Tom Cringle's Log Part 59

Cutla.s.ses, men--quick, a piratical row--boat is close to." And verily we had little time to lose, when a large canoe or row--boat, pulling twelve oars at the fewest, and carrying twenty--five men, or thereabouts, swept up on our larboard quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of twenty unlooked--for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and jumped on board. All this took place so suddenly that there were not ten of my people ready to receive them, but those ten were the prime men of the ship.

"Surrender, you scoundrels--surrender. You have boarded a man-of-war.

Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to a man."

But they either did not understand me, or did not believe me, for the answer was a blow from a cutla.s.s, which, if I had not parried with my night-gla.s.s, which it broke in pieces, might have effectually stopped my promotion.

"Cut them down, boarders, down with them--they are pirates," shouted I; "heave cold shot into their boat alongside--all hands, Mr Rousemout," to the boatswain, "call all hands."

We closed. The a.s.sailants had no firearms, but they were armed with swords and long knives, and as they fought with desperation, several of our people were cruelly haggled; and after the first charge, the combatants on both sides became so blended, that it was impossible to strike a blow, without running the risk of cutting down a friend. By this time all hands were on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by the cold shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when down came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout--call it which you will--that absolutely deluged the decks, the scuppers being utterly unable to carry off the water. So long as the pirates fought in a body, I had no fears, as, dark as it was, our men, who held together, knew where to strike and thrust; but when the torrent of rain descended in bucketfuls, the former broke away, and were pursued singly into various corners about the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of their boat. Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the binnacle, where a blue light was stowed away,--one of several that we had got on deck to b.u.m that night, in order to point out our whereabouts to the Firebrand. I fired it, and rushing forward cutla.s.s-in-hand, we set on the gang of black desperadoes with such fury, that after killing two of them outright, and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove the rest overboard into the sea, where the small-armed men, who by this time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, guided as they were by the sparkling of the dark water, as they struck out and swam for their lives. The blue light was immediately answered by another from the corvette, which lay about a mile off; but before her boats, two of which were immediately armed and manned, could reach us, we had defeated our antagonists, and the rain had increased to such a degree, that the heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise into the sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire.

We--secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most villainous looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after it came on to thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had been falling together.

A most vivid flash--it almost blinded me. Presently the Firebrand burnt another blue light, whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close by the cap, with the topsail, and upper spars, and yards, and gear, all hanging down in a lumbering ma.s.s of confused wreck; she had been struck by the levin brand, which had killed four men, and stunned several more.

By this time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the eastern horizon, and soon after the day broke; and by two o'clock in the afternoon, both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives. The village, for town it could not be called, stands on a low hot plain, as if the washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood in had been carried out into the sea, and formed into a white plateau of sand; all was hot and stunted, and scrubby. We brought up inside of the corvette, in three fathoms water. My superior officer had made the private signal to come on board and dine. I dressed, and the boat was lowered down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay under the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes of coffee.

"Pray, sir," said a decent-looking man, who leant on the tafferel of one of them--"Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?"

"I am," I answered.

"I am invited there too, sir; will you have the kindness to say I will be there presently?"

"Certainly--give way, men."

Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next moment we stood on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with my stanch friend Captain Transom and his officers, all in full fig, walking to and fro under the awning, a most magnificent naval lounge, being thirty two feet wide at the gangway, and extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to twenty at the tafferel. We were all--the two masters of the merchantmen, decent respectable men in their way, included--graciously received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking the lead as usual in all the fun; and we were just on the verge of cigars and cold grog, when the first lieutenant came down and said that the captain of the port had come off, and was then on board.

"Show him in," said Captain Transom, and a tall, vulgar-looking blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast-off coat of a French grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in his hand, and a Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull. He made his bow, and remained standing near the door.

"You are the captain of the port?" said Captain Transom. The man answered in French, that he was. "Why, then, take a chair, sir, if you please."

He begged to be excused and after tipping off his b.u.mper of claret, and receiving the Captain's report, he made his bow and departed.

