Читать книгу Latitude 19° - Mrs. Schuyler Crowninshield - Страница 4

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The Skipper's tone was reverent, but full of horror. We all, even to the Cook, ran up to a higher spot to see what had so disturbed the old man.

"You'll see it just as well from the beach," said the Skipper. "They've set the old Yankee afire!"

It was true. We could not see very clearly for the smoke which the firing had made, but as we gazed anxiously, knowing what the entire loss of the ship would mean for us, we saw that smoke had begun to pour from the ports and hatches. First appeared the misty stream which the Skipper had discovered, then it grew thicker.

As we gazed, fascinated with the horrible spectacle, the flames began to shoot upward. They curled round the lower mast, they ran up the rigging, they licked their way up the shrouds. They ran aloft, and swallowed the crosstrees, first having eaten into the very tops. The smoke was thicker than ever, and made a dark background for the points and jets of flame, which leaped through its walls. And now, as we watched breathless, each one glued to his post, no word spoken between us, a long, low, ominous rumble came to our ears. There were two or three sharp cracks, the flames leaped to the sky, there was a final thunderous crash, and the air was a mass of flying timbers. I turned to look at the Skipper. The glass had fallen unheeded from his fingers, the tears were dropping off the end of his nose. He winked hard, and took out a bandana and wiped his forehead to hide his emotion.

"I suppose you think I'm an old fool to stand here and cry like a baby. Perhaps you don't think I should feel anything to see my handsome ship go up in smoke." The old man's lips quivered. "She's been home and wife and children to me for a good many years, the old Yankee Blade has—yes, and a livin'. I ought to have stayed at home. I never should have tried it again. I was foolish; I deserted her; I never should have done it but for that damn' girl, who don't appreciate it any more——"

Cynthia's arms were round the old man's neck.

"Dear Uncle Tony! I do appreciate it. I do! I do! I didn't know you were doing it for me. I thought——"

"And I thought they would leave, and we could perhaps get her afloat again. Is there anything left of her, Jones? I suspect we've seen the last of the old Yankee Blade." He turned and walked down the hill. I stooped and picked up the glass and handed it to Cynthia.

She turned it on the spot where the Yankee had gone on the rocks. A dull, thick smoke overhung the place. On the hither side we could see a mass of wreckage. Some large splinters of wood were floating in the water. We heard repeated shots, but the other vessels were obscured from view by the smoke which they themselves had made, as well as that which enveloped the wreck of the Yankee.

"I think there's a little of her left, Uncle Tony," said Cynthia. "She seems to stand up on the rock, part of her. Oh, if they could only see us! We haven't anything to signal with, not even an apron."

She seized the sunbonnet from her head and waved it wildly in the air. "They must see us!" she said. "They must!" But her action was of no avail. Our sight could not penetrate the smoke, and the vessels, even if their crews could have seen us, were too busy to notice us. Cynthia waved until her arm dropped tired at her side.

"We'll have to give it up, I suppose," she said. "Good-bye, old Yankee Blade, good-bye!" And together we descended the hill. Captain Schuyler had turned his back on the ocean and was talking with the Cook.

"No use crying over spilt milk," I heard him say. The Cook regarded him as surlily as he dared. The pudding lay heavy in his interior, mental and physical.

"We'd better get some food ready and then put out the fire. No knowing who's lurking round."

"Why, Uncle Tony, isn't Haïti a friendly country?"

"Friendly enough, girl, but we don't know what's happened since we were here before. Might have had forty revolutions. These fellows are always revolutin'.—Now, my men, stir round and beat out that fire! Reckon the crawlers are all killed or scattered. Come, men, stir your stumps! Do you hear me?"

The Skipper looked round at the men.

They were standing apart, conversing in low tones. They did not move at once.

"Isn't it exciting?" whispered Cynthia, her eyes shooting out light from the funnel. "Do you believe it's a mutiny? I hope it is. I never saw a mutiny. I believe they usually say: 'Now look a-here, Cap'n, we ain't a-goin' to stand this sort of thing! It's a-goin' to be share and share alike. There ain't no officers and there ain't no men. We're all equal on this here island.'"

