Tom Cringle's Log Part 66

"Ay! what does she look like?"

"I see the stumps of two lower masts, but the bowsprit is gone, sir--I think she must be a schooner or a brig, sir."

The Captain was standing by, and looked up to me, as I stood on the long eighteen at the weather-gangway.

"Is the breeze not too strong, Mr Cringle?"

I glanced my eye over the side--"Why, no, sir--a boat will live well enough--there is not so much sea in sh.o.r.e here."

"Very well--haul the courses up, and heave-to."

It was done.

"Pipe away the yawlers, boatswain's mate."

The boat over the lee-quarter was lowered, and I was sent to reconnoitre the object that had attracted our attention. As we approached, we pa.s.sed the floating swollen carca.s.ses of several bullocks, and some pieces of wreck; and getting into smooth water, under the lee of the reef, we pulled up under the stem of the shattered hull which lay across it, and scrambled on deck by the boat tackles, that hung from the davits, as if the jolly-boat had recently been lowered.

The vessel was a large Spanish schooner, apparently about one hundred and eighty tons burden, nearly new; every thing strong and well fitted about her, with a beautiful s.p.a.cious flush-deck, surrounded by high solid bulwarks. All the boats had disappeared; they might either have been carried away by the crew, or washed overboard by the sea. Both masts were gone about ten feet above the deck; which, with the whole of their spars and canva.s.s, and the wreck of the bowsprit, were lumbering and rattling against the lee-side of the vessel, and splashing about in the broken water, being still attached to the hull by the standing rigging, no part of which had been cut away. The mainsail, foresail, fore-topsail, fore-staysail, and jib were all set, so she must most likely have gone on the reef, either under a press of canva.s.s in the night, in ignorance of its vicinity, or by missing stays.

She lay on her beam-ends across the coral rock, on which there was about three feet water where shallowest, and had fallen over to leeward, presenting her starboard broadside to the sea, which surged along it in a slanting direction, while the lee gunwale was under water. The boiling white breakers were dashing right against her bows, lifting them up with every send, and thundering them down again against the flint-- hard coral spikes, with a loud gritting rumble; while every now and then the sea made a fair breach over them, flashing up over the whole deck aft to the tafferel in a snow storm of frothy flakes. Forward in the bows there lay, in one horrible fermenting and putrefying ma.s.s, the carca.s.ses of about twenty bullocks, part of her deck-load of cattle, rotted into one hideous lump, with the individual bodies of the poor brutes almost obliterated and undistinguishable, while streams of decomposed animal matter were ever and anon flowing down to leeward, although as often washed away by the hissing waters. But how shall I describe the scene of horror that presented itself in the after part of the vessel, under the lee of the weather-bulwarks!

There, lashed to the ring-bolts, and sheltered from the sun and sea, by a piece of canva.s.s, stretched across a broken oar, lay, more than half naked, the dead bodies of an elderly female, and three young women; one of the latter with two lifeless children fastened by handkerchiefs to her waist, while each of the other two had the corpse of an infant firmly clasped in her arms.

It was the dry season, and as they lay right in the wake of the windward ports, exposed to a thorough draft of air, and were defended from the sun and the spray, no putrefaction had taken place; the bodies looked like mummies, the shrunken muscles, and wasted features, being covered with a dry h.o.r.n.y skin, like parchment; even the eyes remained full and round, as if they had been covered over with a hard dim scale.

