The Red Rover Part 48

"You boarded her," observed the Rover.

"A small task that, your Honour, since a starved dog was the whole crew she could muster to keep us off. It was a solemn sight when we got on her decks, and one that bears hard on my manhood," continued Fid, with an air that grew more serious as he proceeded, "whenever I have occasion to overhaul the log-book of memory."

"You found her people suffering of want!"

"We found a n.o.ble ship, as helpless as a halibut in a tub. There she lay, a craft of some four hundred tons, water-logged, and motionless as a church. It always gives me great reflection, sir, when I see a n.o.ble vessel brought to such a strait; for one may liken her to a man who has been docked of his fins, and who is getting to be good for little else than to be set upon a cat-head to look out for squalls."

"The ship was then deserted?"

"Ay, the people had left her, sir, or had been washed away in the gust that had laid her over. I never could come at the truth of them particulars. The dog had been mischievous, I conclude, about the decks; and so he had been lashed to a timber head, the which saved his life, since, happily for him he found himself on the weather-side when the hull righted a little, after her spars gave way. Well, sir there was the dog, and not much else, as we could see, though we spent half a day in rummaging round, in order to pick up any small matter that might be useful; but then, as the entrance to the hold and cabin was full of water, why, we made no great affair of the salvage, after all."

"And then you left the wreck?"

"Not yet, your Honour. While knocking about among the bits of rigging and lumber above board, says Guinea, says he, 'Mister d.i.c.k, I hear some one making their plaints below.' Now, I had heard the same noises myself, sir; but had set them down as the spirits of the people moaning over their losses, and had said nothing of the same, for fear of stirring up the superst.i.tion of the black; for the best of them are no better than superst.i.tious n.i.g.g.e.rs, my Lady; so I said nothing of what I had heard, until he saw fit to broach the subject himself. Then we both turned-to to listening with a will; and sure enough the groans began to take a human sound. It was a good while, howsomever, before I could make up whether it was any thing more than the complaining of the hulk itself; for you know, my Lady, that a ship which is about to sink makes her lamentations just like any other living thing."

"I do, I do," returned the governess, shuddering. "I have heard them, and never will my memory lose the recollection of the sounds."

"Ay, I thought you might know something of the same, and solemn groans they are: But, as the hulk kept rolling on the top of the sea, and no further signs of her going down, I began to think it best to cut into her abaft, in order to make sure that some miserable wretch had not been caught in his hammock at the time she went over. Well, good will, and an axe, soon let us into the secret of the moans."

"You found a child?"

"And its mother, my Lady. As good luck would have it, they were in a birth on the weather-side and as yet the water had not reached them. But pent air and hunger had nearly proved as bad as the brine. The lady was in the agony when we got her out; and as to the boy, proud and strong as you now see him there on yonder gun, my Lady, he was just so miserable, that it was no small matter to make him swallow the drop of wine and water that the Lord had left us, in order, as I have often thought since, to bring him up to be, as he at this moment is, the pride of the ocean!"

"But, the mother?"

"The mother had given the only morsel of biscuit she had to the child, and was dying, in order that the urchin might live. I never could get rightly into the meaning of the thing, my Lady, why a woman, who is no better than a Lascar in matters of strength, nor any better than a b.o.o.by in respect of courage, should be able to let go her hold of life in this quiet fashion, when many a stout mariner would be fighting for each mouthful of air the Lord might see fit to give. But there she was, white as the sail on which the storm has long beaten, and limber as a pennant in a calm, with her poor skinny arm around the lad, holding in her hand the very mouthful that might have kept her own soul in the body a little longer."

"What did she, when you brought her to the light?"

"What did she!" repeated Fid, whose voice was getting thick and husky, "why, she did a d----d honest thing; she gave the boy the crumb, and motioned as well as a dying woman could, that we should have an eye over him, till the cruise of life was up."

"And was that all?"

