CHAPTER XXX.
OUR PROGRESS TO THE CHANNEL.
When I started to relate my adventure I never designed to write anaccount of the journey home at large. On the contrary, I foresaw that,by the time I had arrived at this part, you would have had enough of thesea. Let me now, then, be as brief as possible.
The melting of the ice and the slowly increasing power of the sun wereinexpressibly consoling to me who had had so much of the cold that I doprotest if Elysium were bleak, no matter how radiant, and the abode ofthe fiends as hot as it is pictured, I would choose to turn my back uponthe angels. I cannot say, however, that the schooner was properly thaweduntil we were hard upon the parallels of the Falkland Islands; she thenshowed her timbers naked to the sun, and exposed a brown solid deckrendered ugly by several dark patches which, scrape as we might, wecould not obliterate. We struck the guns into the hold for the betterballasting of the vessel, got studding-sail booms aloft, overhauled hersuits of canvas and found a great square sail which proved ofinestimable importance in light winds and in running. After the ice waswholly melted out of her frame she made a little water, yet not so muchbut that half an hour's spell at the pump twice a day easily freed her.But, curiously enough, at the end of a fortnight she became tight again,which I attribute to the swelling of her timbers.
We were a slender company, but we managed extraordinarily well. The menwere wonderfully content; I never heard so much as a murmur escape oneof them; they never exceeded their rations nor asked for a drop more ofliquor than we had agreed among us should be served out. But, as I hadanticipated, our security lay in our slenderness. We were too few fordisaffection. The negroes were as simple as children, Wilkinson lookedto find his account in a happy arrival, and if I was not, strictlyspeaking, their captain, I was their navigator without whom their casewould have been as perilous as mine was on the ice.
Outside the natural dangers of the sea we had but one anxiety, and thatconcerned our being chased and taken. This fear was heartily shared bymy companions, to whom I also represented that it must be our businessto give even the ships of our country a wide berth; for, though I hadlong since flung all the compromising bunting overboard, and destroyedall the papers I could come across, which being written in a language Iwas ignorant of, might, for all I knew, contain some damninginformation, a British ship would be sure to board us and I should haveto tell the truth or take the risks of prevaricating. If I told thetruth, then I should have to admit that the lading of the vessel waspiratical plunder; and though I knew not how the law stood with regardto booty rescued from certain destruction after the lapse of hard uponhalf a century, yet it was a hundred to one that the whole would beclaimed in the king's name under a talk of restitution, which signifiedthat we should never hear more of it. On the other hand prevaricationwould not fail to excite suspicion, and on our not being able tosatisfactorily account for our possession of the ship and what was inher, it might end in our actually being seized as pirates and perhapsexecuted.
This reasoning went very well with the men and filled them with suchanxiety that they were for ever on the look-out for a sail. But, as youmay guess, my own solicitude sank very much deeper; for, supposing theschooner to be rummaged by an English crew, it was as certain as that myhand was affixed to my arm that the chests of treasure would betranshipped and lost to me by the law's trickery.
Now, till we were to the north of the equator we sighted nothing; no, inall those days not a single sail ever hove into view to break themelancholy continuity of the sea-line. But between the parallels of 12 deg.and 22 deg. N. we met with no less than eight ships, the nearest within aleague. We watched them as cats watch mice; making a point to bear awayif they were going our road, or, if they were coming towards us, toshift our helm--but never very markedly--so as to let them pass us atthe widest possible distance. Some of them showed a colour, but we neveranswered their signals. That they were all harmless traders I will notaffirm; but none of them offered to chase us. Yet could I have been sureof a ship, I should have been glad to speak. My longitude was littlemore than guesswork; my latitude not very certain; and my compass wasout. However, I supported my own and the spirits of my little company bytelling them of the early navigators; how Columbus, Candish, Drake,Schouten and other heroic marine worthies of distant times had navigatedthe globe, discovered new worlds, penetrated into the most secretsolitudes of the deep without any notion of longitude and with no betterinstruments to take the sun's height than the forestaff and astrolabe.We were better off than they, and I had not the least doubt, I toldthem, of bringing the old schooner to a safe berth off Deal orGravesend.