On looking down into the steerage, we saw another corpse, that of a tall young slip of a Spanish girl, surging about in the water, which reached nearly to the deck, with her long black hair floating and spread out all over her neck and bosom, but it was so offensive and decayed, that we were glad to look another way. There was no male corpse to be seen, which, coupled with the absence of the boats, evinced but too clearly that the crew had left the females, with their helpless infants, on the wreck to perish. There was a small roundhouse on the after-part of the deck, in which we found three other women alive, but wasted to skeletons. We took them into the boat, but one died in getting her over the side; the other two we got on board, and I am glad to say that they both recovered. For two days neither could speak; there seemed to be some rigidity about the throat and mouth that prevented them; but at length the youngest--(the other was her servant)--a very handsome woman, became strong enough to tell us, "that it was the schooner Caridad that we had boarded, bound from Rio de la Hache to Savana la Mar, where she was to have discharged her deck-load of cattle, and afterwards to have proceeded to Batabano, in Cuba. She had struck, as I surmised, in the night, about a fortnight before we fell in with her; and next morning, the crew and male pa.s.sengers took to the boats, which with difficulty contained them, leaving the women under a promise to come back that evening, with a.s.sistance from the sh.o.r.e, but they never appeared, nor were they ever after heard of." And here the poor thing cried as if her heart would break. "Even my own Juan, my husband, left me and my child to perish on the wreck. Oh G.o.d! Oh G.o.d! I could not have left him--I could not have left him."

There had been three families on board, with their servants, who were emigrating to Cuba, all of whom had been abandoned by the males, who, as already related, must in all human probability have perished after their unmanly desertion. As the whole of the provisions were under water, and could not be got at, the survivors had subsisted on raw flesh so long as they had strength to cut it, or power to swallow it; what made the poor creature tell it, I cannot imagine, if it were not to give the most vivid picture possible, in her conception, of their loneliness and desolation, but she said, "no sea-bird even ever came near us."

It were harrowing to repeat the heart-rendering description given by her, of the sickening of the heart when the first night fell, and still no tidings of the boats; the second sun set--still the horizon was speckless; the next dreary day wore to an end, and three innocent helpless children were dead corpses; on the fourth, madness seized on their mothers, and--but I will not dwell on such horrors.

During these manifold goings and comings I naturally enlarged the circle of my acquaintance in the island, especially in Kingston, the mercantile capital; and often does my heart glow within me, when the scenes I have witnessed in that land of fun and fever rise up before me after the lapse of many years, under the influence of a good fire and a gla.s.s of old Madeira. Take the following sample of Jamaica High Jinks as one of many. On a certain occasion I had gone to dine with Mr Isaac Shingle, and extensive American merchant, and a most estimable man, who considerately sent his gig down to the wherry wharf for me. At six o'clock I arrived at my friend's mansion, situated in the upper part of the town, a s.p.a.cious one-story house, overshadowed by two fine old trees, and situated back from the street about ten yards; the intervening s.p.a.ce being laid out in a beautiful little garden, raised considerably above the level of the adjoining thoroughfare, from which it was divided by a low parapet wall, surmounted by a green painted wooden railing. There was a flight of six brick steps from the street to the garden, and you ascended from the latter to the house itself, which was raised on brick pillars a fathom high, by another stair of eight, broad marble slabs. The usual verandah, or piazza, ran along the whole front, beyond which you entered a large and lofty, but very darksome hall, answering to our European drawing room into which the bedrooms opened on each side. It did strike me at first as odd, that the princ.i.p.al room in the house should be a dark dungeon of a place, with nothing but borrowed lights, until I again recollected that darkness and coolness were convertible terms within the tropics.

Advancing through this room you entered, by a pair of folding doors, on a very handsome dining room, situated in what I believe is called a back jamb, a sort of outrigger to the house, fitted all round with movable blinds, or jealousies, and open like a lantern to all the winds of heaven except the west, in which direction the main body of the house warded off the sickening beams of the setting sun. And how sickening they are, let the weary sentries under the pillars of the Jamaica viceroy's house in Spanish Town tell, reflected as they were there from the hot brick walls of the palace.

This room again communicated with the back yard, in which the negro houses, kitchen, and other offices were situated, by a wooden stair of the same elevation as that in front. Here the table was laid for dinner, covered with the finest diaper, and snow-white napkins, and silver wine-coolers, and silver forks, and fine steel, and cut gla.s.s, and cool green finger-gla.s.ses with lime leaves floating within, and tall wax lights shaded from the breeze in thin gla.s.s barrels, and an epergne filled with flowers, with a fragrant fresh-gathered lime in each of the small leaf-like branches, and salt-cellars with red peppers in them, &c. &c. all of which made the tout ensemble the most captivating imaginable to a hungry man.