"I have always thought she prayed; for something pa.s.sed between her and one who was not to be seen, if a man might judge by the fashion in which her eyes were turned aloft, and her lips moved. I hope, among others, she put in a good word for one Richard Fid; for certain she had as little need to be asking for herself as any body. But no man will ever know what she said, seeing that her mouth was shut from that time for ever after."

"She died!"

"Sorry am I to say it. But the poor lady was past swallowing when she came into our hands, and then it was but little we had to offer her. A quart of water, with mayhap a gill of wine, a biscuit, and a handful of rice, was no great allowance for two hearty men to pull a boat some seventy leagues within the tropics. Howsomever, when we found no more was to be got from the wreck, and that, since the air had escaped by the hole we had cut, she was settling fast, we thought it best to get out of her: and sure enough we were none too soon, seeing that she went under just as we had twitched our jolly-boat clear of the suction."

"And the boy--the poor deserted child!" exclaimed the governess, whose eyes had now filled to over-flowing.

"There you are all aback, my Lady. Instead of deserting him, we brought him away with us, as we did the only other living creature to be found about the wreck. But we had still a long journey before us, and, to make the matter worse, we were out of the track of the traders. So I put it down as a case for a council of all hands, which was no more than I and the black, since the lad was too weak to talk and little could he have said otherwise in our situation. So I begun myself, saying, says I, 'Guinea, we must eat either this here dog, or this here boy. If we eat the boy, we shall be no better than the people in your own country, who, you know, my Lady, are cannibals; but if we eat the dog, poor as he is we may make out to keep soul and body together, and to give the child the other matters.'--So Guinea, he says, says he, 'I've no occasion for food at all; give 'em to the boy,' says he, 'seeing that he is little, and has need of strength.' Howsomever, master Harry took no great fancy to the dog, which we soon finished between us; for the plain reason that he was so thin.

After that, we had a hungry time of it ourselves; for, had we not kept up the life in the lad, you know, it would have slipt through our fingers."

"And you fed the child, though fasting yourselves?"

"No, we wer'n't altogether idle, my Lady, seeing that we kept our teeth jogging on the skin of the dog, though I will not say that the food was over savoury. And then, as we had no occasion to lose time in eating, we kept the oars going so much the livelier. Well, we got in at one of the islands after a time, though neither I nor the n.i.g.g.e.r had much to boast of as to strength or weight when we made the first kitchen we fell in with."

"And the child?"

"Oh! he was doing well enough; for, as the doctors afterwards told us, the short allowance on which he was put did him no harm."

"You sought his friends?"

"Why, as for that matter, my Lady, so far as I have been able to discover, he was with his best friends already. We had neither chart nor bearings by which we knew how to steer in search of his family. His name he called master Harry, by which it is clear he was a gentleman born, as indeed any one may see by looking at him; but not another word could I learn of his relations or country, except that, as he spoke the English language, and was found in an English ship, there is a natural reason to believe he is of English build himself."

"Did you not learn the name of the ship?" demanded the attentive Rover, in whose countenance the traces of a lively interest were very distinctly discernible.

"Why, as to that matter, your Honour, schools were scarce in my part of the country; and in Africa, you know, there is no great matter of learning; so that, had her name been out of water, which it was not, we might have been bothered to read it. Howsomever, there was a horse-bucket kicking about her decks, and which, as luck would have it, got jammed-in with the pumps in such a fashion that it did not go overboard until we took it with us. Well, this bucket had a name painted on it; and, after we had leisure for the thing, I got Guinea, who has a natural turn at tattooing, to rub it into my arm in gunpowder, as the handiest way of logging these small particulars. Your Honour shall see what the black has made of it."

So saying, Fid very coolly doffed his jacket, and laid bare, to the elbow, one of his brawny arms, on which the blue impression was still very plainly visible Although the letters were rudely imitated, it was not difficult to read, in the skin, the words "Ark, of Lynnhaven."

