The Penang Pirate Part 2

The captain came on deck after a time, and ordered the boatswain to tell the men to give no hints to the Malays as to the pa.s.sengers, and then an anchor-watch was set, and all hands turned in for the night.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER THREE.

THE SAMPAN.

Towards six bells in the morning watch the intense violet sky of the east began to pale into those shades of green and grey which note the departure of night, the bright twinkling stars that had up to then lit up the firmament disappearing one by one as day broke. Then, rapidly, streaks of warm, salmon-tinted clouds rose across the eastern horizon, shot with bright golden gleams of fire, making the water of the Pearl River glow as if with life, and lighting up the distant house-tops and paG.o.das of Canton that could be seen far away from Jardyne Point; and then, up danced the sun from beyond the paddy fields, mounting higher and higher in the heavens each moment with majestic strides, as if he wanted to get his day's work done early, so as to get a siesta in the afternoon!

With the rising of the sun, all is bustle and excitement on board the _Hankow Lin_; for the captain before turning in had told Mr Scuppers that they were to sail at daybreak.

"Whee--eo! Whee--eo! Whee--ee!" The boatswain's shrill whistle was heard piercing through every nook and cranny of the ship.

"Tumble up, there! Tumble up! All hands up anchor!" shouted out Bill Martens in stentorian tones that supplemented the call of his whistle.

"Now, you Lascar beggars, show a leg, will you? All hands on deck, and up anchor. Here, look alive, serang! Man the capstan-bars, and be sharp with it. Cheerily, men; cheerily ho! Walk her up to her anchor.

Now she rides--heave, men, with a will. Belay!"

The ship by this time has been brought up, with all the slack of the cable in; and the chief mate now lends his voice to add to the bustle and movement of the scene.

"'Way aloft there, men; loose topsails; let fall. There! Now, serang, heave with a will! heave with a will! Now it's free; heave away, my hearties!" and the anchor was run up to the bows with a will, and secured with tackles; when, the ship's head being now loosed from her hold of the ground, she began to pay off, with her bows dancing up and down, as if she were bidding a polite adieu to the Celestial Empire and all its belongings.

"Man the topsail halliards; up with the jib; loosen those courses; set the spanker sharp, will you? Hurrah! there she fills!" The sails bellied out and drew; and the ship bore round to her course, and began to move, at first slowly, and then more swiftly, down the river, south and west, on her way towards England--homeward-bound, as it is joyously phrased.

A regular staunch clipper is she--the good ship _Hankow Lin_; one of the best of the old-fashioned tea-traders that as yet spurned the modern innovation of the Suez Ca.n.a.l, and despised, in the majesty of their spreading canvas, the despicable agency of steam! A sound, teak-built, staunch, ship-rigged vessel of 1200 tons register, and cla.s.sed A1 at Lloyd's for an indefinite number of years.

Captain Morton--a bluff old sea-dog, with a jovial red face, and crisp, wiry grey hair, and mutton-chop whiskers that projected on either side as if electrified--was standing on the p.o.o.p to windward, with the first mate, Mr Scuppers, and the pa.s.senger, "Mr Meredith," looking up aloft at the nimble topmen, who were adding acre to acre to the sail-surface of the ship, and pluming her snowy pinions with a pull here and a shake there. Mr Sprott, the second mate, was to leeward of the helmsman; the boatswain on the forecastle, monarch of all he surveyed in that department; and little Jack Harper, the middy--a special favourite both with the officers and sailors--looking on amidships at the gang of Malays, who were hauling away at halliards, and slackening sheets, and curling ropes, in a more slipshod and leisurely way than regular jack tars are wont.

Jack Harper called out to the serang Kifong to make him rouse up his men, but he was nowhere to be seen. Presently, he perceived him bending over the side amidships, partly concealed by the shrouds, and apparently talking to some one overboard. Wondering what was up, Jack cautiously approached him without being observed, and peered over the side too.

His face brightened up with excitement as he heard the sounds of men's voices speaking in Chinese rapidly, and then he listened with rapt attention for a minute. Only for a minute, however, as the serang, turning rapidly round, saw him, and, calling out something which he could not catch, a sampan, or native boat, quickly sheered off from the vessel, and, impelled by two rowers, darted off sh.o.r.e wards; the serang, with a look of unconsciousness at Jack, sauntering back to his gang, as if he were only doing the most natural thing in the world.

