The Cruise of the Frolic Part 12

On deck he went, and seated himself on the companion-hatch, where he held on by a becket secured for the purpose; but as to smoking a cigar, that was next to an impossibility, for the wind almost blew the leaves into a flame. I was glad to go on deck, also; for the skylights being battened down made the cabin somewhat close. The cutter rode like a wild fowl over the heavy seas, which, like dark walls crested with foam, came rolling up as if they would ingulf her. Just as one with threatening aspect approached her, she would lift her bows with a spring, and anon it would be found that she had sidled up to the top of it.

It was a wild scene--to a landsman it must have appeared particularly so. The dark, heavy clouds close overhead; the leaden seas, not jumping and leaping as in shallow waters, but rising and falling, with majestic deliberation, in mountain ma.s.ses, forming deep valleys and lofty ridges, from the summits of which, high above our heads, the foam was blown off in sheets of snowy whiteness with a hissing sound, interrupted by the loud flop of the seas as they dashed together.

We were not the only floating thing within the compa.s.s of vision. Far away I could see to windward, as the cutter rose to the top of a sea, the canvas of a craft as we were hove-to. She was a small schooner, and though we undoubtedly were as unsteady as she was, it seemed impossible, from the way she was tumbling about, that any thing could hold together on board her.

I had rejoined the party in the cabin, when an exclamation from Bubble called us all on deck.

"The schooner has bore up, and is running down directly for us!" he exclaimed.

So it was; and in hot haste she seemed indeed.

"Something is the matter on board that craft," said Porpoise, who had been looking at her through his gla.s.s. "Yes, she has a signal of distress flying."

"The Lord have mercy on the hapless people on board, then!" said I.

"Small is the help we or any one else can afford them."

"If we don't look out, she'll be aboard us, sir," sung out Snow. "To my mind, she's sprung a leak, and the people aboard are afraid she'll go down."

"Stand by to make sail on the cutter; and put the helm up," cried Porpoise. "We must not let her play us that trick, at all events."

On came the little schooner, directly down for us, staggering away under a close-reefed fore-topsail, the seas rolling up astern, and threatening every instant to wash completely over her. How could her crew expect that we could aid them? still it was evidently their only hope of being saved--remote as was the prospect. They might expect to be able to heave-to again under our lee, and to send a boat aboard us. The danger was that in their terror they might run us down, when the destruction of both of us was certain. We stood all ready to keep the cutter away, dangerous as was the operation--still it was the least perilous of two alternatives. We were, as may be supposed, attentively watching every movement of the schooner; so close had she come that we could see the hapless people on board stretching out their arms, as if imploring that aid which we had no power to afford them. On a sudden they threw up their hands; a huge sea came roaring up astern of them; they looked round at it--we could fancy that we almost saw their terror-stricken countenances, and heard their cry of despair. Down it came, thundering on her deck; the schooner made one plunge into the yawning gulf before her. Will she rise to the next sea?

"Where is she?" escaped us all. With a groan of horror we replied to our own question--"She's gone!"

Down, down she went before our very eyes--her signal of distress fluttering amid the seething foam, the last of her we saw. Perhaps her sudden destruction was the means of our preservation. Some dark objects were still left floating amid the foam; they were human beings struggling for life; the sea tossed them madly about--now they were together, now they were separated wide asunder. Two were washed close to us; we could see the despairing countenance of one poor fellow; his staring eye-b.a.l.l.s; his arms outstretched as he strove to reach us. In vain; his strength was unequal to the struggle; the sea again washed him away, and he sunk before our sight. His companion still strove on; a sea dashed towards us; down it came on our deck. "Hold on, hold on, my lads!" sung out Porpoise.

It was well that all followed the warning, or had we not, most certainly we should have been washed overboard. The lively cutter, however, soon rose again to the top of the sea, shaking herself like a duck after a dive beneath the surface. As I looked around to ascertain that all hands were safe, I saw a stranger clinging to the shrouds. I with others rushed to haul him in, and it was with no little satisfaction that we found that we had been the means of rescuing one of the crew of the foundered schooner from a watery grave. The poor fellow was so exhausted that he could neither speak nor stand, so we carried him below, and stripping off his wet clothes, put him between a couple of warm blankets. By rubbing his body gently, and pouring down a few drops of hot brandy and water, he was soon recovered. He seemed very grateful for what had been done for him, and his sorrow was intensely severe when he heard that no one else of the schooner's crew had been saved.