I laughed.

"You must have read some very instructive books in your time, Miss Archer," I said.

"Yes, I have. I seem to know exactly what they are saying. Don't you think I understand pretty well how they conduct a mutiny?"

"Yes—in books," I said. I laughed, more to disabuse her mind than anything else. I remembered a very pretty mutiny a few years back. For weeks I never slept without seeing those men strung up to the yard-arm with not a moment in which to say a prayer. I thought this a good time to advance myself a little in her favour, and at the same time make her forget the loneliness of her situation. I saw that the Skipper seemed to be arguing with the sailors, and that he seemed to want no help from me.

"I wish that I could express to you, Miss Archer, how really beautiful I think you. The English language is feeble to convey all that——"

"When we get home, Mr. Jones," Cynthia broke in, "I will lend you a book which contains all the adjectives you could possibly need——"

I looked at her to see if she was in earnest.

"It is called 'The Complete Idiot.' Now do stop your nonsense and look at those sailors. What do you suppose they are saying to Uncle?"

I withdrew my gaze from her face and regarded the men as they stood in a group near the Skipper. Their attitude did savour somewhat of insubordination. We could not hear their words or the Skipper's as he answered them.

When they had finished, they proceeded to the glade where the fire had been kindled, and began to beat the bushes with a will. Then, with brooms improvised of thickly leaved branches, they swept the place clean.

"Will that do, Cap'n?" asked Bill Tomkins.

"Yes, I call that a pretty handsome clean up," answered the Skipper. "Now you men go and sit down upon the beach and I'll send you some food."

They withdrew in a cluster, and sat down on the beach as directed. The Cook, who had been broiling some pork, handed us our shares first, each slice on a piece of hard bread. Then he served the men.

Cynthia took her ration and ate as heartily as the rest of us.

"Is it mutiny, Uncle? I was never in a mutiny."

"Wasn't you, really? Well, it is mutiny, if you like to call it so, Cynthy.—Give me some tobacco, Cook; and you, Minion, just run up the hill and see if those ships are in sight."

The Cook handed the Skipper the tobacco with a look that expressed the wish that it had been gunpowder instead, and the thin young lad, who was at everybody's beck and call, ran as fast as his legs could carry him up to the little knoll. The Skipper seated himself in the shade and puffed away. Cynthia hung anxiously on every puff, every breath.

"Uncle, will you never speak? If you knew how interested I am——"

Captain Schuyler sat, his pipe in his mouth, and talked one-sidedly between the puffs.

"The idiots want to walk to Cap Haïtien," said the Skipper. "I tell 'em it's worse than foolish, but they seem pretty determined. They say they can do it in two days' time. Must be twenty miles or more, following the shore. They say they can bring back horses for the rest of us."

"That's an excellent idea!" said Cynthia. "I don't believe I shall get tired of pork in two days' time. I don't know about the third. Have we enough food for two days, Uncle?"

"Lord, yes! We'll get along a week easy.—What do you think, Jones?"

"I'd let 'em try it," said I. "Of course, they'll never come back. I've seen 'em start off before this to bring aid and succour. They never returned, except in story-books."

"If I was sure of that, I'd let 'em go mighty quick," said the Skipper. "We're better off without 'em."

He turned to the group. "How many of you want to go?" He raised his voice, so that it would carry to where they sat.

Tomkins stood up and answered respectfully:

"All but the Bo's'n and the Minion, sir."

There was a certain decision in Tomkins' tone, which revealed the fact to me that they intended going, permission or not.

"The Cook, too?" asked Cynthia.

The Cook looked down and shuffled his feet.

"I can cook, Cap'n, miss, sir, beggin' your pardon, ma'm, Mr. Jones," volunteered the Bo's'n.

"Good enough!" said the Skipper. "Let Cook fit you out with vittles, men. What have you got for water?"