I found a large party a.s.sembled in the piazza and the dark hall, to whom I was introduced in due form. In Jamaica, of all countries I ever was in, it is a most difficult matter for a stranger to ascertain the real names of the guests at a bachelor dinner like the present, where all the parties were intimate--there were so many soubriquets amongst them; for instance, a highly respectable merchant of the place, with some fine young women for daughters, by the way, from the peculiarity of a prominent front tooth, was generally known as the Grand Duke of Tuscany; while an equally respectable elderly man, with a slight touch of paralysis in his head, was christened Old Steady in the West, because he never kept his head still; so, whether some of the names of the present party were real or fict.i.tious, I really cannot tell.

First, there was Mr Seco, a very neat gentlemanlike little man, perfectly well bred, and full of French phrases. Then came Mr Eschylus Stave, a tall, raw-boned, well-informed personage; a bit of a quiz on occasion, but withal a pleasant fellow. Mr Isaac Shingle, mine host, a sallow, sharp, hatchet-faced, small, but warm hearted and kind, as I often experienced during my sojourn in the west, only sometimes a little peppery and argumentative. Then came Mr Jacob b.u.mble, a sleek fat-- pated Scotchman. Next I was introduced to Mr Alonzo Smoothpate, a very handsome fellow, with an uncommon share of natural good-breeding and politeness. Again I clapper-clawed, according to the fashion of the country, a violent shake of the paw being the Jamaica investment to acquaintanceship, with Mr Percales, whom I took for a foreign Jew somehow or other at first, from his uncommon name, until I heard him speak, and perceived he was an Englishman; indeed, his fresh complexion, very neat person, and gentlemanlike deportment, when I had time to reflect, would of themselves have disconnected him from all kindred with the sons of Levi. Then came a long, dark-complexioned, curly-pated slip of a lad, with white teeth and high strongly marked features, considerably pitted with small-pox. He seemed the great promoter of fun and wickedness in the party, and was familiarly addressed as the Don, although I believe his real name was Mr Lucifer Longtram. Then there was Mr Aspen Tremble, a fresh-looking, pleasant, well informed man, but withal a little nervous, his cheeks quivering when he spoke like shapes of calf's foot jelly; after him came an exceedingly polite old gentleman, wearing hair-powder and a queue, ycleped Nicodemus; and a very devil of a little chap, of the name of Rubiochico, a great ally in wickedness with Master Longtram; the last in this eventful history being a staid, sedate looking, elderly-young man, of the name of Onyx Steady, an extensive foreign merchant, with a species of dry caustic readiness about him that was dangerous enough.--We sat down, Isaac Shingle doing the honours, confronted by Eschylus Stave, and all was right, and smooth, and pleasant, and in no way different from a party of well bred men in England.

When the second course appeared, I noticed that the blackie, who brought in two nice tender little ducklings, with the concomitant green peas, both just come in season, was chuckling, and grinning, and showing his white teeth most vehemently, as he placed both dishes right under Jacob b.u.mble's nose. Shingle and Longtram exchanged looks. I saw there was some mischief toward, and presently, as if by some preconcerted signal, every body asked for duck, duck, duck. b.u.mble, with whom the dish was a prime favourite, carved away with a most stern countenance, until he had got half through the second bird, when some unpleasant recollection seemed to come over him, and his countenance fell; and lying back on his chair, he gave a deep sigh. But "Mr b.u.mble, that breast, if you please thank you,"--"Mr b.u.mble, that back, if you please," succeeded each other rapidly, until all that remained of the last of the ducklings was a beautiful little leg, which, under cover of the following story, Jacob cannily smuggled on to his own plate.