"Here, then, you had a clue at once to find the relatives of the boy,"

observed the Rover, after he had deciphered the letters.

"It seems not, your Honour; for we took the child with us aboard the 'Proserpine,' and our worthy Captain carried sail hard after the people; but no one could give any tidings of such a craft as the 'Ark, of Lynnhaven;' and, after a twelvemonth, or more, we were obliged to give up the chase."

"Could the child give no account of his friends?" demanded the governess.

"But little, my Lady; for the reason he knew but little about himself. So we gave the matter over altogether; I, and Guinea, and the Captain, and all of us, turning-to to educate the boy. He got his seamanship of the black and myself, and mayhap some little of his manners also; and his navigation and Latin of the Captain, who proved his friend till such a time as he was able to take care of himself, and, for that matter, some years afterwards."

"And how long did Mr Wilder continue in a King's ship?" asked the Rover, in a careless and apparently indifferent manner.

"Long enough to learn all that is taught there, your Honour," was the evasive reply.

"He came to be an officer, I suppose?"

"If he didn't, the King had the worst of the bargain.--But what is this I see hereaway, atween the backstay and the vang? It looks like a sail; or is it only a gull flapping his wings before he rises?"

"Sail, ho!" called the look-out from the mast head. "Sail, ho!" was echoed from a top and from the deck; the glittering though distant object having struck a dozen vigilant eyes at the same instant. The Rover was compelled to lend his attention to a summons so often repeated; and Fid profited by the circ.u.mstance to quit the p.o.o.p, with the hurry of one who was not sorry for the interruption. Then the governess arose too, and, thoughtful and melancholy she sought the privacy of her cabin.

Chapter XXV.

"Their preparation is to-day by sea." _--Anthony and Cleopatra._

"Sail, ho!" in the little frequented sea in which the "Rover" lay, was a cry that quickened every dull pulsation in the bosoms of her crew. Many weeks had now, according to their method of calculation, been entirely lost in the visionary and profitless plans of their chief. They were not of a temper to reason on the fatality which had forced the Bristol trader from their toils; it was enough, for their rough natures, that the rich spoil had escaped them. Without examining for the causes of this loss, as has been already seen, they had been but too well disposed to visit their disappointment on the head of the innocent officer who was charged with the care of a vessel that they already considered a prize. Here, then, was at length an opportunity to repair their loss. The stranger was about to encounter them in a part of the ocean where succour was nearly hopeless, and where time might be afforded to profit, to the utmost, by any success that the freebooters should obtain. Every man in the ship seemed sensible of these advantages; and, as the words sounded from mast to yard, and from yard to deck, they were taken up in cheerful echos from fifty mouths, which repeated the cry, until it was heard issuing from the inmost recesses of the vessel.

The Rover himself manifested more than usual satisfaction at this prospect of a capture. He was quite aware of the necessity of some brilliant or of some profitable exploit, to curb the rising tempers of his men; and long experience had taught him that he could ever draw the cords of discipline the tightest in moments that appeared the most to require the exercise of his own high courage and consummate skill. He walked forward, therefore, among his people, with a countenance that was no longer buried in reserve, speaking to several, whom he addressed by name, and of whom he did not even disdain to ask opinions concerning the character of the distant sail.

When a sort of implied a.s.surance that their recent offences were overlooked had thus been given, he summoned Wilder, the General, and one or two others of the superior officers, to the p.o.o.p, where they all disposed themselves, to make more particular and more certain observations, by the aid of a half-dozen excellent gla.s.ses.

Many minutes were now pa.s.sed in silent and intense scrutiny. The day was cloudless, the wind fresh, without being heavy, the sea long, even, and far from high, and, in short, all things combined, as far as is ever seen on the restless ocean, not only to aid their examination, but to favour those subsequent evolutions which each instant rendered more probable would become necessary.

"It is a ship!" exclaimed the Rover, lowering his gla.s.s, the first to proclaim the result of his long and close inspection.