I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on board of the Commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on sh.o.r.e to Monsieur B----'s, to whom Ma.s.sa Aaron was known. The town, if I may call it so, had certainly a very desolate appearance. There was nothing stirring; and although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one-story, shabby looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled river-courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread wings, but without taking flight. Still many of the women, who were sitting under the small piazzas, or projecting eaves of the houses, with their little stalls, filled with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy-looking, and appeared comfortable and happy. As we advanced into the town, almost every male we met was a soldier, all rigged and well dressed, too, in the French uniform; in fact, the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe, took care to have his troops well fed and clothed in every case. On our way we had to pa.s.s by the Commandant, Baron B----'s house, when it occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay our respects; but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend Monsieur B----'s. As we approached the house--a long, low, one-story building, with a narrow piazza, and a range of unglazed windows, staring open, with their wooden shutters, like ports in a ship's side, towards the street--we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced ourselves, carried arms all in regular style. Presently a very good looking negro, in a handsome aide-de-camp's uniform, appeared, and, hat in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us into the presence of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish chair half asleep, but on hearing us announced he rose, and received us with great amenity. He was a fat elderly negro, so far as I could judge, about sixty years of age, and was dressed in very wide jean trowsers, over which a pair of well polished Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his legs, gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments above, the appearance of being underlimbed, which he by no means was, being a stout old Turk.

After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and superabundant a.s.surances of the esteem in which his master King Henry held our master King George, we made our bows and repaired to Monsieur B----'s, where I was engaged to dine. As for Captain Transom, he went on board that evening to superintend the repairs of the ship.

There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B----and his daughter, a tall and very elegant brown girl, who had been educated in France, and did the honours incomparably well. We sat down, Ma.s.sa Aaron whispering in my lug, that in Jamaica it was not quite the thing to introduce brown ladies at dinner; but, as he said, "Why not? Neither you nor I are high caste creoles--so en avant."

Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B----'s aide-de-camp slid into the room. Monsieur B----rose. "Captain Latour, you are welcome--be seated.

I hope you have not dined?"

"Why no," said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat himself down close to el Senor Bang.

"Hillo, Quashie! Whereaway, my lad? a little above the salt, an't you?"

e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed our amigo; while Pegtop, who had just come on sh.o.r.e, and was standing behind his master, stared and gaped in the greatest wonderment.

But Mr Bang's natural good breeding, and knowledge of the world, instantly recalled him to time and circ.u.mstances; and when the young officer looked at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and invited him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine. The aide-de-camp was, as I have said, jet-black as the ace of spades, but he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very handsome man tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, which were beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statuary, would probably have balanced the cuc.u.mber curve of the shin; his face, however, was regular negro-flat nose, heavy lips, fine eyes, and beautiful teeth, and he wore two immense gold earrings. His woolly head was bound round with a pullicate handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took off his laced c.o.c.ked hat. His coat was the exact pattern of the French staff uniform at the time--plain blue, without lace, except at the cape and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth, covered with rich embroidery.

He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel scabbard, and the white trowsers, and long Hessian boots, already described as part of the costume of his general.

Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and with the tact of a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his new ally was black, blue, or green, while the claret, stimulating him into self possession, was evaporating in broken French. But his man Pegtop had been pushed off his balance altogether; his equanimity was utterly gone. When the young officer brushed past him, at the first go off, while he was rinsing some gla.s.ses in the pa.s.sage, his sword banged against Pegtop's derriere as he stooped down over his work. He started and looked round, and merely exclaimed--"Eigh, Ma.s.sa Niger, wurra dat!" But now, when, standing behind his master's chair, he saw the aide-de-camp consorting with him whom he looked upon as the greatest man in existence, on terms of equality, all his faculties were paralysed.

"Pegtop," said I, "hand me some yam, if you please."

He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled.

"Pegtop, you scoundrel," quoth ma.s.sa Aaron, "don't you hear what Captain Cringle says, sir?"

"Oh yes, ma.s.sa;" and thereupon the sable valet brought me a bottle of fish sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my winegla.s.s. All this while Eugenie and the aide-de-camp were playing the agreeable--and in very good taste, too, let me tell you.

I had just drank wine with mine host, when I cast my eye along the pa.s.sage that led out of the room, and there was Pegtop dancing, and jumping, and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy of laughter, as he doubled himself up, with the tears welling over his cheeks.

"Oh, Lord! Oh!--Ma.s.sa Bang bow, and make face, and drink wine, and do every ting shivil, to one dam black rascall n.i.g.g.e.r!--Oh, blackee more worser clan me, Gabriel Pegtop----Oh, Lard!--ha! ha! ha!"--Thereupon he threw himself down in the piazza, amongst plates and dishes and shouted and laughed in a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the poor fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far quelled the hysterical pa.s.sion, that he came in again, grave as a judge, and took his place behind his master's chair once more, and every thing went on smoothly. The aide-de-camp, who appeared quite unconscious that he was the cause of the poor fellow's mirth, renewed his attentions to Eugenie; and Mr Bang, Monsieur B----, and myself, were again engaged in conversation, and our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of melon to the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed bayonets, stept into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his station on each side of the door. Presently another aide-de-camp, booted and spurred, dashed after them; and, as soon as he crossed the threshold, sung out, "Place, pour Monsieur le Baron."

