The Three Midshipmen Part 26

"No use, thank ye, ma.s.sas," said Wa.s.ser, shaking his head. "Doctor no do good. My time come. Me die happy. Once me thought fetish take me, now me know where me go--who wait for me."

He pointed solemnly upwards as he spoke. The deathbed of that poor black lad might well be envied by many a proud white man. Wa.s.ser's predictions proved not unfounded. When the doctor came on board he p.r.o.nounced his case utterly hopeless, and as Wa.s.ser himself entreated that he might not be sent on sh.o.r.e, he was allowed to remain where he was. All night the two midshipmen and Needham sat up watching him, and doing their best to relieve his pain. At daybreak they were to get under weigh, and with the dying lad on board they once more left Cape Coast Castle and shaped a course for Sierra Leone. The wind still continued light, and in order to keep them from gloomy thoughts or apprehensions, Murray set all hands to work to fish. They had plenty of lines and bait this time, and as they sailed along the sea seemed literally alive with fish of every description. There were bonettas, and dolphins, and skipjacks without number, all affording sport and very pleasant provender; while the seaman's arch-enemies, the sharks, cruised round them as if they had made up their minds that they were to become their prey. Poor Wa.s.ser had lingered on from day to day, it appearing that each hour would prove his last, when, just at daybreak on the fourth morning, after leaving harbour, he called Murray, with a faint voice, to his side. "Me go, ma.s.sa! me go up dere, good-bye," he whispered, and with his hand pointing upwards, he fell back. His arms dropped by his side, and Murray saw that the faithful lad was dead. A funeral at sea is often an impressive ceremony. That of poor Wa.s.ser was short, for though there were few in attendance it was not the less sad; for by his gentle and obliging manners, and his coolness and courage in danger, he had won the affection and respect of all with whom he had sailed. The body was sewn securely up in his blankets and hammock, with such heavy weights as could be spared fastened to the feet; and when launched overboard, after Murray had read the funeral service, it shot quickly out of sight.

"Well, Tom, I don't think as how Jack Shark will be able to grab the poor fellow before he gets safely down to the bottom."

I do not know exactly what sort of a notion sailors have of the bottom of the ocean, but I rather think they have an idea that it is a comfortable sort of a place, where people can spend their time pleasantly enough, if they can but once contrive to reach it without being caught by a shark or other marine monster.

When they had got over the feelings produced by Wa.s.ser's death, the little crew managed to amuse themselves tolerably well. Murray taught his parrots to sing and whistle, and to talk, till they became wonderfully tame and fond of him; while Paddy contrived to instruct his monkey Queerface, as he called him, so well, that he fully rivalled his old friend Quirk on board the _Racer_. Paddy used to observe that as Queerface could act like a human being, while the parrots could talk like one, their united talents would enable them to make a very fair representation of a young savage; or indeed of some of his acquaintance who considered themselves polished young gentlemen, but often acted no better than monkeys, and scarcely knew the meaning of what they were saying more than did the parrots. There was no fear of the parrots flying away, so they were allowed full liberty, and in calm weather they used to sit on the rigging, nodding their heads and cleaning their feathers, and talking away with the greatest glee till Queerface, who had been watching them from the deck, would take it into his head to spring up the rigging after them and chase them from shroud to shroud, or they would keep out of his reach by circling round and round the vessel, completely laughing at his beard. One day a huge shark was seen following the vessel.

"I wonder what he wants with us?" exclaimed Paddy, gravely. "If we do not catch him, perhaps he will catch one of us."

"Such a notion is a mere superst.i.tion," observed Murray. "However, we will try and catch him."

A bonetta had just been caught, and that, it was agreed, would serve as a good bait for the shark. There was no hook on board large enough to secure him, so another plan was adopted by Needham's suggestion. The bonetta was secured to a small line, while with the end of the peak-halyards a running bowline-knot was formed and placed over it, or rather round it. The fish was thus in the very centre of the hoop, or slip-knot it might be called, but a short distance before it, "We shall have the gentleman, no fear of it," observed Paddy, as he watched the shark dart forward towards the bait. Murray managed the line with the bait, Paddy kept the bowline to draw it tight when the shark should get his head well into it. Silently and cautiously the monster glided on, his cruel green eye on the bonetta, which Murray gradually withdrew till it was close up to the counter. Then suddenly the shark, afraid of losing his prey, made a dart at the fish till the bowline was just behind his two hind fins, when Paddy, giving a sudden jerk to it, brought it tight round him. The men, when they saw this, endeavoured to catch a turn with the rope to secure the monster, but, quick as lightning, he gave a terrific jerk to the rope and tore it through their hands. Out flew the rope. Unhappily, Paddy was standing in the middle of the coil, and before he could jump out of it a half-hitch was caught round his leg.