"Why, gentlemen, a most remarkable circ.u.mstance happened to me while dressing for dinner. You all know I am next door neighbour to our friend Shingle--our premises being only divided by a brick wall, about eight feet high. Well, my dressing room window looks out on this wall, between which and the house, I have my duck pen...."

"Your what?" said I.

"My poultry yard--as I like to see the creatures fed myself--and I was particularly admiring two beautiful ducklings which I had been carefully fattening for a whole week"--(here our friend's voice shook, and a tear glistened in his eye)--"when first one and then another jumped out of the little pond, and successively made a grab at something which I could not see, and immediately began to shake their wings, and struggle with their feet, as if they were dancing, until, as with one accord--deuce take me!"--(here he almost blubbered aloud)--"if they did not walk up the brick wall with all the deliberation in the world, merely helping themselves over the top by a small flaff of their wings; and where they have gone, none of Shingle's people know."

"I'll trouble you for that leg, Julius," said Longtram, at this juncture, to a servant, who whipped away the plate from under b.u.mble's arm, before he could prevent him, who looked after it as if it had been a pound of his own flesh. It seemed that Longtram, who had arrived rather early, had found a fishing-tackle in the piazza, and knowing the localities of b.u.mble's premises, as well as his peculiarities, he, by way of adding his quota to the entertainment, baited two hooks with pieces of raw potatoes, and throwing them over the wall, had, in conjunction with Julius the black, hooked up the two ducklings out of the pen, to the amazement of Squire b.u.mble.

By and by, as the evening wore on, I saw the Longtram lad making demonstrations to bring on a general drink, in which he was n.o.bly seconded by Rubiochico; and, I grieve to say it, I was no ways loath, nor indeed were any of the company.--There had been a great deal of mirth and frolic during dinner,--all within proper bounds, however,--but as the night made upon us, we set more sail--more, as it turned out, than some of us had ballast for--when lo! towards ten of the clock, up started Mr Eschylus to give us a speech. His seat was at the bottom of the table, with the back of his chair close to the door that opened into the yard; and after he had got his breath out, on I forget what topic; he sat down, and lay back on his balanced chair, stretching out his long legs with great complacency. However, they did not prove a sufficient counterpoise to his very square shoulders, which, obeying the laws of gravitation, destroyed his equilibrium, and threw him a somersault, when exit Eschylus Stave, esquire, head foremost, with a formidable rumble tumble and hurry--scurry, down the back steps, his long shanks disappearing last, and clipping between us, and the bright moon like a pair of flails.

However, there was no damage done; and, after a good laugh, Stave's own being loudest of all, the Don and Rubiochico righted him, and helped him once more into his chair.

Jacob b.u.mble now favoured us with a song, that sounded as if he had been barrelled up in a puncheon, and was cantando through the bunghole; then Rubiochico sang, and the Don sang, and we all sang and b.u.mpered away; and Mr Seco got on the table, and gave us the newest quadrille step; and, in fine, we were all becoming dangerously drunk. Longtram, especially, had become uproarious beyond all bounds, and, getting up from his chair, he took a short run of a step or two, and sprang right over the table, whereby he smashed the epergne full of fruit and flowers, scattering the contents all about like hail, and driving a volley of preserved limes like grapeshot, in all their syrup and stickiness, slap into my face--a stray one spinning with a sloppy whit into Jacob b.u.mble's open mouth as he sang, like a musket-ball into a winter turnip; while a fine preserved pineapple flew bash on Isaac Shingle's sharp snout, like the bursting of a shrapnel sh.e.l.l.

"D----n it," hiccuped Shingle, "wont stand this any longer, by JuJu jupiter! Give over your practicals, Lucifer. Confound it, Don, give over--do, now, you mad long legged son of a gun!"--Here the Don caught Shingle round the waist, and whipping him bodily out of his chair, carried him kicking and spurring into the hall, now well lit up, and laid him on a sofa, and then returning, coolly installed himself in his seat.

