The Maroon Part 8

"Not the paring of a Mandingo's toe-nail, my paternal friend."

"Hach! what shay you, mine wise Shoodith?"

"What say I? Simply, that these Mandingoes might as well have been yours without all this trouble. They may be yet--ay, and their master too, if you desire to have a prince for your slave. _I_ do."

"Speak out, Shoodith; I don't understand you."

"You will presently. Didn't you say, just now, that Captain Jowler has reasons for not coming ash.o.r.e?"

"Captain Showler! He would rather land in the Cannibal Islands than in Montego Bay. Well, Shoodith?"

"Rabbi Jessuron, you weary my patience. For the Foolah prince--as you say he is--you are answerable only to Captain Jowler. Captain Jowler comes not ash.o.r.e."

"True--it ish true," a.s.sented the Jew, with a gesture that signified his comprehension of these preliminary premises.

"Who, then, is to hinder you from doing as you please in the matter of these Mandingoes?"

"Wonderful Shoodith!" exclaimed the father, throwing up his arms, and turning upon his daughter a look of enthusiastic admiration. "Wonderful Shoodith! Joosh the very thing!--blesh my soul!--and I never thought of it!"

"Well, father; luckily it's not too late. _I_ have been thinking of it.

I knew very well that Kate Vaughan would not part with the girl Yola.

I told you she wouldn't; but, by the bye, I hope you've said nothing of what you wanted her for? If you have--"

"Not a word, Shoodith! not a word!"

"Then no one need be a word the wiser. As to Captain Jowler--"

"Showler daren't show hish face in the Bay: that'sh why he landed hish cargo on the coast. Besides, there wash an understanding between him and me. He doeshn't care what ish done with the prinshe--not he.

Anyhow, he'll be gone away in twenty-four hours."

"Then in twenty-four hours the Mandingoes may be yours--prince, attendants, and all. But time is precious, papa. We had better hasten home at once, and strip his royal highness of those fine feathers before some of our curious neighbours come in and see them. People will talk scandal, you know. As for our worthy overseer--"

"Ah, Ravener! he knowsh all about it. I wash obliged to tell him ash we landed."

"Of course you were; and it will cost you a Mandingo or two to keep _his_ tongue tied: that it will. For the rest, there need be no difficulty. It won't matter what these savages may say for themselves.

Fortunately, there's no scandal in a black man's tongue."

"Wonderful Shoodith!" again exclaimed the admiring parent. "My precious daughter, you are worth your weight in golden guinish! Twenty-four shlaves for nothing, and one of them a born prinshe! Two thousand currenshy! Blesh my soul! It ish a shplendid profit--worth a whole year's buyin' and sh.e.l.lin'." And with this honest reflection, the slave-merchant hammered his mule into a trot, and followed his "precious Shoodith"--who had already given the whip to her horse, and was riding rapidly homeward.

Volume One, Chapter X.

THE SEA NYMPH.

On the third day after the slaver had cast anchor in the Bay of Montego, a large square-rigged vessel made her appearance in the offing; and, heading sh.o.r.eward, with all sail set, stood boldly in for the harbour.

The Union Jack of England, spread to the breeze, floated freely above her taffrail; and various boxes, bales, trunks, and portmanteaus, that could be seen on her deck--brought up for debarkation--as well as the frank, manly countenances of the sailors who composed her crew, proclaimed the ship to be an honest trader. The lettering upon her stern told that she was the "_Sea Nymph_, of Liverpool."

Though freighted with a cargo of merchandise, and in reality a merchantman, the presence on board of several individuals in the costume of landsmen, denoted that the _Sea Nymph_ also accommodated pa.s.sengers.

The majority of these were West India planters, with their families, returning from a visit to the mother country--their sons, perhaps, after graduating at an English university, and their daughters on having received their final _polish_ at some fashionable metropolitan seminary.

Here and there an "attorney"--a const.i.tuent element of West Indian society, though not necessarily, as the t.i.tle suggests, a real limb of the law. Of the latter there might have been one or two, with a like number of unpractised disciples of Aesculapius; both lawyer and doctor bent on seeking fortune--and with fair prospects of finding it in a land notorious for crime as unwholesome in clime. These, with a sprinkling of nondescripts, made up the list of the _Sea Nymph's_ cabin-pa.s.sengers.

Among these nondescripts was one of peculiarities sufficiently distinctive to attract attention. A single glance at this personage satisfied you that you looked upon a London c.o.c.kney, at the same time a West-End exquisite of the very purest water. He was a young man who had just pa.s.sed the twenty-first anniversary of his birth; although the indulgence of youthful dissipation had already brushed the freshness from his features, giving them the stamp of greater age. In complexion he was fair--pre-eminently so--with hair of a light yellowish hue, that presented the appearance of having been artificially curled, and slightly darkened by the application of some perfumed oil. The whiskers and moustache were nearly of the same colour; both evidently cultivated with an elaborate a.s.siduity, that proclaimed excessive conceit in them on the part of their owner.

The eyebrows were also of the lightest shade; but the hue of the eyes was not so easily told: since one of them was kept habitually closed; while a glancing lens, in a frame of tortoise-sh.e.l.l, hindered a fair view of the other. Through the gla.s.s, however, it appeared of a greenish grey, and decidedly "piggish."

The features of this individual were regular enough, though without any striking character; and of a cast rather effeminate than vulgar. Their prevailing expression was that of a certain superciliousness, at times extending to an affectation of sardonism.

