CHAPTER TWELVE.
THE "FROLIC" IN A GALE, IN WHICH THE FROLICKERS SEE NO FUN--A SAIL INSIGHT--HER FATE--AN UNEXPECTED INCREASE TO THE CREW--BUBBLE SHOWS THATHE CAN THINK AND FEEL--INTELLIGENCE OBTAINED.
"What sort of weather are we going to have, Snow?" asked Hearty, as wecame on deck after dinner one afternoon, when the cutter was somewhereabout the middle of the Bay of Biscay.
"Dirty, sir, dirty!" was the unenlivening answer, as the old masterlooked with one eye to windward, which just then was the south-west. Inthat direction thick clouds were gathering rapidly together, andhurrying headlong towards us, like, as Carstairs observed, "a band offierce barbarians, rushing like a torrent down upon the plain." The seagrew darker and darker in hue, and then flakes of foam, white as thedriven snow, blew off from the hitherto smooth surface of the ocean.The sea rose higher and higher, and the cutter, close-hauled, began topitch into, them with an uneasy motion, subversive of the entireinternal economy of landsmen.
"The sooner we get the canvas off her the better, now, sir," said Snowto Porpoise, who had come on deck after calculating our exact positionon the charts.
"As soon as you like," was the answer. "We shall have to heave-to, Isuspect; but that little matters, as we have plenty of sea-room outhere, and she may dance away for a fortnight with the helm a-lee, andcome to no harm."
The topmast was struck; the jib was taken in, and a storm-jib set; theforesail was handed, and the mainsail meantime was closely reefed.Relieved for a time, she breasted the seas more easily; but the wind hadnot yet reached its strength. Before nightfall down came the gale uponus with all its fury; the cutter heeled over to it as she dashed wildlythrough the waves.
"The sooner we get the mainsail altogether off her the better, sir,"said Snow. This was accordingly done, and the trysail was set instead,and the helm lashed a-lee.
"There; we are as snug and comfortable as possible," exclaimed Porpoise,as the operation was completed. "Now all hands may turn in and go tosleep till the gale is over."
The landsmen looked rather blue.
"Very funny notion this of comfort!" exclaimed Carstairs, who had theworst sea-going inside of any of the party. "Oh, oh, oh! is it far fromthe shore?"
"Couldn't get there, sir, if any one was to offer ten thousand guineas,"said Snow. "We are better as we are, sir, out here--by very far."
The cutter, which in Cowes Harbour people spoke of as a fine largecraft, now looked and felt very like a mere cockle-shell, as she pitchedand tumbled about amid the mighty waves of the Atlantic.
"Don't you feel very small, Carstairs?" exclaimed Hearty, as he satconvulsively grasping the sides of the sofa in the cabin.
"Yes, faith, I do," answered the gentle giant, who lay stretched outopposite to him. "Never felt so very little since I was a baby inlong-clothes. I say, Porpoise, I thought you told me that the Bay ofBiscay was always smooth at this time of the year."
"So it should be," replied our fat captain. "No rule without anexception though; but never mind, it will soon roll itself quiet; andthen the cutter will do her best to make up for lost time."
The person evidently most at his ease was Will Bubble. Blow high orblow low, it seemed all the same to him; he sang and whistled away ashappily as ever.
"Oh, oh, oh! you jolly dog, don't mock us in our misery!" exclaimedCarstairs with a groan.
"On no account," answered Will, with a demure look. "I'll betake myselfto the dock, and smoke my weed in quiet."
On deck he went, and seated himself on the companion-hatch, where heheld on by a becket secured for the purpose; but as to smoking a cigar,that was next to an impossibility, for the wind almost blew the leavesinto a flame. I was glad to go on deck, also; for the skylights beingbattened down made the cabin somewhat close. The cutter rode like awild fowl over the heavy seas, which, like dark walls crested with foam,came rolling up as if they would ingulf her. Just as one withthreatening aspect approached her, she would lift her bows with aspring, and anon it would be found that she had sidled up to the top ofit.
It was a wild scene--to a landsman it must have appeared particularlyso. The dark, heavy clouds close overhead; the leaden seas, not jumpingand leaping as in shallow waters, but rising and falling, with majesticdeliberation, in mountain masses, forming deep valleys and lofty ridges,from the summits of which, high above our heads, the foam was blown offin sheets of snowy whiteness with a hissing sound, interrupted by theloud flop of the seas as they dashed together.