In a little we heard the squeaking of a pig in the street, and our friend Shingle's voice high in oath. I sallied forth to see the cause of the uproar, and found our host engaged in single combat with a drawn sword-stick that sparkled blue and bright in the moonbeam, his antagonist being a strong porker that he had taken for a town guard, and had hemmed into a corner formed by the stair and the garden wall, which, on being pressed, made a dash between his spindleshanks, and fairly capsized him into my arms. I carried him back to his couch again; and, thinking it was high time to be off, as I saw that Smoothpate, and Steady, and Nicodemus, and the more composed part of the company, had already absconded, I seized my hat, and made sail in the direction of the former's house, where I was to sleep, when that devil Longtram made up to me.

"Hillo, my little man of war--heave-to a bit, and take me with you.

Why what is that? what the deuce is that?" We were at this time staggering along under the dark piazza of a long line of low wooden houses, every now and then thundering against the thin boards or bulkheads that const.i.tuted the side next the street, making, as we could distinctly hear, the inmates start and snort in the inside, as they turned themselves in their beds. In the darkest part of the piazza, there was the figure of a man in the att.i.tude of a telescope levelled on its stand, with its head, as it were, counter-sunk or morticed into the wooden part.i.tion. Tipsy as we both were, we stopped in great surprise.

"D--n it, Cringle," said the Don, his philosophy utterly at fault, "the trunk of a man without a head,--how is this?"

"Why, Mr Longtram," I replied, "this is our friend Mr Smoothpate, or I mistake greatly."

"Let me see," said Longtram,--"if it be him, he used to have a head somewhere, I know.--Let me see.--Oh, it is him; you are right, my boy; and here is his head after all, and a devil of a size it has grown to since dinner-time to be sure.--But I know his features bald pate--high forehead and cheekbones."

Nota Bene. We were still in the piazza, where Smoothpate was unquestionably present in the body, but the head was within the house, and altogether, as I can avouch, beyond the Don's ken.

"Where?" said I, groping about--"very odd, for deuce take me if I can see his head.--Why, he has none--a phenomenon--four legs and a tail, but no head, as I am a gentleman--lively enough, too, he is, don't seem to miss it much." Here poor Smoothpate made a violent walloping in a vain attempt to disentangle himself.

We could now hear shouts of laughter within, and a voice that I was sure belonged to Mr Smoothpate, begging to be released from the pillory he had placed himself in by removing a board in the wooden part.i.tion, and sliding it up, and then thrusting his caput from without into the interior of the house, to the no small amazement of the brown fiddler and his daughter who inhabited the same, and who had immediately secured their prize by slipping the displaced board down again, wedging it firmly on the back of his neck, as if he had been fitted for the guillotine, thus nailing him fast, unless he had bolted, and left his head in p.a.w.n.

We now entered, and perceived it was really Don Alonzo's flushed but very handsome countenance that was grinning at us from where it was fixed, like a large peony rose stuck against the wall. After a hearty laugh we relieved him, and being now joined by Percales, who came up in his gig, with Mr Smoothpate's following in his wake, we embarked for an airing at half-past one in the morning--Smoothpate and Percales, Longtram and Tom Cringle. Amongst other exploits, we broke into a proscribed conventicle of drunken negroes--but I am rather ashamed of this part of the transaction, and intended to have held my tongue, had Aaron managed his, although it was notorious as the haunt of all the thieves and slight ladies of the place; here we found parson Charley, a celebrated black preacher, three parts drunk, extorting, as Mawworm says, a number of devotees, male and female, all very tipsy, in a most blasphemous fashion, the table being covered with rummers of punch, and fragments of pies and cold meat; but this did not render our conduct more excusable, I will acknowledge. Finally, as a trophy, Percales, who was a wickeder little chap than I took him for, with Longtram's help, unshipped the bell of the conventicle from the little belfry, and fastening it below Smoothpate's gig, we dashed back to Mr Shingle's with it clanging at every jolt. In our progress the horse took fright, and ran away, and no wonder.

"Zounds, Don, the weather-rein has parted--what shall we do?" said I.

