hands projecting over the side of the sofa. Carlota opened her eyes, and squeezed the hand that held hers; whereupon the Major suddenly quitted his hold, and, retreating with great discomposure to the window, did not venture to look at her again till it was time to resume their journey.

At a little distance from Algeciras is the river Palmones, called by the English the Second River. This was crossed by a floating bridge, pulled from sh.o.r.e to sh.o.r.e by a ferryman warping on a rope extended across. They had just reached the opposite bank of the stream, when Carlota noticed two hors.e.m.e.n galloping fast along the road they had just traversed. A second glance showed them to be Don Pablo and the lover of Juana. The first inquiries of the Governor had led him to suppose that all had escaped in the boat, and it was not till some time after that he had learned the true state of affairs.

The fugitives now hastened on in earnest, and roused their horses to a steady gallop, never pausing till they reached the Guadaranque, or First River, about a mile nearer Gibraltar than the other, and furnished with a similar bridge. The delay of the pursuers at the former ferry had thrown them far in rear; and my grandfather, inspired by the imminence of the peril, now conceived a bright idea--the brightest, probably, that ever flashed upon him--by executing which they might effectually distance their pursuers. Dropping his glove at a little distance from the sh.o.r.e, he sent the ferryman to fetch it, and then pushed off (Carlota having already embarked), and warped the bridge to the opposite bank, heedless of the frantic gesticulations of the proprietor, who screamed furiously after them to stop. When he reached the opposite side, he took out his pocket-knife and deliberately cut the rope. Having thus, as it were, blown up the communication in his rear, my grandfather, without the loss of his baggage, continued his retreat to the fortress; while the little Governor, who galloped up just as they were disappearing, was, like Lord Ullin, left lamenting.

The sun was already declining, and threw their shadows far before them on the sands, as they rode along the beach close to the water. The bay at this inner extremity makes a great circular sweep--radii drawn from the rock to different distant points of the arc would be almost equal; and for half an hour they continued to see Gibraltar at nearly the same distance to the right and in front of them, holding itself aloof most provokingly. Twilight descended as they pa.s.sed the Spanish lines and entered on the Neutral Ground. The Major glanced anxiously at his watch--in a few minutes the gun from Middle Hill would give the signal for shutting the gates, and doom them irretrievably to return into Spain for the night. For the first time in his life Major Flinders really punished his horse, lifting the tired beast along with whip and rein. Carlota's kept easily beside him under her lighter weight, and they rapidly neared the barrier. Just as they pa.s.sed it, a stream of flame shot from the rock, illumining objects like a flash of lightning;--then came the heavy report of the gun--another minute and the drawbridge at Landport would be lifted; but they were upon it.

They dashed across somewhat in the style of Marmion quitting Douglas's castle, "just as it trembled on the rise," and were safe in Gibraltar.

CHAPTER V.

After life's fitful fever, the Major did not sleep well. He had left Carlota comfortably established at the inn; and he now lay nervously thinking how his embarra.s.sment with regard to her was to terminate, especially if Owen did not shortly make his appearance. Then he was worried by doubts as to the fate of the Fair Unknown and her pa.s.sengers. They might have been recaptured, as escaped smugglers, by a guarda costa--they might be detained in the Straits by adverse winds or calms--they might have run ash.o.r.e into some bay, and come on overland. This last supposition haunted him most pertinaciously, and he resolved to go up the rock as soon as it should be daylight, to look out for them along the road from Spain. He lay tossing restlessly till the morning gun gave the signal of the approach of dawn, and before the echoes died away he had his breeches on.

Night was at odds with morning when my grandfather, with a telescope under his arm, sallied forth and began the ascent. Silence was over the rock, except an occasional sighing of a remnant of night wind that had lost itself among the crags. At first, the only clear outline visible was that of the rugged edge of the rock above against the colourless sky; but as he toiled up the steep zigzag path, the day kept pace with him--each moment threw a broader light on the scene--blots of shadow became bushes or deep fissures, and new shapes of stone glided into view. The only symptoms of animal life that he beheld were a rabbit that fled silently to his hole, and a great white vulture that, startled from his perch on a grey crag, sailed slowly upward on his black-tipped wings, circling higher and higher, till his breast was crimsoned by the yet unrisen sun.

The path led diagonally to the summit; and, turning a sharp level corner, my grandfather looked perpendicularly down on the x.x.xX Mediterranean, whose lazy waves, sending up a gentle murmur, rippled far below him. On his left, also steep down below him, was the Neutral Ground, level as the sea itself, extending northward into sandy plains, abruptly crossed by tumbled heaps of brown mountains. A reddening of the sky showed that the sun was at hand; and presently the glowing disk came swiftly up from behind the eastern hills; the pale earth shared in the ruddiness of the sky, and a long rosy gleam swept gradually over the breadth of the grey sea, like an unwilling smile spreading itself from a man's lips to his eyes and forehead.

Conspicuous on the highest point in the landscape stood my grandfather, panting with his exertions as he wiped his forehead.

After standing for a moment, bronzed in front like a smith at the furnace, face to face with the sun, he turned and swept with his telescope the road into Spain. Early peasants, microscopic as ants, were bringing their fruits and vegetables into the fortress--a laden mule or two advanced along the beach over which the Major had last night galloped--but nothing resembling what he sought was in sight.