We were not the only floating thing within the compass of vision. Faraway I could see to windward, as the cutter rose to the top of a sea,the canvas of a craft as we were hove-to. She was a small schooner, andthough we undoubtedly were as unsteady as she was, it seemed impossible,from the way she was tumbling about, that any thing could hold togetheron board her.
I had rejoined the party in the cabin, when an exclamation from Bubblecalled us all on deck.
"The schooner has bore up, and is running down directly for us!" heexclaimed.
So it was; and in hot haste she seemed indeed.
"Something is the matter on board that craft," said Porpoise, who hadbeen looking at her through his glass. "Yes, she has a signal ofdistress flying."
"The Lord have mercy on the hapless people on board, then!" said I."Small is the help we or any one else can afford them."
"If we don't look out, she'll be aboard us, sir," sung out Snow. "To mymind, she's sprung a leak, and the people aboard are afraid she'll godown."
"Stand by to make sail on the cutter; and put the helm up," criedPorpoise. "We must not let her play us that trick, at all events."
On came the little schooner, directly down for us, staggering away undera close-reefed fore-topsail, the seas rolling up astern, and threateningevery instant to wash completely over her. How could her crew expectthat we could aid them? still it was evidently their only hope of beingsaved--remote as was the prospect. They might expect to be able toheave-to again under our lee, and to send a boat aboard us. The dangerwas that in their terror they might run us down, when the destruction ofboth of us was certain. We stood all ready to keep the cutter away,dangerous as was the operation--still it was the least perilous of twoalternatives. We were, as may be supposed, attentively watching everymovement of the schooner; so close had she come that we could see thehapless people on board stretching out their arms, as if imploring thataid which we had no power to afford them. On a sudden they threw uptheir hands; a huge sea came roaring up astern of them; they lookedround at it--we could fancy that we almost saw their terror-strickencountenances, and heard their cry of despair. Down it came, thunderingon her deck; the schooner made one plunge into the yawning gulf beforeher. Will she rise to the next sea?
"Where is she?" escaped us all. With a groan of horror we replied toour own question--"She's gone!"
Down, down she went before our very eyes--her signal of distressfluttering amid the seething foam, the last of her we saw. Perhaps hersudden destruction was the means of our preservation. Some dark objectswere still left floating amid the foam; they were human beingsstruggling for life; the sea tossed them madly about--now they weretogether, now they were separated wide asunder. Two were washed closeto us; we could see the despairing countenance of one poor fellow; hisstaring eye-balls; his arms outstretched as he strove to reach us. Invain; his strength was unequal to the struggle; the sea again washed himaway, and he sunk before our sight. His companion still strove on; asea dashed towards us; down it came on our deck. "Hold on, hold on, mylads!" sung out Porpoise.
It was well that all followed the warning, or had we not, most certainlywe should have been washed overboard. The lively cutter, however, soonrose again to the top of the sea, shaking herself like a duck after adive beneath the surface. As I looked around to ascertain that allhands were safe, I saw a stranger clinging to the shrouds. I withothers rushed to haul him in, and it was with no little satisfactionthat we found that we had been the means of rescuing one
of the crew ofthe foundered schooner from a watery grave. The poor fellow was soexhausted that he could neither speak nor stand, so we carried himbelow, and stripping off his wet clothes, put him between a couple ofwarm blankets. By rubbing his body gently, and pouring down a few dropsof hot brandy and water, he was soon recovered. He seemed very gratefulfor what had been done for him, and his sorrow was intensely severe whenhe heard that no one else of the schooner's crew had been saved.
"Ay, it's more than such a fellow as I deserve!" he remarked.
I was much struck by his frank and intelligent manners, when having goton a suit of dry clothes, he was asked by Hearty into the cabin, to givean account of the catastrophe which had just occurred.
