The Rover's Secret: A Tale of the Pirate Cays and Lagoons of Cuba

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER TWENTY.

  THE PRIVATEER AND THE INDIAMAN.

  Having satisfied ourselves that the French frigate had actually struck,we filled on the schooner and ran down under the lee of the brig, wherewe once more hove to; our gig was lowered and manned, and I proceeded onboard to see if my services were further required.

  On reaching the deck I was met by a man of some five-and-thirty years ofage, evidently the skipper of the craft, who held out his hand to memost cordially, and exclaimed:

  "Welcome, young gentleman, on board his Britannic majesty's brig _Dido_.You hove in sight just in the nick of time this morning, for, but foryour very effective help, we should have been the captured instead ofthe captors by this time. What is the name of your schooner?"

  "The _Dolphin_," I replied, "cruising; sixteen days out from PortRoyal."

  "The _Dolphin_, eh?" said he. "Well, she is a remarkably fine andpowerful craft; carries heavy metal too; and your skipper evidentlyknows how to handle her. What is his name, by the bye?"

  I modestly explained that I was in command of the craft; an announcementwhich created quite a sensation among the officers who had gatheredround.

  "_You_!" exclaimed the skipper incredulously. "Well, then, I can onlysay, young gentleman, that you are shaping well--very well indeed.There is not a man in the service who could have fought that vessel moregallantly, or with better judgment than you did; and I shall take careto say so to the admiral when we get in. You have rendered a veryimportant service, my lad, let me tell you; for you have not only savedthe old _Dido_ from being taken, and helped in the capture of a finefrigate, but you have also saved some most urgent and importantdespatches which we have on board. Have you lost many men in theaction?"

  "Not one," said I; "nor have we, so far as I know, a single man with awound worth mentioning."

  "Ah, you are lucky!" he remarked. "But for that you may thank yourheavy metal and the way in which it was served; you were able to cripplethe frigate before she could touch you. Well, come down into the cabinand take a glass of wine with me whilst we talk over what is next to bedone. Mr Thompson, let Mr Rogers come down to me with his report whenhe returns from the frigate. Now then, Mr--a--ah--this way, please.By the way, I did not catch your name just now."

  There was a very good reason for that, as I had never mentioned it tohim; however, I did so then; he informed me that his name was Venn, andthat he held the rank of commander, and by the time that we had come tothis understanding we found ourselves in the cabin, a much smaller andplainer apartment than that of the _Dolphin_, by the bye.

  Wine was produced, we drank a glass together, and then my new friendproceeded to explain to me that, as the brig had suffered ratherseverely, and had had a great many men wounded in her running fight withthe frigate, he would be obliged to draw rather heavily upon the_Dolphin_ to make up a crew for the prize, and that, under thecircumstances, he considered it would be advisable for us to accompanythe _Dido_ and her prize into Port Royal.

  This arrangement suited me very well indeed, as I thought it justpossible there might be letters for me, if not from my father at leastfrom Inez; and I was just about to return on board the schooner to givethe necessary orders, when a midshipman, who had accompanied the firstlieutenant of the _Dido_ on board the prize to take possession, returnedwith the information that the frigate was named the _Cythere_, mountingthirty-two twelve-pounders, with a crew originally of three hundred andtwenty-eight all told; her loss during the action amounting to thirtytwo killed and sixty-eight wounded, her captain being among the former.

  By eight bells in the afternoon watch we had managed to make up betweenus and transfer to the frigate a very respectable prize-crew, afterwhich hawsers were passed on board the prize from the _Dido_ and the_Dolphin_, the brig taking up a position upon the frigate's larboard bowwhilst we stationed ourselves on the starboard, when sail was made uponboth the towing vessels and we shaped a course for Jamaica, the prize-crew busying themselves meanwhile in getting up new spars and repairingdamages in the standing and running rigging. By daylight next morningthis was so far accomplished that we were able to cast off the towinghawsers, when the three craft proceeded in company, arriving withoutmishap or adventure in Port Royal harbour on the morning of the sixthday succeeding the action.

  Commander Venn was as good as his word in framing his report of thecapture, in consequence of which I rose higher than ever in the favourof the admiral, who showed his appreciation of our services by fillingup our provisions and water with all possible speed and hurrying us offto sea again.