"Do?" rejoined Lucifer, with drunken gravity--"haul on the other, to be sure--there is one left, an't there?--so hard a-port, and run him up against that gun at the street corner, will ye? That will stop him, or the devil is in it."

Crash--it was done--and over the horse's ears we both flew like skyrockets; but, strange to tell, although we had wedged the wheel of the ketureen fast as a wreck on a reef, with the cannon that was stuck into the ground postwise between it and the body, there was no damage done beyond the springing of the starboard shaft, so, with the a.s.sistance of the negro servant, who had been thrown from his perch behind, by a shock that frightened him out of his wits, we hove the voiture off again, and arrived in safety at friend Shingle's once more.

Here we found the table set out with devilled turkey, and a variety of high-spiced dishes; and, to make a long story short, we had another set to, during which, as an interlude, Longtram capsized Shingle out of the sofa he had again lain down on, in an attempt to jump over it, and broke his arm; and, being the soberest man of the company, I started off, guided by a negro servant, for Doctor Greyfriars. On our return, the first thing that met our eyes was the redoubted Don himself, lying on his back where he had fallen at his leap, with his head over the step at the door of the piazza. I thought his neck was broken; and the doctor, considering that he was the culprit to be carved, forthwith had him carried in, his coat taken off, and was about striking a phleme into him, when Isaac's voice sounded from the inner apartment, where he had lain all the while below the sofa like a crushed frog, the party in the background, who were boosing away, being totally unconscious of his mishap, as they sat at table in the room beyond, enjoying themselves, impressed apparently with the belief that the whole affair was a lark.

"Doctor, doctor," shouted he in great pain,--"here, here--it is me that is murdered--that chap is only dead drunk, but I am really dead, or will be, if you don't help."

At length the arm was set, and Shingle put to bed, and the whole crew dispersed themselves, each moving off as well as he could towards his own home.

But the cream of the jest was richest next day. Parson Charley, who, drunk as he had been overnight, still retained a confused recollection of the parties who had made the irruption, in the morning applied to Mr Smoothpate to have his bell restored, when the latter told him, with the utmost gravity, that Mr Onyx Steady was the culprit, who, by the by, had disappeared from Shingle's before the bell interlude, and, in fact, was wholly ignorant of the transaction. "Certainly," quoth Smoothpate, with the greatest seriousness, "a most unlikely person, I will confess, Charley, as he is a grave, respectable man; still, you know, the most demure cats sometimes steal cream, Charley; so, parson, my good man, Mr Onyx Steady has your bell, and no one else."

Whereupon, away trudged Charley to Mr Steady's warehouse, pulling off his hat with a formal salaam, "Good Ma.s.sa Onyx--sweet Ma.s.sa Teady--pray give me de bell." Here the sable clerigo gathered himself up, and leant composedly on his long staff, hat still in hand, and ear turned towards Mr Steady, awaiting his answer.

"Bell!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Steady, in great amazement,--"bell! what bell?"

"Oh, good, sweet Ma.s.sa Onyx, dear Ma.s.sa Onyx Teady, every body know you good person--quiet, wise somebody you is--all person sabe dat," whined Charley; then slipping near our friend, he whispered to him--"but de best of we lob bit of fon now and dende best of we lef to himshef sometime."

"Confound the fellow!" quoth Onyx, rather pushed off his balance by such an unlooked--for attack before his clerks; "get out of my house, sir what the mischief do I know of you or your infernal bell? I wish the tongue of it was in your stomach--get out, sir, away with you."

Charley could stand this no longer, and losing patience, "D--n me eye, you is de tief, sir--so give me de bell, Ma.s.sa Teady, or I sall pull you go before de Mayor, Ma.s.sa Teady, and you sall be shame, Ma.s.sa Teady; and it may be you sall be export to de Bay of Honduras, Ma.s.sa Teady. Aha, how you will like dat, Ma.s.sa Teady? you sall be export may be for break into chapel, during sarvice, and teal bell--aha, teal bell--who ever yeerie one crime equal to dat!"