The electrical nerve was again touched--"Oh!--oh!--oh! Caramighty! here comes anoder on dem," roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the paroxysm, if possible, (while he fractured the plate on the black aide's skull,) and immediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a scattering of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone quarry.

"Zounds, this is too much,"--exclaimed Bang, as he rose and kicked the poor fellow out again, with such vehemence, that his skull, encountering the paunch of our friend the Baron, who was entering from the street at that instant, capsized him outright, and away rolled his Excellency the General de Division, Commandant de L'Arrondiss.e.m.e.nt, &c. &c. digging his spurs into poor Pegtop's transom, and sacring furiously, while the black servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil. The aides started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr Bang, and touched the hilt of his sword, grinding the word 'satisfaction' between his teeth, while the other ordered the sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth had been so uproarious, through. However, he got off with one or two brogues in a very safe place; and when Monsieur B----explained how matters stood, and that the "pauvre diable," as the black Baron coolly called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated creature, and that no insult was meant, we had all a hearty laugh, and every thing rolled right again. At length the Baron and his black tail rose to wish us a good evening, and we were thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a gla.s.s of cold grog, when Monsieur B----'s daughter returned into the piazza, very pale, and evidently much frightened. "Mon pere," said she while her voice quavered from excessive agitation--"My father--why do the soldiers remain?"

We all peered into the dark pa.s.sage, and there, true enough, were the black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still and motionless as statues. Monsieur B----, poor fellow, fell back in his chair at the sight, as if he had been shot through the heart.

"My fate is sealed--I am lost--oh, Eugenie!" were the only words he could utter.

"No, no," exclaimed the weeping girl, "G.o.d forbid--the Baron is a kind hearted man--King Henry cannot--no, no--he knows you are not disaffected, he will not injure you."

Here one of the black aides-de-camp suddenly returned. It was the poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie during the entertainment. He looked absolutely blue with dismay; his voice shook, and his knees knocked together as he approached our host.

He tried to speak, but could not. "Oh, Pierre, Pierre," moaned, or rather gasped Eugenie, "what have you come to communicate? what dreadful news are you the bearer of?" He held out an open letter to poor B----, who, unable to read it from excessive agitation, handed it to me. It ran thus:

"MONSIEUR LE BARON, Monsieur--has been arrested here this morning; he is a white Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against him. Place his partner M. B----under the surveillance of the police instantly. You are made answerable for his safe custody."

"Witness his Majesty's hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this----"

The Count.

"Then I am doomed," groaned poor Mr B----. His daughter fainted, the black officer wept, and having laid his senseless mistress on a sofa, he approached and wrung B----'s hand. "Alas, my dear sir--how my heart bleeds! But cheer up--King Henry is just--all may be right--all may still be right; and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count on nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for holding ourselves blameless with the Government."

Enough and to spare of this. We slept on sh.o.r.e that night, and a very neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon. Intending to go on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and dressed myself, and opened the door into the street to let myself out, when I stumbled unwittingly against the black sentry, who must have been half asleep, for he immediately stepped several paces back, and presenting his musket, the clear barrel glancing in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it missed fire, which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B----, attempting to escape; but that day week he was marched to the prison of La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been previously lodged; and from that hour to this, neither of them were ever heard of. Next evening I again went ash.o.r.e, but I was denied admittance to him; and, as my orders were imperative not to interfere in any way, I had to return on board with a heavy heart.

The day following, Captain Transom and myself paid a formal I visit to the black Baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to obtain poor B----'s release if we could. Mr Bang accompanied us. We found the sable dignitary lounging in a gra.s.s hammock, (slung from corner to corner of a very comfortless room, for the floor was tiled, the windows were unglazed, and there was no furniture whatsoever but an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard and three wicker chairs) apparently half-asleep, or ruminating after his breakfast. On our being announced by a half-naked negro servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly I beg his lordship's pardon, I should write graciously--and made us take wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled; but I saw he carefully avoided the subject which he evidently knew was the object of our visit. At length, finding it would be impossible for him to parry it much longer single-handed, with tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out "Marie! Marie!" Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very handsome brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her work when we first entered, in a small dark back porch, and advance after curtseying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old fat niger introduced her to us as "Madame la Baronne."