  As I had hoped, there were two letters for me, one from my father andone from Inez; but as the former was written in the same unsatisfactorystrain as those which had preceded it, and as the latter containednothing of interest to anyone but myself, I shall not trouble the readerwith even so much as an extract from either, but pass on to incidentswhich were destined to very materially affect the happiness of my wholefuture life, and that of others as well. Having filled up ourprovisions and water, as already stated, and having received on boardagain the hands who had helped to take the _Cythere_ into port, wesailed once more on the second day following our arrival, and proceededagain over the ground we had already beaten so successfully. We wereeven more fortunate on this occasion than we had been before, though wefound that it was no longer possible to take our enemies by surprise aswe had done at first; they had learned wisdom from experience and hadbecome aware of our tactics, notwithstanding which we took fourprivateers, one of which we cut out from under a battery, and madeseveral recaptures, two of which proved to be very valuable. But asthese incidents happened to be mere interludes, as it were, in my story,having no special significance, I shall leave them without furthermention and pass on. The reader will therefore please understand that Ihad been in command of the _Dolphin_ rather more than six months whenthe incident occurred to which I am about to refer.

  The time was about half an hour, or thereabouts, after midnight, and ourposition was about sixty miles south-east of Beata Point, thesouthernmost point on the mainland of Saint Domingo. The day had beenfine, with a very nice pleasant working breeze, but as the sun haddeclined toward the horizon the wind had shown signs of dropping,gradually dying away after sunset, until toward the end of the firstwatch it had fallen so completely calm that we had furled all our canvasto save wear and tear, and were, at the time mentioned, lying under barepoles, slowly drifting with the current to the westward. The night waspitch-dark, for there was no moon, and with the dying away of the wind agreat bank of heavy thunderous-looking cloud had gradually worked upfrom the westward, imperceptibly expanding until it had at lengthobscured the entire firmament, promising a thunder-storm which woulddoubtless be all the heavier when it broke from the length of time whichit took in the brewing. I had remained on deck until midnight; butobserving, when the middle watch was called, that the barometer haddropped only the merest trifle, had gone below upon the deck beingrelieved, and, leaving orders with young Boyne to call me in the eventof any change in the weather, had flung myself, half undressed, into mycot, hoping to get a nap before the storm broke, and feeling prettyconfident that when it did nothing very serious could happen, theschooner being under bare poles.

  But somehow I could not get to sleep, probably on account of theoppressive closeness of the atmosphere, for it was stiflingly hot,although the skylights and companion were wide open; and there I lay,tossing restlessly from side to side in a state of preternaturalwakefulness, listening to the lap and gurgle of the water against theship's side, the creaking of the bulk-heads, the rattling of the hookswhich held the cabin doors wide open, the _yerking_ of the main-sheetblocks, the _jerk-jerk_ of the rudder and of the lashed wheel above it,with the swish of the water under the counter and about the stern-postas the vessel rolled lazily upon the long sluggish swell which camecreeping slowly up from the eastward. And if by chance a momentaryfeeling of drowsiness happened to steal over me, which, carefullyfostered, might hav
e eventually led to my falling asleep, it was sure tobe put to flight by some ill-timed movement or speech by those on thedeck above me, although I will do them the justice to say that, so faras speech was concerned, they spoke but seldom, and then in subduedtones. At length, however, I was going off, the varied sounds I havementioned had lost their distinctness, had changed their character, andwere beginning to merge themselves into the accompaniments of what, afew minutes later, would have been a dream, when I heard Pottle's voiceexclaim with startling suddenness:

  "Hillo! what was that?"

  To which young Boyne replied, in unmistakably sleepy tones:

  "What was what, Mr Pottle?"

  "Why," replied Pottle, "I thought I saw--Ha! look, there it is again!Did you not see something like a flash away off there on our starboardbeam?"

  "No, sir," said Boyne, evidently a little more wide-awake, "I cannot sayI did. Probably it was lightning; we _must_ have it before long."

  "Lightning!" exclaimed Pottle contemptuously; "d'ye think I don't knowlightning when I see it? No, it looked more like--by George, there itis again!"

  At the same moment one of the men forward hailed, but I could not catchwhat he said for the creaking of the bulk-heads.

