Tom Cringle's Log Part 45

"Ave Maria purissima, que bocado--what a mouthful!--What can that be?"

This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I was consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the women, I held my tongue. Padre Carera this time moved away to the other side from beneath the hole, but still within two feet of it--in fact, he could not get in this direction farther for the altar-piece--and being still half asleep, he lay back once more against the wall to finish his nap, taking the precaution, however, to clap on his long shovel hat, shaped like a small canoe, crosswise, with the peaks standing out from each side of his head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual.

Well, thought I, a strange party certainly; but drowsiness was fast settling down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, short bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was quite awake, the head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog was shoved into the chapel through the round aperture, and making a long stretch, with the black paws thrust down and resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the animal suddenly s.n.a.t.c.hed the Padre's hat off his head, and giving it an angry worry--as much as to say, "Confound it--I had hoped to have had the head in it"--it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell, Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us, floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the firebrands about, making them hiss again with the water he shook from his s.h.a.ggy coat, and frightening all hands like the very devil.

"Sneezer, you villain, how came you here!" I exclaimed, in great amazement--"How came you here, sir?" The dog knew me at once, and when benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a corner, and every thing was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet and motionless. "Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say--where have you come from?" He looked in the direction of the door, and then walked deliberately towards it, and tried to open it with his paws.

"Now," said the Captain, "that little scamp, who would insist on riding with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he might not be of use in fetching the surgeon from the ship in case I could not find Dr Bergara, has come back, although I desired him to stay on board. The puppy must have returned in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could your dog be here. Certainly, however, he did not know that I had fallen in with Dr Pavo Real;" and the good-natured fellow's heart melted, as he continued--"Returned--why, he may be drowned--Cringle, take care little Reefpoint be not drowned."

Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it into the white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretching his neck upwards to its full length, he gave a short bark, and then a long loud howl.

"My life upon it, the poor boy is gone," said I.

"But what can we do?" said Don Ricardo; "it is as dark as pitch."

And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy and water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still till daybreak, or sally forth now and run the chance of being drowned, with but small hope of doing any good; and the old priest having left the other end of the chapel, where the ladies were once more reposing, now came to join our council of war, and to have his share of the agua ardiente.

The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little puff of wind now and then, so that the Padre, taking an alfombra, or small mat, used to kneel on, and placing it on the step where the folding doors opened inwards, took a cloak on his shoulders, and sat himself down with his back against the leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt was broken, and was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort, when a strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had kicked it, capsized the Padre, blew out the lights once more, and scattered the brands of the fire all about us. Transom and I started up, the women shrieked; but before we could get the door to again, in rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor of the Firebrand behind him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to him by a strong thong. The black servants and the females took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy, for the yells and shrieks they set up were tremendous.

"Yo, ho!" sung out little Reefy; "don't be frightened, ladies--Lord love ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is altogether so quite entirely drowned, I a.s.sure you.--I say, Medico, an't it true?" And the little Irish rogue slewed his head round, and gave the exhausted doctor a most comical look.

"Not quite," quoth the doctor, "but deuced near it. I say, Captain, would you have known us? why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something miraculously like pea soup, water I cannot call it."

"But Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man?" said Bang.

"You may say that, sir," responded wee Reefy; "but our mule was knocked up, and it was so dark and tempestuous, that we should have perished by the road if we had tried back for St Jago; so seeing a light here, the only indication of a living thing, and the stream looking narrow and comparatively quiet--confound it, it was all the deeper though--we shoved across."

"But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream, lashed together as you are, you would have been drowned to a certainty," said the Captain.

"Oh," said little Reefy, "the doctor was not on the mule in crossing no, no, Captain, I knew better--I had him in tow, sir; but after we crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash myself to him to keep him from sliding over the animal's counter, and walk he could not."

"But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back? did I not desire you to remain on board of the Firebrand, sir?"

The midshipman looked nonplussed. "Why, Captain, I forgot to take my clothes with me, and--and--in truth, sir, I thought our surgeon would be of more use than any outlandish Gallipot that you could carry back."

The good intentions of the lad saved him farther reproof, although I could not help smiling at his coming back for his clothes, when his whole wardrobe on starting was confined to the two false collars and a toothbrush.

"But where is the young lady?" said the doctor.

"Beyond your help, my dear doctor," said the skipper; "she is dead--all that remains of her you see within that small railing there."

"Ah, indeed!" quoth the Medico, "poor girl--poor girl--deep decline, wasted, terribly wasted," said he, as he returned from the railing of the altar-piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in existence, he continued, "Pray, Mr Bang, what may you have in that bottle?"

"Brandy, to be sure, doctor," said Bang.

"A thimbleful then, if you please."

"By all means"--and the planting attorney handed the black bottle to the surgeon, who applied it to his lips, without more circ.u.mlocution.

"Lord love us!--poisoned--Oh, gemini!"

"Why, doctor," said Transom, "what has come over you?"

"Poisoned, Captain--only taste."

The bottle contained soy. It was some time before we could get the poor man quieted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early morning began to be scented. At this time we missed Padre Carera, and, in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so afterwards, I was awoke by some one stepping across me. The same cause had stirred Transom. It was Aaron Bang who had been to look out at the door.

"I say, Cringle, look here--the Padre and the servants are digging a grave close to the chapel--are they going to bury the poor girl so suddenly?"

I stepped to the door; the wind had entirely fallen--but it rained very fast--the small chapel door looked out on the still swollen, but subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain, which rose abruptly from the opposite bank. On the side of the hill facing us was situated a negro village, of about thirty huts, where lights were already twinkling, as if the inmates were preparing to go forth to their work.