"His wife?" whispered Aaron; "the old rank goat!"

Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine-ewer with the perfect quietude and ease of a well-bred woman. She was a most lovely clear skinned quadroon girl. She could not have been twenty; tall and beautifully shaped. Her long coal-black tresses were dressed high on her head, which was bound round with the everlasting Madras handkerchief, in which pale blue was the prevailing colour; but it was elegantly adjusted, and did not come down far enough to shade the fine development of her majestic forehead--Pasta's in Semiramide was not more commanding. Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply defined, and her eyes of jet were large and swimming; her nose had not utterly abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, but, notwithstanding, her countenance shone with all the beauty of expression so conspicuous in the Egyptian sphinx Abyssinian, but most sweet--while her teeth were as the finest ivory, and her chin and throat, and bosom, as if her bust had been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship. The only ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear-rings, ma.s.sive yellow hoops without any carving, but so heavy that they seemed to weigh down the small thin transparent ears which they perforated; and a broad black velvet band round her neck, to which was appended a large ma.s.sive crucifix of the same metal. She also wore two broad bracelets of black velvet clasped with gold. Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely veiled by a cambric chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which she wore a rose-coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a finely formed foot and ankle, with a well-selected pearl white silk stocking, and a neat low-cut French black kid shoe. As for gown, she had none. She wore a large-sparkling diamond ring on her marriage finger, and we were all bowing before the deity, when our attention was arrested by a cloud of dust at the top of the street, and presently a solitary black dragoon sparked out from it, his accoutrements and headpiece blazing in the sun, then three more abreast, and immediately a troop of five-and-twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering down the street. They formed opposite the Baron's house, and I will say I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere. Presently an aide-de-camp scampered up; and having arrived opposite the door, dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, "Les Comtes de Lemonade et Marmalade."--"The who?" said Mr Bang; but presently two very handsome young men of colour, in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a glittering staff, of at least twenty mounted officers. They alighted, and entering, made their bow to Baron B----. The youngest, the Count Lemonade, spoke very decent English, and what between Mr Bang's and my bad, and Captain Transom's very good, French, we all made ourselves agreeable. I may state here, that Lemonade and Marmalade are two districts of the island of St Domingo, which had been pitched on by Christophe to give t.i.tles to two of his fire--new n.o.bility. The grandees had come on a survey of the district, and although we did not fail to press the matter of poor B----'s release, yet they either had no authority to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that they had, so we reluctantly took leave, and went on shipboard.

"Tom, you villain," said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the boat, "if my eye had caught yours when these n.o.blemen made their entree, I should have exploded with laughter, and most likely have had my throat cut for my pains. Pray, did his highness of Lemonade carry a punch-ladle in his hand? I am sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly can? Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my dear old mother flitted before my mind's eye, with the bright, well-scoured, large bra.s.s pans in the background, as she superintended her handmaidens in their annual preservations."

After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port au Prince, where we arrived the following evening.

I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the Bight of Leogane, but the reality far surpa.s.sed what I had pictured to myself.

The breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy ripple, and a brown-skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep, clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow-sailing pelican overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, dropping into the sea like lead, and flashing up the water like the bursting of a sh.e.l.l, as we sailed up into a glorious amphitheatre of stupendous mountains, covered with one eternal forest, that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains that skirted the sh.o.r.e; while what had once been smiling fields, and rich sugar plantations, in the long misty level districts at their bases, were now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one impervious thicket; and as the Island of Conave closed in the view behind us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling ma.s.ses of golden and blood-red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to-morrow, and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a certain depth it had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually deepening into imperial purple. Beyond the shadow of the tree-covered islet, on the left hand, rose the town of Port-au-Prince, with its long streets rising like terraces on the gently swelling sh.o.r.e, while the mountains behind it, still gold tipped in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend frowningly over it, and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the town were just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually increasing darkness, and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin window and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the piazzas of the houses on sh.o.r.e like a will-of-the-wisp, and the chirping buzz of myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off from the island a-stem of us, borne on the wings of the light wind, which, charged with rich odours from the closing flowers, fanned us "like the sweet south, soft breathing o'er a bed of violets," when a sudden flash and a jet of white smoke puffed out from the hill-fort above the town, the report thundering amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling itself to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of nature like a pall, and all was undistinguishable.--When I had written thus far--it was at Port-au-Prince, at Mr S----'s--Mr Bang entered--"Ah! Tom--at the log, polishing--using the plane--shaping out something for Ebony let me see."