"Hold on! hold on, lads!" he shrieked out; "oh, Murray, help!" It was too late. He was drawn up right over the gunwale, but just as he was going overboard he seized hold of the peak-halyards, where they were belayed to the side, and held on like grim death. The shark tugged and tugged away terribly. He could hold on no longer. He felt his fingers relaxing their grasp, and in another moment he would have been dragged under the water with small chance of escape, when Needham seized him firmly by the jacket. Ned, however, forgot that it would be necessary for him to get a grasp at something; but before he had done so, he found himself dragged over with Paddy. At that moment White sprang up, and grasped hold of his legs just as they were disappearing over the gunwale; and at the same time Sambo, the other black, caught hold of White, who would inevitably otherwise have followed Needham, and thus poor Murray saw himself in a moment about to be deprived of his brother officer and crew. He himself now sprang to their a.s.sistance. All I have been describing took place within a few seconds of time. With a boat-hook, fortunately at hand, he got a hold of Paddy's jacket, which considerably relieved Needham; and at the same moment, the shark coming up again towards the schooner, he and Needham were hauled on board again, his leg being happily released from the coil which had caught it without the necessity of cutting the rope. Poor Paddy's leg was, however, dreadfully mangled; and, unable to stand, he sank down with pain on the deck. Queerface was all the time chattering and jumping about in a state of the greatest excitement, evidently understanding somewhat of his master's danger; and no sooner did Adair regain the deck than he ran up, and, squatting down by his side, made so ludicrous a face that in spite of his pain Terence could not help bursting out into a fit of laughter, which, as he afterwards remarked, must wonderfully have relieved poor Queerface's mind. The shark meantime was hauled on board, though when they had got him thus far he flapped about and struggled so violently that he almost took the deck from the crew.

Little mercy had he to expect from their hands. His enemies now attacked him with anything which first came in their way, but they made little impression on him while his head was the chief point of a.s.sault.

Queerface chattered away and skipped about, taking very good care, however, to keep clear of him; and the parrots, Polly and Nelly, sang and talked as vehemently as if very much interested in the scene, till Sambo, the black cook, watching his opportunity, rushed in with his cleaver and gave the monster a blow on the upper part of his tail, which in an instant quieted him. Not another flap did he give with tail or fin, his huge jaws closed, and he was dead. After all their trouble, he was of no great use to them. They cut a few slices out of him for frying; for seamen will often eat shark's flesh with much the same feeling that a Fejee islander or a New Zealander a few years ago used to eat their enemies taken in war. His skin, however, was of some value, and that accordingly they took off and preserved.

Poor Paddy suffered very great pain from his hurt. The only remedy any one on board could think of applying was oil, and with that they continued to bathe it liberally, as it did just as well afterwards to burn in the lamps. The wet season was not yet over. Day after day they had torrents of rain, so that no one on board had a dry rag on their backs. The schooner too grew more and more leaky and the cargo of tobacco more and more rotten, till the odour arising from it was scarcely bearable, and at length they were completely driven out of their cabin. Often they wished to heave it overboard, but they dared not; for had they done so the vessel, already somewhat crank, would certainly have capsized. Still, whenever the two midshipmen could get a glimpse of the sun they took their observations; and they found that they were making progress, though slowly, to the northward.

"Can you believe it, Paddy?" exclaimed Murray, "you have been on board here upwards of three months, and four have pa.s.sed away since I was placed in command of her. Still my motto is 'persevere,' and I intend to stick to it." Right gallantly did the little crew follow his example.

A few days after this, on taking their observations, they found that they had in this last twenty-four hours made good no less than forty miles, and two days after that they went over fifty miles of ground.

This put all hands in good spirits; and Adair's leg getting better, he was once more able to move about as before. They even began to fancy that all their trials were over, and that they should make an easy pa.s.sage to Sierra Leone, but they were mistaken. That very evening the sky gave signs of a change of weather. The wind began to moan in the rigging, white crests rose on the summits of the seas, which increased rapidly in size as they rolled tumultuously around them. All the canvas was closely reefed, when the gale came down upon the schooner. She stood bravely up to it on her course till it increased in strength, the lightning darting from the clouds with a vividness, and the thunder rattling and crashing with a fury which no one on board had ever before experienced. Sometimes so intense was the heat of the electric fluid as it pa.s.sed round and about them, that they expected to be actually scorched by it if they happily escaped being struck dead. The rain all the time came down in torrents, leaking through the deck and half filling the vessel, which was also letting in the water at every seam.

