The Rover's Secret Part 12

Next morning, at daybreak, we took on board a black pilot off Portland Point, reaching Port Royal just in time to hear eight bells struck on board the various ships lying at anchor in the harbour.

CHAPTER FOURTEEN.

A PACKET OF DISTURBING LETTERS.

The first task was to send by sh.o.r.e-boat a brief note on board the admiral, informing him of our capture, and requesting him to send a few hands on board to take care of the vessel. A prompt reply, in the shape of a somewhat dandified mid, with a dozen stout seamen to back him, was vouchsafed to this request, the midshipman bringing with him also a verbal message to the effect that the admiral would be glad to see us on board to breakfast with him. This condescension, of course, merely meant that he was curious to hear full particulars of the capture, but we nevertheless felt much gratified at the invitation; and, detaining the gig alongside only long enough to enable us to make ourselves presentable, we jumped into her, and five minutes later found ourselves on the quarter-deck of the old _Mars_.

Admiral J-- himself happened to be on deck at the moment when we stepped in through the entering port, and the look of mingled astonishment and anger with which he regarded us as we presented ourselves before him at once told us that something was wrong.

"How now, young gentlemen!" he testily exclaimed; "are you the two midshipmen who sent me this note, informing me that you had captured yonder c.o.c.k-boat of a felucca?" We respectfully intimated that we were.

"Then how comes it, sirs, that you have presumed to come on board me in those 'longsh.o.r.e togs? Away with you back at once, and when next you venture to appear in my presence, see to it that you come in a proper uniform."

The murder was out. We were, of course, dressed in the clothes with which Don Luis de Guzman had so generously supplied us, and we had been for so long a time out of uniform that it had never occurred to us that our costume would be regarded as in the slightest degree inappropriate.

We explained in as few words as possible that we were two of the surviving officers of the _Hermione_, that we had been for some time prisoners in La Guayra, and that we had only very recently effected our escape therefrom; and that put the whole affair straight in a moment, the admiral, who, peppery as was his temper, was a thoroughly kind- hearted old fellow in the main, actually condescending to apologise for his hasty speech; and, the steward at that moment announcing that breakfast was on the table, we all--that is to say, the admiral, Captain Bradshaw, Courtenay, and myself--trundled into the cabin and took our places at the table. Then, for the first time, as we found ourselves once more in the society of our own countrymen, with good wholesome English fare sending forth its grateful odours to our nostrils, with the table covered with its snowy linen, and laden with the handsome, yet home-like breakfast equipage, did we fully realise all that we had pa.s.sed through since we had last found ourselves so placed, and for my part the revulsion of feeling almost overcame me. The emotions of a midshipman are, however, proverbially of a very transient character, and I soon found myself prosecuting a most vigorous attack upon the comestibles, and, between mouthfuls, relating in pretty full detail all our adventures from the moment of the mutiny, excepting, of course, my love pa.s.sages with Dona Inez, which I kept strictly to myself.

The story of the mutiny naturally excited a very lively interest, and Courtenay and I were questioned and cross-questioned upon the subject until we were absolutely pumped dry, it transpiring that we were the first survivors of that dreadful tragedy who had reappeared among our own countrymen. The narrative of our sojourn in La Guayra did not, I regret to say, prove one-tenth part so attractive; but when we reached the subject of the Conconil lagoons, Merlani's treasure h.o.a.rd, and the scheme of the Spanish authorities to at once possess themselves of it and suppress the piratical band, the interest again revived, and we were questioned almost as closely on this subject as we had been about the mutiny.

