CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.
CAPTAIN LEMAITRE.
Consciousness returned to me with the sensation of soft, delicate lightimpinging upon my closed eyelids, and I opened my eyes upon the pictureof a sky of deepest, richest, purest blue, studded with wool-like tuftsof fleecy cloud, opalescent with daintiest tints of primrose and pink asthey sailed overhead with a slow and gentle movement out from the north-east. The eastern horizon was all aglow with ruddy orange light, upthrough which soared broad, fan-like rays of white radiance--the spokesof Phoebus' chariot wheels--that, through a scale of countless subtlechanges of tincture, gradually merged into the marvellously softrichness of the prismatic sky. A gentle breeze, warm and sweet as awoman's breath, lightly ruffled the surface of the sea, that heaved inlong, low hills of deep and brilliant liquid sapphire around me; andhere and there a sea-bird wheeled and swept with plaintive cries, andslanting, motionless pinions, in long, easy, graceful curves over theslowly undulating swell.
I sat up and looked about me vaguely and wonderingly, for the momentforgetful of the circumstances that had placed me in so novel asituation, and at the instant a glowing point of golden fire flashedinto view upon the eastern horizon, as the upper rim of the sun hoveabove the undulating rim of the sea; and in a moment the rippling blueof the laughing water was laced with a long, broadening wake ofgleaming, dancing, liquid gold, as the great palpitating disc of the godof day left his ocean couch, and entered upon his journey through theheavens.
My forgetfulness was but momentary; as the radiance and warmth of thereturning sun swept over the glittering, scintillating, golden path thatstretched from the horizon to the raft, the memory of all that had gonebefore, and the apprehension of what still haply awaited me, returned,and, as quickly as my cramped and aching limbs would allow, I staggeredto my feet, flinging anxious, eager glances all around me in search of asail. The horizon, however, was bare, save where the long, narrowpinion of a wheeling sea-bird swiftly cut it for a moment here andthere; and I sighed wearily as I resumed my recumbent position upon theraft, wondering whether rescue would ever come, or whether it was mydoom to float there, tossing hour after hour and day after day, like theveriest waif, until thirst and starvation had wrought their will uponme, or until another storm should arise, and the now laughing oceanshould overwhelm me in its fury.
And indeed I cared very little just then what fate awaited me; for I wasso ill, my frame was so racked with fever and my head so distracted withthe fierce throbbing and beating of the wildly coursing blood in it,that the only thing I craved for was relief from my sufferings. It wasa matter of the utmost indifference to me at that moment whether therelief came from death or from any other source, so long as it camequickly. My strength was leaving me with astounding rapidity, and I wasquite aware that if I wished to husband the little that still remainedto me I ought to eat; but the mere idea of eating excited so violent arepugnance, that it was with the utmost difficulty I resisted the almostoverwhelming temptation to pitch my slender stock of sea-sodden biscuitoverboard. On the other hand, I was consumed with a torturing thirstthat I vainly strove to assuage by so reckless a consumption of myequally slender stock of wine, that at the end of the day only twobottles remained. Such recklessness was of course due to the fact thatI was unaccountable for my actions; I was possessed of a kind ofmadness, and I knew it, but I had lost all control over myself, andcared not what happened. More than once I found myself seriouslyconsidering the advisability of throwing myself off the raft, and soending everything without more ado; and I have often wondered why I didnot do so; it was certainly not the fear of death that prevented me. Asthe day wore on my sufferings steadily increased in intensity; my brainthrobbed and pulsated with pain so acute that it seemed as though amillion wedges were being driven into my skull; a host of weird,outrageous, and horrible fancies chased each other through myimagination; I became possessed of the idea that the raft was surroundedand hemmed in by an ever-increasing multitude of frightful sea monsters,who fought with each other in their furious efforts to get within reachof me; day and night seemed to come and go with bewildering rapidity;and finally everything became involved in a condition of hopelesslyinextricable confusion, that eventually merged into oblivion.
My next consciousness was that of a sound of gurgling, running water,and of a buoyant, heaving, plunging motion; of flashing sunshine comingand going upon my closed eyelids; of the vibrant hum of wind throughtaut rigging and in the hollows of straining canvas; of a murmur ofvoices, and of the regular tramp of footsteps to and fro on the plankingoverhead; and for the moment I thought that I was aboard the _Tern_, andjust awaking from a sleep during which I had been haunted with anunusually long series of peculiarly unpleasant dreams. But as I openedmy eyes and looked with somewhat languid interest upon my surroundings,I became aware that I was in a small, plain, but fairly snug cabin, ofwhich I seemed to possess no previous knowledge; and at the same momenta confused but rapidly clearing memory of what had happened came to me,together with the knowledge that I had been rescued from the raft, andwas feeling very much better. But an attempt to move, preliminary toturning out, revealed the disconcerting fact that I was as weak andhelpless as a new-born infant, so I was perforce obliged to remain whereI was; and in a short time I dozed off into a light sleep again, soothedthereto by the hum of the wind, the gurgling wash of water along theside of the ship, close to my ear, and the gentle heave and plunge ofthe fabric that bore me.