Bill Ware spoke up eagerly:

"Tomkins says as there's two or three springs on the way, sir——"

"How does he know?" asked the astonished Skipper.

"Been here before, sir, so he was a-tellin' us last night. Says it's a puffec pair-o-dice."

"Oh, he does, does he?—So you've been here before, have you, Tomkins?"

Tomkins looked daggers at Bill Ware.

"Yessir, I was here some years back."

"Know the coast pretty well?"

"Yessir, pretty well."

"Thought so," muttered the Skipper in a low tone. "Knew it better than I did." Then aloud: "Very well, my man. Now do you think you can get horses from whoever's governor down there, and be back in a week?"

"Sartin sure, sir," answered Tomkins unblushingly.

While Tomkins was speaking, the Skipper was muttering under his breath, "Better get rid of the rascals, anyway."

"You don't think——" said I.

"I do think——" said he.

"What! Wrecked the vessel?" asked Cynthia breathlessly.

"Yes; drove her ashore."

"Why?"

"Hush!" said the Skipper.

"Tomkins!" called Cynthia.

"For God's sake, Cynthia, don't——"

"Miss Archer, I'm usually called, sir! I believe in always going to the root of every matter."

Cynthia arose from her sitting posture. She stood tall and stately. Her dignified air recalled to my mind a young woman by the name of Portia, of whom I had once read somewhere.

"Be quiet!" said the Skipper, pulling her skirt with a rough jerk. "Sit down!"

Cynthia gently disengaged her skirt from the Skipper's hand. She removed her sunbonnet, and with her pure face turned toward the sheepish Tomkins, she looked like a very young Daniel come to judgment.

It was a strange scene, one which I shall never forget. The tropic shore, the shipwrecked crew, the young girl standing forth as the exponent of right—foolhardy, if you like, but fearless in her righteous indignation.

She raised her hand, commanding the attention of the men.

"Tomkins," she said, "as you shall answer at the day of judgment, when the secrets of all hearts shall be revealed, did you wreck the Yankee Blade?"

The man shifted from one foot to the other, his head hanging down. He looked up with ferret eyes from under his sparse eyebrows.

"'Fore God——" began Tomkins.

"You are before God!" said Cynthia sternly.

He ground his feet restlessly, making little pools in the gravel of the shore.

"O Lord!" groaned the Skipper helplessly.

"Well, then, miss, 'fore God, I didn't!"

"Remember you're on oath, Tomkins. Well, then, who did?"

"Beg his pardon, ma'm, it was Mr. Jones!"

"I!"

Cynthia turned upon me a glance of most withering scorn and horror.

"You hear what this honest sailor says, Mr. Jones?"

"Tell you how it was, ma'm," said Tomkins. "I come on deck this mornin', long 'bout 'leven o'clock, and I see we was goin' straight for the land. Skipper was below, you was below. Mr. Jones, he had the wheel. I says, 'Fer Gord's sake, Mr. Jones,' I says, 'what are you a-doin', sir?' He says, says he, 'You, Tomkins, mind your da—, mind your busi——'"

"Shut up, Tomkins!" said the Skipper. "If you're goin', you'd better get ready."

Cynthia turned on me.

"What could possess you to do such a thing?"

"I was so anxious to get home to see William Brown," said I. "Haven't we had enough of this farce, Miss Archer?"

The Skipper laughed aloud, and I saw the backs of some of the men shaking.

"Don't be any more kinds of a fool than you can help, Cynthy. Sit down and keep cool until we can get rid of those rascals. Thank God they've elected to go! The sooner they take up their march the better for all hands."

"Do you mean to tell me, Uncle Tony, that you don't believe Tomkins on his oath?"

"What!" The Skipper's voice had the rising inflection. The word was uttered in a tone between a roar and an incredulous scream. "Believe a sailor?" roared the Skipper. "What are you talking about, Cynthy? Believe a sailor? O Lord!"

The men saw the Skipper's amusement, and doubtless judged of the cause.

"No use in threatening Tomkins," he said in my ear. "Better treat it as a joke, and let them go."

