CHAPTER XXII
"Mr Newland (the first lieutenant) and I set out early in the day,accordingly, with a couple of the _Hebe's_ midshipmen, mounted on asmany of the little island ponies, to go up inland for a cruise about thehills. You take Side Path along the crags, with a wall betwixt the hardtrack and the gulf below, till you lose sight of Jamestown like acluster of children's toy-houses under you, and turn up above a slopinghollow full of green trees and tropical-like flowering shrubs, round apretty cottage called The Briars--where one begins to have a notion,however, of the bare blocks, the red bluffs, and the sharp peaksstanding up higher and higher round the shell of the island. Then youhad another rise of it to climb, on which you caught sight of Jamestownand the harbour again, even smaller than before, and saw nothing beforeyour beast's head but a desert of stony ground, running hither andthither into wild staring clefts, grim ravines, and rocks of every sizetumbled over each other like figures of ogres and giants in hard fight.After two or three miles of all this, we came in view of Longwood Hill,lying green on a level to north and east, and clipping to windwardagainst the sea beyond; all round it elsewhere was the thick red crustof the island, rising in ragged points and sharp spires--the greenishsugar-loaf of Diana's Peak shooting in the middle over the high ridgethat hid the Plantation House side of St Helena to leeward.
"Between the spot where we were and Longwood is a huge fearful-lookingblack hollow, called the Devil's Punch-bowl, as round and deep as apitch-pot for caulking all the ships in the world--except on a slopeinto one corner of it, where you saw a couple of yellow cottages withgardens about them; while every here and there a patch of grass began toappear, a clump of wild weeds and flowers hanging off the fronts of therocks, or the head of some valley widening away out of sight, with theglimpse of a house amongst trees, where some stream of water cameleaping down off the heights and vanished in the boggy piece of greenbelow. From here over the brow of the track it was all like seeing intoan immense stone basin half-hewn out, with all the lumps and wrinklesleft rising in it and twisting every way about--the black Devil'sPunch-bowl for a hole in the middle, where some infernal liquor or otherhad run through; the soft bottoms of the valleys just bringing the wholeof it up distincter to the green over Longwood Hill; while the raggedheights ran round on every side like a rim with notches in it, andDiana's Peak for a sort of a handle that the clouds could take hold of.All this time we had strained ourselves to get as fast up as possible,except once near the Alarm House, where there was a telegraphsignal-post, with a little guard-hut for the soldiers; but _there_ eachturned round in his saddle, letting out a long breath the next thing toa cry, and heaving-to directly, at sight of the prospect behind. TheAtlantic lay wide away round to the horizon from the roads, glitteringfaint over the ragged edge of the crags we had mounted near at hand;only the high back of the island shut out the other side--save here andthere through a deep-notched gully or two--and accordingly you saw thesea blotched out in that quarter to the two sharp bright ends, claspingthe dark-coloured lump between them, like a mighty pair of arms liftingit high to carry it off. Soon after, however, the two mids took it intotheir wise heads the best thing was to go and climb Diana's Peak, wherethey meant to cut their names at the very top; on which the firstlieutenant, who was a careful middle-aged man, thought needful to gowith them, lest they got into mischief; for my part, I preferred thechance of coming across the mysterious Yankee and his comrade, as Ifancied not unlikely, or, what was less to be looked for, a sight ofBonaparte himself.
"Accordingly, we had parted company, and I was holding single-handedround one side of the Devil's Punch-bowl, when I heard a clatter ofhorse-hoofs on the road, and saw the Admiral and Lord Frederick ridingquickly past on the opposite side, on their way to Longwood--which,curiously enough, was half-covered with mist at the time, driving downfrom the higher hills, apparently before a regular gale, or rather somekind of a whirlwind. In fact, I learned after, that such was often thecase, the climate up there being quite different from below, where theynever feel a gale from one year's end to the other. In the next hollow Igot into, it was hot and still as it would have been in India, theblackberry trailers and wild aloes growing quite thick, mixed withprickly-pear bushes, willows, gumwood, and an African palm or two;though from the look of the sea, I could notice the southeast trade hadfreshened below, promising to blow a good deal stronger that night thanordinary, and to shift a little round.
