Tom Cringle's Log Part 46

"Ladies, get through the holes," shouted Don Ricardo. "Captain, get you out first."

"Can't desert my ship," said the gallant fellow; "the last to quit where danger is, my dear sir. It is my charter; but, Mr Cringle, go you, and hand the ladies out."

"I'll be d----d if I do," said I. "Beg pardon, sir; I simply mean to say, that I cannot usurp the pas from you."

"Then," quoth Don Ricardo--a more discreet personage than any one of us "I will go myself;" and forthwith he screwed himself through one of the round holes in the wall behind the altar-piece. "Give me out one of the wax tapers--there is no wind now," said Don Ricardo "and hand out my wife, Captain Transom."

"Ave Maria!" said the matron, "I shall never get through that hole."

"Try, my dear madam," said Bang, for by this time we were all deucedly alarmed at our situation. "Try, madam;" and we lifted her towards the hole--fairly entered her into it head foremost, and all was smooth, till a certain part of the excellent woman's earthly tabernacle stuck fast.

We could hear her invoking all the saints in the calendar on the outside to "make her thin;" but the flesh and muscle were obdurate through she would not go, until--delicacy being now blown to the winds, Captain Transom placed his shoulder to the old lady's extremity, and with the regular "Oh, heave oh!" shot her through the aperture into her husband's arms. The young ladies we ejected much more easily, although Francesca Cangrejo did stick a little too. The priest was next pa.s.sed, then Don Picador; and so we went on, until in rotation we had all made our exit, and were perched shivering on the high bank. G.o.d defend us!

we had not been a minute there when the rushing of the stream increased the rain once more fell in torrents several large trees came down with a fearful impetus in the roaring torrent, and struck the corner of the chapel. It shook--we could see the small cross on the eastern gable tremble. Another stump surged against it--it gave way--and in a minute afterwards there was not a vestige remaining of the whole fabric.

"What a funeral for thee, Maria!" said Don Ricardo.

Not a vestige of the body was ever found.

There was nothing now for it. We all stopped, and turned, and looked, there was not a stone of the building to be seen--all was red precipitous bank, or dark flowing river--so we turned our steps towards the house. The sun by this time had risen. We found the northern range of rooms still entire, so we made the most of it; and, by dint of the Captain's and my nautical skill, before dinner-time, there was rigged a canva.s.s jury-roof over the southern part of the fabric, and we were once-more seated in comparative comfort at our meal. But it was all melancholy work enough. However, at last we retired to our beds; and next morning, when I awoke, there was the small stream once more trickling over the face of the rock, with the slight spray wafting into my bedroom, a little discoloured certainly, but as quietly as if no storm had taken place.

We were kept at Don Picador's for three days, as, from the shooting of the soil from the opposite hill, the river had been dammed up, and its channel altered, so that there was no venturing across. Three Negroes were unfortunately drowned, when the bank shot, as Bang called it. But the wonder pa.s.sed away; and by nine o'clock on the fourth morning, when we mounted our mules to proceed, there was little apparently on the fair face of nature to mark that such fearful scenes had been. However, when we did get under weigh, we found that the hurricane had not pa.s.sed over us without leaving fearful evidences of its violence.

We had breakfasted--the women had wept--Don Ricardo had blown his nose-- Aaron Bang had blundered and fidgeted about and the bestias were at the door. We embraced the ladies.

"My son," said Senora Cangrejo, "we shall most likely never meet again.

You have your country to go to--you have a mother. Oh, may she never suffer the pangs which have wrung my heart But I know--I know that she never will." I bowed. "We may never indeed, in all likelihood we shall never meet again!" continued she, in a rich, deep-toned, mellow voice; "but if your way of life shall ever lead you to Cordova, you will be sure of having many visitors, and many a door will open to you, if you will but give out that you have shown kindness to Maria Olivera, or to any one connected with her." She wept--and bent over me, pressing both her hands on the crown of my head. "May that great G.o.d, who careth not for rank or station, for nation or for country, bless you, my son--bless you!"

All this was sorry work. She kissed me on the forehead, and turned away. Her daughter was standing close to her, "like Niobe, all tears."

"Farewell, Mr Cringle--may you be happy!" I kissed her hand--she turned to the Captain. He looked inexpressible things, and taking her hand, held it to his breast; and then, making a slight genuflection, pressed it to his lips. He appeared to be amazingly energetic, and she seemed to struggle to be released. He recovered himself, however--made a solemn bow----the ladies vanished. We shook hands with old Don Picador, mounted our mules, and bid a last adieu to the Valley of the Hurricane.