"You see, gentlemen," said he, "the schooner was a Levant trader. Herhomeward-bound cargoes were chiefly figs, currants, raisins, andsuch-like fruit. A better sea-boat never swam. I shipped aboard her atSmyrna last year, and had made two voyages in her before this here eventoccurred. We were again homeward-bound, and had made fine weather of ittill we were somewhere abreast of Cape Finisterre, when we fell in withsome baddish weather, in which our boats and caboose were washed away;and besides this, we received other damage to hull and rigging. We weretoo much knocked about to hope to cross the Bay in safety, so we putinto Corunna to refit. The schooner leaked a little, though we thoughtnothing of it, and as we could not get at the leak, as soon as we hadgot the craft somewhat to rights, we again put to sea. We had been outthree days when this gale sprang up, and the master thought it better toheave the vessel to, that she might ride it out. The working of thecraft very soon made the leak increase; all hands went to the pumps, butthe water gained on us, and as a last chance the master determined torun down to you, in the hopes that before the schooner went down, someof us might be able to get aboard you. You saw what happened. Oh,gentlemen! may you never witness the scene on board that vessel, as weall looked into each other's faces, and felt that every hope was gone!It was sad to see the poor master, as he stood there on the deck of thesinking craft, thinking of his wife and seven or eight little ones athome whom he was never to see again, and whom he knew would have tostruggle in poverty with the hard world! He was a good, kind man; andto think of me being saved,--a wild, careless chap, without any one tocare for him, who cares for nobody, and who has done many a wild,lawless deed in his life, and who, maybe, will do many another! I can'tmake it out; it passes my notion of things."
Will Bubble had been listening attentively to the latter part of theyoung seaman's account of himself. He walked up to him with anexpression of feeling I did not expect to see, seemingly forgetful thatany one else was present, and took his hand: "God in his mercy preservedyou for better things, that you might repent of your follies and vices,and serve him in future. Oh, on your knees offer up your heartfeltthanks to him for all he has done for you!"
Hearty and Carstairs opened their eyes with astonishment as they heardWill speaking.
"Why, Bubble, what have?" began Hearty.
"I have been thinking," was the answer; "I had time while you fellowslay sick; and I bethought me how very easily this little cockle-shellmight go down and take up its abode among the deposits of this Adamiteage,"--Will was somewhat of a geologist,--"and how very little we allwere prepared to enter a pure state of existence."
"That's true, sir," said the seaman, not quite understanding, however,Bubble's remarks; "that's just what I thought before the schooner sank.I am grateful to God, sir; but, howsomdever, I feel that I am a verybad, good-for-nothing chap."
"Try to be better, my friend; you'll have help from above if you ask forit," said Bubble, resuming his seat.
"Why, where did you get all that from?" asked Carstairs, languidly; "Ididn't expect to hear you preach, old fellow."
"I got it from my Bible," answered Bubble. "I'm very sure that's theonly book of sailing directions likely to put a fellow on a rightcourse, and to keep him there, so I hope in future to steer mine by it;but I don't wish to be preaching. It's not my vocation, and aharum-scarum, careless fellow as I am is not fitted for it; only all Iask of those present is to think--to think of their past lives; how theyhave employed their time--whether in the way for which they were sentinto the world to employ it, in doing all the good to theirfellow-creatures they can; or in selfish gratification; and to think ofthe future, that future without an end--to think if they are fitted forit--for its pure joys--its never-ending study of God's works; to thinkwhether they have any claim to enter into realms of glory--ofhappiness."
Will sprang on deck as he ceased speaking. He had evidently workedhimself up to utter these sentiments, so different to any we should haveconceived him to have possessed. I never saw a party of gentlemen moreastonished, if not disconcerted. Had not Tom Martin, the young seamanjust saved, been present, I do not know what might have been said.Still the truth, the justice, the importance of what Bubble had said,struck us all, though perhaps we thought him just a little touched inthe upper story, to venture on thus giving expression to his feelings.While Tom Martin had been giving an account of himself, I had beenwatching his countenance, and it struck me that I had seen him somewherebefore.
"You've been a yachtsman, I think," I observed; "I have known your face,I am sure."