Before the meal was concluded, it had been settled that a schooner-- lately a French privateer--recently captured, and then in the hands of the dockyard people undergoing the process of refitting, should be hurried forward with all possible despatch, and commissioned by a certain lieutenant O'Flaherty, with Courtenay and myself as his aides, her especial mission to be the destruction of Merlani's stronghold, and the capture of as many members of the piratical gang as we could lay hands upon. As, however, it seemed that the _Foam_--as the schooner had been re-christened--could not possibly be got ready under eight or ten days at the earliest, we were informed that we might take a week to look about us, a permission of which we most gladly availed ourselves. We were also informed that the prize-money for the Jean Rabel affair had been awarded, and the admiral was good enough to advise us to put our business affairs into the hands of his own agent in Kingston, to whom he gave us a letter of introduction.

Our first business on leaving the _Mars_ was to take pa.s.sage to Kingston in one of the many sailing-boats which, owned by negro boatmen, are always obtainable at Port Royal, and in her we managed, with the aid of a fine sea-breeze, to make the pa.s.sage in an hour, being badly beaten, however, in a race with a gig belonging to the frigate _Volage_ which happened to be lying at Port Royal at the time.

Arrived in Kingston we made our way, in the first instance, to the post- office, where we each found several letters awaiting us. There were nine for me, of which eight were from my father, and one--heaven only knows how it had found its way across in so short a time--from Dona Inez. I _ought_, I suppose, to have first opened those from my father; but I did not. With the ardour that might have been expected I first tore open the envelope superscribed by Inez. The letter was dated the day after our flight from La Guayra; and the poor girl, who had already learned from the faithful Juan that our plans had somehow been capsized, had written in an agony of apprehension as to our safety. It appeared that Juan--whose arrival at the cove had been delayed about half an hour by the suspicious manoeuvres of a felucca ahead of him, undoubtedly the _Pinta_--had hung about the spot for something like an hour and a half, at the expiration of which time two Spaniards had presented themselves on the beach and had inquired whether he belonged to the _Pinta_. On his saying that he did not he had been very sharply cross-questioned as to who he was, and the reasons for his presence there at that hour, which cross-questioning he was sensible enough to evade and cut short by retreating to his felucca and returning to La Guayra, from whence he, the first thing next morning, made his way to the castle to report and to seek further instructions. Having actually witnessed our departure, and knowing from the time at which it had occurred that we must have made our way on board the wrong felucca--which Juan was subsequently able to say with almost absolute certainty _must_ have been the _Pinta_--my lady-love was painfully anxious as to our fate; for it appeared that the _Pinta_ and her crew bore a somewhat evil reputation among those who professed to know her best at La Guayra; and the only hope or consolation which Dona Inez could find lay in her somewhat too favourable estimate of our ability to take care of ourselves. She most earnestly entreated that I would not lose a moment, after the receipt of her letter, in writing to set her mind at rest. She added that her father had returned home in excellent health; and that, though he had at first betrayed some vexation at the loss of our services, he had soon cooled down, and had then acknowledged that he was glad, for our sakes, that we had succeeded in effecting our escape.

Having read and re-read this most cherished epistle some half a dozen times over, I refolded and put it carefully into my pocket, next turning to the letters from my father, which I arranged and opened according to the dates of the postmarks.

The first of these letters--being the third written by my father since the date of my leaving England (I had received the other two on the occasion of our former visit to Port Royal, in the _Hermione_)--was very similar to all others which had ever reached me from the same writer; brief, cold, and evidently strained and artificial as to the one or two expressions of affection contained therein--altogether a painful and unsatisfactory letter to receive, in fact. The second was somewhat similar, except that therein my father condescended to inform me that he was by no means well; that he thought he had perhaps been overworking himself, and that unless his health speedily mended he feared he should be obliged to call in medical advice. This was sufficiently alarming; but the third letter was even more so, for in it he informed me that he had suffered a complete break-down in health and spirits; that he had placed himself under the care of Doctor Wise, one of the most eminent physicians of the day, and that he had not only been strictly enjoined to entirely lay aside his brush for at least six months, but that he had also been ordered to travel. This, however, was evidently not the worst of it; for the letter, a long, rambling, and somewhat incoherent epistle this time, went on to hint mysteriously at the causes which had brought this lamentable state of affairs about; but so obscurely was the letter worded that, on its first perusal, the only information I could definitely gather from it was that my father was then suffering from the effects of many years of mental anguish resulting from some matter which, if I understood him aright, seemed to be in some way connected with my poor dead mother. The letter concluded with the extraordinary words, "Lionel, the shadow of deception and falsehood rests upon us both, and from no fault of ours.--Yours distractedly, Cuthbert Lascelles."