"Suddenly the fog began to clear by degrees from over Longwood, till itwas fairly before me, nearer than I thought; and just as I rode up arising ground, out came the roof of a house on the slope amongst sometrees, glittering wet as if the sun laid a finger on it; with a lowbluish-coloured stretch of wood farther off, bringing out the whitetents of the soldiers' camp pitched about the edge of it. Nearly towindward there was one sail in sight on the horizon, over an opening inthe rocks beyond Longwood House, that seemingly let down toward thecoast; however, I just glanced back to notice the telegraph on thesignal-post at work, signalling to the _Podargus_ in the offing, andnext minute Hut's Gate was right ahead of me, not a quarter of a mileoff--a long-shaped bungalow of a cottage, inside of a wall with a gatein it, where I knew I needn't try farther, unless I wanted the sentriesto take me under arrest. Betwixt me and it, however, in the low ground,was a party of man-o'war's-men under charge of a midshipman, carryingsome timber and house-furniture for Longwood, as I remembered, fromseeing them come ashore from the _Podargus_ that morning; so I stoodover to give my late shipmates a hail. But the moment I got up withthem, it struck me not a little, as things stood, to find three of thefour blacks we had taken aboard from that said burnt barque of theAmerican mate's trudging patiently enough under the heaviest loads ofthe gang. Jetty-black, savage-looking fellows they were, as strong ashorses, and reminded me more of our wild friends in the Nouries River,than of States niggers; still, what caught my notice most wasn't so muchtheir being there at all, as the want of the fourth one, and where _he_might be. I don't know yet how this trifling bit of a puzzle got hold onme, but it was the sole thing that kept me from what might have turned ascrape to myself--namely, passing myself in as officer of the party;which was easy enough at the time, and the tars would have entered intothe frolic as soon as I started it. On second thoughts, nevertheless, Ibade them good-day, steering my animal away round the slant of theground, to see after a good perch as near as possible; and I daresay Iwas getting within the bounds before I knew it when another sentry sungout to me off the heights to keep lower down, first bringing his musketto salute for my uniform's sake, then letting it fall level with aringing slap of his palm, as much as to say it was all the distinctionI'd get over plain clothes.
"At this, of course, I gave it up, with a blessing to all lobster-backs,and made sail down to leeward again as far as the next rise, from whichthere was a full view of the sea, at any rate, though the face of arough crag over behind me shut out Longwood House altogether. Here I hadto get fairly off the saddle--rather sore, I must say, with riding up StHelena roads after so many weeks at sea--and flung myself down on thegrass, with little enough fear of the hungry little beast getting faradrift. This said crag, by-the-way, drew my eye to it by the queercolours it showed, white, blue, grey, and bright red in the hotsunlight; and being too far off to make out clearly, I slung off theship's glass I had across my back, just to overhaul it better. The hueof it was to be seen running all down the deep rift between, thatseemingly wound away into some glen toward the coast; while the lot ofplants and trailers half covering the steep front of it, would no doubt,I thought, have delighted my old friend the Yankee, if he _was_ thebotanising gentleman in question.
"By this time it was a lovely afternoon far and wide to Diana's Peak,the sky glowing clearer deep-blue at that height than you'd have thoughtsky could do, even in the tropics--the very peaks of bare red rock beingsoftened into a purple tint, far off round you. One saw into the roughbottom of the huge Devil's Punch-bowl, and far through without a shadowdown the green patches in the little
valleys, and over DeadwoodCamp--there was _nothing_, as it were, between the grass, the ground,the stones, and leaves, and the empty hollow of the air; while the seaspread far round underneath, of a softer blue than the sky over you.You'd have thought all the world was shrunk into St Helena, with theAtlantic lying three-quarters round it in one's sight, like the horns ofthe bright new moon round the dim old one; which St Helena pretty muchresembled, if what the star-gazers say of its surface be true, allpeaks and dry hollows--if, indeed, you weren't lifting up out of theworld, so to speak, when one looked through his fingers right into thekeen blue overhead!
"If I lived a thousand years, I couldn't tell half what I felt lyingthere; but, as you may imagine, it had somewhat in it of the lateEuropean war by land and sea. Not that I could have said so at the time,but rather a sort of half-doze, such as I've known one have when aschoolboy, lying on the green grass the same way, with one's face turnedup into the hot summer heavens; half of it flying glimpses, as it were,of the French Revolution, the battles we used to hear of when we werechildren--then the fears about the invasion, with the Channel full ofBritish fleets, and Dover Cliffs--Trafalgar and Nelson's death, and thebattle of Waterloo, just after we heard _he_ had got out of Elba. In theterrible flash of the thing altogether, one almost fancied them all gonelike smoke; and for a moment I thought I was falling away off, _down_into the wide sky, so up I started to sit. From that, suddenly I took toguessing and puzzling closely again how I should go to work myself, if Iwere the strange Frenchman I saw in the brig at sea, and wanted tomanage Napoleon's escape out of St Helena. And first, there was how toget into the island and put _him_ up to the scheme--why, sure enough, Icouldn't have laid it down better than they seemed to have done allalong: what could one do but just dodge about that latitude under allsorts of false rig, then catch hold of somebody fit to cover one'slanding? No Englishman _would_ do it, and no foreigner but would set SirHudson Lowe on his guard in a moment. Next we should have to get put onthe island--and really a neat enough plan it was to dog one of the verycruisers themselves, knock up a mess of planks and spars in thenight-time, set them all ablaze with tar, and pretend we were fresh froma craft on fire; when even Captain Wallis of the _Podargus_, as ithappened, was too much of a British seaman not to carry us straight toSt Helena! Again, I must say it was a touch beyond me; but to hit theGovernor's notions of a hobby, and go picking up plants round Longwood,was a likely enough way to get speech of the prisoner, or at least lethim see one was there!