"Yes, sir," said he, frankly; "and, if I mistake not, I know yours. Iused to meet you at Cowes last year; but the craft I belonged to I can'tsay was a yacht, though its owner called her one. I'm sure yougentlemen won't take advantage of any thing I say against me, and soI'll tell you all about the matter. The craft I speak of was the`Rover' cutter, belonging to Mr Miles Sandgate. I first shipped aboardher about three years ago; he gave high pay, and let us carry on aboardpretty much as we liked, when not engaged in his business. An old chumof mine, a man called Ned Holden, who was, I may say, born and bred asmuggler, first got me to join; there wasn't a dodge to do the revenuewhich Ned wasn't up to, and he thought no more harm of smuggling than ofeating his dinner. I didn't inquire how the `Rover' was employed; shebelonged to a gentleman who paid well, and that's all I asked, though Imight have suspected something. She had just come from foreign parts,and the people who had then been in her talked of all sorts of curiousthings they had done. Smuggling was just nothing to what she'd beenabout. Mr Sandgate seemed to have tried his hand at every thing. Hehad been out in the China seas, running opium among the longpigged-tailed gentlemen of that country. More than once he had some hotfighting with the Government revenue-vessels, and several times he wasengaged with the pirates, who swarm, they say, in those seas. I did nothear whether he made money out there, but after a time he got tired ofthe work, and shaped a course for England. On his way, after leavingthe Cape of Good Hope, he fell in with a craft, which he attacked andtook. She was laden with goods of all sorts fitted for the markets inAfrica, and intended to be exchanged for slaves. Besides them she hadthe irons, and all the other fittings for a slaver. Such vessels sailwithout a protection from any government. After he had taken everything he wanted, he hove the rest overboard, and then told the crew thathe gave them their liberty, and that they might make the best of theirway back to the parts from whence they came. With the goods he had thusobtained he stood for the slave-coast; he had acquaintance there, aseverywhere else; indeed it would be difficult to say in what part of theworld he would not find himself at home. He was not long in fitting the`Rover' inside into a regular slave-vessel, but outside she looked ashonest and harmless as any yacht. He ran up the Gaboon, or one of thoserivers on the slave-coast--I forget which exactly--where lived a certainDon Lopez Mendoza, the greatest slave-dealer in those parts; besideswhich, as I heard say, it would be difficult to find anywhere a biggervillain. Well, he and Mr Sandgate were hand-in-glove, and one wouldhave done any thing for each other. They were fairly matched, you maydepend on it; however that might be, the Don took all the goods MrSandgate brought him, and asked no questions, and filled his vessel inreturn with a lot of prime slaves and water, and farina enough to carrythem acr
oss to Havana. As soon as he got them on board he was out ofthe river again, and, loosening his jib, away he went with some twohundred human souls stowed under hatches, in a craft fit to carry onlythirty or forty in comfort. She had a quick run across, and escaped allthe ships-of-war looking after slavers. Mr Sandgate there sold theblacks for a good round sum, and thought he had done a very cleverthing. However, he does not seem to be a man to keep money, though heis ready enough to do many an odd thing to get it. He gave his crew ahandsome share of the profits; he and they went ashore at the Havana,and spent it as fast as they had made it, just in the old buccaneeringstyle I've heard tell of, in all sorts of wild games and devilry, till Irather fancy the Dons were glad to be rid of them. When their money wasnearly all gone, they went aboard again and made sail. I don't mean tosay but what I suppose Mr Sandgate had some left. He had also armedthe cutter, and stored and provisioned her completely for a voyage roundthe world.
"Once more he stood across for the African coast. He had heard, itappears, that one of those store-ships I was speaking of, which supplyslavers with goods and provisions, and irons and stores, was to be metwith in a certain latitude. He fell in with her, and, without askingher leave or saying a word, he ran her alongside, and, before her peoplehad time to stand to their arms, he had mastered every one of them. Henever ill-treated any one, but he just clapped them in irons till he hadrifled the vessel, and then, leaving them a somewhat scant supply ofprovisions and water, he, as before, told them that they were at libertyto make the best of their way home again.
"Some men would, perhaps, have gone back to the coast, taken in a cargoof slaves, and returned to the Havana or the Brazils, but our gentlemanwas rather too cautious to run any such risk. He knew that he had madeenemies, who would try to prove him a pirate, with or without law; so hejust goes off the Gaboon, and sends in a note to his friend Don Lopez,to say that he had got a rich cargo for him, which he should have for somany dollars, two thousand or more below its value. The Don, in return,despatched two or three small craft with the sum agreed on aboard, andall being found right and fair, the exchange was quickly made, and MrSandgate once more shaped a course for England. As you may suppose,every one was sworn to secrecy aboard; but, bless you, the sort of chapshe had got for a crew didn't much care for an oath; and besides, as itwas that they mightn't say any thing out of the ship, they didn't mindtalking about it to me and others who afterwards joined her. He broughthome a good round sum of money; but he took it into his head to go up toLondon, and what with gambling and such-like ways, he soon managed toget rid of most of it. He had got tired, it seems, of having his neckconstantly in a noose, so he took to the quieter occupation ofsmuggling. He didn't do it in the common way like the people along thecoast, but in a first-rate style, like a gentleman. He had somerelatives or other, rich silk merchants in London, and he undertook tosupply them with goods to any amount, free of duty. There was nothingnew in the plan, for it was an old dodge of this house, by which theyhad made most of their money. You would be surprised, gentlemen, tohear of the number of people employed in the business, and who well knewit was against the laws. First, there were the agents in France to buythe goods, and to have them packed in small bales fit for running; thenthey had to ship them; next there were the cutters and other craft tobring them over, and the people to assist at their landing; and thecarters with their light carts to bring them up to London; and theclerks in the warehouse in London, many of whom knew full well that nota penny of duty had ever been paid on the goods; and the shop peopletoo, who knew full well the same thing, as they could not otherwise havegot their articles so cheap. It's a true saying, that one rascal makesmany; and so it was in this case."