"The shadow of deception and falsehood!--no fault of ours!--yours distractedly!" Whatever could it all mean? The closing words of the letter, "yours distractedly," puzzled me most of all. Hitherto my father's communications to me, however lacking in affection they might otherwise have been, had all terminated with the orthodox "your affectionate father." Why, then, this departure from the rule? Was it intentional, or was it merely to be regarded as an indication of the terribly disturbed state of the writer's mind?

I read and re-read this most singular epistle at least half a dozen times without gathering any additional light upon the obscure and mysterious hints which it contained, and I then turned to the remaining letters, thinking I might possibly find in them a solution to the enigma. And at the first reading I imagined I _did_ find it; the conclusion at which I arrived being that my poor unfortunate father must have gone mad! I patiently went through the whole packet a second time, seeking in them some additional evidence of insanity; but no, saving on this one particular matter the writer had evidently been in full possession of all his faculties. The fourth letter contained the information that the news of the mutiny on board the _Hermione_ had reached England, and that it was believed some of the officers had escaped ma.s.sacre and had been landed at La Guayra. Touching this matter he had written: "I can scarcely say, at this moment, whether I hope you are among the living or among the dead. If the latter, I shall at least enjoy the melancholy satisfaction of knowing that I have seen the last of one who, though I could have dearly loved him, and have been proud of him for his own sake, was, nevertheless, although my own son, almost hateful to me, because of his marked resemblance to one whose duplicity has been the curse of my life. But if, on the other hand, you are living, Lionel--as something whispers to me that you are--I shall perhaps be disposed to accept your preservation as a token from Heaven that I may, after all, have been mistaken, and that your mother could, had I given her the opportunity, have explained those circ.u.mstances which, unexplained, completely shattered her own happiness and mine."

The next letter, the fifth, was dated from Rome, in which city my father informed me that he had then been staying for about three weeks; but that he was about to leave it again, for what destination he could not then say, as he had derived no benefit whatever from the change--was rather worse, in fact--since the city was so full of a.s.sociations connected with my mother that his trouble was then harder than ever to bear. He added that he was still strongly impressed with the idea of my being alive, and that this idea, with the excuse it afforded him for continuing to write to me, gave him some small comfort. He said he had been exceedingly gratified at the very favourable report which had reached him of my conduct at Jean Rabel, and he most earnestly besought me, if indeed I were still alive, to comport myself in such a manner that my glorious deeds might in some measure, if not wholly, atone for the suffering my mother had caused him. The remaining letters were dated from Naples. They all dwelt upon the same theme; but the last closed with the request that, if it ever reached me, I would at once write in reply, addressing my letter to his lawyer in London, who would be kept advised of his whereabouts and would forward it on to him.

There was also an a.s.surance that he had no desire to visit my mother's heartless deception of him upon me, since, whatever were _her_ faults, _I_ was his son, and he had no intention of disowning the relationship; so that, if ever in need of money, I was without hesitation to draw upon him for any reasonable amount. "In want of money, indeed!" Luckily, I was not; but, as I crushed the letters back into my pocket, I solemnly vowed that, rather than touch a penny of that man's money, at least whilst his state of mind remained what it then was, I would perish of starvation in a ditch. Then bewildered, stunned, and utterly crushed in spirit, I hastily excused myself to Courtenay upon the plea of having received distressing news from England, and, obeying the same impulse which impels a wounded animal to rush away and hide itself and its suffering in the deepest solitudes, I turned my back upon Kingston, with its busy bustling streets, and hastened to bury myself among the hills.