"How should I set about carrying him off to the coast, though? That wasthe prime matter. Seeing that even if the schooner--which was no doubthovering out of sight--were to make a bold dash for the land with thetrade-wind, in a night eleven hours long--there were sentries closeround Longwood from sunset, the starlight shining mostly always in thewant of a moon; and at any rate there was rock and gully enough, betwixthere and the coast, to try the surest foot aboard the _Hebe_, let alonean emperor. With plenty of woods for a cover, one might steal up closeto Longwood, but the bare rocks showed you off to be made a mark of.Whew! but why were those same blacks on the island? I thought; juststrip them stark-naked, and let them lie in the Devil's Punch-bowl, orsomewhere, beyond military hours, when I warrant me they might slip up,gully by gully, to the very sentries' backs! Their colour wouldn't showthem, and savages as they seemed, couldn't they settle as many sentriesas they needed, creep into the very bed-chamber where Bonaparte slept,and man-handle him bodily away down through some of the nearest hollows,before anyone was the wiser? The point that still bothered me was, whythe fourth of the blacks was wanting at present, unless he had his partto play elsewhere. If it was chance, then the _whole_ might be a notionof mine, which I knew I was apt to have sometimes. If I could only makeout the fourth black, so as to tally with the scheme, on the other hand,then I thought it was all sure; but of course this quite checked me, andI gave it up, to work out my fancy case by providing signals betwixt usplotters inside and the schooner out of sight from the telegraphs.
"There was no use for her to run in and take the risk, without good luckhaving turned up on the island; yet any sign she could profit by must beboth sufficient to reach sixty miles or so, and hidden enough not toalarm the telegraphs or the cruisers. Here was a worse puzzle than all,and I only guessed at it for my own satisfaction--as a fellow can't helpdoing when he hears a question he can't answer--till my eye lighted onDiana's Peak, near three thousand feet above the sea. There it was, byJove! 'Twas quite clear at the time; but by nightfall there was alwaysmore or less cloud near the top; and if you set a fire on the very peak,'twould only be seen leagues off: a notion that brought to mind asimilar thing which I told you saved the Indiaman from a lee-shore onenight on the African coast--and again, by George! I saw _that_ must havebeen meant at first by the negroes as a smoke to help the French brigeasier in! Putting that and that together, why it struck me at once whatthe fourth black's errand might be--namely, to watch for the schooner,and kindle his signal as soon as he couldn't see the island for mist, Iwas sure of it; and as for a dark night coming on at sea, the fresheningof the breeze there promised nothing more likely; a bright white hazewas softening out the horizon already, and here and there the egg of acloud could be seen to break off the sky to windward, all of which wouldbe better known afloat than here.
"The truth was, I was on the point of tripping my anchor to hurry downand get aboard again, but, on standing up, the head of a peak fell belowthe sail I had noticed in the distance, and, seeing she loomed large onthe stretch of water, I pretty soon found she must be a ship of theline. The telegraph over the Alarm House was hard at work again, so Ie'en took down my glass and cleaned it to have a better view, duringwhich I caught sight, for a minute, of some soldier-officer or other onhorseback, with a mounted red-coat behind him, riding hastily up thegully a good bit from my back, till they were round the red piece ofcrag, turning at times as if to watch the vessel. Though I couldn't havea better spy at him for want of my glass, I had no doubt he was theGovernor himself, for the sentries in the distance took no note of him.
"There was nobody else visible at the time, and the said cliff stoodfair up like a look-out place, so as to shut them out as they wenthigher. Once or twice after, I fancied I made out a man's head or twolower down the gully than the cliff was, which, it occurred to me, mightpossibly be the botanists, as they called themselves, busy finding outhow long St Helena had been an island; however, I soon turned the glassbefore me upon the ship, by this time right opposite the ragged openingof Prosperous Bay, and heading well up about fourteen miles or so offthe coast, as I reckoned, to make Jamestown harbour. The moment I hadthe sight of the glass right for her--though you'd have thought shestood still on the smooth soft blue water--I could see her whole beamrise off the swells before me, from the dark side and white band,checkered with a double row of ports, to the hamper of her loftyspars, and the sails braced slant to the breeze, the foam gleamingunder her high bows, and her wake running aft in the heave of thesea. She was evidently a seventy-four; I fancied I could make outher men's faces peering over the yards toward the island, as theythought of 'Boneypart'; a white rear-admiral's flag was at themizzen-royal-mast-head, leaving no doubt she was the _Conqueror_ atlast, with Admiral Plampin, and, in a day or two at farthest, the _Hebe_would be bound for India.