The captain perceived the sampan the moment it left the ship's side, and hailed Jack.

"Hullo! What was that boat doing alongside?"

"Can't say, sir," said Jack, touching his cap. "I suppose some of the Lascars' friends bidding them good-bye!"

"That so?" said the captain. "It isn't discipline, but I suppose we can't help it;" and he resumed his conversation with the pa.s.senger and Mr Scuppers.

By and by, when the serang and his gang had gone forward again, to unbit the cable chain and cat and fish the anchor, Jack went up on the p.o.o.p to the captain.

"Beg your pardon, Cap'en Morton," he said, "but I think that Malay chap is up to something; can I speak to you privately?"

"Oh, never mind Mr Meredith," said the captain; "we are all friends here; speak out."

"Well, you know, sir," said Jack, diffidently--he didn't like spinning a yarn, as he called it, before strangers--"that I understand a little Chinese; and I caught something of what the serang was saying to those two beggars in the boat."

"Did you?" said the captain and Mr Meredith, the pa.s.senger, almost together, eagerly. "What was it? what did the rascal say?"

"You may well say rascal, sir," said Jack. "For though I did not hear all their conversation, from what I gathered I think they're up to some mischief. I first heard the chap in the boat say, 'And how about the pa.s.sengers?' or something like that as far as I could make out; and the serang said, 'There's only one come on the ship.'"

The captain nudged Mr Meredith here, and the first mate, and all three chuckled.

"And then the man in the boat said, 'You are certain there are not more aboard?' And the serang answered, 'No, only that one pa.s.senger'--'strange man,' he called him--'and twelve men besides the boy officer,'--I suppose meaning me, sir. And then the man in the boat, who seemed to have some authority over the serang, said, 'In about ten days, if the wind is good or fair; and don't be in a hurry, but wait for the signal!' and then the Malay chap turned and saw me, and the boat shoved off."

"Very good, Harper," said the captain; "we'll keep an eye on him, never fear;" and then, as Jack went off again to his post he turned to Mr Meredith: "I confess that I was wrong, and you and the admiral right, sir!" he said. "And now we must contrive to outwit these yellow devils, and as they're half-Chinese and ought to know, show them how to catch a Tartar!"

"Ay," said Mr Meredith, laughing, "we'll give them a lesson they'll never forget, too, while we're about it! But, captain, we have plenty of time before us--ten days or more, just as I calculated; and all we have to do now is to look out sharp for squalls in the meantime."

"Right, sir," said Captain Morton, "we'll all have to look out sharp, for they're treacherous rascals at the best, and these seem to be the worst! Keep your weather eye open, Scuppers, and give Sprott a hint-- although not a word, mind you, to the men yet, with the exception of Bill Martens, who can be trusted to bide his time, as he knows already as much as ourselves. As to little Jack Harper, he's a 'cute boy, and is not likely to forget what he has heard." And there the conversation ended and the subject dropped.

All that day the _Hankow Lin_ was working her way down the river from Canton, which lies some eighty miles from its mouth; and at nightfall the ship again anch.o.r.ed, the navigation being somewhat intricate and the breeze dying away; but next morning it was up anchor and away again with everything hoisted that could draw and the wind right astern, the vessel making such good progress through the water that long before mid-day she had pa.s.sed through the Bocca Tigris, or "tiger's mouth" pa.s.sage, and was out in the open ocean.

The nor'-east monsoon, which blows in the China seas as regularly as clockwork from October to April, and is the great trade-wind of the tea- ships, had nearly blown out its course; but still, for a time it was all in the _Hankow Lin's_ favour, and she went through the water at a fine rate. Although she was pretty well laden, and was rather deep for a vessel of her size, she walked along as if, as the sailors said, the girls at home had got hold of the tow-rope; and when the log was hove at noon she was going twelve knots with all sail set--not a bad pace that for a trader; but, in the old days, before steam transformed the trade through the Red Sea, these tea-ships were built for speed as well as freight room.