"Ay, it's more than such a fellow as I deserve!" he remarked.

I was much struck by his frank and intelligent manners, when having got on a suit of dry clothes, he was asked by Hearty into the cabin, to give an account of the catastrophe which had just occurred.

"You see, gentlemen," said he, "the schooner was a Levant trader. Her homeward-bound cargoes were chiefly figs, currants, raisins, and such-like fruit. A better sea-boat never swam. I shipped aboard her at Smyrna last year, and had made two voyages in her before this here event occurred. We were again homeward-bound, and had made fine weather of it till we were somewhere abreast of Cape Finisterre, when we fell in with some baddish weather, in which our boats and caboose were washed away; and besides this, we received other damage to hull and rigging. We were too much knocked about to hope to cross the Bay in safety, so we put into Corunna to refit. The schooner leaked a little, though we thought nothing of it, and as we could not get at the leak, as soon as we had got the craft somewhat to rights, we again put to sea. We had been out three days when this gale sprang up, and the master thought it better to heave the vessel to, that she might ride it out. The working of the craft very soon made the leak increase; all hands went to the pumps, but the water gained on us, and as a last chance the master determined to run down to you, in the hopes that before the schooner went down, some of us might be able to get aboard you. You saw what happened. Oh, gentlemen! may you never witness the scene on board that vessel, as we all looked into each other's faces, and felt that every hope was gone!

It was sad to see the poor master, as he stood there on the deck of the sinking craft, thinking of his wife and seven or eight little ones at home whom he was never to see again, and whom he knew would have to struggle in poverty with the hard world! He was a good, kind man; and to think of me being saved,--a wild, careless chap, without any one to care for him, who cares for n.o.body, and who has done many a wild, lawless deed in his life, and who, maybe, will do many another! I can't make it out; it pa.s.ses my notion of things."

Will Bubble had been listening attentively to the latter part of the young seaman's account of himself. He walked up to him with an expression of feeling I did not expect to see, seemingly forgetful that any one else was present, and took his hand: "G.o.d in his mercy preserved you for better things, that you might repent of your follies and vices, and serve him in future. Oh, on your knees offer up your heartfelt thanks to him for all he has done for you!"

Hearty and Carstairs opened their eyes with astonishment as they heard Will speaking.

"Why, Bubble, what have?" began Hearty.

"I have been thinking," was the answer; "I had time while you fellows lay sick; and I bethought me how very easily this little c.o.c.kle-sh.e.l.l might go down and take up its abode among the deposits of this Adamite age,"--Will was somewhat of a geologist,--"and how very little we all were prepared to enter a pure state of existence."

"That's true, sir," said the seaman, not quite understanding, however, Bubble's remarks; "that's just what I thought before the schooner sank.

I am grateful to G.o.d, sir; but, howsomdever, I feel that I am a very bad, good-for-nothing chap."

"Try to be better, my friend; you'll have help from above if you ask for it," said Bubble, resuming his seat.

"Why, where did you get all that from?" asked Carstairs, languidly; "I didn't expect to hear you preach, old fellow."

"I got it from my Bible," answered Bubble. "I'm very sure that's the only book of sailing directions likely to put a fellow on a right course, and to keep him there, so I hope in future to steer mine by it; but I don't wish to be preaching. It's not my vocation, and a harum-scarum, careless fellow as I am is not fitted for it; only all I ask of those present is to think--to think of their past lives; how they have employed their time--whether in the way for which they were sent into the world to employ it, in doing all the good to their fellow-creatures they can; or in selfish gratification; and to think of the future, that future without an end--to think if they are fitted for it--for its pure joys--its never-ending study of G.o.d's works; to think whether they have any claim to enter into realms of glory--of happiness."

Will sprang on deck as he ceased speaking. He had evidently worked himself up to utter these sentiments, so different to any we should have conceived him to have possessed. I never saw a party of gentlemen more astonished, if not disconcerted. Had not Tom Martin, the young seaman just saved, been present, I do not know what might have been said.