They had thus not a moment for rest, for they soon found it necessary to keep the pumps going all the time. At length the gale ceased; but it left them in a deplorable condition, with the leaks much increased and their sails in tatters. All the canvas had been expended, and it seemed impossible to repair them, till they bethought them of the monkey-skins in the hold; and as soon as the wind fell they were lowered down, and all hands turned to for the purpose of mending them with this novel contrivance.

"We shall do very well now," exclaimed Adair, when once more they were set. "But my friend Queerface does not seem quite to understand the joke of seeing his brothers and sisters stretched out there before him, and I should say feels remarkably uncomfortable in his own skin lest we should some day think it necessary to make use of his hide in the same way."

For three or four days they ran on to the northward, when down came another gale upon them, which gave every sign of being heavier even than the first.

"I will have no man's life exposed unnecessarily to this fearful lightning," exclaimed Murray, as flash after flash darted vividly around them.

Night had just come on. Between the intervals of the flashes the darkness was such as could be felt. Adair attempted to expostulate, and the rest would gladly have disobeyed orders; but Murray was firm, and insisted on being left alone as before.

"Well, my dear fellow, mind you don't go to sleep," observed Adair, as with the crew, Queerface, and the two parrots, he dived down into the noisome little cabin.

Hour after hour Murray gallantly stood to the helm, the little schooner dashing through the foaming seas, for he judged it better to keep her on her course than to heave her to. Terrifically the thunder rolled.

Crash succeeded crash almost without cessation, while the lightning darted from the sky and played with even more fearful vividness round the little vessel than on the former night. Still Murray undaunted stood at his post with perfect calmness. Though he scarcely expected to escape, it was not the calmness of despair or stoicism, but that which the most perfect trust in G.o.d's mercy and all-just government of human affairs can alone give. "If He thinks fit to call me hence, His will be done," he repeated to himself over and over again during that dreadful night. Several times Adair, anxious for his safety, lifted a little scuttle which had been contrived in the skylight, and inquired how he got on, and at times wondered at the fearless tone in which he replied.

Still the danger of foundering was to be feared, for, what with the torrents of rain from the skies, and the opening leaks, the little vessel was rapidly filling with water. Dawn was at length breaking and the wind was decreasing, when, as Murray looked around, he thought he saw a vessel to windward bearing down upon them. Just at that instant a cry arose from below that the schooner was sinking, and Adair and the crew leaped on deck. The pump was instantly rigged, and they worked away at it with a will. Still the water appeared to be gaining on them.

On came the stranger. She was a large and fine schooner. As the wind had decreased she was making sail; rapidly she neared them. There could be little doubt from her appearance that she was a slaver. To offer any resistance, should she wish to capture them, would be out of the question. Their hearts sank within them. Just then the glitter of some gold-lace on the cap of an officer standing on the schooner's p.o.o.p caught Adair's eye. He seized his telescope, and directly afterwards a cheer came down to them, as the schooner, shooting up into the wind, prepared to heave-to. "Huzza! huzza!" exclaimed Adair. "It's all right!--there can be no doubt of it!--There's Jack Rogers himself."

CHAPTER TWENTY.

SLAVE-HUNTING.

The big schooner and the _Venus_ were soon hove-to, and while the two vessels were bowing and bobbing away at each other, a boat was lowered from the quarter of the former, which came dashing over the seas urged by four stout hands towards them. Jack Rogers sat in the stern-sheets.

He sprang on board and grasped Alick's and Terence's hands. For nearly a minute he could not speak. He looked at one and then at the other.

"My dear fellows, you do look terribly pulled down," he exclaimed at length. "Still I am glad to see you even as you are. The truth is that it has been thought you were lost, when week after week pa.s.sed and you did not appear. Many of them gave you up altogether, and thought that you and the schooner had gone to the bottom, but I never entirely lost heart. I couldn't have borne it if I had, and I was certain that you would turn up somewhere or other. What have you been about?" Their story was soon told. "That's just like you," cried Jack, again, wringing Murray's and then Paddy's hand. "You are right. A fellow should do anything rather than desert his colours. I am glad, indeed, that you've got safe through it. But, I say, the craft seems to be moving in a very uneasy way. What is the matter?"

"If we don't keep the pumps going, she'll be going down in a few minutes," put in Needham, touching his hat.