Far above them, on the ridge, there was a clear cold streak towards the east, against which the outline of the mountain, and the large trees which grew on it, were sharply cut out; but overhead, the firmament was as yet dark and threatening. The morning star had just risen, and was sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magnificent tree, that shot out from the highest part of the hill; it seemed to have attracted the Captain's attention as well as mine.

"Were I romantic now, Mr Cringle, I could expatiate on that view. How cold, and clear, and chaste, every thing looks! The elements have subsided into a perfect calm, every thing is quiet and still, but there is no warmth, no comfort in the scene."

"What a soaking rain!" said Aaron Bang; "why, the drops are as small as pin points, and so thick!--a Scotch mist is a joke to them. Unusual all this, Captain. You know our rain in Jamaica usually descends in bucketfuls, unless it be regularly set in for a week, and them, but then only, it becomes what in England we are in the habit of calling a soaking rain. One good thing, however,--while it descends so quietly, the earth will absorb it all, and that furious river will not continue swollen."

"Probably not," said I.

"Mr Cringle," said the skipper, "do you mark that tree on the ridge of the mountain, that large tree in such conspicuous relief against the eastern sky?"

"I do, Captain. But--heaven help us!--what necromancy is this! It seems to sink into the mountain-top--why, I only see the uppermost branches now. It has disappeared, and yet the outline of the hill is as distinct and well defined as ever; I can even see the cattle on the ridge, although, they are running about in a very incomprehensible way certainly."

"Hush!" said Don Ricardo, "hush!--the Padre is reading the funeral service in the chapel, preparatory to the body being brought out."

And so he was. But a low grumbling noise, gradually increasing was now distinctly audible. The monk hurried on with the prescribed form--he finished it--and we were about moving the body to carry it forth--Bang and I being in the very act of stooping down to lift the bier, when the Captain sung out sharp and quick,--"Here, Tom!" the urgency of the appeal abolishing the Mister--"Here!--zounds, the whole hill-side is in motion!" And as he spoke I beheld the negro village, that hung on the opposite bank, gradually fetch way, houses, trees, and all, with a loud, harsh, grating sound.

"G.o.d defend us!" I involuntarily exclaimed.

"Stand clear," shouted the skipper; "the whole hill-side opposite is under weigh, and we shall be bothered here presently."

He was right--the entire face of the hill over against us was by this time in motion, sliding over the substratum of rock like a first rate gliding along the well-greased ways at launching--an earthy avalanche.

Presently the rough, rattling, and crashing sound, from the disrupture of the soil, and the breaking of the branches, and tearing up by the roots of the largest trees, gave warning of some tremendous incident.

The lights in the huts still burned, but houses and all continued to slide down the declivity; and anon a loud startled exclamation was heard here and there, and then a pause, but the low mysterious hurtling sound never ceased.

At length a loud continuous yell echoed along the hillside. The noise increased--the rushing sound came stronger and stronger the river rose higher, and roared louder; it overleaped the lintel of the door--the fire on the floor hissed for a moment, and then expired in smouldering wreaths of white smoke--the discoloured torrent gurgled into the chapel, and reached the altar-piece; and while the cries from the hillside were highest, and bitterest, and most despairing, it suddenly filled the chapel to the top of the low doorpost; and although the large tapers which had been lit near the altar-piece were as yet unextinguished, like meteors sparkling on a troubled sea, all was misery and consternation.

"Have patience, and be composed, now," shouted Don Ricardo. "If it increases, we can escape through the apertures here, behind the altar piece, and from thence to the high ground beyond. The heavy rain has loosened the soil on the opposite bank, and it has slid into the river course, negro houses and all. But be composed, my dears nothing supernatural in all this; and rest a.s.sured, although the river has unquestionably been forced from its channel, that there is no danger, if you will only maintain your self-possession."

And there we were--an inhabitant of a cold climate cannot go along with me in the description. We were all alarmed, but we were not chilled cold is a great daunter of bravery. At New Orleans, the black regiments, in the heart of the forenoon, were really the most efficient corps of the army; but in the morning, when the h.o.a.rfrost was on the long wire-gra.s.s, they were but as a broken reed. "Him too cold for brave today," said the sergeant of the grenadier company of the West India regiment, which was brigaded in the ill-omened advance, when we attacked New Orleans; but here, having heat, and seeing none of the women egregiously alarmed, we all took heart of grace, and really there was no quailing amongst us.

Senora Campana and her two nieces, Senora Cangrejo and her angelic daughter, had all betaken themselves to a sort of seat, enclosing the altar in a semicircle, with the pea soup-coloured water up to their knees. Not a word--not an exclamation of fear escaped from them, although the gushing eddies from the open door showed that the soil from the opposite hill was fast settling down, and usurping the former channel of the river.

"All very fine this to read of," at last exclaimed Aaron Bang. "Zounds, we shall be drowned. Look out, Transom; Tom Cringle, look out; for my part, I shall dive through the door, and take my chance."

"No use in that," said Don Ricardo; "the two round openings there at the west end of the chapel, open on a dry shelf, from which the ground slopes easily upward to the house; let us put the ladies through them, and then we males can shift for ourselves as we best may."

At this moment the water rose so high, that the bier on which the corpse of poor Maria Olivera lay stark and stiff, was floated off the trestles, and turning on its edge, after glancing for a moment in the light cast by the wax tapers, it sank into the thick brown water, and was no more seen.

The old priest murmured a prayer, but the effect on us was electric.

"Sauve qui peut" was now the cry; and Sneezer, quite in his element, began to cruise all about, threatening the tapers with instant extinction.