Still the truth, the justice, the importance of what Bubble had said, struck us all, though perhaps we thought him just a little touched in the upper story, to venture on thus giving expression to his feelings.

While Tom Martin had been giving an account of himself, I had been watching his countenance, and it struck me that I had seen him somewhere before.

"You've been a yachtsman, I think," I observed; "I have known your face, I am sure."

"Yes, sir," said he, frankly; "and, if I mistake not, I know yours. I used to meet you at Cowes last year; but the craft I belonged to I can't say was a yacht, though its owner called her one. I'm sure you gentlemen won't take advantage of any thing I say against me, and so I'll tell you all about the matter. The craft I speak of was the 'Rover' cutter, belonging to Mr Miles Sandgate. I first shipped aboard her about three years ago; he gave high pay, and let us carry on aboard pretty much as we liked, when not engaged in his business. An old chum of mine, a man called Ned Holden, who was, I may say, born and bred a smuggler, first got me to join; there wasn't a dodge to do the revenue which Ned wasn't up to, and he thought no more harm of smuggling than of eating his dinner. I didn't inquire how the 'Rover' was employed; she belonged to a gentleman who paid well, and that's all I asked, though I might have suspected something. She had just come from foreign parts, and the people who had then been in her talked of all sorts of curious things they had done. Smuggling was just nothing to what she'd been about. Mr Sandgate seemed to have tried his hand at every thing. He had been out in the China seas, running opium among the long pigged-tailed gentlemen of that country. More than once he had some hot fighting with the Government revenue-vessels, and several times he was engaged with the pirates, who swarm, they say, in those seas. I did not hear whether he made money out there, but after a time he got tired of the work, and shaped a course for England. On his way, after leaving the Cape of Good Hope, he fell in with a craft, which he attacked and took. She was laden with goods of all sorts fitted for the markets in Africa, and intended to be exchanged for slaves. Besides them she had the irons, and all the other fittings for a slaver. Such vessels sail without a protection from any government. After he had taken every thing he wanted, he hove the rest overboard, and then told the crew that he gave them their liberty, and that they might make the best of their way back to the parts from whence they came. With the goods he had thus obtained he stood for the slave-coast; he had acquaintance there, as everywhere else; indeed it would be difficult to say in what part of the world he would not find himself at home. He was not long in fitting the 'Rover' inside into a regular slave-vessel, but outside she looked as honest and harmless as any yacht. He ran up the Gaboon, or one of those rivers on the slave-coast--I forget which exactly--where lived a certain Don Lopez Mendoza, the greatest slave-dealer in those parts; besides which, as I heard say, it would be difficult to find anywhere a bigger villain. Well, he and Mr Sandgate were hand-in-glove, and one would have done any thing for each other. They were fairly matched, you may depend on it; however that might be, the Don took all the goods Mr Sandgate brought him, and asked no questions, and filled his vessel in return with a lot of prime slaves and water, and farina enough to carry them across to Havana. As soon as he got them on board he was out of the river again, and, loosening his jib, away he went with some two hundred human souls stowed under hatches, in a craft fit to carry only thirty or forty in comfort. She had a quick run across, and escaped all the ships-of-war looking after slavers. Mr Sandgate there sold the blacks for a good round sum, and thought he had done a very clever thing. However, he does not seem to be a man to keep money, though he is ready enough to do many an odd thing to get it. He gave his crew a handsome share of the profits; he and they went ash.o.r.e at the Havana, and spent it as fast as they had made it, just in the old buccaneering style I've heard tell of, in all sorts of wild games and devilry, till I rather fancy the Dons were glad to be rid of them. When their money was nearly all gone, they went aboard again and made sail. I don't mean to say but what I suppose Mr Sandgate had some left. He had also armed the cutter, and stored and provisioned her completely for a voyage round the world.