Much to the same effect Tom told us about Sandgate; but as with severalof the points the readers are already acquainted, I need not repeatthem. Tom frankly acknowledged that he was on board the "Rover" whenSandgate attempted to carry off Miss Manners; but he seemed to be littleaware of the enormity of the offence. He said that he fancied the younglady had come of her own free will, as Sandgate had made the crewbelieve a tale to that effect.
"But what became of him after that?" I asked, eagerly. "Did he returnto the coast of Africa, and turn pirate again?"
"No, sir," answered Martin. "He had several plans of the sort though, Ibelieve; but at last we stood for the Rock of Gibraltar, and ran throughthe Straits into the Mediterranean. We could not make out what MrSandgate was about. We touched at two or three places on the Africancoast, and he had some communication with the Moors. To my mind, hescarcely knew himself what he would be at. He spoke and acted veryoften like a person out of his wits. Sometimes we would be steering fora place, and our course would be suddenly altered, and we would go backto the port from whence we came. However, by degrees we got higher andhigher up the Mediterranean. We did not touch at Malta, but stood ontill we got among the Greek islands: there he seemed quite at home, andwas constantly having people aboard whom he treated as old friends.Still we did nothing to make the vessel pay her way, and that was veryunlike Mr Sandgate's custom. After a time we ran on to Smyrna: wethought that we were going to take in a cargo of figs and raisins, andto return home. One day, however, a fine Greek polacca-brig stood intothe harbour, and Mr Sandgate, after examining her narrowly, went onboard her. On his return, calling us together, he said that as he wasgoing to sell the cutter, he should no longer have any need of ourservices; and that as he was very well pleased with the way we had morethan once stuck by him, he would therefore add five pounds to the wagesof each man. We all cheered him, and thought him a very fine fellow;and so I believe he would have been had he known what common honestymeans. The `Rover' was sold next day, and we all had to bundle on shoreand look out for fresh berths. When we were there I heard some curiousstories about that polacca-brig; and all I can say is, that if I hadbeen aboard a merchantman and sighted her, I shouldn't have beencomfortable till we got clear of her again. Whether Mr Sandgate wentaway in her or not I cannot say for certain; all I know is, that thepolacca-brig left Smyrna in a few days. The crew of the `Rover' joineddifferent vessels, and though I was very often on shore, I saw no moreof him. The rest of my story you know, gentlemen. I shipped on boardthe schooner which you lately saw go down."
"Very extraordinary story altogether," exclaimed Hearty, as soon as TomMartin had left the cabin, highly pleased with his treatment. "If youhad not been able to corroborate some of it, Brine, I certainly shouldnot have felt inclined to believe it."
"I know the circumstance of one quite as extraordinary," said Porpoise."Some day I will tell it you if you wish it. I should not be surprisedwhen we get up the Straits if we hear more of Mr Sandgate and hisdoings. He is evidently a gentleman not addicted to be idle, though,clever as he is, he will some day be getting his neck into a halter."
"I should think it was well fitted for one by this time," addedCarstairs; "but I say, Porpoise, let us have your story at once; there'snothing like the present time for a good thing when it can be got, andwe want something amusing to drive away all the bitter blue-devilishfeelings which this confounded tumblefication of a sea has kicked up inour insides."
"You shall have it, with all my heart, and without delay," addedPorpoise. "All I have first to say is, that as I was present duringmany of the scenes, and as descriptions of the others were given me,strange as the account may appear, it is as true as every thing we havejust heard about that fellow Sandgate. I could almost have fancied thathe and the hero of my story were one and the same person."
Our curiosity being not a little excited by this prelude, in spite ofthe rolling and pitching of the vessel, seldom has a more attentiveaudience been collected, as our jovial companion began his story.