  "Ay, ay, I saw it," answered Pottle. "What did it look like to you,Martin?"

  "I thought it looked like the flash of firearms," was the reply, which Ithis time heard distinctly.

  "So did I," gruffly remarked Pottle. "Depend on't, Mr Boyne, there'ssomething going on down there to the south'ard which ought to be lookedinto. Just step down below and give Mr Lascelles a call, will ye?"

  I sprang out of my cot, slipped my stockingless feet into my shoes, drewon my jacket, and met young Boyne at the cabin door.

  "Well, Mr Boyne," said I, "what is the news? I heard Mr Pottle askyou to call me."

  "Yes, sir," said the lad. "He says he has seen something like the flashof firearms down in the southern quarter, and the lookout also hasreported it."

  "All right," said I. "I will be up in a moment."

  And turning up the cabin lamp for an instant to take a look at thebarometer, which I found to be steady, I stumbled up the companion-ladder, and, blinking like an owl in daylight, made my way out on deck.

  "Whew!" I exclaimed, "this _is_ darkness, indeed. Where are you, MrPottle?"

  "Here I am, sir," answered the quarter-master; and turning in thedirection of his voice I saw a tiny glowing spark which proved to be theignited end of a cigar which he had between his teeth.

  "Now," said I, as I groped my way to his side, "whereaway was thisflashing appearance which you say you saw?"

  "Just about in that direction, sir," was the reply; "or stay--we mayhave swung a bit since I saw it," and he walked aft and carefully raiseda jacket which he had thrown over the lighted binnacle. "No," hecontinued, "that's where it was, just sou'-sou'-west, for I took thebearing of it when I saw it the third time; and I thought that, in caseof anything being wrong, it wouldn't be amiss to mask the binnaclelight."

  "Quite right," said I, peering first at the compass card and then awayinto the opaque darkness which prevented our seeing even the surface ofthe water alongside. It was manifestly hopeless to think of seeinganything through such impenetrable obscurity as that which surroundedus; and I was just wondering what steps to take, under thecircumstances, peering meanwhile in the direction indicated by Pottle,when I caught a momentary glimpse of a tiny spark-like flash--which theejaculations of my comrades told me they also had observed--and inanother instant a glare of ghastly blue-white radiance streamed out overthe sea and revealed to us two vessels alongside each other, the canvasof the one--a large lumbering full-rigged ship, gleaming spectrally inthe light of the port-fire, whilst the sails of the other--a brigantine,which happened to be on the side next us--stood out black as ebonyagainst the light. They were about two miles off; and even at thatdistance we could see with the naked eye that a struggle of some sortwas going forward on the decks of the larger of the two craft. Thenature of the affair was apparent in a moment to every one of us. Thebig ship was unmistakably an Indiaman, probably a fellow-countryman; atleast so we judged by the imperfect view of his canvas which theflickering light of the port-fire afforded us; whilst, if appearanceswere to go for anything, the brigantine could be nothing else than aFrench picaroon. At all events our duty was now plain enough, we oughtto investigate the affair without a moment's unnecessary delay; and Iaccordingly gave orders for all hands to be immediately called, and forthe pinnace and the two gigs to be lowered and manned. This was donewith an alacrity which I venture to believe would have gratified even myold friend the admiral himself; and in less than a quarter of an hourfrom the moment of giving the order we were in the boats and well awayfrom the schooner. The pinnace was in charge of the boatswain; Pottlehad the command of one of the gigs; and, as there seemed to be noprospect of any worse outcome, in the shape of weather, than a thunder-storm, I did not hesitate to take charge of the other gig myself,leaving Woodford in temporary command of the schooner with instructionshow to proceed in the event of a breeze springing up before we were ableto rejoin him.