"Once more he stood across for the African coast. He had heard, it appears, that one of those store-ships I was speaking of, which supply slavers with goods and provisions, and irons and stores, was to be met with in a certain lat.i.tude. He fell in with her, and, without asking her leave or saying a word, he ran her alongside, and, before her people had time to stand to their arms, he had mastered every one of them. He never ill-treated any one, but he just clapped them in irons till he had rifled the vessel, and then, leaving them a somewhat scant supply of provisions and water, he, as before, told them that they were at liberty to make the best of their way home again.

"Some men would, perhaps, have gone back to the coast, taken in a cargo of slaves, and returned to the Havana or the Brazils, but our gentleman was rather too cautious to run any such risk. He knew that he had made enemies, who would try to prove him a pirate, with or without law; so he just goes off the Gaboon, and sends in a note to his friend Don Lopez, to say that he had got a rich cargo for him, which he should have for so many dollars, two thousand or more below its value. The Don, in return, despatched two or three small craft with the sum agreed on aboard, and all being found right and fair, the exchange was quickly made, and Mr Sandgate once more shaped a course for England. As you may suppose, every one was sworn to secrecy aboard; but, bless you, the sort of chaps he had got for a crew didn't much care for an oath; and besides, as it was that they mightn't say any thing out of the ship, they didn't mind talking about it to me and others who afterwards joined her. He brought home a good round sum of money; but he took it into his head to go up to London, and what with gambling and such-like ways, he soon managed to get rid of most of it. He had got tired, it seems, of having his neck constantly in a noose, so he took to the quieter occupation of smuggling. He didn't do it in the common way like the people along the coast, but in a first-rate style, like a gentleman. He had some relatives or other, rich silk merchants in London, and he undertook to supply them with goods to any amount, free of duty. There was nothing new in the plan, for it was an old dodge of this house, by which they had made most of their money. You would be surprised, gentlemen, to hear of the number of people employed in the business, and who well knew it was against the laws. First, there were the agents in France to buy the goods, and to have them packed in small bales fit for running; then they had to ship them; next there were the cutters and other craft to bring them over, and the people to a.s.sist at their landing; and the carters with their light carts to bring them up to London; and the clerks in the warehouse in London, many of whom knew full well that not a penny of duty had ever been paid on the goods; and the shop people too, who knew full well the same thing, as they could not otherwise have got their articles so cheap. It's a true saying, that one rascal makes many; and so it was in this case."

Much to the same effect Tom told us about Sandgate; but as with several of the points the readers are already acquainted, I need not repeat them. Tom frankly acknowledged that he was on board the "Rover" when Sandgate attempted to carry off Miss Manners; but he seemed to be little aware of the enormity of the offence. He said that he fancied the young lady had come of her own free will, as Sandgate had made the crew believe a tale to that effect.

"But what became of him after that?" I asked, eagerly. "Did he return to the coast of Africa, and turn pirate again?"

"No, sir," answered Martin. "He had several plans of the sort though, I believe; but at last we stood for the Rock of Gibraltar, and ran through the Straits into the Mediterranean. We could not make out what Mr Sandgate was about. We touched at two or three places on the African coast, and he had some communication with the Moors. To my mind, he scarcely knew himself what he would be at. He spoke and acted very often like a person out of his wits. Sometimes we would be steering for a place, and our course would be suddenly altered, and we would go back to the port from whence we came. However, by degrees we got higher and higher up the Mediterranean. We did not touch at Malta, but stood on till we got among the Greek islands: there he seemed quite at home, and was constantly having people aboard whom he treated as old friends.

Still we did nothing to make the vessel pay her way, and that was very unlike Mr Sandgate's custom. After a time we ran on to Smyrna: we thought that we were going to take in a cargo of figs and raisins, and to return home. One day, however, a fine Greek polacca-brig stood into the harbour, and Mr Sandgate, after examining her narrowly, went on board her. On his return, calling us together, he said that as he was going to sell the cutter, he should no longer have any need of our services; and that as he was very well pleased with the way we had more than once stuck by him, he would therefore add five pounds to the wages of each man. We all cheered him, and thought him a very fine fellow; and so I believe he would have been had he known what common honesty means. The 'Rover' was sold next day, and we all had to bundle on sh.o.r.e and look out for fresh berths. When we were there I heard some curious stories about that polacca-brig; and all I can say is, that if I had been aboard a merchantman and sighted her, I shouldn't have been comfortable till we got clear of her again. Whether Mr Sandgate went away in her or not I cannot say for certain; all I know is, that the polacca-brig left Smyrna in a few days. The crew of the 'Rover' joined different vessels, and though I was very often on sh.o.r.e, I saw no more of him. The rest of my story you know, gentlemen. I shipped on board the schooner which you lately saw go down."