"I had just looked over my shoulder toward Longwood, letting the_Conqueror_ sink back again into a thing no bigger than a model on amantelpiece, when, all at once, I saw someone standing near the brow ofthe cliff I mentioned, apparently watching the vessel, with a long glassat his eye, like myself. 'Twas farther than I could see to make outanything, save so much; and, ere I had screwed the glass for such a nearsight, there were seven or eight figures more appearing half over theslope behind; while my hand shook so much with holding the glass solong, that at first I brought it to bear full on the cracks and blocksin the front of the crag, with the large green leaves and trailers on itflickering idly with the sunlight against my eyes, till I could haveseen the sp
iders inside, I daresay. Next I held it too high, where theAdmiral and Lord Frederick were standing by their horses, a good wayback; the Governor, as I supposed, sitting on his, and two or threeothers along the rise. At length, what with kneeling down to rest it onone knee, I had the glass steadily fixed on the brow of the rocks, whereI plainly saw a tall dark-whiskered man, in a rich French uniform,gazing to seaward--I knew him I sought too well by pictures, however,not to be sadly galled.
"Suddenly a figure came slowly down from before the rest, with his handsbehind his back, and his head a little drooped. The officer at oncelowered the telescope and held it to him, stepping upward, as if toleave him alone--what dress he had on I scarce noticed; but there he wasstanding, single, in the round bright field of the glass I had hold oflike a vice--his head raised, his hands hiding his face, as he kept thetelescope fixed fair in front of me--only I saw the smooth, broad roundof his chin. I knew, as if I'd seen him in the Tuileries at Paris, orknown him by sight since I was a boy--I _knew_ it was Napoleon!
"During that minute the rest of them were out of sight, so far as theglass went--you'd have supposed there was no one there but himself, asstill as a figure in iron, watching the same thing, no doubt, as I'ddone myself five minutes before, where the noble seventy-four wasbeating slowly to windward. When I _did_ glance to the knot of officerstwenty yards back, 'twas as if one saw a ring of his generals waitingrespectfully while he eyed some field of battle or other, with his armyat the back of the hill; but next moment the telescope fell in hishands, and his face, as pale as death, with his lip firm under it,seemed near enough for me to touch it--his eyes shot stern into me frombelow his wide white forehead, and I started, dropping my glass in turn.That instant the whole wild lump of St Helena, with its ragged brim, theclear blue sky and the sea, swung round about the dwindled figures abovethe crag, till they were nothing but so many people together against theslope beyond.
"'Twas a strange scene to witness, let me tell you; never can I forgetthe sightless, thinking sort of gaze from that head of his, after thetelescope sank from his eye, when the _Conqueror_ must have shot backwith all her stately hamper into the floor of the Atlantic again!
"Once more I brought my spy-glass to bear on the place where he hadbeen, and was almost on the point of calling out to warn him off theedge of the cliff, forgetting the distance I was away. Napoleon hadstepped, with one foot before him, on the very brink, his two handshanging loose by his side, with the glass in one of them, till theshadow of his small black cocked hat covered the hollows of his eyes,and he stood, as it were, looking down past the face of the precipice.What he thought of, no mortal tongue can say, whether he was master atthe time over a wilder battle than any he'd ever fought--but just then,what was the surprise it gave me to see the head of a man, with a redtasselled cap on it, raised through amongst the ivy from below, while heseemed to have his feet on the cracks and juts of the rock, hoistinghimself by one hand round the tangled roots, till no doubt he must havelooked right aloft into the French Emperor's face; and perhaps hewhispered something--though, for my part, it was all dumb show to me,where I knelt peering into the glass. I saw even _him_ start at thesuddenness of the thing--he raised his head upright, still glancing downover the front of the crag, with the spread hand lifted, and the side ofhis face half-turned toward the party within earshot behind, where theGovernor and the rest apparently kept together out of respect, no doubtwatching both Napoleon's back and the ship of war far beyond. The keensunlight on the spot brought out every motion of the two in front--the_one_ so full in my view, that I could mark his look settle again on theother below, his firm lips parting and his hand out before him, like aman seeing a spirit he knew; while a bunch of leaves on the end of awand came stealing up from the stranger's post to Napoleon's veryfingers.