I pushed forward without rest or pause until I found myself on the crest of a lofty eminence overlooking the town and harbour; when, flinging myself down beneath the grateful shade of a gigantic cotton-wood, I gave free vent to my feelings of suspense, indignation, and sorrow, and burying my face in my hands wept as if my heart would break. I will not attempt to describe or enlarge upon the feelings which then harrowed my soul; the words have never yet been coined which could adequately express my anguish. No merely mortal pen could depict it; nor can anyone, save those unfortunates who have pa.s.sed through such an ordeal, imagine it. Moreover, the subject even now, when I am old and grey- headed, is still so painful to me that I care not to dwell unduly upon it. Let me, therefore, pa.s.s on to the moment when, relieved, yet exhausted by the pa.s.sage of that terrible outburst of tears, I had so far regained composure as to be able to look my position fairly in the face.

My first act was to draw forth the fatal bundle of letters and reperuse them patiently from beginning to end, still clinging to the desperate hope that I had after all, in some unaccountable way, misunderstood my father's meaning, and that I was under some hallucination. But no; there were the words all too plainly written for any possibility of mistake. His was the hallucination--not mine. _False_? A dissimulator? I thrust my hand into my bosom, and dragged forth the velvet case containing my mother's portrait, which I had worn next my heart throughout all the vicissitudes of fortune encountered by me since the moment it had first been placed in my hands, and, pressing the spring, threw back the cover, and allowed my eyes to rest upon the loveliness it had concealed. Deceitful! If falsehood lurked within the liquid depths of those clear, calm, steadfast eyes, or was hidden behind that smooth and placid brow, then I thought must the very angels be false! If falsehood could shroud itself behind a mask of such surpa.s.sing loveliness, such an aspect and personification of all that is pure, and innocent, and faithful, and true, "where," I asked myself, "oh! where is truth to be found?" That my mother had, all unwittingly, and in some inexplicable manner aroused my father's suspicions, I could not doubt; but, after all, the matter was manifestly, to my mind, merely one of fancied or implied duplicity or deceit capable of easy explanation; it would probably have had no lasting effect on any but a diseased mind; and, knowing him as well as I did, I could understand how, with his reserved temperament and in his wounded pride, my father would silently withdraw himself from his wife, nor deign to stoop so far as to seek an explanation. I could discern only too clearly that he had taken as proof of dissimulation some circ.u.mstance that would only appear suspicious until the opportunity for explanation had pa.s.sed away for ever--hence the unhappiness of which I had gained an inkling during my nursery days--and that it was probably not until his heart had been softened by bereavement that he had coolly and dispa.s.sionately enough reviewed the circ.u.mstances to arrive at the conclusion that he might, after all, have been mistaken. My father had written of his "doubts and misgivings," and I felt confident that it was nothing in the world but the tenacious hold of these doubts and misgivings upon his mind which had in the first instance made him so unfatherly in his treatment of me, and had now reduced him almost to a condition of insanity. It was the horrible uncertainty which was killing him, soul and body--the uncertainty whether, on the one hand, his suspicions had been well founded; or whether, on the other hand, he had been hideously cruel and unjust to the one being who, above all others, ought to have been the object of his most tender solicitude. _I_ had no doubt whatever upon the subject; there was a conviction, amounting to absolute certainty in my mind, that my unhappy father had all too easily allowed himself to be deceived, and I there and then solemnly vowed and resolved that henceforward it should be the great object and aim of my life to demonstrate this to him to the point of positive conviction. "Yes," I exclaimed, springing to my feet with renewed hope, "I had already one incentive--my love for Inez--to spur me forward to great and n.o.ble achievements: I have now another--the justification of my dead mother's memory; and henceforward these shall be the twin stars to guide me onward in my career. 'For Love and Honour' shall be my motto; and, with these two for guerdon, what may a man not dare and do?"