"Very extraordinary story altogether," exclaimed Hearty, as soon as Tom Martin had left the cabin, highly pleased with his treatment. "If you had not been able to corroborate some of it, Brine, I certainly should not have felt inclined to believe it."

"I know the circ.u.mstance of one quite as extraordinary," said Porpoise.

"Some day I will tell it you if you wish it. I should not be surprised when we get up the Straits if we hear more of Mr Sandgate and his doings. He is evidently a gentleman not addicted to be idle, though, clever as he is, he will some day be getting his neck into a halter."

"I should think it was well fitted for one by this time," added Carstairs; "but I say, Porpoise, let us have your story at once; there's nothing like the present time for a good thing when it can be got, and we want something amusing to drive away all the bitter blue-devilish feelings which this confounded tumblefication of a sea has kicked up in our insides."

"You shall have it, with all my heart, and without delay," added Porpoise. "All I have first to say is, that as I was present during many of the scenes, and as descriptions of the others were given me, strange as the account may appear, it is as true as every thing we have just heard about that fellow Sandgate. I could almost have fancied that he and the hero of my story were one and the same person."

Our curiosity being not a little excited by this prelude, in spite of the rolling and pitching of the vessel, seldom has a more attentive audience been collected, as our jovial companion began his story.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

LIEUTENANT PORPOISE'S STORY--THE BLACK SLAVER--THE SPANISH MAIDEN--THE DESERTER'S DREAM--THE FLIGHT.

THE BRITISH CRUISER.

"Keep a bright look-out, Collins, and let me be called if any thing like a sail appears in sight," said Captain Staunton, as he was quitting the quarter-deck of His Majesty's brig "Sylph," which he had the honour to command. She was then stationed on the coast of Africa. Some years have pa.s.sed by, it must be remembered, since the time to which I now allude.

"Ay, ay, sir," answered the first lieutenant, who was the officer addressed. "With so many sharp eyes on board it shall be hard if we miss seeing him, should he venture to approach the coast, and if we see him, harder still if he escape us."

Captain Staunton descended to his cabin, and feverish and ill from long watching and the effects of the pestiferous climate, he threw himself into his cot, and endeavoured to s.n.a.t.c.h a few hours' repose, to better prepare himself for the fresh exertions he expected to be called on to make. But sleep, which kindly so seldom neglects to visit the seaman's eyelids, when wooed even amid the raging tempest, refused for some time to come at his call.

"I would sacrifice many a year's pay to catch that fellow," he continued, as he soliloquised half aloud. "The monstrous villain! while he lives I feel that the stain yet remains on the cloth he once disgraced. We will yet show him that the honour of the service cannot be insulted with impunity, although he dares our vengeance by venturing among us when he knows every vessel on the station is on the watch for him. And yet I once regarded that man as a friend; I loved him almost as a brother, for I thought his heart beat with the most n.o.ble sentiments. I thought him capable of the like deeds; but all the time he must have been a most accomplished hypocrite, though still he has one good quality, he is brave, or perhaps, it may be, he possesses rather physical insensibility to danger and utter recklessness of all consequences. He started fairly in life, and at one time gave good promise of rising in his profession. I knew him to be wild and irreligious; but I fancied his faults arose from thoughtlessness and high spirit, and I hoped that experience of their ill effects and a good example would cure them; but I now see that vice, from an ill-regulated education, was deeply rooted in him, and, alas! has that good example which might have saved him always been set him? I fear not. Ah! if those in command could foresee the dreadful results of their own acts, of their careless expressions, they would keep a better watch over themselves, and often shudder with horror at the crime and misery they have caused."

With a prayer to Heaven to enable him to avoid the faults of which he felt with pain that he had himself too often been guilty, the commander of the brig fell asleep.