"As you say, Captain Schuyler; but when Mr. Tomkins and I meet again, there will be a reckoning that he won't forget, I'll warrant."

"Perhaps he really thought so," said Cynthia. "Hadn't they better wait until morning? It's getting so late now. They might be lonely without us."

"Now, Cynthy, don't you go and suggest any such a thing. We shan't be lonely without them. We shall be well rid of 'em, the Lord knows.—Here, you, Cook, fry some pork for those lunatics! Give 'em two days' rations, and let each man carry his own."

While the Cook was frying the pork, I noticed that the men were busy behind some guava trees at a little distance from the place where we were sitting. I had placed the pillow and blanket at the root of an enormous tree, and had made as comfortable a seat for Cynthia and the Skipper as my limited means would allow. The Skipper had his coat off, and was fanning himself with his great panama hat. The sun was broiling down upon us, but Cynthia looked as cool as a piece of ice from the Passaic River. I never saw such a provoking girl. While every one else was sweltering, she appeared perfectly comfortable. I was trying to balance myself upon a rather sharp piece of rock and to keep the men in my eye at the same time. We could not see much of them. They were stooping down, with their backs toward us.

The Skipper turned lazily round. Suddenly he straightened himself and glared at the group in the bushes.

"What have you got there, Bill Ware?" shouted he.

The Skipper's tone of authority startled the men.

They arose to a standing posture. Bill Ware turned his face toward us.

"We've—we've found some guavas, sir, that's all. I'll bring you over some."

"No, no, I'll come over. I don't know as I remember ever having seen guavas growing on——"

But Bill Ware had started toward us with great alacrity.

"Don't come here, sir, for the Lord's sake! The place is alive with scorpions."

The Skipper thought better of it, and waited until Bill Ware's arrival. The man walked across, holding something in his hand. When he came near, we discovered two very small and very unripe guavas.

He came close to Cynthia and handed the fruits to her. His face was very red. His breath was almost upon her cheek. She started back.

"Are those guavas? What a curious odour guavas have, Uncle!"

"I never noticed it," said he.

"How queerly Bill Ware walks!" said Cynthia, as she watched his return to his mates. "I never noticed it on board ship. I suppose he hasn't got his land legs on yet."

The Skipper raised himself and looked critically at the man.

"Those are the legs he always has on when he goes ashore," said he.

I had my suspicions, and I saw that the Skipper had his, but I did not want to frighten the girl and anger the men. Besides, she might not be frightened. She seemed to think that she had been sent into this world to set things right, and no one knew what tack she might take next.

The Skipper took out his silver watch. "Come, men, you'd better start! It's gettin' late. You'll want to pick out a good place for the night. It comes down in a minute in the tropics, you know.—Cook, are you ready?"

The men arose, turned one after the other, and came lingeringly out of the bushes.

"Are there any more of those guavas?"

"It's a little early, sir," said Tomkins. "They don't ripen well until the last of May."

Bill Tomkins's tongue seemed thick and his speech halting.

"Well, it's time to start. Cook'll give you your rations. Come, now! Good-bye, my men. Don't forget to bring those horses. We shall expect you by daybreak on Saturday." (We had gone ashore on a Monday.)

"Yessir, you expect us, sir," answered Tomkins.

The men took their rations from the Cook, then they one and all paid a last visit to the bushes to seek for a few more guavas before they left us, and then, with a hang-dog nod and touch of their caps, they took up their straggling march. We sat watching them as they moved westward in a wavering line.

"It must be very hard work walking up that beach," said Cynthia. "Did you remark what a difficult time Bill Ware had to get pointed straight, Uncle Tony?"

The Skipper and I sat and watched them. There was no need to answer Cynthia. The men made a line as straight as the fences which we were beginning to use about Belleville. The idea came from Virginia. We called them Virginia rail fences. As the last man of them staggered round the point and was lost behind the trunks of the cocoanut grove, the Skipper arose and approached the thicket where the mango tree stood. I followed a close second, and Cynthia came behind.