An hour later saw me back in Kingston and comfortably ensconced in the bay-window of a private room in the--hotel, inditing a long epistle to my father in collective reply to the entire budget I had that morning received from him. In this letter I summarily disposed of the mutiny and my subsequent adventures in half a dozen brief sentences, feeling that such a matter could well wait until my father was in a more congenial mood for the communication of particulars; devoting my entire energies to the combating of those doubts which I now saw had been for years insidiously sapping his happiness, ay, and his very intellect as well I thanked him for taking me into his confidence, fully entered into my reasons for regarding his suspicions as groundless, and besought him first to communicate to me fully all the facts of the case--which, I pointed out to him, I ought to be made acquainted with, in order that I might be enabled to take the fullest advantage of any opportunity which might offer, in my wanderings, to sift the matter to the bottom--and then to dismiss all thought of it from his mind. This letter cost me three or four hours of severe study; but I contrived to bring it to a satisfactory conclusion at last; and then, with a considerably lighter heart, I began and finished a letter to Inez, in which, mingled with the usual lover-like protestations, I gave her full details of our adventure from the parting moment on the beach to our arrival in Port Royal harbour. I further told her that I found myself at that moment possessed of a tidy little sum in prize-money, and that, inspired by my love for her, I had resolved to fight my way to the top of the ladder with the utmost possible expedition, with a great deal more of the same sort, which would no doubt appear the most arrant nonsense to _you_, dear reader, so I will not inflict it upon you.

These two important tasks completed, I felt very much more easy in my mind, and was able to sit down to my dinner, which was shortly afterwards served, with a tolerable appet.i.te. Whilst I was engaged in discussing the meal Courtenay came in. He informed me that he had accepted an invitation for himself and me to spend a week with Mr Thomson (the admiral's, and also our own, agent) at his country house, some fifteen miles off in the heart of the Blue Mountain range; and that, as he had been unable to find me in time for us to go out there that evening, our host had promised to send in a couple of saddle-horses and a negro guide for our accommodation next morning, and that we should find them awaiting us at Mr Thomson's store at nine o'clock. This was good news, for though I had pulled myself pretty well together after the shock occasioned by the perusal of my father's letters, I felt that a little change and amus.e.m.e.nt would be most acceptable under the circ.u.mstances.

On the following morning, punctual to the moment, we presented ourselves at the rendezvous; where we found, as had been promised, a couple of excellent saddle-horses awaiting us in charge of a grinning, happy- looking negro groom, who was mounted on a stout mule. Our guide, who informed us that his name was Pompey, promptly took charge of our valises, which he slung one on each side of his own saddle; we then mounted, and without loss of time got under weigh for our destination.

The first six or seven miles of our journey was uninteresting enough, but when we plunged into the mountain road and found ourselves environed on each side by a thick growth of luxuriant tropical vegetation, the foliage and flowers of which bore all and more than all the hues of the rainbow, whilst gorgeous b.u.t.terflies, gaudy insects, and birds of the most brilliant plumage flitted hither and thither about us, with an occasional opening in the dense growth revealing the most enchanting little views of the distant harbour and sea, or perchance a pa.s.sing glimpse of some quiet vale, with its cane-fields, boiling-house, and residential buildings, our journey became an enjoyable one indeed. We reached our destination--an extensive and somewhat straggling one- storied building, with large lofty rooms shrouded in semi-darkness by the "jalousies" or Venetian shutters which are used to carefully exclude every ray of sunlight--about noon; and received a most cordial and hearty welcome from our host, a most hospitable Scotchman, and his family, and here--not to unnecessarily spin out my yarn--we spent one of the most pleasant and enjoyable weeks I had up to that time pa.s.sed. The family, in addition to our host and his charming wife, consisted of a son and three daughters, who did everything that was possible to make our visit pleasant, and they were a musical family throughout; so that what with shooting, riding, visiting our somewhat distant neighbours, and receiving visits in return, when singing and dancing became the order of the evening, our short holiday pa.s.sed all too quickly. These most excellent people were the first, as they were the warmest, friends I ever made in the island; and when, late in the afternoon of the eighth day of our visit, Courtenay and I, with Pompey again for our pilot, mounted to return to Kingston, we received a very warm and evidently sincere invitation from the whole family to make their house our home whenever opportunity would afford. We slept at our hotel that night, and, bright and early next morning, made our way to Port Royal, where almost the first object which met our view was our new ship, the _Foam_, at anchor close under the stern of the flag-ship, with the hands on board busy bending a new suit of canvas.

