As soon as I had bunged up the cask, I went down to the yard where the aga had left his horse, and having severely wounded the poor beast with his sword, I let it loose that it might gallop home. The noise of the horse’s hoofs in the middle of the night, aroused his family, and when they discovered that it was wounded and without its rider, they imagined that the aga had been attacked and murdered by banditti when he had followed his troop. They sent to me to ask at what time he had left my house; I replied, an hour after dark—that he was very much intoxicated at the time—and had left his sabre, which I returned. They had no suspicion of the real facts, and it was believed that he had perished on the road.
I was now rid of my dangerous acquaintance; and although he certainly had drunk a great quantity of my wine yet I recovered the value of it with interest, from the flavour which I obtained from his body and which I imparted to the rest of my stock. I raised him up alongside of the two other casks; and my trade was more profitable and my wines in greater repute than ever. But one day the cadi, who had heard my wine extolled, came privately to my house; I bowed to the ground at the honour conferred, for I had long wished to have him as a customer. I drew some of my best: “Thus, honourable sir,” said I, presenting the glass, “is what I call my aga wine: the late aga was so fond of it, he used to order a whole cask at once to his house, and had it taken there in a litter.”
“A good plan,” replied the cadi, “much better than sending a slave with a pitcher, which gives occasion for remarks: I will do the same; but, first, let me taste all you have.”
He tasted several casks, but none pleased him so much as the first which I had recommended. At last he cast his eyes upon the three casks raised above the others.
“And what are those?” enquired he.
“Empty casks, sir,” replied I; but he had his stick in his hand, and he struck one.
“Greek thou tellest me these casks are empty, but they do not sound so; I suspect that thou hast better wine than I have tasted: draw me off from these immediately.”
I was obliged to comply—he tasted them—vowed that the wine was exquisite, and that he would purchase the whole. I stated to him that the wine in those casks was used for flavouring the rest; and that the price was enormous, hoping that he would not pay it. He enquired how much: I asked him four times the price of the other wines.
“Agreed,” said the cadi; “it is dear—but one cannot have good wine without paying for it—it is a bargain.”
I was very much alarmed; and stated that I could not part with those casks, as I should not be able to carry on my business with reputation, if I lost the means of flavouring my wines, but all in vain; he said that I had asked a price and he had agreed to give it. Ordering his slaves to bring a litter, he would not leave the store until the whole of the casks were carried away, and thus did I lose my Ethiopian, my Jew, and my aga.
As I knew that the secret would soon be discovered, the very next day I prepared for my departure. I received my money from the cadi, to whom I stated my intention to leave, as he had obliged me to sell him those wines, and I had no longer hopes of carrying on my business with success. I again begged him to allow me to have them back, offering him three pipes of wine as a present if he would consent, but it was of no use. I chartered a vessel, which I loaded with the rest of my stock; and, taking all my money with me, made sail for Corfu, before any discovery had taken place. But we encountered a heavy gale of wind, which, after a fortnight (during which we attempted in vain to make head against it), forced us back to Smyrna. When the weather moderated, I directed the captain to take the vessel into the outer roadstead that I might sail as soon as possible. We had not dropped anchor again more than five minutes when I perceived a boat pulling off from the shore in which was the cadi and the officers of justice.
Convinced that I was discovered, I was at a loss how to proceed, when the idea occurred to me that I might conceal my own body in a cask, as I had before so well concealed those of others.
I called the captain down into the cabin, and telling him that I had reason to suspect that the cadi would take my life, offered him a large part of the cargo if he would assist me.
The captain who, unfortunately for me, was a Greek, consented. We went down into the hold, started the wine out of one of the pipes, and having taken out the head, I crawled in, and was hooped up.
The cadi came on board immediately afterwards and enquired for me. The captain stated that I had fallen overboard in the gale, and that he had in consequence returned, the vessel not being consigned to any house at Corfu.
“Has then the accursed villain escaped my vengeance!” exclaimed the cadi; “the murderer, that fines his wines with the bodies of his fellow-creatures: but you may deceive me, Greek, we will examine the vessel.”
The officers who accompanied the cadi proceeded carefully to search every part of the ship. Not being able to discover me, the Greek captain was believed; and, after a thousand imprecations upon my soul, the cadi and his people departed.