  The port-fire on board the Indiaman having long before burnt-out, we hadtaken the precaution to provide each boat with a compass, the light ofwhich was most carefully-masked; but this precaution soon proved to beunnecessary, the boats having traversed less than half the distancebetween the schooner and the other two vessels when vivid sheetlightning began to play along the south-western horizon, lighting up thescene with its weird radiance frequently enough to enable us to steer aperfectly straight course. The fight was still going on when we leftthe schooner; but it appeared to cease soon afterwards, and we came tothe conclusion that the crew of the Indiaman had been overpowered andthe ship taken. Our chief anxiety now was lest our approach should bediscovered in time to enable the Frenchman to make preparations forresisting our attempts to board them when we should arrive alongside;but, fortunately for us, the chief play of the lightning was in thequarter almost opposite that from which we were approaching, and I wasin hopes that they would be too busy just then plundering the prize tokeep a very strict lookout. In this, however, I was doomed to bedisappointed; for when we had arrived within a quarter of a mile of thebrigantine a sudden flashing of lights appeared on board her, and beforewe could get alongside a broadside of four guns, loaded with grape, washastily discharged at us. Luckily, beyond revealing the fact that wehad been discovered, the broadside did us no harm; and, with a cheer,our tars bent to their oars and, with a few lusty strokes, sent usalongside with a rush.

  The brigantine, a long and exceedingly rakish-looking craft, sat verylow in the water, so that it appeared to be one of the easiest things inthe world to scramble in over her bulwarks from the boats; but we foundthose bulwarks lined from stem to stern with as resolute-looking a setof fellows as one need wish to see, and their reception of us, asregards warmth, left absolutely nothing to be desired. They evidentlyknew and fully appreciated the advantage they possessed over us inhaving a good roomy deck to fight upon, and they seemed fully resolvedto retain that advantage as long as possible. Three separate anddistinct attempts did we make to surmount the low barrier; and as manytimes were we forced back into the boats, each occasion being marked bythe accession of some three or four to the number of our wounded. Onthe fourth occasion, however, I determined that gain the deck of thatbrigantine _I would_, by hook or by crook; so calling Collins, thecoxswain of my boat, and another man to my aid, I ordered them each toseize me by a leg and _fling_ me on board, which they did with a regularman-of-war's-man's "one--two--three--heave!" and away I went in over thebulwarks like a rocket, alighting fairly on the shoulders of a greatburly fellow who had already lodged a pistol bullet in the fleshy partof my left arm--and to whom I consequently owed a grudge--beating himdown to the deck, only to find myself in the very thickest of the crowd,every man of which seemed more anxious than the others to get a fairblow at me. I was, however, by this time no me
re novice in the use ofthe sword, and I no sooner felt myself fairly on my feet than I made theweapon spin about my adversaries' heads in such good earnest that theywere compelled to recoil. Meanwhile my lads had no sooner launched meinto space than they sprang after me, and, pressing forward to my sidewith their cutlasses advanced, we soon made room enough for the rest ofour party to follow. But though we had gained the deck we had by nomeans won the ship, our antagonists rallying time after time as we drovethem back, and stubbornly contesting with us the possession of everyinch of plank. Meanwhile the storm which had so long been brewing hadat length burst almost immediately overhead, the lightning flashing andplaying about the mast-heads of the ships with a dazzling vividnesswhich was almost blinding, whilst the thunder crashed and roared androlled along the heavens absolutely without intermission. The generaleffect was impressive and appalling in the extreme--or would have beenhad we been in a mood to properly appreciate it; but just then our onlythought--or mine, at least--with regard to it was that it afforded uslight enough to fight by and to distinguish friends from foes. And itwas by the friendly aid of the lightning that I was, in the midst of the_melee_, enabled to identify an object, which I had once or twice kickedfrom under my feet, as a flannel cartridge. I had already noticedseveral charges of grape ranged along the shot-racks; and it nowoccurred to me that one of these discharged into the thick of ourenemies might help very materially to mitigate their ardour. So,turning to some of the lads behind, I directed them to run in one of theguns, load it, and slue it fore and aft, with its muzzle pointing towardthe taffrail, in which direction we were slowly pressing the crew of thebrigantine. This was soon done; when, taking advantage of a momentarylull in the confusion of sound which raged about us, I shouted:

  "Back, _Dolphins_, into the waist, for your lives; we are about to treatthem to a dose of grape!"

  Our lads luckily heard and understood me; we pressed forward withincreased energy for a moment, huddling the Frenchmen all up in a heaptogether just about the companion-way, and then suddenly retiredforward, leaving the gun, a nine-pounder, grinning open-mouthed fair atthem. The moment that the last of our men was fairly out of danger thetopman who had taken charge of the gun discharged it; we immediatelyrushed aft again, charging through the smoke, found the foe, as we hadexpected, quite confused and demoralised from the effect of the fire,and, pressing upon them more fiercely than ever, compelled them to throwdown their arms and cry for quarter, though not until I had beencompelled in self-defence to run their leader through with my sword.