"The head of the man on the cliff turned round seaward for one moment,ticklish as his footing must have been; then he looked back, pointingwith his loose hand to the horizon--there was one minute between themwithout a motion, seemingly--the captive Emperor's chin was sunk on hisbreast, though you'd have said his eyes glanced up out of the shadow ofhis forehead; and the stranger's red cap hung like a bit of thebright-coloured cliff, under his two hands, holding amongst the leaves.Then I saw Napoleon lift his hand calmly, he gave a sign with it--itmight have been refusing, it might have been agreeing, or it might befarewell, I never expect to know; but he folded his arms across hisbreast, with the bunch of leaves in his fingers, and stepped slowly backfrom the brink towards the officers. I was watching the stranger belowit, as he swung there for a second or two, in a way like to let him godash to the bottom; his face sluing wildly seaward again. Short thoughthe glance I had of him was--his features set hard in some bitterfeeling or other, his dress different, too, besides the moustache beingoff, and his complexion no doubt purposely darkened--it served to provewhat I'd suspected: he was no other than the Frenchman I had seen in thebrig, and, mad or sensible, the very look I caught was more like that hefaced the thunder squall with than aught besides. Directly after, he wasletting himself carefully down with his back to my glass; the partyabove were moving off over the brow of the crags, and the Governorriding round apparently to come once more down the hollow between us.
"In fact, the seventy-four had stood by this time so far in, that thepeaks in the distance shut her out; but I ran the glass carefully alongthe whole horizon in my view, for signs of the schooner. The haze wastoo bright, however, to make sure either way; though, dead to windward,there were some streaks of cloud risen with the breeze, where I once ortwice fancied I could catch the gleam of a speck in it. The _Podargus_was to be seen through a notch in the rocks, too, beating out in adifferent direction, as if the telegraph had signalled her elsewhere;after which you heard the dull rumble of the forts saluting the_Conqueror_ down at Jamestown as she came in; and being late in theafternoon, it was high time for me to crowd sail downward, to fall inwith my shipmates.
"I was just getting near the turn into Side Path, accordingly, after acouple of mortal hours' hard riding, and once more in sight of theharbour beneath, when the three of them overtook me, having managed toreach the top of Diana's Peak, as they meant. The first lieutenant wasfull of the grand views on the way, with the prospect of the peak, whereone saw the sea all round St Helena like a ring, and the sky over you asblue as blue water. 'But what do you think we saw on the top, MrCollins?' asked one of the urchins of me--a mischievous imp he washimself, too, pock-marked, with hair like a brush, and squinted like aship's two hawse-holes. 'Why, Mister Snelling,' said I, gruffly--for Iknew him pretty well already, and he was rather a favourite with me forhis sharpness, though you may suppose I was thinking of no trifles atthe moment--'why, the devil, perhaps.' 'I must say I thought at first itwas him, sir,' said the reefer, grinning; ''twas a black nigger, though,sir, sitting right on the very truck of it, with his hands on his twoknees, and we'd got to shove him off before we could dig our knives intoit!' '_By_ the Lord Harry!' I rapped out, 'the very thing that----'''Twas really the case, though, Mr Collins,' said the first lieutenant;'and I thought it curious; but there are so many negroes in the island.''If you please, sir,' put in the least of the mids, 'perhaps theyhaven't all of 'em room to meditate, sir!' 'Or sent to the mast-head,eh, Roscoe?' said Snelling. 'Which you'll be, sirrah,' broke in thefirst lieutenant, 'the moment I get aboard, if you don't keep a smallhelm.' We were clattering down over Jamestown by this time, the sunblazing red off the horizon, into it and the doors of the houses, andthe huge hull and spars of the _Conqueror_ almost blocking up theharbour, as she lay anchored outside the Indiaman. The evening gun firedas we pulled aboard the _Hebe_, which immediately got under weigh byorder, although Lord Frederick was not come down yet; but it fell to herturn that night to supply a guard-boat to windward, and she stood upunder full sail round Sugarloaf Point, just as the dusk fell like ashadow over the island.
"The _Newcastle's_ boat was on the leeward coast that night, and one ofour cutters was getting ready to lower, nearly off Pro
sperous Bay, towindward, while the frigate herself would hold farther out to sea. Oneof the master's mates should have taken the cutter; but after giving thefirst lieutenant a few hints as far as I liked to go, I proposed to goin charge of her that time, myself--which was laid to the score of myfreshness on the station; and the mate being happy to get rid of atiresome duty, I got leave at once.