I now breathed more freely, notwithstanding I was nearly intoxicated with the lees of the wine which impregnated the wood of the cask, and I was anxious to be set at liberty; but the treacherous captain had no such intention, and never came near me. At night he cut his cable and made sail, and I overheard a conversation between two of the men, which made known to me his intentions: these were to throw me overboard on his passage, and take possession of my property. I cried out to them from the bunghole: I screamed for mercy, but in vain. One of them answered that, as I had murdered others, and put them into casks, I should now be treated in the same manner.
I could not but mentally acknowledge the justice of my punishment, and resigned myself to my fate; all that I wished was to be thrown over at once and released from my misery. The momentary anticipation of death appeared to be so much worse than the reality. But it was ordered otherwise: a gale of wind blew up with such force that the captain and crew had enough to do to look after the vessel, and either I was forgotten, or my doom was postponed until a more seasonable opportunity.
On the third day I heard the sailors observe that, with such a wretch as I was remaining on board, the vessel must inevitably be lost.The hatches were then opened; I was hoisted up and cast into the raging sea. The bung of the cask was out, but by stuffing my handkerchief in, when the hole was under water, I prevented the cask from filling; and when it was uppermost, I removed it for a moment to obtain fresh air.I was dreadfully bruised by the constant rolling, in a heavy sea, and completely worn out with fatigue and pain; I had made up my mind to let the water in and be rid of my life, when I was tossed over and over with such dreadful rapidity as prevented my taking the precaution of keeping out the water. After three successive rolls of the same kind, I found that the cask, which had been in the surf, had struck on the beach. In a moment after, I heard voices, and people came up to the cask and rolled me along. I would not speak, lest they should be frightened and allow me to remain on the beach, where I might again be tossed about by the waves; but as soon as they stopped, I called in a faint voice from the bunghole begging them for mercy’s sake to let me out.
At first they appeared alarmed; but, on my repeating my request, and stating that I was the owner of the ship which was off the land, and the captain and crew had mutinied and tossed me overboard, they brought some tools and set me at liberty.
The first sight that met my eyes after I was released, was my vessel lying a wreck; each wave that hurled her further on the beach, breaking her more and more to pieces. She was already divided amidships, and the white foaming surf was covered with pipes of wine, which, as fast as they were cast on shore, were rolled up by the same people who had released me. I was so worn out, that I fainted where I lay. When I came to, I found myself in a cave upon a bundle of capotes, and perceived a party of forty or fifty men, who were sitting by a large fire, and emptying with great rapidity one of my pipes of wine.
As soon as they observed that I was coming to my
senses, they poured some wine down my throat, which restored me. I was then desired by one of them, who seemed to be the chief, to approach.
“The men who have been saved from the wreck,” said he, “have told me strange stories of your enormous crimes—now, sit down, and tell me the truth—if I believe you, you shall have justice—I am cadi here—if you wish to know where you are, it is upon the island of Ischia—if you wish to know in what company, it is in the society of those who by illiberal people are called pirates: now tell the truth.”
I thought that with pirates my story would be received better than with other people, and I therefore narrated my history to them, in the same words that I now have to your highness. When I had finished, the captain of the gang observed:
“Well, then, as you acknowledge to have killed a slave, to have assisted at the death of a Jew, and to have drowned an aga, you certainly deserve death; but, on consideration of the excellence of the wine, and the secret which you have imparted to us, I shall commute your sentence. As for the captain and the remainder of the crew, they have been guilty of treachery and piracy on the high seas—a most heinous offence, which deserves instant death: but as it is by their means that we have been put in possession of the wine, I shall be lenient. I therefore sentence you all to hard labour for life. You shall be sold as slaves in Cairo, and we will pocket the money and drink your wine.”
The pirates loudly applauded the justice of a decision by which they benefited, and all appeal on our parts was useless. When the weather became more settled, we were put on board one of their small xebeques, and on our arrival at this port were exposed for sale and purchased.
Such, pacha, is the history which induced me to make use of the expressions which you wished to be explained; and I hope you will allow that I have been more unfortunate than guilty, as on every occasion in which I took away the life of another, I had only to choose between that and my own.