"I thought as much!" exclaimed the Skipper. He had parted the bushes and stood looking downward. I gazed over his shoulder, and Cynthia condescended to stand on tiptoe and cast her eyes over mine.

"What is it, Uncle Tony?" asked she.

"Those blanked rascals! In the confusion, Jones, do you see? Broke into my store-room, of course. I wanted to bring some myself, but it's never safe with such a crew. Got that at Santo Domingo for medicinal purposes. Wish to Heaven it would physic them all! Darned if I don't! Wish now I'd put arsenic in it." And then followed some language which I will not weary you by repeating. The Skipper was not the most profane man that I ever sailed with, but in those days of which I write—days long past, ah me!—that is saying a great deal more than any one to-day would imagine. Men, and particularly men who followed the sea, did not regard profanity as we do nowadays. Cynthia was used to the Skipper's ordinary looseness of speech, and, having heard it all her life, was astonished at very little that he said. I have learned to look upon such language with disgust, and I thank the refining influences of the day in which we live for making me see how much worse than silly it was, and, though I shall try to make the Skipper's speech sound more like the Skipper of modern times, still to make him seem at all the man that his friends knew him, I must occasionally point his marks as he himself pointed them.

Cynthia stood looking steadily at her Uncle as his adjectived indignation poured forth. When his vocabulary was exhausted, he sat down on the ground, weak from his exertion. Cynthia stood looking fixedly at him. Then, as the enormity of his offence overcame him, he drew out his bandana and mopped his face.

"Beg pardon, Cynthy, but you shouldn't have been here."

Cynthia fixed him with her glances as long as she could hold her tongue between her teeth, then turned and walked away with dignity.

"Now that girl's mad! And she'll go and tell Mary 'Zekel, and I promised Mary 'Zekel—Where'd we better put that damn thing, anyway?"

I aided the old man as he rolled the cask nearer our camping place, if the spot where we had deposited our few belongings could be called such. We had placed our cooking utensils—or the Bo's'n had for us—the parrot's cage, and the mortuary bag in a secluded spot among the trees. There happened to be a depression in the earth near where we sat, up beyond the line of the beach in the soft earth. We tumbled the cask in and covered it well with leaves and branches. Cynthia, whose curiosity would not allow her to remain longer away, had returned, and was watching our efforts.

"If they come back, they will demand it," remarked Cynthia.

"What! Those honest sailors?" inquired I.

I was still sore from her ill treatment of me. Cynthia's face, as much as I could see of it, was a brilliant crimson.

"Have they any weapons, Uncle Tony?" she asked, ignoring me entirely.

"Got pistols, I'll be bound, every man Jack of 'em!—By the way, Jones, what have we got in the way of firearms?"

I threw back my thin coat and displayed a pistol stuck in my belt in either side.

"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia. "If I had known that you carried those murderous weapons, I should have refused to come ashore with you."

"From the ship, or the boat?" I asked.

She blushed again, and drooped her head so that I could see nothing but the white top of the funnel.

"I've got a fine knife," said the Skipper, "and so has the Bo's'n. He has brought some ammunition ashore, and I've got my old musket, of course."

"Do you really suppose that we shall need all those dreadful things?" asked Cynthia, her lips white and quivering.

"And you're the girl who fired on the letter of marque?" said I, for want of a more non-committal name. "What sort of a girl are you, anyway?"

Here was an anomaly, indeed! A girl who had had the courage not only to defy her Uncle and the whole ship's company, but to fire a gun which made a pretty good deal of noise when close to one's ear, afraid to listen to a simple discussion of weapons of defence! The Skipper at this moment hitched himself up a little higher, and threw his whole weight against the trunk on which he was leaning. I heard a softy, mushy crumble, and his head and shoulders disappeared from view.