Directing our boatman to run alongside, a minute or two later saw us on deck shaking hands with Mr Neil O'Flaherty, our new commander, who proved to be a regular typical Irishman--genial, high-spirited, and full to overflowing with fun and humour. We took to him in a moment; and I think the favourable impression was mutual, for we never had the ghost of an unpleasantness with him during the short but eventful period which we served under him. We had been thoughtful enough to bring our chests along with us in the boat, so that we could join at once, if need were; these were accordingly hoisted up over the side, and the boatman dismissed; after which, at O'Flaherty's invitation, we descended to the cabin to cement our new friendship over a gla.s.s of wine, and to have a chat about the cruise upon which we were about to enter, leaving the boatswain to superintend the operations on deck. The admiral, it seemed, had only given our new skipper a very general set of instructions, leaving him to arrange all details as to the armament and manning of the schooner after a conference with us, as we were supposed to be the persons best posted on the question of these requirements.

The whole of the morning was devoted to a full and particular recital on our part of everything which had transpired from the moment of our boarding the _Pinta_ until that of our leaving her; after which we formed ourselves into a committee to discuss the outfit of the craft; and we now learned, somewhat to our chagrin, that Carera and his boat's crew, having duly turned up at Port Royal, had made such representations to the admiral as had induced that distinguished officer to release them and the felucca forthwith, upon the understanding that they were to return at once to La Guayra, and were not to attempt to communicate, either directly or indirectly, with Merlani or any of the other pirate gangs on the Cuban coast which it was proposed that we should attack.

This, of course, was all very well; and would do no harm whatever _if_ the rascals only adhered to their agreement; but of this I confess I felt somewhat doubtful. The mischief, however, if mischief there were, was done, and it was therefore no use to worry about it; but I saw that it would need even greater circ.u.mspection than ever in the carrying out of our difficult enterprise, and for that, heaven knows, the necessity ought never to have been created.

Our palaver over, we all adjourned to the deck, and from, thence into the gig, which had been ordered alongside to convey us on sh.o.r.e to the dockyard. We took advantage of this opportunity to make a thorough inspection of the outward appearance of the craft which was to be our future home; and, so far as I at least was concerned, I cannot say that the impression produced was an altogether satisfactory one. In the first place, the _Foam_ was, to my mind, rather small for the work she had to do, measuring only eighty tons register. She was, it is true, a very fine beamy little vessel for her size, of shallow draught of water, with sides as round as an apple, and beautifully moulded; indeed, I judged, from the look of her, that she had evidently been specially built for privateering purposes, her carrying capacity being very small, whilst no effort seemed to have been spared to render her exceedingly fast and stiff under her canvas. She was very strongly built of oak, with ma.s.sive timbers, copper fastened throughout, and heavily coppered up to her bends; so that, as far as her hull was concerned, there was not much, beyond its size, to find fault with. But, in the matter of spars and rigging, those heathens the dockyard riggers had completely ruined her, as O'Flaherty admitted, almost with tears in his eyes. Her lower masts had been left in her intact and untouched, as they had been when she first fell into our hands, and two handsomer sticks I never saw; but, in place of the tall slim willowy topmasts which she then carried, they had sent up a couple of heavy, clumsy sticks which, with the yards on her foremast, were stout enough for a vessel of at least twice her tonnage. And, not content with this, they had further hampered the poor little craft with a regular maze of heavy shrouds, stays, and back-stays, all of which had been set up until they were as taut as harp-strings; so that we had only too much reason to fear that, in a fresh breeze and a choppy sea, we should find the little craft cramped and her sailing powers completely spoiled. There was one comfort, however, the rigging was all new; and we trusted that a few hours at sea would stretch it sufficiently to restore in some measure the spring and play of her spars; but the heavy top-hamper with which she was burdened was an evil which could only be cured in one way; and I resolved that it _should_ be cured as soon as we got out of harbour, if I could bring O'Flaherty to my way of thinking.