  The brigantine was now our own, so leaving Pottle and the boatswain tosecure the prisoners, which task they set about without a moment'sdelay, I rallied my own boat's crew about me and led them on board theIndiaman to take possession of her. We met with no opposition whilstclimbing the ship's lofty sides; but on gaining the deck a group of somehalf a dozen figures were discovered mounting guard over the fore-scuttle. Despatching the coxswain and three hands to secure these, andthe remainder of the crew to hunt up any stray Frenchmen who mighthappen to be lurking about the decks, I turned my steps in the directionof the poop cabin, and calling one hand to attend me, at once made myway thither.

  One of the doors was standing wide open, with a brilliant stream oflight pouring through it, lighting up the massive mainmast and the gearattached to it for a height of some twelve feet above the deck, andrevealing the fact that the quarter-deck guns at least of the vessel hadnever been cast loose, thus confirming me in the suspicion I had beforeentertained that the vessel had been taken by surprise. Entering thecabin, a strange scene presented itself. The apartment itself was veryspacious, being of the full width of the ship, and extending right aft(the sleeping cabins and the captain's private quarters, I subsequentlydiscovered, were situated below, on the main-deck); and it was veryhandsomely fitted up with rosewood and maple panels, a great deal ofgilt moulding, several mirrors, and some half a dozen very decentlyexecuted pictures; whilst a handsome five-light chandelier--with one ofthe lamps recently broken--swung from the beams overhead. Against theforward bulkhead and between the two doors giving admission to the cabinthere stood a very massive and handsomely carved buffet, on which stooda quantity of finely cut crystal, several decanters containing wine andspirits, and some fruit dishes loaded with fruit. A long table stoodfore and aft in the centre of the saloon with, perhaps, a couple ofdozen luxurious-looking chairs ranged round it; and along each side ofthe cabin ran a range of wide handsomely upholstered sofa lockers. Thefloor was covered with a thick Turkey carpet of handsome design. But itwas not so much the rich furnishing of the saloon which made itremarkable; it was the aspect and grouping of the people I found there.A dozen or more gentlemen, clad only in their shirts and trousers, andseveral of them bleeding from wounds, were seated on the lockers, withtheir feet lashed together and their arms tied behind them. At the farend of the cabin, abaft the table, and crouching on the floor, huddled anumber of ladies and children in their night-dresses, all of them paleas death and looking dreadfully frightened, whilst one of the ladies wasweeping hysterically over a little chubby, fair, and curly-headed boy ofsome six or seven years old, who was moaning piteously the while theblood trickled from a wound in his head, matting his golden curlstogether into a gory mass and slowly spreading out in a greatensanguined stain on the sleeve of his mother's night-dress. Near thedoor by which I entered lay the apparently dead bodies of two men, who Itook, from their dress, to be the captain and chief mate of the ship;and close to them stood a tall, handsome, dark-skinned Frenchman, withgold rings in his ears, a naval cap with a gold band on his head, acrimson silk sash round his waist, fairly bristling with pistols, adrawn sword in his right hand and a pistol in his left, evidentlymounting guard over the prisoners. As I entered the cabin this fellowturned to meet me. The moment he saw me to be a stranger up went hispistol, and, before I had time to realise what he was about, there was aflash, a blow followed by a sharp stinging sensation along the left sideof my head, a thud, a groan, and a fall behind me; then came a lungingthrust from his sword, which I had the good luck to parry; this parry Ifollowed up with a lightning-like thrust; my sword passed through hisheart, and he fell dead on the carpet close to the two bodies I havealready mentioned. All this passed as it were in a moment, with suchstartling suddenness, indeed, that it left me quite dazed, so that for afew seconds I could scarcely realise exactly what had happened. Onrecovering my self-possession, my first thought was for the man who hadbeen following me into the cabin. I turned round to ascertain whetherthe groan had proceeded from him, and there, prone in the passage-waybehind me, lay the poor fellow on his back, stone dead, the bullethaving crashed into his brain through his right eye.