From this nap I was awakened by the somewhat noisy opening of my cabindoor; and upon opening my eyes I beheld a swarthy and somewhat dirty-looking individual bending over me. From his appearance I at once sethim down as a Frenchman; and as I gazed up into his face with mildcuriosity, this impression became confirmed by his exclaiming inFrench--
"Ah, monsieur, so you have come to your senses at last, eh? Good! Iknew I could save you, although Francois declared you to be as good asdead when he brought you aboard! And now, mon ami, what do you say; canyou eat something?"
"Thank you," replied I, in the same language; "now that you come tomention it, I think I can."
"Good!" ejaculated the unknown: "rest tranquil for but a short time, andI will see what that rascal cook of ours can do for you. Stay! anotherdose of quinine will do you no harm, just by way of precaution, youknow, although I think I have driven the fever out of you at last.Permit me."
And, so saying, he laid a rather grimy hand upon my forehead for amoment, and then transferred it to my wrist, remarking--
"Good! the skin is cool and moist, the pulse normal again. Ha, ha, myfriend, you will do, you will do; henceforth the cook must be yourdoctor. All you need now is plenty of good nourishing food to restoreyour strength. Now, drink this, and as soon as you have swallowed it Iwill away to the galley."
While speaking, this individual had been busying himself with a bottle,from which he extracted a small quantity of white powder, which he mixedwith water and then handed me the mixture to drink.
"Thank you," said I, handing him back the glass. "And now, monsieur, dome the favour to tell me your name, in order that I may know to whom Iam indebted for my preservation."
"My name?" he repeated, with a laugh. "Oh, that will keep, monsieur,that will keep. At present your most urgent necessity is food, which Iam now going to get for you. When I return I will tell you all you maywish to know, while you are eating. For the present, adieu, monsieur.If you feel disposed to sleep again, do so; sleep is nearly as valuableas food to you just now. When I have some of the latter ready for you Iwill wake you, never fear."
So saying, and before I could utter another word, he vanished, slammingthe cabin door after him.
His retirement caused me a sensation of distinct relief, at which I wasvery greatly annoyed with myself; for had not this man doubly saved mylife, first by rescuing me from the raft, and afterwards by nursing methrough what I believed had been a serious illness? Yet, ingrate that Iwas, even in the brief interview that I have just described I had
takenan unmistakable dislike to the man! It was not so much that he wasunclean in person and attire,--it was possible that there might be agood and sufficient excuse for that,--but what had excited my antipathy,when I came to analyse the feeling, was a certain false ring in hisvoice, a subtle something in his manner suggestive of the idea that hisfriendliness and heartiness were not natural to him--were assumed for apurpose. Yet why it should be so, why he should have rescued me fromthe raft and afterwards troubled himself to fight and drive out thefever that threatened to destroy me, unless from a feeling of humanityand compassion for my pitiable condition, I could not imagine; yet therehad been--or so I fancied--a fierce, shifty gleam in his coal-black eyesduring the few brief minutes that he had bent over me as I lay there inmy bunk, that seemed to reveal cruelty and treachery, rather than pityand good-will. Let me describe the man. Standing there beside my bunk,he had conveyed to me the impression of an individual nearly six feet inheight,--I afterwards found his stature to be five feet ten inches inhis stockings,--broad across the shoulders in proportion, and big boned,but lean almost to the point of emaciation. His skin was dry, of anunwholesome yellow tint, and shrivelled, as though he had once beenstout and burly of form but had now become thin, while his skin hadfailed to shrink in the same proportion as his flesh. His eyes were, asI have said, black, small, and deeply sunken in his head; his hair was adull, dead black, and was worn cropped close to his head; his blackbeard was trimmed to a point; and he wore a moustache, the long ends ofwhich projected athwart his upper lip like a spritsail yard. His handswere thin, showing the tendons of the fingers working under the looseskin at every movement of them, while the fingers themselves were long,attenuated, ingrained with dirt, and furnished with long, talon-likeyellow nails, that looked as though they never received the slightestattention. Finally, his clothing consisted of a cotton shirt, thatlooked as though it had been in use for at least a month since its lastvisit to the laundress, a pair of grimy blue dungaree trousers, and apair of red morocco slippers.