I arose and ran to his aid, and at once clasped his outstretched hands and pulled with all my might. He finally, with my help, succeeded in regaining his position. He spluttered and coughed, his eyes and mouth full of the dust of decay. He rose to his feet and kicked viciously at the crumbling bark. A large piece fell inward, making an opening, into which a man could have squeezed himself. At that very moment, so mysterious are the ways of Providence, there was a short, sharp whiz and ping, and a bullet struck the tree just above my head. I lost no time in looking for the cause of this assault, but only the thick green of the near wood rewarded my searching glance. I seized Cynthia by the wrist and bent her almost to her knees. I forced her to push her way into the opening.

"It may be an attack," I said, hurriedly, to the Skipper. "Go in quickly! I will follow."

No one who has not seen the great trees of Santo Domingo and Haïti can believe to what a grand extent they grow. I have heard of the so-called "big trees" of California. The only one which I have seen is one placed in the grounds of the Smithsonian Institution at Washington. I made that trip with my wife lately. We were both of us a trifle infirm for so long a jaunt, but she agreed with me, and she has also been among the great trees of Haïti, that nothing that she had ever seen, with the exception of this one curiosity, exceeded the size of those trees in the island.

As yet we had not caught a glimpse of our secret foe. Whether he had caught sight of us or not I did not know, but, as a second bullet whizzed past my head, I hastily secreted myself also within the hollow trunk. I whispered to Cynthia to push over more to the side, and give room to her Uncle and myself. I could hear the beating of her heart, I stood so near her. Several bullets struck the tree, and one entered and dropped upon my foot. And now I heard some cries of anger. My curiosity became too much for me. I stood as near the opening as I could and placed my eye just over the edge of it. The voices grew louder, the bullets flew faster, and then from the bushes emerged a retreating party. Their backs were toward us. They were firing as they retreated. They were dark men, but not of pure African type.

They were unclothed, except for some trousers of white linen and a thin sort of shirt. They wore belts and carried the national weapon, the machete, stuck through the leather bands.

"Are you afraid of fainting?" I asked Cynthia. "Here, take a whiff of this." I had a little kit in my pocket which I had seized upon as I left the ship. I felt for the vial of sal-volatile, telling what it was by the smell of the cork, and pressing it into her hand.

"Faint!" she replied with scorn. "If I could only see something, I should enjoy it hugely."

"It would not be safe," I whispered. "Stand farther back. They may discover us, in any case."

"Stand farther in, Cynthy," whispered the Skipper. "I'd like nothing better than to join one side or the other, but I can't risk it with you here."

I pushed my knife through the soft, spongy wood where the bullet had entered, and made the hole larger. Here I could see, myself unseen.

"Do let me look, Mr. Jones," said Cynthia.

As any bullet which struck the tree might enter it, and she was in equal danger anywhere inside the tree, I saw no reason why she should not look if she felt so inclined. I gave up my place to her, and had to content myself with peeping through the large hole through which we had entered.

The line of retreat was now changed, for I saw the Haïtiens veer to the right, toward the beach, still firing as they retreated. There were yells and wild noises. The attacking party seemed close to us, and these sounds did not seem unfamiliar. As we gazed at this unexpected sight, we perceived that the retreating party had with, them a young girl. She was tied by the wrists to the belt of one of the men, who fired as he backed toward us. The girl did not struggle to free herself, but ran backward as the men ran. She seemed a not unwilling captive. The tall, thin mulatto would fire a shot, turn and pull his captive after him, then load and fire again. There was blood upon the girl's clothing and upon the clothes of her captors.

"Oh, that poor child!" whispered Cynthia. "I must go out and take her away from that brute!" I barred the way.

"It would be death for us all, perhaps," said I. "Wait! The attacking party may be her friends. Whatever we do, I beg of you keep concealed. That is your only safety."

"Don't be a fool, Cynthy!" whispered the Skipper hoarsely. "No one knows what's going to happen." And so prophetic were his words that, as we listened, we heard a thoroughly American whoop, participated in by several voices, and who should burst from the undergrowth, shouting as they came, but Bill Tomkins, followed by McCorkle, Bill Ware, the Growler, Hummocks, Tanby, and all the rest of them.