"The sharp midshipman, Snelling, took it into his ugly head to keep mecompany, and away we pulled into hearing of the surf. The moment thingstook the shape of fair work, in fact, I lost all thoughts of a latekind. In place of seeing the ragged heights against the sky, and musingall sorts of notions about the French Emperor, there was nothing but thebroad bulk of the island high over us, the swell below, and the seaglimmering wide from our gunwale to the stars; so no sooner did we losesight of the _Hebe_ slowly melting into the gloom, than I lit a cheroot,gave the tiller to the mid, and sat stirring to the heart at the thoughtof something to come, I scarce knew what. As for Bonaparte, with allthat belonged to him, 'twas little to me in that mood, in spite of whatI'd seen during the day, compared with a snatch of old Channel times;the truth was, next morning I'd feel for him again.
"The night for a good while was pretty tolerably starlit, and in a sortof way you could make out a good distance. One time we pulled rightround betwixt the two points, though slowly enough; then again the menlay on their oars, letting her float in with the long swells, till thesurf could be heard too loud for a safe berth. Farther on in the night,however, it got to be dark--below at least--the breeze holding steady,and bringing it thicker and thicker; at last it was so black all roundthat on one side you just _knew_ the rocks over you, with the help of afaint twinkle of stars right aloft. On the other side there was only, attimes, the two lights swinging at the mast-head of the _Podargus_ and_Hebe_, far apart, and one farther to sea than the other; or now andthen their stern-window and a port, when the heave of the water liftedthem, or the ships yawed a little. One hour after another, it waswearisome enough waiting for nothing at all, especially in the key onewas in at the time, and with a long tropical night before you.
"All of a sudden, fairly between the brig and the frigate, I fancied Icaught a glimpse for one moment of another twinkle; then it was outagain, and I had given it up, when I was certain I saw it plainly oncemore, as well as a third time, for as short a space as before. We wereoff a cove in the coast, inside Prosperous Bay, where a bight in therocks softened the force of the surf, not far from the steep break whereone of these same narrow gullies came out--a good deal short of theshore, indeed; but I knew by this time it led up somewhere toward theLongwood side. Accordingly the idea struck me of a plan to set agoing,whether I hit upon the right place or not; if it _was_ the schooner, shewould be coming down right from windward, on the look-out for a signal,as well as for the spot to aim at; the thing was to lure her boat ashorethere before their time, seize her crew, and take the schooner herselfby surprise, as if we were coming back all right; since signal the shipswe couldn't, and the schooner would be wary as a dolphin.
"No sooner said than done. I steered cautiously for the cove, fearfullythough the swell bore in, breaking over the rocks outside of it; and thereefer and I had to spring one after the other for our lives, just asthe bowman prized her off into the back-wash.
"As for the cutter, it would spoil all to keep her off thereabouts; andI knew, if a boat did come in of the kind I guessed, why she wouldn'tlay herself out for strength of crew. Snelling and I were well armedenough to manage half-a-dozen, if they fancied us friends; so I orderedthe men to pull clear off for an hour, at least leaving fair water. Infact there were sentries about the heights, I was aware, if they couldhave heard or seen us; but the din of the surf, the dark, and theexpectation of the thing, set us both upon our mettle; while I showedthe boat's lantern every now and then, like the light I had noticed,such as the Channel smugglers use every thick night on our own coast. Isuppose we might have waited five or ten minutes when the same twinklewas to be caught, dipping dark down into the swell again, about oppositethe cove; next we had half-an-hour more, every now and then giving thema flash of the lantern, when suddenly the reefer said he saw oarsglisten over a swell, which he knew weren't man-o'-war's strokes, orelse the fellows ought to have their grog stopped. I had the lantern inmy hand, slipping the shade once more, and the other to feel for mycutlass-hilt, when the mid gave a cry behind me, and I turned just intime to see the dark figure of a black spring off the stones at ourbacks. One after another three or four more came leaping past me out ofthe gloom--the Frenchman's red cap and his dark fierce face glared on meby the light of the lantern; and next moment it was down, with him andme in a deadly struggle over it in the thick black of the night.Suddenly I felt myself lose hold of him in the heave of the swell,washing away back off the rock; then something else trying to clutch me,when down I swept with the sea bubbling into my mouth and ears.