Sundown came, and the great orb of day set in a crescent of ruby light, making the sea like a gorgeous pantomime sea of molten gold as far as the eye could reach; and still the wind held up fair and strong, and the vessel careered over the expanse of ocean, that looked like living fire, without slackening her rate of progress, rising and falling to the waves with pendulum-like rhythm. And now night came on with its azure sky, sprinkled with innumerable stars all glorious with scintillating light, and the ship preserved the even tenor of her way; morning came again with its freshness of roseate hues and golden sun-risings, and purple mists, and transparent haze; and yet, onward--onward, without pause--she flew upon the wings of the wind like a great white dove released from some fowler's snare and panting for the untrammelled freedom of the wide wide sea.

So day after day pa.s.sed, and everything went on in regular routine on board, without any incident of note occurring to break the monotony of the voyage, the English sailors keeping to themselves, and the Malays apart, without either mixing or speaking with the others save when the duties of the ship called them into temporary a.s.sociation.

Kifong, the serang, however, they could see was wide-awake, and observant of all that went on around him. He was particularly anxious about the saloon and the pa.s.senger: and was continually trying to interrogate s...o...b..ll as to what went on within the privileged retreat, to which none else of the crew were admitted. What struck him more than anything else was the amount of food which the black cook was preparing, and carrying from the galley into the cabin.

"What for you takee so muchee prog, black-man, in dere for?" he said one day to s...o...b..ll, much to that individual's indignation at the reference to his colour, which he always most studiously ignored.

"What for, mister yaller man? Why, for eat, sure!"

The Malay's eyes gleamed like a serpent's, and he showed his teeth like a snarling dog.

"Five men no eatee that much prog," he said in an angry tone. "You tell one lie, black-man."

"Lie yourself, yaller n.i.g.g.e.r," said the darky. "You no tink dat four officers and de pa.s.senger gen'leman all eat muchee food; very good appeta-t.i.tes havee."

The serang walked away from s...o...b..ll with a strong expression of doubt in his face, and ever afterwards seemed to bear a particular ill-will to the darky, laying traps to trip him up on his pa.s.sage to and fro between the galley and the cabin when heavily laden with dishes for Mr Meredith's gigantic meals.

VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER FOUR.

A STRANGE SAIL.

The ship sailed on serenely, making from two hundred to two hundred and fifty knots in each twenty-four hours run--on some exceptional occasions clearing indeed as much as three hundred, to the great jubilation of the men--until one day, at noon, Captain Morton announced that they were in the same parallel as the Thousand Islands, and rapidly approaching the Straits of Sunda.

This wide channel of the sea, separating the islands of Java and Sumatra, forms one of the main gateways used by the vast number of ships that navigate the China Sea. All vessels bound thither from the western hemisphere pa.s.s either to the north or south of Sumatra, entering the Eastern Archipelago through the Straits of Singapore or else by the Straits of Sunda. Steam-vessels bound through the Suez Ca.n.a.l and Indian Ocean use the former route, and those rounding the Cape of Good Hope the latter. The strait is about seventy miles long, sixty miles broad at the south-west end, narrowing to thirteen miles at the north-east; and it was here that the terrible earthquake occurred in the summer of 1883, by which so many thousands of lives were sacrificed in a moment, through the submerging of some of the adjacent islands in the sea, a catastrophe only second in the annals of history to the earthquake at Lisbon in the last century.