As I lay there in the bunk, recalling the appearance of my rescuer, andtrying to evolve therefrom some definite impression of the man'scharacter, I became aware that the duty of the ship seemed to be carriedon with a very unnecessary amount of vociferation and contumeliouslanguage. An Englishman will sometimes, in critical or urgent moments,garnish his orders with an expletive or two by way of stimulus to thecrew; but upon the occasion to which I am now referring there was notthe slightest excuse for anything of the kind. The weather was fine,the wind moderate, and we were evidently not engaged upon theperformance of some feat of complicated or difficult navigation; for thecourse remained constant, and there was neither making nor shortening ofsail. It simply appeared that the officer of the watch happened to beone of those distressing and trouble-making individuals who regard it asincumbent upon themselves to continually "haze" the men; for he wasconstantly bawling some trifling order, and accompanying it with arunning fire of abuse that must have been furiously exasperating to theperson addressed.
After an absence of about half an hour, the man who had already visitedme returned, this time bearing a large bowl of smoking broth, and aplate containing three large ship biscuits of the coarsest kind. Thebroth, however, exhaled a distinctly appetising odour, which had theeffect of again reminding me that I was hungry; so, with my visitor'sassistance, I contrived to raise myself into a sitting posture, andforthwith attacked the contents of the bowl, previously breaking into ita small quantity of biscuit. The "broth" proved to be turtle soup,deliciously made, and, taking my time over the task, I consumed thewhole of it, my companion meanwhile giving an account of himself, hisship, and the circumstances attending my rescue.
"My name, monsieur," he said, in reply to a question of mine, "isLemaitre--Jean Lemaitre; a native of Fort Royal, in the island ofMartinique, and owner as well as Captain of _La belle Jeannette_--theschooner which you are now honouring with your presence. I am in theslave-trade, monsieur,--doing business chiefly with the Spaniards,--andexactly a month ago to-day I sailed from Havana for the Guinea coast.We came west and south about, round Cape San Antonio, stretching wellover toward the Spanish Main, in order to avoid, if possible, thosepestilent cruisers of yours, which seem to be everywhere, and are alwaysready to snap up everything that they can lay their hands upon. Bygreat good fortune we managed to dodge them, and got through withoutbeing interfered with; but it threw us into the track of the hurricane,and necessitated our remaining hove-to for twenty-six hours. Four dayslater, as we were sailing merrily along, we saw something floating aheadof us, and ten minutes later we all but ran down your raft, on which wesaw you lying face downwards, while the sharks were righting each otherin their efforts to get at you and drag you off. Francois, my mate, wasfor leaving you where you were,--asserting that you must surely be dead,and that to pick up a dead man would make the voyage unlucky,--but I ama humane man, monsieur, and I insisted upon heaving-to and sending awaya boat to bring you aboard. The boat's crew had a hard job of it todrive off the sharks, and to get you safely into the boat, monsieur;and, even _so_, the creatures followed the boat alongside--to the numberof seventeen, for I counted them myself. Francois suggested that weshould throw you to them, declaring that you were as good as deadalready, and that it was a shame to disappoint the sharks after they hadwaited so patiently for you; but I am a humane man, monsieur,--as Ibelieve I have already mentioned,--and I would not listen to hisproposal. So I had you brought down below and placed in this sparecabin, where I have attended to you ever since,--that was ten daysago,--and now, behold, the fever has left you, your appetite hasreturned, and in another week, please the good God we shall have you ondeck again, as well as ever you were."
"Thank you, monsieur," said I. "I am infinitely obliged to you for thehumanity that prompted you to pick me up--despite the dissuasions ofyour mate, Francois--and also for the trouble you have taken in nursingme through my illness. Fortunately, I am in a position to makesubstantial recognition of my gratitude; and upon my return to Jamaica--as to which I presume there will be no difficulty--it shall be my firstbusiness to take such steps as shall insure you against all pecuniaryloss on my account."