"I came up above water again by the sheer force of the swell, as itseemed to me, plunging into the shore; with the choice, I thought, ofeither being drowned in the dark, or knocked to a jelly on the rocks;but out I struck, naturally enough, rising on the huge scud of the sea,and trying to breast it, though I felt it sweep me backwards at everystroke, and just saw the wide glimmer of it heave far and wide for amoment against the gloom of the cliffs behind. All at once, in thetrough, I heard the panting of someone's breath near alongside of me,and directly after I was caught hold of by the hair of the head,somebody else grabbing at the same time for my shoulder. We weren'thalf-a-dozen fathoms from the stranger's boat, the blacks who had fallenfoul of me swimming manfully together, and the boat lifting bow-on tothe run of the sea, as her crew looked about for us by the light oftheir lantern. I had just got my senses enough about me to notice somuch, when they were hauling me aboard; all four of the negroes holdingon with one hand by the boat's gunnel, and helping their way with theother; while the oars began to make for the light, which was still to becaught by fits, right betwixt those of the two cruisers, as the spacewidened slowly in the midst of them, standing out to sea. Scarce had Itime to feel some one beside me as wet as myself, whether the reefer orthe Frenchman I didn't know, when crash came another boat with her bowsfairly down upon our gunwale, out of the dark.
"The spray splashed up betwixt us, I saw the glitter of the oar-blades,and heard Snelling's shrill voice singing out to 'sink the villains, mylads--down with 'em--remember the second lieutenant!' The lantern in theFrench boat flared, floating out for a single instant amongst a wreck ofstaves and heads, bobbing wildly together on the side of a wave. One ofmy own men from the cutter pulled me by the cuff of the neck off thecrest of it with his boat-hook, as it rose swelling away past, till Ihad fast grip of her quarter; the blacks could be seen struggling in thehollow, to keep up their master's body, with his hands spread helplesslyhither and thither above water. The poor devils' wet black faces turnedso wistfully, in their desperation, towards the cutter, that I gaspedout to save him. They kept making towards us, in fact, and the bowmanmanaged to hook him at last, though not a moment too soon, for the nextheave broke the unlucky wretches apart, and we lost sight of them; thecutter hanging on her oars till they had both him and me stowed into thestern-sheets, where the Frenchman lay seemingly dead or senseless, and Ispitting out the salt water like a cockney after a bathe.
"'Why, Mr Snelling,' said I, as soon as I came fully to myself, 'I can'tat all understand how I got into the water.' 'Nor I either, sir,' saidhe; 'I'll be hanged, sir, if I didn't think it was a whirlwind ofniggers off the top of Diana's Peak, seeing I made out the very one wefound there this afternoon--the four of them took you and this othergentleman up in their arms in a lump, as you were floundering abouttogether, and took to the water like so many seals, sir!' I looked downinto the Frenchman's face, where he lay stretched with his head backand his hair dripping. 'Is he gone?' said I. 'Well, sir,' said the mid,who had contrived to light the lantern again, 'I'm afraid he's prettynear it. Is he a friend of yours, sir?--I thought as much
, by-the-way,you caught him the moment you clapped eyes on each other, sir.''Silence, sirrah!' said I. 'D'ye see anything of the light to seaward?'
"For a minute or two we peered over the swells into the dark, to catchthe twinkle of the signal again, but to no purpose; and I began to thinkthe bird was flown. All of a sudden, however, there it was once more,dipping as before beyond the heave of the sea, and between the backs ofit, sliding across the open space, with the blind side to the cruisers.'Hallo, my lads!' said I, quickly, and giving myself another shake as Iseized the tiller, 'give way seaward--stretch your backs for tenminutes, and we have her!' We were pulling right for the spot, when thelight vanished, but a show of our lantern brought it gleaming fairly outagain, till I could even catch a glimpse by it of some craft or other'shull, and the iron of one boom-end, rising over the swells. 'Bow-oar,there!' whispered I. 'Stand by, my lad, and look sharp!' 'Hola!' came ashort, sharp hail over the swells, '_d'ou venez-vous?_' '_Oui, oui!_' Isang out boldly, through my hand, to cover the difference as much aspossible; then a thought occurred to me, recollecting the Frenchsurgeon's words on board this very craft the first time we saw her--'Dela cage de l'_Aigle_,' I hailed; 'bonne fortune, mes amis!' 'C'estpossible! c'est possible, mon capitaine!' shouted several of theschooner's crew, jumping upon her bulwarks, 'que vous apportez_lui-meme_?'
"We are pulling for her side as lubberly as possible, all the time--aman ran up on her quarter with a coil of line ready to heave--but stillthe main boom of the schooner was already jibbing, her helm up, and sheunder way; they seemed half doubtful of us, and another moment mightturn the scales. 'Vite, vite!' roared I, choosing my French at haphazard. 'Oui, oui, jettez votre corde--venez au lof, mes amis!'--luff,that was to say. I heard somebody aboard say it was the American--theschooner came up in the wind, the line whizzing off her quarter into ourbows, and we came sheering down close by her lee-quarter, grindingagainst her bends in the surge, twenty eager faces peering over at us inthe confusion; when I sung out hoarsely to run for brandy and hotblankets, as he was half-drowned. 'Promptement--promptement, mes amis!'shouted I, and as quickly there was a rush from her bulwarks to bringwhat was wanted, while Snelling and I made dash up her side, followed bythe men, cutlass in hand. Three minutes of hubbub, and as many strokesbetwixt us, when we had driven the few that stood in our way pell-melldown the nearest hatchway. The schooner was completely our own.