Half-way through the strait, equidistant from the two sh.o.r.es, was a group of three islands, the largest of which was Krakatoa, four and a half miles long and three miles broad, its volcanic summit reaching to a height of 2623 feet above the sea-level, about ten times higher than the surrounding sea was deep. Between it and Java, although the floor of the strait was uneven, the channel was clear of dangers; on the Sumatra side were several islands and rocks, the two largest of which, Bezee and Sebooko, rose respectively 2825 feet and 1416 feet above the sea. The tremendous volcanic eruption, with the accompanying earthquake and inundation of the coasts which lately happened here--on the 26th August, 1883--has now wrought a fearful change here. According to all accounts, it appears that the chain of islets on the Sumatra side of the straits has been added to by at least sixteen volcanic craters rising within the eight miles of water that formerly separated them from Krakatoa. With so enormous an upheaval it would not be unnatural to expect the surrounding floor to be depressed; but when it is learned that the whole island of Krakatoa, containing about 8000 million cubic yards of material, has fallen in, and the greater part of it disappeared below the sea, the magnitude of the convulsion becomes more apparent, and it is the easier to realise the formation of the destructive volcanic wave that was thrown on the neighbouring sh.o.r.es. It is almost inconceivable that this island, with a mountain summit which rose nearly 2700 feet above the sea-level, should have been so extensively submerged; but it seems to have been in the very centre of the area of this vast earthquake, which convulsed the whole basin of the sea between Lampong Bay, on the south coast of Sumatra, and the opposite sh.o.r.es of Java, extending across a diameter of more than sixty geographical miles. The disturbance of the sea and consequent flooding of the sh.o.r.es, both those of Sumatra to the north and those of Java to the east of the volcanic outbreak, had the most destructive effects upon the Dutch settlements at Telok Betong, at the head of the bay in Sumatra, and likewise in Java, at the well-known commercial port of Anjer, where all homeward-bound ships of every nation were accustomed to call in pa.s.sing the straits to obtain needful supplies for the voyage across the Indian Ocean; and where also, it may be mentioned, Java sparrows, those delicate little feathered creatures that might teach wiser humanity a lesson in their touching fondness for each other, used to be purchased by sailors for presents to their friends at home--though few, alas, of the poor "sparrows" ever reached England alive of the thousands brought away from their native clime, the majority dying at sea on the first cold night!

The homeward-bound voyager, too, who pa.s.ses the Straits of Sunda, is sometimes fortunate enough to witness, at the western extremity of the channel, a strange yet beautiful optical illusion, probably akin to the mirage of the desert. It presents a magnificent display of natural architecture, commencing at one particular point--always at the same place--off the coast of Sumatra. Huge granite pillars tower to the sky at nearly regular intervals, beginning at the outlet of one of the valleys, and extending five miles out to sea. So solid and ma.s.sive is the aspect of the apparent structure that the eye refuses to accept its unreality; binoculars are involuntarily seized, questions are poured into the ear of the captain; or, if no ship's officer be near, such guidebooks or sailing directions as may be within reach are consulted for a solution of the splendid sight. But, before the pages can be turned the gigantic columns begin to waver and vibrate in the intensely heated air: now they come nearer, and the sun glances upon their crystalline sides, anon they retreat and fade, until the whole fabric is transformed into, or lost in, a luxuriant expanse partly covered with enormous trees. It is probably while the feeling of disappointment is rankling in his mind, and the traveller averts his gaze from Sumatra as altogether a delusion and a snare, that he obtains his first glimpse of the opposite sh.o.r.e to the left hand, and sees the romantic island of Java appearing simultaneously from the waves and from the clouds. As he looks at the vast panorama of jagged peaks--some of them, perhaps, emitting a thin, scarcely-visible thread of vapour, his train of thought may wander to the thrilling fireside tale of how the despairing Dutch criminals used to rush, inclosed in leathern hoods, across the "Poison Valley," to gather the deadly drippings from the terrible Upas-tree.

But none of these thoughts occurred to those on board the _Hankow Lin_ as she neared the straits and the group of islands; for, in the first place, the terrible earthquake of Krakatoa which has so convulsed the face of nature in the vicinity, had not then occurred, and, secondly, instead of the fabled Upas-tree being uppermost in their minds, all were thinking, with a far keener apprehension, of the much more deadly "pirates of the isles," who were reported to haunt the channel-way and rendezvous in the neighbourhood, just keeping out of the reach of the men-of-war cruising in search of them, so as to pounce on unwary merchantmen whenever they had the chance.

Towards sunset on the same day that the captain had remarked on their being close to the Thousand Islands, the nor'-east monsoon, which had accompanied the vessel so far, suddenly failed, and the wind shifted to the southward and westward. A strange sail was sighted--not ahead, but coming up astern, and gaining on them fast as if in pursuit, although the light failed before they could distinctly make her out.