But it happened that we were chased when on the polar verge of theNorth-East Trade-wind. It was blowing brisk, the sea breaking in snowupon the weather bow, the sky overcast with clouds, and the schoonerwashing through it under a single-reefed mainsail and whole topsail. Itwas noon: I was taking an observation, when Pitt at the tiller sang out"Sail ho!" and looking, I spied the swelling cloud-like canvas of avessel on a line with our starboard cathead. I told Pitt to let theschooner fall off three points, and with slackened sheets the old _Bocadel Dragon_ hummed through it brilliantly, flinging the foam as far aftas the gangway. The strange sail rose rapidly, and the lifting of herhull discovered her to be a line-of-battle ship. We held on as we were,hoping to escape her notice; but whether she did not like ourappearance, or that there was something in the figure we cut thatexcited her curiosity, she, on a sudden, put her helm up and steered atrue course for us.
At the first sight of her I had called Wilkinson and Cromwell on deck,and I now cried out, "Lads, d'ye see, she's after us. If she catches usour dream of dollars is over. Lively now, boys, and give her all she canstagger under; and what she can't carry she must drag." And we sprang tomake sail, briskly as apes, and every one working with two-man power. Iknew the old _Boca's_ best point; it was with the wind a point abaft thebeam; we put her to that, got the great square-sail on her, shook outall reefs, and gave all she had to the wind. The wake roared away fromher like a white torrent that flies from the foot of a foaming cataract.She had the pirate's instincts, and being put to her trumps, was nimble.God! how she did swing through it! Never had I driven the aged bucketbefore like this, and I understood that speed at sea is notirreconcilable with odd bodies. But the great ship to windward hungsteady; a cloud of bland and swelling cloths. When we had set thestudding-sail we had nothing more to fly with; and so we stood looking.She slapped six shots at us, one after another, as a haughty hint to usto stop; but we meant to escape, and at last we did, outsailing her bythirteen inches to her foot--one foot to her twelve--though she stuck toour skirts the whole afternoon and kept us in an agony of anxiety.
The sun was setting when she abandoned us: she was then some five or sixmiles distant on our weather quarter. What her nation was I did notknow; but Wilkinson reckoned her French when she gave us up. We rushedsteadily along the same course into the darkness of the night and then,shortening sail, brought the schooner to the wind again, after which wedrank to the frisky old jade in an honestly-earned bowl.
It was on the 5th of December that we sighted the Scilly Isles. Iguessed what that land was, but so vague had been my navigation that Idurst not be sure; until, spying a smack with her nets over, I steeredfor her and got the information I needed from her people. They answeredus with an air of fear, and in truth the fellows had reason; for,besides the singular appearance of the ship, the four of us wereapparelled in odds and ends of the antique clothes, and I have littledoubt they considered us lunatics of another country, who had run awaywith a ship belonging to parts where the tastes and fashions were behindthe age.
Now, as you may suppose, by this time I had settled my plans; and as wesailed up channel, I unfolded them to my companions. I pointed out thatbefore we entered the river it would be necessary to discharge ourlading into some little vessel that would smuggle the booty ashore forus. The figure the schooner made was so peculiar she would inevitablyattract attention; she would
instantly be boarded in the Thames on ourcoming to anchor, and, if I told the truth, she would be seized as apirate, and ourselves dismissed with a small reward, and perhaps withnothing.