Our inspection completed, we pulled ash.o.r.e to the dockyard, where O'Flaherty made out and handed in his requisition for such further stores as we considered would be necessary; and from thence we wended our way to the gun wharf, where arrangements were made for the subst.i.tution of six bra.s.s long sixes in place of the nine-pound carronades with which it had been proposed to arm the little hooker.

These, with the long eighteen which was already mounted on a pivot on the forecastle, would, we considered, make us as fit to cope with the pirates as we could hope to be in so small a craft. The guns came alongside and were hoisted in that same afternoon; and the following day witnessed the completion of our preparations for sea, including the shipping of our ammunition and the filling up of our water-tanks, etcetera. O'Flaherty was able to report himself ready for sea late that afternoon, upon which all three of us were invited on board the _Mars_ to dine with the admiral. The captain of the _Emerald_ frigate, which had arrived the previous day, and his son, a midshipman belonging to the same ship, were also among the guests; and, in the latter, I thought I recognised the young gentleman who had amused himself by popping away at me with a musket during the pursuit of the _Pinta_ through the Boca de Guajaba. I was not quite certain about the matter at first; but the conversation which ensued upon the admiral making mention of the _Foam's_ destination and mission soon convinced me that I was correct in my surmise. The _Emerald_, it then turned out, was the identical frigate from which we had so narrowly escaped; and Captain Fanshawe at once waxed eloquent upon the unparalleled audacity and effrontery of the Cuban pirates, and the urgent necessity for their prompt suppression, instancing the escape of the _Pinta_ as a case in point. His son, too, as one of the actual partic.i.p.ators in the pursuit, had a great deal to say upon the subject, and seemed somewhat disposed to draw the long-bow when narrating his own share of the exploit, which tendency I thought it only kind to nip in the bud by giving our version of the affair. Both father and son at first appeared to be considerably nettled when they found that it was to us they owed their discomfiture; but their better sense speedily prevailed, and they joined as heartily as the rest in the laugh against themselves. On parting at the gangway that night, however, as we prepared to leave for our respective vessels, young Fanshawe laughingly remarked, as he gave our hands a cordial farewell grip:

"You have the laugh on your side at present, Lascelles; but I warn you that you will not get off so easily the next time I have an opportunity of taking a pot-shot at you."

We reached the _Foam_ about midnight; and next morning at daybreak weighed and worked out of the roadstead with the first of the sea- breeze, nipping sharp round the point as soon as we could weather it and keeping close along to windward of the Palisades until we were abreast of Plum Point; when, being fairly clear of the shoals, we braced sharp up for Yallah's Point. Once abreast of this, we were enabled to check our weather-braces a trifle and ease off a foot or two of the main- sheet, when away we went for Morant Point through as nasty a short choppy sea as it has ever been my luck to encounter; the schooner jerking viciously into it and sending the spray flying from her weather bow right aft into the body of the mainsail and out over the lee quarter. But the discomfort to which we were thus subjected was amply compensated for by the magnificent panorama of wooded mountain, brawling stream, sweeping bay, landlocked inlet, frowning cliff, and white sandy beach, as we skirted the sh.o.r.es of this most beautiful island of Jamaica.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN.