"We hoisted up the cutter, with the French captain still stretched inthe stern-sheet--hauled aft the schooner's headsheets, let her largemainsail swing full again, and were soon standing swiftly out toward thelight at the frigate's mast-head.
"When the _Hebe_ first caught sight of us, or rather heard the sound ofthe schooner's sharp bows rushing through the water, she naturallyenough didn't know what to make of us. I noticed our first luff's suddenorder to clear away the foremost weather-gun, with the rush of the menfor it; but my hail set all to rights. We hove-to off her weatherquarter, and I was directly after on board, explaining, as simply aspossible, how we had come to get a hold of a French craft thereabouts insuch a strange fashion.
"Accordingly, you may fancy the surprise at Jamestown in the morning, tosee the _Hebe_ standing in with her prize, let alone the Governor'sperfect astonishment at suspecting some scheme to carry off Napoleon,apparently, so far brought to a head. The upshot of it was, to cut thisbit of my story short, he and the military folks would have it, at last,that there was nothing of the kind, but only some slaver from theAfrican coast wanting to land a cargo, especially as there were so manyblacks aboard of her; and the Frenchman at once took the cue, the littleMonsieur of a mate swearing he had been employed by several of theislanders some months before to bring them slaves. For my own part, allthings considered, I had nothing to say, and after some likelihood of ashine being kicked up about it at first, the matter was hushed up.However, the schooner was of course condemned in the meantime, as the_Hebe's_ fair prize, till such time as the Admiralty Court at the Capeshould settle it on our outward-bound voyage.
"As the _Hebe_ was to sail at once for India, the Governor took theopportunity to send two or three supernumeraries out in the vessel alongwith us to the Cape of Good Hope, amongst whom was the Yankee botanist;and though being in the frigate I didn't see him, I made as sure as if Ihad, it was my old shipmate Daniel.
"Well, the morning came, when we weighed anchor from St James's Bay forsea, in company with the prize. It wasn't more than ten or eleven dayssince we had arrived in the _Podargus_, but I was as weary with thesight of St Helena as if I'd lived there a year. The frigate's lovelyhull, and her taut spars, spreading the square stretch of her whitecanvas sideways to the Trade, put new life into me. Slowly as we droppedthe peaks of the island on our lee-quarter, 'twas something to feelyourself travelling the same road as the Indiaman once more, with theodds of a mail coach, too, to a French diligence. What chance might turnup to bring us together, I certainly didn't see; but that night, when weand the schooner were the only things in the horizon, both fastplunging, close-hauled, on a fresh breeze, at the distance of a mile, Iset my mind, for the first time, more at ease. 'Luck and the anchorsstowed!' thought I, 'and hang all forethoughts!' I walked the weatherquarter-deck in my watch as pleasantly as might be, with now and then aglance forward at Snelling, as he yarned at the fife-rail beside agroggy old mate, and at times a glimmer of the schooner's hull on ourlee-beam, rising wet out of the dusk, under charge of our thirdlieutenant.
"It was about a week afterwards, and we began to have rough touches ofCape weather, pitching away on cross seas, and handing our gallant-sailsoftener of a night, that Lord Frederick said to me one evening, beforegoing down to his cabin, 'Mr Collins, I really hope we shall not findyour Indiaman at Cape Town, after all!' 'Indeed, Lord Frederick!' said Irespectfully enough; but it was the very thing I hoped myself. 'Yes,sir,' continued he; 'as I received strict injunctions by Admiral Plampinto arrest Lieutenant Westwood if we fell in with her there, andotherwise, to send the schooner in her track, even if it were toBombay.' 'The deuce!' I thought, 'are we never to be done with thisinfernal affair?' ''Tis excessively disagreeable,' continued thecaptain, swinging his gold eyeglass round his finger by the chain, aswas his custom when bothered, and looking with one eye all the while atthe schooner. 'A beautiful craft, by-the-way, Mr Collins,' said he,'even within sight of the _Hebe_.' 'She is so, my lord,' said I; 'if shehad only had a sensible boatswain, even, to put the sticks aloft inher.' 'I say, Mr Collins,' went on his lordship, musingly, 'I think Ihave it, though--the way to get rid of this scrape!'
"I waited and waited, however, for Lord Frederick to mention this; andto no purpose, apparently, as he went below without saying a word moreabout it."
The Green Hand: Adventures of a Naval Lieutenant Page 25