Jack called his crew out of the boat, and all hands set to work at the pumps. It was high time, for the crazy little craft was settling fast down in the water. Four fresh hands pumping away while the rest baled once more got the leaks under, and in a couple of hours, Jack returning on board his schooner, sail was made for Sierra Leone. The schooner was a prize lately captured by the _Ranger_, and Captain Lascelles had put Jack in charge of her to carry her up to Sierra Leone, while the frigate continued her cruise to the southward. He was to find his way back to his ship by the first man-of-war calling at the port. Jack wished very much that he could remain on board the _Venus_, to keep up, as he said, his friends' spirits, but as he had two or three hundred slaves on board his prize, he had to return to her to preserve order.

He promised, however, to stay by the _Venus_, come what might, and Alick and Paddy had no fear that he would desert them. He lent them a couple of hands to work at the pumps, but even with this a.s.sistance they had the greatest difficulty in keeping the schooner afloat.

"If another gale should spring up, I really do not think the craft would keep afloat an hour," exclaimed Adair, with a ruthful countenance, after he had been pumping away for an hour, till he was, as he said, like Niobe, all tears, or a water-nymph.

"Then we must let her sink," answered Alick, calmly. "We have done our best to keep her above water, though it would be hard to bear if, after all, we should be unable to carry her into Sierra Leone."

"Never fear, Alick," exclaimed Paddy, warmly. "As long as any of us have life in our bodies, we'll pump away, depend on that. If pumping can do it, we'll keep the old craft afloat."

Not the least anxious of the many anxious hours they had pa.s.sed on board the _Venus_ were those they had now to endure. Jack Rogers, however, kept close to them, so that they had no fear about their lives. It was with no slight satisfaction, therefore, that at length they heard the cry from the foretopmast head of the _Felicidade_, Jack's prize, of "land ahead," and soon afterwards the high cape of Sierra Leone hove in sight. They ran up the river above five miles, when they came to an anchor off Freetown, the picturesque capital of the colony. It is backed by a line of lofty heights of different shapes and sizes, which are covered to their summits with trees, and add much to the beauty of the scenery, the Sugarloaf rising in the distance behind them. The river immediately in front of the town forms a bay, which affords good anchorage to vessels of all cla.s.ses. The town rises with a gentle ascent from the banks of the river, and presents a very good appearance for nearly a mile long, and the streets are broad and intersect each other at right angles. The town is open to the river on the north, but on the east, south, and west it is hemmed in by the wood-crowned hills, which are about a mile or so from it, the intervening s.p.a.ce being filled up with undulating ground, forming altogether a scene of great beauty.

Here and there in the distance could be seen the palm-thatched roofs of the cottages, which form several villages scattered about on the sides of the hills, and all united by good roads.

"What a pleasant place this would be to live in if it wasn't for the yellow fever, and the coast fever, and a few other little disagreeables," observed Adair to Murray, as they stood on the deck of the _Venus_ waiting for Jack Rogers, who was coming to take them on sh.o.r.e. Meantime Needham and the rest of the crew were still hard at work at the pumps, to keep the craft afloat. The schooner's sails being stowed, Rogers was soon alongside. With no little satisfaction they stepped into his boat. Just as they were shoving off, Queerface, who had hitherto been looking over the side, chattering in the most voluble manner, made a spring and leaped in after them, and took his seat aft as if he thought himself one of them, as Paddy remarked. He looked about him in so comical a way that they all burst into fits of laughter, and when they tried to catch him to put him on board again, he leaped about so nimbly, that they were obliged to give up the chase and allow him to accompany them on sh.o.r.e.

"If Master Queerface was asked, I have not the slightest doubt but that he would say there were four of us in the boat now," said Paddy, laughing. "Just see what a conceited look the little chap puts on; eh, Master Queerface, you think yourself a very fine fellow now."

"Kack, kack, kack," went Queerface, looking about him in the most self-satisfied manner.

"Hillo, who comes here?" cried Jack, as the boat was nearing the sh.o.r.e.

He pointed at the _Venus_, whence two large parrots were seen flying towards them.

"Those are my pets," exclaimed Murray, laughing. "We should in England be looked upon as the advertising members of some travelling menagerie."