"My scheme," said I, "is this: I have a relative in London to whom Ishall communicate the news of my arrival and tell him my story. You,Wilkinson must be the bearer of this letter. He is a shrewd, active man,and I will leave it to him to engage the help we want. There is no lackof the right kind of serviceable men at Deal, and if they are promised asubstantial interest in smuggling our lading ashore, they will run thegoods successfully, do not fear. As there is sure to be a man-of-warstationed in the Downs, we must keep clear of that anchorage. I willland you at Lydd, whence you will make your way to Dover and thence toLondon. Cromwell and Pitt will return and help me to keep cruising. Myletter to my relative will tell him where to seek me, and I shall knowhis boat by her flying a jack. When we have discharged our lading wewill sail to the Thames, and then let who will come aboard, for we shallhave a clean hold. This," continued I, "is the best scheme I can devise.The risk of smuggling attend it, to be sure; but against those risks wehave to put the certainty of our forfeiting our just claims to theproperty if we carry the schooner to the Thames. Even suppose, whenthere, that we should not be immediately visited, and so be providedwith an opportunity to land our stuff--whom have we to trust? The Thamesabounds with river thieves, with lumpers, scuffle-hunters, mud-larks,glutmen, rogues of all sorts, to hire whom would mean to bribe them withthe value of half the lading and to risk their stealing the other half.But this is the lesser difficulty; the main one lies in this: there aresome sixteen hundred men employed in the London Custom House, most ofwhom are on river duty as watchmen; thirty of these people are clappedaboard an East Indiaman, five or six on West India ships, and a likeproportion in other vessels. So strange a craft as ours would bevisited, depend on't, and smartly, too. D'ye see the danger, lads? Whatdo you say, then, to my scheme?"
The negroes immediately answered that they left it to me; I knew best;they would be satisfied with whatever I did.
Wilkinson mused a while and then said, "Smuggling was risky work. Howwould it be if we represented that we had found the schooner washingabout with nobody aboard?"
"The tale wouldn't be credited," said I. "The age of the vessel wouldtell against such a story, even if you removed all other evidence bythrowing the clothes and small-arms overboard and whatever else might goto prove that the schooner must have been floating about abandoned sincethe year 1750!"
"Musn't lose de clothes, massa, on no account," cried Pitt.
"Well, sir," says Wilkinson, after another spell of reflection, "Ireckon you're right. If so be the law would seize the vessel and goodson the grounds that she had been a pirate and all that's in her wasplunder, why, then, certainly, I don't see nothin' else but to make asmuggling job of it, as you say, sir."
This being settled (Wilkinson's concurrence being rendered the easier bymy telling him that, providing the lading was safely run, I would adhereto my undertaking to give them six hundred and sixty pounds each fortheir share), I went below and spent half an hour over a letter to Mr.Jeremiah Mason. There was no ink, but I found a pencil, and for paper Iused the fly-leaves of the books in my cabin. I opened with a sketch ofmy adventures, and then went on to relate that the _Boca_ was a _richship_; that as she had been a pirate, I risked her seizure by carryingher to London; that I stood grievously in need of his counsel and help,and begged him not to lose a moment in returning with the messenger toDeal, and there hiring a boat and coming to me, whom he would findcruising off Beachy Head. That I might know his boat, I bade him fly ajack a little below the masthead. "As for the _Boca del Dragon_," Iadded, "Wilkinson would recognize her if she were in the middle of athousand sail, and indeed a farmer's boy would be able to distinguishher for her uncommon oddness of figure." I was satisfied to underscorethe words "a rich ship," quite certain his imagination would besufficiently fired by the expression. At anything further I durst nothint, as the letter would be open for Wilkinson to read.
When I had finished, I took a lanthorn and the keys of the chest andwent very secretly and expeditiously to the run, and removing the layersof small-arms from the top of the case that held the money, I picked outsome English pieces, quickly returned the small-arms, locked the chest,and returned.
All this time we were running up Channel before a fresh westerly wind.It was true December weather, very raw, and the horizon thick, but Iknew my road well, and whilst the loom of the land showed, I desirednothing better than this thickness.
But wary sailing delayed us; and it was not till ten o'clock on thenight of the seventh that we hove the schooner to off the shingly beachof Lydd within sound of the wash of the sea upon it. The bay shelteredus; we got the boat over; I gave Wilkinson the letter and ten guineas,bidding him keep them hidden and to use them cautiously with the silverchange he would receive, for they were all guineas of the first Georgeand might excite comment if he, a poor sailor, ill-clad, should pullthem out and exhibit them. Happily, in the hurry of the time, he did notthink to ask me how I had come by them. He thrust them into his pocket,shook my hand and dropped into the boat, and the negroes immediatelyrowed him ashore.
I stood holding a lanthorn upon the rail to serve them as a guide,waiting for the boat to return, and never breathed more freely in mylife than when I heard the sound of oars. The two negroes camealongside, and, clapping the tackles on to the boat, we hoisted her withthe capstan, and then under very small canvas stood out to sea again.