We ambled along for some time in silence. At length the skipper dropped astern, until he got alongside of me. "I say, Tom"--I was well aware that he never called me Tom unless he was fou, or his heart was full, honest man--"Tom, what think you of Francesca Cangrejo?"

Oh ho! sits the wind in that quarter? thought I. "Why, I don't know, Captain--I have seen her to disadvantage--so much misery fine woman though--rather large to my taste--but...."

"Confound your buts," quoth the Captain. "But, never mind push on, push on."--I may tell the gentle reader in his ear, that the worthy fellow, at the moment when I send this chapter to the press, has his flag, and that Francesca Cangrejo is no less a personage than his wife.

However, let us get along. "Doctor Pavo Real," said Don Ricardo,.now since you have been good enough to spare us a day, let us get the heart of your secret out of you. Why, you must have been pretty well frightened on the island there.'

"Never so much frightened in my life, Don Ricardo; that English captain is a most tempestuous man--but all has ended well; and after having seen you to the crossing, I will bid you good-by."

"Poo--nonsense." "Come along--here is the English Medico, your brother Esculapius; so, come along, you can return in the morning." "But the sick folk in Santiago...."

"Will be none the sicker for your absence, Doctor Pavo Real," responded Don Ricardo.

The little Doctor laughed, and away we all cantered--Don Ricardo leading, followed by his wife and nieces, on three stout mules, sitting, not on side-saddles, but on a kind of chair, with a foot-board on the larboard side to support the feet--then followed the two Calens, and little Reefpoint, while the Captain and I brought up the rear. We had not proceeded five hundred yards, when we were brought to a stand-still by a mighty tree, which had been thrown down by the wind fairly across the road. On the right hand there was a perpendicular rock rising up to a height of five hundred feet; and on the left an equally precipitous descent, without either ledge or parapet to prevent one from falling over. What was to be done? We could not by any exertion of strength remove the tree; and if we sent back for a.s.sistance, it would have been a work of time. SO we dismounted, got the ladies to alight, and Aaron Bang, Transom, and myself, like true knights-errant, undertook to ride the mulos over the stump.

Aaron Bang led gallantly, and made a deuced good jump of it, Transom followed, and made not quite so clever an exhibition--I then rattled at it, and down came mule and rider. However, we were accounted for on the right side.

"But what shall become of us?" shouted the English doctor.

"And as for me, I shall return," said the Spanish Medico.

"Lord love you, no," said little Reefpoint; "here, lash me to my beast, and no fear." The doctor made him fast, as desired, round the mule's neck with a stout thong, and then drove him at the barricade, and over they came, man and beast, although, to tell the truth, little Reefy alighted well out on the neck with a hand grasping each ear. However, he was a gallant little fellow, and in nowise discouraged, so he undertook to bring over the other quadrupeds; and in little more than a quarter of an hour we were all under weigh on the opposite side, in full sail towards Don Ricardo's property. But as we proceeded up the valley, the destruction caused by the storm became more and more apparent.

Trees were strewn about in, all directions, having been tom up by the roots--road there was literally none; and by the time we reached the coffee estate, after a ride, or scramble, more properly speaking, of three hours, we were all pretty much tired. In some places the road at the best was but a rocky shelf of Limestone not exceeding twelve inches in width, where, if you had slipped, down you would have gone a thousand feet. At this time it was white and clean, as if it had been newly chiselled, all the soil and sand having been washed away by the recent heavy rains.

The situation was beautiful; the house stood on a platform sc.r.a.ped out of the hillside, with a beautiful view of the whole country down to St Jago. The accommodation was good; more comforts, more English comforts, in the mansion than I had yet seen in Cuba; and as it was built of solid slabs of limestone, and roofed with strong hardwood timbers and rafters, and tiled, it had sustained comparatively little injury, as it had the advantage of being at the same time sheltered by the overhanging cliff.

It stood in the middle of a large platform of hard sun-dried clay, plastered over, and as white as chalk, which extended about forty feet from the eaves of the house, in every direction, on which the coffee was cured. This platform was surrounded on all sides by the greenest gra.s.s I had ever seen, and overshadowed, not the house alone, but the whole level s.p.a.ce, by one vast wild fig-tree.