A BRUSH WITH A PIRATICAL FELUCCA.

We had not been three hours at sea before the unwelcome conviction forced itself upon us that our apprehensions respecting the injury to the _Foam's_ sailing powers were only too well founded; whatever they might originally have been the bungling dockyard riggers had effectually destroyed them. The breeze was blowing so strongly that we had been compelled to furl the topgallant--sail, and, steering as we were with the wind abeam, we ought, with the shapely hull we had beneath us, to have been going at least nine knots, whereas, so cramped were the little vessel's movements by her tautly set-up rigging and the consequent rigidity of her spars, that she was going little more than six. This was anything but satisfactory; O'Flaherty's first action, therefore, was to order a general easing-up of lanyards, fore and aft, aloft and alow; and no sooner was this done than we felt the advantage of the change; the swing and play of the spars being restored, and the rigging eased up until they were merely _supported_ without their pliancy being interfered with, the little craft at once recovered her elasticity, and not only went along faster, but also took the seas much more buoyantly, riding lightly over them instead of digging through them as before, so that she no longer threw the spray over and over herself, but went along as light and dry as an empty bottle. But it was still evident that her top-hamper was too heavy; we therefore set the carpenter to work to reduce a couple of spare topmasts we had on board, with the view to shifting them upon the first favourable opportunity; and, this done, we hoped to have the hooker once more at her best.

Nothing of importance occurred until we arrived off the Cristo Cays, when--the time being about three bells in the forenoon watch, and the larger island bearing about two miles on the larboard bow, a couple of miles distant--O'Flaherty brought a chart on deck and, spreading it out on the companion slide, beckoned me to him.

"Look here, Lascelles," said he, making a mark on the chart with his pencil-point, "there is where we are, and that," pointing away over the larboard bow, "is Cristo Cay. Now, whereabouts is the channel that you saw that big felucca going into?"

"It is further on to the westward; you cannot see it from here. But why do you ask?" I inquired.

"Because, me bhoy, I intind to take a look in there and see what there is to be seen," he replied.

"If you will excuse my saying so, I think you had better not," said I.

"In my opinion it would be wiser to meddle with these other places as little as possible until we have beaten up Merlani's quarters. From all that we could learn from Carera his gang is far and away the most formidable all along this coast; and it seems to me that it would be only prudent on our part to create as little alarm as possible among these fellows until we have polished him off. His snuggery is strong enough and difficult enough of approach as it is, and it might be made infinitely more so if an alarm were given along the coast, as it easily might be if one of their craft happened to escape us; my advice, therefore--if you ask it--is to interfere with n.o.body until we have been into the Conconil lagoons."

"Why, Lascelles, you surely are not _afraid_?" he asked, looking me surprisedly in the face.

"No, sir, I am _not_," I answered, rather nettled, "I am only prudent; and--"

"Pooh!" he interrupted lightly, "prudent! Me dear bhoy, prudence is a very good thing--sometimes, but it does not do for such business as ours. A bould dash and have done wid it is the motto for us. Anyhow, I intind to go in, so there's an end av it, and I'll thank ye, young gintleman, to point out the channel as soon as we open it."

"But," I remonstrated, "I know nothing whatever of the place beyond what I saw of it in pa.s.sing. Do you?"

"Not a wan ov me; but what matther?" was his characteristic reply.

"Simply this," said I. "The navigation is doubtless difficult, and the water shallow. We should find ourselves in a pretty pickle if we plumped into a hornet's nest and on to a shoal at the same moment."

"How big did you say that felucca was that you saw going in there?" he asked.

"Nearly or quite two hundred tons," said I, "but--"

"And we are eighty," said he. "Where she could float we can--"

"By no means," I interrupted. "I do not believe she drew an inch more than eight feet, whilst we draw nine; and an extra foot of water, let me tell you, Mr O'Flaherty, makes all the difference in these shallow inlets."