Then turning completely round, with his face to the path he had just ascended, he gave a long look towards the Straits; and as he did so, the wind, which had shifted to the south-west towards morning, blew gently on his face. A sail or two was discernible in the distance, outward bound, but nothing resembling the cutter. As the Major looked, a signal was made from Cabrita, and directly two feluccas left their station at Algeciras, and swooped out, like two white birds, as if to intercept some bark yet hidden by the Point. Again my grandfather looked out to the Strait, and presently a small white sail came in sight near Cabrita. For a quarter of an hour he stood steadily, with levelled telescope, and then he was almost sure--yes, he could swear--that he saw the small English ensign relieved against the sail; and above, at the masthead, the yellow-striped flag that Francisco hoisted before as the mark of a yacht. It was the Fair Unknown--and my grandfather at once comprehended that the pursuers, whom he had escaped the night before, had, on returning to Algeciras, made arrangements for her capture as soon as she should appear.

The breeze was on her beam, and much fresher with her than farther in the bay, so that the feluccas steered slantingly across her course as she made for the rock. They held on thus, the pursuers and pursued, till within a mile of each other, when the cutter suddenly altered her course to one nearly parallel with that of the feluccas. The latter, however, now gained fast upon her, and presently a puff of smoke from the bow of the foremost was followed by the report of a gun. My grandfather could look no longer through his gla.s.s, for his hand shook like a reed, but began, with huge strides, more resembling those of a kangaroo than a quiet middle-aged gentleman, to descend the rock.

Breathless, he reached his quarters, had his horse saddled and brought out, and galloped off towards Europa.

Europa Point is at the southern extremity of the rock, and commands at once the entrance of the bay and the pa.s.sage of the Straits. The road to it from the north, where the Major was quartered, affords, for the most part, a view of the bay. Many an anxious glance did he cast, as he sped along, at the state of affairs on the water. The feluccas fired several shots, but all seemed to fall wide, and were probably intended only to frighten the chase, out of consideration for her fair freight. Still, however, the English colours floated, and still the cutter held her course.

Some artillerymen and an officer were a.s.sembled at the Point as the Major galloped up.

"Can't you fire at 'em?" said he, as he drew up beside the battery.

"Too far off," said the Lieutenant, rising from the parapet on which he was leaning, and showing a drowsy unshaven countenance; "we should only frighten them."

"By heavens!" said my grandfather, "'tis horrible. I shall see the boy taken before my eyes!"

"Boy!" quoth the Lieutenant, wondering what particular interest the Major could take in the smuggler. "What boy?"

"Why, Owen of ours--he's running away with a Spanish lady."

"The devil!" cried the Lieutenant, jumping down. "What, Garry Owen!--we must try a long shot. Pull those quoins out" (to a gunner).

"Corporal, lay that gun; a dollar if you hit the felucca. I'll try a shot with this one." So saying, he laid the thirty-two pounder next him with great care.

"Fire!" said he, jumping on the parapet to see the effect of the shot.

At the second rebound it splashed under the bows of the leading felucca, which still held on. She was now scarcely three hundred yards from the cutter.

"Why, d--n their impudence!" muttered the Lieutenant, on seeing his warning pa.s.s unheeded, "they won't take a hint. Corporal, let drive at 'em."

The Corporal earned his dollar. The shot went through the side of the felucca, on board of which all was presently confusion; in a few minutes it was apparent she was sinking. The other, abandoning the chase, went to the a.s.sistance of her consort, lifting the crew out, some of whom were evidently hurt.

"A blessed shot!" cried my grandfather, giving the lucky Corporal a bit of gold; "but I'm glad they're picking up the crew."

The cutter instantly stood in for the harbour, and half an hour afterwards the Major bade his young friend and Juana welcome to Gibraltar.

Carlota was beside herself with joy at seeing the wanderers safe. She first cast herself upon Juana, and cried over her; then embraced the Ensign, who made no scruple of kissing her; lastly, threw herself tenderly upon the Major, who gazed over her head as it lay on his shoulder with a dismayed expression, moving his arms uneasily, as if he didn't know what he was expected to do with them. Every moment it was becoming clearer to him that he was a compromised man, no longer his own property. On his way through the streets that morning he had pa.s.sed a knot of officers, one of whom he overheard describing "Old Flinders" as "a sly old boy," for that he "had run away with a devilish handsome Spaniard--who would have thought it?" "Ay, who indeed!" groaned the Major, internally. But the seal was put to his doom by the Colonel, who, when he went to report himself, slapped him on the shoulder, and congratulated him on his happiness. "Fine woman, I hear, Flinders--didn't give you credit for such spirit--hope you'll be happy together." The Major, muttering an inarticulate denial, hastily retreated, and from that moment surrendered himself to his fate an unresisting victim.

About dusk that night, Owen came to him.

"By heavens!" the Ensign began, throwing himself into a chair, "I'm the most unlucky scoundrel! Nothing goes right with me. I promised myself that this should be my wedding-night--and here I am, as forlorn a bachelor as ever."

"What has gone wrong?" inquired my grandfather, removing his pipe from his mouth.

"I pressed her with all my eloquence," said Owen; "reminded her of her promise to marry me the day we should arrive here--of the necessity of caring for her reputation, after leaving her father's house and coming here under my protection" (here my grandfather winced;) "talked, in fact, like an angel who had been bred a special pleader--yet it was all of no use."

"Deliberating about marriage!" said the Major, "after leaving her father and lover for you! What gnat can she be straining at, after swallowing a camel of such magnitude?"