"I say, Tom, do you see that Scotchman hugging the Creole, eh?"

"Scotchman!" said I, looking towards Don Ricardo, who certainly did not appear to be particularly amorous; on the contrary, we had just alighted, and the worthy man was enacting groom.

"Yes," continued Bang, "the Scotchman hugging the Creole; look at that tree--do you see the trunk of it?"

I did look at it. It was a magnificent cedar, with a tall straight stem, covered over with a curious sort of fretwork, wove by the branches of some strong parasitical plant, which had warped itself round and round it, by numberless snakelike convolutions, as if it had been a vegetable Laoc.o.o.n. The tree itself shot up branchless to the uncommon height of fifty feet; the average girth of the hunk being four-and twenty feet, or eight-feet in diameter. The leaf of the cedar is small, not unlike the ash; but when I looked up, I noticed that the feelers of this ligneous serpent had twisted round the larger boughs, and blended their broad leaves with those of the tree, so that it looked like two trees grafted into one; but, as Aaron Bang said, in a very few years the cedar would entirely disappear, its growth being impeded, its pith extracted, and its core rotted, by the baleful embraces of the wild fig, of "this Scotchman hugging the Creole." After we had fairly shaken into our places, there was every promise of a very pleasant visit. Our host had a tolerable cellar, and although there was not much of style in his establishment, still there was a fair allowance of comfort, every thing considered. The evening after we arrived was most beautiful. The house, situated on its white plateau of barbicues, as the coffee platforms are called, where large piles of the berries in their red cherry like husks had been blackening in the sun the whole forenoon, and on which a gang of negroes was now employed covering them up with tarpawlins for the night, stood in the centre of an amphitheatre of mountains, the front box, as it were, the stage part opening on a bird's eye-view of the distant town and harbour, with the everlasting ocean beyond it, the currents and flaws of wind making its surface look like ice, as we were too distant to discern the heaving of the swell, or the motion of the billows. The fast falling shades of evening were deepened by the sombrous shadow of the immense tree overhead, and all down in the deep valley was now becoming dark and undistinguishable, through the blue vapours that were gradually floating up towards us. To the left, on the shoulder of the Horseshoe Hill, the sunbeams still lingered, and the gigantic shadows of the trees on the right hand p.r.o.ng were strongly cast across the valley on a red precipitous bank near the top of it.

The sun was descending beyond the wood, flashing through the branches, as if they had been on fire. He disappeared. It was a most lovely still evening--the air--but hear the skipper.

"It is the hour when from the boughs, The nightingale's high note is heard; It is the hour when lovers vows, Seem sweet in every whisper'd word; And gentle winds and waters near, Make music to the lonely ear.

Each flower the dews have lightly wet, And in the sky the stars are met, And on the wave is deeper blue, And on the leaf is browner hue, And in the heaven that clear obscure, So softly dark, and darkly pure, Which follows the decline of day, When twilight melts beneath the moon away."

"Well recited, skipper," shouted Bang. "Given as the n.o.ble poet's verses should be given. I did not know the extent of your accomplishments; grown poetical ever since you saw Francesca Cangrejo, eh?"

The darkness hid the gallant captain's blushes, if blush he did.

"I say, Don Ricardo, who are those?"--half-a-dozen well-clad negroes had approached the house by this time--"Ask them, Mr Bang; take your friend Mr Cringle for an interpreter."

"Well, I will. Tom, who are they? Ask them--do."

I put the question, "Do you belong to the property?"

The foremost, a handsome Negro answered me, "No, we don't, sir; at least, not till tomorrow."

"Not till tomorrow?"

"No, sir; somos caballeros hoy" (we are gentlemen to-day.)

"Gentlemen today; and, pray, what shall you be tomorrow?"

"Esclavos otra ves," (slaves again, sir,) rejoined the poor fellow, nowise daunted.

"And you, my darling," said I to a nice well-dressed girl, who seemed to be the sister of the spokesman, ".what are you today, may I ask?"

She laughed--"Esclava, a slave to-day, but to-morrow I shall be free."

"Very strange."

"Not at all, senor; there are six of us in a family, and one of us is free each day, all to father there," pointing to an old grey-headed negro, who stood by, leaning on his staff--"he is free two days in the week; and as I am going to have a child,"--a cool admission,--"I want to buy another day for myself too--but Don Ricardo will tell you all about it."