When they got on sh.o.r.e Queerface walked alongside Paddy with the greatest gravity, except that he every now and then turned round to grin at the little negro boys who followed, making fun at him in a way he did not approve of. One of them, more daring than the rest, tried to tweak him by the tail, when he made chase in so heroic a manner that he put them all to flight. Meantime Polly and Nelly, the parrots, kept flying above their heads, and occasionally alighting to rest on Murray's shoulder. Sometimes for a change one of them would pitch on the head or back of Master Queerface, with whom they were on the most friendly terms. The dangers they had gone through together seemed to have united them closely in the bonds of unity. Thus the party proceeded till they reached the governor's house. They in vain tried to keep out Queerface and the parrots, but the governor, hearing the disturbance, desired that all hands should be admitted. He was highly amused at the pertinacity with which the parrots and monkey stuck to their masters, and still more interested with the account Murray and Adair gave of their voyage.

Indeed, they gained, as they deserved, great credit for the way in which they had stuck to their vessel. All three midshipmen were treated with the greatest kindness by the residents at Freetown, so that they had a very pleasant time of it, and were in no hurry for the arrival of a vessel to carry them back to their ships. They made friends in all directions, both among the higher as well as among the less exalted grades of society; indeed, they were general favourites. Even Queerface and Polly and Nelly came in for some share of the favour they enjoyed, for although neither monkeys nor parrots can be said to be scarce in Africa, their talents were so great and of so versatile a character, that their society was welcomed almost, Adair declared, as much as that of their masters. Queerface more than once, however, got into disgrace.

The three midshipmen were spending the day at the house of a kind old gentleman a short distance from the town. It was as cool and airy a place and as pleasant an abode as could be found under the burning sun of Africa, surrounded with broad verandahs, French windows, and Venetian blinds. The hour of dinner arrived, and all the family a.s.sembled in the dining-room, but Mr Wilkie, the host, did not make his appearance.

They began to get anxious about him, and some of the ladies hurried off to call him, when at length he came up the room laughing heartily with a white night-cap on his head. "I must apologise, ladies and gentlemen,"

he said, "but the truth is, I wear a wig, a fact you are probably aware of; but while I was taking my siesta somebody came and took my wig away.

Sambo and Julius Caesar and Ariadne have been hunting high and low and on every side without success, and what is extraordinary my dressing-gown disappeared at the same time. However, I hope that you will excuse me, for I thought it better to appear as I am than not at all; for, I confess it, I have but two wigs, and my other one has been left at the barber's to be refrizzled."

Some dreadful suspicions came over Paddy's mind when he heard this, and his fears were not allayed when he heard a loud chattering, and presently Queerface, with Polly and Nelly, appeared at the open window, the former with the missing wig on his head and the dressing-gown over his shoulders. In he popped, nothing daunted, and seeing an empty chair--the intended occupant had died of the coast fever that morning-- he squatted himself down in it, and began bowing and grinning away round to all the company.

Paddy began to scold him, but Queerface merely lifted a gla.s.s which stood near him and nodded his head at him in the most cool and impudent way, as much as to say, "We understand each other perfectly--we are both men of the world." Then he turned to the master of the house, and steadfastly looking at his white night-cap, adjusted the wig he had stolen in the most comical manner. Everybody present all the time was roaring with laughter, in which no one joined more heartily than did the master of the house.

"Come, come, Master Queerface, I want back my wig," he exclaimed, at last; "my wig, old fellow--my wig--ha--ha--ha!"

But not a bit of it. Queerface was evidently too much delighted with the ornament on his pate to think of abandoning it, and the more vehement were the signs Mr Wilkie made the tighter did he haul it down over his ears. As he sat up in a big chair, with the coloured dressing-gown over his shoulders, and the wig hanging down on each side of his head, Paddy declared that he looked exactly like a judge on the bench.

"Will you or will you not give me up my wig?" at length exclaimed the owner of it--but Queerface held it tighter than ever. "Take that, then!" cried Mr Wilkie, recollecting a well-known story of his youth, and seizing his white night-cap he flung it at Queerface. The monkey was not slow to imitate the example, but whipping off the wig, he threw it at the owner with one hand while he caught the white cap with the other, and soon his ugly mug was grinning with delight from under it.

Mr Wilkie, having delivered over his wig to one of his negro servants to be brushed and cleansed, begged his guests and family to begin dinner. Adair and his brother midshipmen apologised for the behaviour of their companion, but he a.s.sured them that he would not have missed the fun on any account, and that his wig was not a bit the worse for having been worn by the monkey.

After dinner they strolled out to see a monkey bread-tree, the baobab, a huge monster which Mr Wilkie a.s.serted was three or four thousand years old. It was not more than seventy feet high, but the stem was close upon thirty feet in diameter, with immensely long roots, while the boughs hung down to the ground, forming altogether a wonderful ma.s.s of verdure.