The dress of the young man was in correspondence with the foppery exhibited in the perfumed locks and eye-gla.s.s. It consisted of a surtout of broadcloth, of a very light drab, with a cape that scarce covered the shoulders; a white beaver hat; vest and pants of spotless huff kerseymere; kid gloves on his hands; and boots, blight as lacquer could make them, on his feet. These items of apparel, made in a style of fashion and worn with an air of _savoir faire_, loudly proclaimed the London fop of the time.

The affected drawl in which the gentleman spoke, whenever he condescended to hold communion with his fellow-pa.s.sengers, confirmed this character.

Notwithstanding a certain ill-disguised contempt with which he was regarded by some of his fellow-voyagers, not a few treated him with marked deference; and the obeisance paid him by the steward and cabin boys of the _Sea Nymph_ gave evidence of his capability to bestow a liberal largess. And such capability did he possess: for Mr Montagu Smythje, the individual in question, was a youth of good family and fortune--the latter consisting of a magnificent sugar estate in Jamaica, left him by a deceased relative, to visit which was the object of his voyage.

The estate he had never seen, as this was his first trip across the Atlantic; but he had no reason to doubt the existence of the property.

The handsome income which it had afforded him, during several years of his minority, and which had enabled him to live in magnificent style in the most fashionable circles of London society, was a substantial proof that Montagu Castle--such was the name of the estate--was something more than a castle in the air. During his minority, the estate had been managed by a _trustee_ resident in the island: one Mr Vaughan, himself a sugar-planter, whose plantation adjoined that of Montagu Castle.

Mr Smythje had not come over the water with any intention of settling upon his Jamaica estate. "Such an ideaw," to use his own phraseology, "nevwaw entawed ma bwain. To exchange London and its pwesyaws for a wesidence among those haw-ed n.i.g.g.aws--deaw, no--I could nevwaw think of such a voluntawy banishment; that would be a baw--a decided baw!" "A meaw twip to see something of the twopics, of which I've heard such extwaor'nary stowies--have a look at my sugaw plantation and the dem'd n.i.g.g.aws--besides, I have a stwong desire to take a squint at these Queeole queetyaws, who are said to be so dooced pwetty. Haw! haw!"

After such fashion did Mr Montagu Smythje explain the purpose of his voyage to such of his fellow-pa.s.sengers as chanced to take an interest in it.

There were but few travellers in the steerage of the _Sea Nymph_. They who are compelled to adopt that irksome mode of voyaging across the Atlantic have but little errand to the West Indies, or elsewhere to tropical lands--where labour is monopolised by the thews and sinews of the slave. Only three or four of this cla.s.s had found accommodation on board the _Sea Nymph_; and yet among these humble voyagers was one destined to play a conspicuous part in our story.

The individual in question was a young man, in appearance of the same age as Mr Montagu Smythje, though differing from the latter in almost everything else. In stature he was what is termed "middle height," with limbs well set and rounded, denoting activity and strength. His complexion, though not what is termed _brunette_, was dark for a native of Britain, though such was he.

His features were n.o.bly defined; and his whole countenance sufficiently striking to attract the attention of even an indifferent observer.

Dark-brown eyes, and hair of like colour, curling jauntily over his cheeks, were characteristic points of gracefulness; and, take him all in all, he was what might justly be p.r.o.nounced a handsome young fellow.

The garments he wore were his best--put on for the first time during the voyage, and for the grand occasion of _landing_. A dark blue tunic frock, faced with black braid, skirting down over a pair of close-fitting tights, and Hessian boots, gave him rather a _distingue_ air, notwithstanding a little threadbarishness apparent along the seams.

The occupation in which the young man was engaged betrayed a certain degree of refinement. Standing near the windla.s.s, in the blank leaf of a book, which appeared to be his journal, he was sketching the harbour into which the ship was about to enter; and the drawing exhibited no inconsiderable degree of artistic skill.

For all that, the sketcher was _not_ a professional artist.

Professionally, indeed, and to his misfortune, he was nothing. A poor scholar--without trick or trade by which he might earn a livelihood--he had come out to the West Indies, as young men go to other colonies, with that sort of indefinite hope, that Fortune, in some way or other, might prove kinder abroad than she had been at home.

Whatever hopes of success the young colonist may have entertained, they were evidently neither sanguine nor continuous. Though naturally of a cheerful spirit, as his countenance indicated, a close observer might have detected a shadow stealing over it at intervals.

As the ship drew near to the sh.o.r.e, he closed the book, and stood scanning the gorgeous picture of tropical scenery, now, for the first time, disclosed to his eyes.

Despite the pleasant emotions which so fair a scene was calculated to call forth, his countenance betrayed anxiety--perhaps a doubt as to whether a welcome awaited him in that lovely land upon which he was looking.

Only a few moments had he been thus occupied, when a strange voice falling upon his ear caused him to turn towards the speaker--in whom he recognised the distinguished cabin-pa.s.senger, Mr Montagu Smythje.

As this gentleman had voyaged all the way from Liverpool to Jamaica without once venturing to set his foot across the line which separates the sacred precincts of the quarter from the more plebeian for'ard deck, his presence by the windla.s.s might have been matter of surprise.

A circ.u.mstance, however, explained it. It was the last hour of the voyage. The _Sea Nymph_ was just heading into the harbour; and the pa.s.sengers of all degrees had rushed forward, in order to obtain a better view of the glorious landscape unfolding itself before their eyes. Notwithstanding his often-expressed antipathy to the "abom'nable smell of taw" it was but natural that Mr Smythje should yield to the general curiosity, and go forward among the rest.

Having gained an elevated stand-point upon the top of the windla.s.s, he had adjusted the gla.s.s to his eye, and commenced _ogling_ the landscape, now near enough for its details to be distinguished.