"Ah, monsieur," exclaimed Lemaitre, "I beg that you will say no more onthat score; it hurts me that you should think it necessary to mention somercenary a word as that of `reward.' We are both sailors, and althoughwe have the misfortune to be enemies, that is no reason why one braveman should not aid another in distress, without looking for a reward.As to your return to Jamaica, no doubt that can be managed upon ourreturn voyage--"
"Your return voyage!" I interrupted. "Can you not manage it forthwith,captain? I can make it quite worth your while to up helm and run meback at once. It is of the utmost importance to me to return to PortRoyal with the least possible delay, and--"
"Alas, monsieur, it cannot be done," interrupted Lemaitre, in his turn."A cargo of slaves is even now awaiting me in the Cameroon River, and mypatrons in Havana are impatiently looking forward to their delivery. IfI were to disappoint them I should be ruined, for I have manycompetitors in the trade to contend with, especially since all this talkhas arisen about making slave-trading illegal. No; I regret to beobliged to refuse you, monsieur, but there is no help for it."
"At least," said I, "you will transfer me to a British man-o'-war,should we chance to fall in with one?"
"And be myself captured, and lose my ship for my pains!" exclaimedLemaitre. "Oh no, monsieur; we will give your ships a wide berth, if wefall in with them, and trust to our heels."
"Nonsense, monsieur," I returned. "Surely you cannot suppose I would beso ungrateful as to permit any such thing. I am a British officer, andshould, of course, make a point of seeing that, in such a case, you wereheld exempt from capture. My representations would be quite sufficientto secure that for you."
"Well, monsieur, we will see, we will see," answered Lemaitre; andtherewith he took the empty soup bowl from my hand, and retired from thecabin, slamming t
he door, as usual, behind him.
For the next three days I continued to occupy my bunk, my strengthreturning slowly; but on the fourth I made shift, with Lemaitre'sassistance, to get into my clothes, and crawl on deck; and from thatmoment my progress toward recovery was rapid. Meanwhile, the "hazing"of which I have spoken continued at regular intervals, day and night,and I soon ascertained that the individual responsible for it was noneother than the Francois who so kindly suggested that I should be hoveoverboard to the sharks. This fellow was evidently a born bully; henever opened his mouth to deliver an order without abusing and insultingthe men, and as often as not the abuse was accentuated with blows, thesounds of which, and the accompanying cries of the men, I coulddistinctly hear in my cabin. That, however, was hardly the worst of it;for I soon discovered that Lemaitre, the skipper of this precious craftin which such doings were permitted, was a drunkard; for every night, atabout nine o'clock, I used to hear him come below, and order out the rumand water; after which he and Francois, or the second mate,--accordingto whose watch below it happened to be,--would sit for about an hour,drinking one against the other, until the language of both becameincoherent, when the pair of them would stagger and stumble off to theirrespective staterooms.
This was my first experience of a slaver, and a most unpleasantexperience it was. The vessel herself,--a schooner of one hundred andtwenty tons register,--although superbly modelled, a magnificent sea-boat, and sailing like a witch, was rendered uncomfortable in theextreme as an abode by her filthy condition. Cleanliness seemed to beregarded by Lemaitre as a wholly unnecessary luxury, with the resultthat no effort was made to keep in check the steady accumulation of dirtfrom day to day, much less to remove that which already existed. Eventhe daily washing down of the decks--which, with the British sailor, hasassumed the importance and imperative character of a religiousfunction--was deemed superfluous. Nor were the crew any more careful asto their own condition or that of their clothing. It is a fact thatduring the whole period of my sojourn on board _La belle Jeannette_ Inever saw one of her people attempt to wash himself or any article ofclothing; and, as a natural result of this steadfast disregard of themost elementary principles of cleanliness, the little hooker simplyswarmed with vermin.
But, bad as it was, this was not the worst. The crew, from Lemaitredownward, were a low, brutal, quarrelsome gang, always wranglingtogether, and frequently fighting; while, as I have already mentioned,the one predominating idea of Francois, the chief mate, was that theycould only be kept in order by constantly and impartially rope's-endingthem all round. Possibly he may have been right; at all events, I foundit far easier to excuse his behaviour after I had seen the crew than Ihad before.
All this time Lemaitre had been behaving toward me with a rough, clumsy,off-hand kindness that his personal appearance would have led no one toexpect, and which, try as I would, I could not bring myself to regard asgenuine, because, through it all, there seemed now and then to rise tothe surface an underflow of repressed malignity, not pronounced enoughto be certain about, yet sufficiently distinct to provoke in me a vaguesensation of uneasiness and distrust. To put the matter concisely,although Lemaitre was by no means effusive in his expressions of good-will toward me, and although there was a certain perfunctory quality insuch attentions as he showed me, there was with it all a curious subtlesomething, so intangible that I found it utterly impossible to define ordescribe it, which yet impressed me with the feeling that it was allunreal, assumed, a mockery and a pretence; though _why_ it should be so,I could not for the life of me divine.