ANTY BLIGH
JOHN MASEFIELD
One night in the tropics I was “farmer” in the middle watch—that is, I had neither “wheel” nor “look-out” to stand during the four hours I stayed on deck. We were running down the North-east Trades, and the ship was sailing herself, and the wind was gentle, and it was very still on board, the blocks whining as she rolled, and the waves talking, and the wheel-chains clanking, and a light noise aloft of pattering and tapping. The sea was all pale with moonlight, and from the lamp-room door, where the watch was mustered, I could see a red stain on the water from the port sidelight. The mate was walking the weather side of the poop, while the boastwain sat on the booby-hatch humming an old tune and making a sheath for his knife. The watch were lying on the deck, out of the moonlight, in the shadow of the break of the poop. Most of them were sleeping, propped against the bulkhead. One of them was singing a new chanty he had made, beating out the tune with his pipe-stem, in a little quiet voice that fitted the silence of the night.
Ha! Ha! Why don’t you blow?
O ho!
Come, roll him over,
repeated over and over again, as though he could never tire of the beauty of the words and the tune.
Presently he got up from where he was and came over to me.He was one of the best men we had aboard—a young Dane who talked English like a native. We had had business dealings during the dog watch, some hours before, and he had bought a towel from me, and I had let him have it cheap, as I had one or two to spare. He sat down beside me, and began a conversation, discussing a number of sailor matters, such as the danger of sleeping in the moonlight, the poison supposed to lurk in cold boiled potatoes, and the folly of having a good time in port. From these we passed to the consideration of piracy, colouring our talk with anecdotes of pirates. “Ah, there was no pirate,” said my friend, “like old Anty Bligh of Bristol. Dey hung old Anty Bligh off of the Brazils. He was the core and the strands of an old rogue, old Anty Bligh was, Dey hung old Anty Bligh on Fernando Noronha, where the prison is. And he walked after, Anty Bligh did. That shows how bad he was.” “How did he walk?” I asked. “Let’s hear about him.” “Oh, they jest hung him,” replied my friend, “like they’d hang any one else, and they left him on the gallows after. Dey thought old Anty was too bad to bury, I guess. And there was a young Spanish captain on the island in dem times. Frisco Baldo his name was. He was a terror. So the night dey hung old Anty, Frisco was getting gorgeous wid some other captains in a kind of a drinking shanty. And de other captains say to Frisco, ‘I bet you a month’s pay you won’t go and put a rope round Anty’s legs.’ And ‘I bet you a new suit of clothes you won’t put a bowline around Anty’s ankles.’ And ‘I bet you a cask of wine you won’t put Anty’s feet in a noose.’ ‘I bet you I will,’ says Frisco Baldo. ‘What’s dead man anyways,’ he says, ‘and why should I be feared of Anty Bligh? Give us a rope,’ he says, ‘and I’ll lash him up with seven turns, like a sailor would a hammock.’ So he drinks up his glass, and gets a stretch of rope, and out he goes into the dark to where the gallows stood. It was a new moon dat time, and it was as dark as the end of a sea-boot and as blind as the toe. And the gallows was right down by the sea dat time because old Anty Bligh was a pirate. So he comes up under the gallows, and there was old Anty Bligh hanging. And ‘Way-ho, Anty,’ he says. ‘Lash and carry, Anty,’ he says. ‘I’m going to lash you up like a hammock.’ So he slips a bowline around Anty’s feet.” . . . Here my informant broke off his yarn to light his pipe. After a few puffs he went on.
“Now when a man’s hanged in hemp,” he said gravely, “you mustn’t never touch him with what killed him, for fear he should come to life on you. You mark that. Don’t you forget it. So soon as ever Frisco Baldo sets that bowline around Anty’s feet, old Anty looks down from his noose, and though it was dark, Frisco Baldo could see him plain enough. ‘Thank you, young man,’ said Anty; ‘just cast that turn off again. Burn my limbs,’ he says, ‘if you ain’t got a neck! And now climb up here,’ he says, ‘and take my neck out of the noose. I’m as dry as a cask of split peas.’ Now you may guess that Frisco Baldo feller he come out all over in a cold sweat. ‘Git a gait on you,’ says Anty. ‘I ain’t going to wait up here to please you.’ So Frisco Baldo climbs up, and a sore job he had of it getting the noose off Anty. ‘Get a gait on you,’ says Anty, ‘and go easy with them clumsy hands of yours. You’ll give me a sore throat,’ he says, ‘the way you’re carrying on. Now don’t let me fall plop,’ says Anty. ‘Lower away handsomely,’ he says. ‘I’ll make you a weary one if you let me fall plop,’ he says. So Frisco lowers away handsomely, and Anty comes to the ground, with the rope off him, only he still had his head to one side like he’d been hanged. ‘Come here to me,’ he says. So Frisco Baldo goes over to him. And Anty he jest put one arm round his neck, and gripped him tight and cold. ‘Now march,’ he says; ‘march me down to the grog shop and get me a dram. None of your six-water dollops, neither,’ he says; ‘I’m as dry as a foul block,’ he says. So Frisco and Anty they go to the grog shop, and all the while Anty’s cold fingers was playing down Frisco’s neck. And when they got to der grog shop der captains was all fell asleep. So Frisco takes the bottle of rum and Anty laps it down like he’d been used to it. ‘Ah!’ he says, ‘thank ye,’ he says, ‘and now down to the Mole with ye,’ he says, ‘and we’ll take a boat,’ he says; ‘I’m going to England,’ he says, ‘to say good-bye to me mother.’ So Frisco he come out all over in a cold sweat, for he was feared of the sea; but Anty’s cold fingers was fiddling on his neck, so he t’ink he better go. And when dey come to der Mole there was a boat there—one of these perry-acks, as they call them—and Anty he says, ‘You take the oars,’ he says. ‘I’ll steer,’ he says, ‘and every time you catch a crab,’ he says, ‘you’ll get such a welt as you’ll remember.’ So Frisco shoves her off and rows out of the harbour, with old Anty Bligh at the tiller, telling him to put his beef on and to watch out he didn’t catch no crabs. And he rowed, and he rowed, and he rowed, and every time he caught a crab—whack! he had it over the sconce
with the tiller. And der perry-ack it went a great holy big skyoot, ninety knots in der quarter of an hour, so they soon sees the Bull Point Light and der Shutter Light, and then the lights of Bristol. ‘Oars,’ said Anty. ‘Lie on yours oars,’ he says; ‘we got way enough.’ Then dey make her fast to a dock-side and dey goes ashore, and Anty has his arm round Frisco’s neck, and ‘March,’ he says; ‘step lively,’ he says; ‘for Johnny comes marching home,’ he says. By and by they come to a little house with a light in the window. ‘Knock at the door,’ says Anty. So Frisco knocks, and in they go. There was a fire burning in the room and some candles on the table, and there, by the fire, was a very old, ugly woman in a red flannel dress, and she’d a ring in her nose and a black cutty pipe between her lips. ‘Good evening, mother,’ says Anty. ‘I come home,’ he says. But the old woman she just looks at him but never says nothing. ‘It’s your son Anty that’s come home to you,’ he says again. So she looks at him again and, ‘Aren’t you ashamed of yourself, Anty,’ she says, ‘coming home the way you are? Don’t you repent your goings-on?’ she says. ‘Dying disgraced,’ she says, ‘in a foreign land, with none to lay you out.’ ‘Mother,’ he says, ‘I repent in blood,’ he says. ‘You’ll not deny me my rights?’ he says. ‘Not since you repent,’ she says. ‘Them as repents I got no quarrel with. You was always a bad one, Anty,’ she says, ‘but I hoped you’d come home in the end. Well, and now you’re come,’ she says. ‘And I must bathe that throat of yours,’ she says. ‘It looks as though you been hit by something.’ ‘Be quick, mother,’ he says; ‘it’s after midnight now,’ he says.
“So she washed him in wine, the way you wash a corpse, and put him in a white linen shroud, with a wooden cross on his chest, and two silver pieces on his eyes, and a golden marigold between his lips. And together they carried him to the perry-ack and laid him in the stern sheets. ‘Give way, young man,’ she says; ‘give way like glory. Pull, my heart of blood,’ she says, ‘or we’ll have the dawn on us.’ So he pulls, that Frisco Baldo does, and the perry-ack makes big southing—a degree a minute—and they comes ashore at the Mole just as the hens was settling to their second sleep. ‘To the churchyard,’ says the old woman; ‘you take his legs.’ So they carries him to the churchyard at the double. ‘Get a gait on you,’ says Anty. ‘I feel the dawn in my bones,’ he says. ‘My wraith’ll chase you if you ain’t in time,’ he says. And there was an empty grave, and they put him in, and shovelled in the clay, and the old woman poured out a bottle on the top of it. ‘It’s holy water,’ she says. ‘It’s make his wraith rest easy.’ Then she runs down to the sea’s edge and gets into the perry-ack. And immediately she was hull down beyond the horizon, and the sun came up out of the sea, and the cocks cried cock-a-doodle in the hen roost, and Frisco Baldo falls down into a swound. He was a changed man from that out.”
The Best Crime Stories Ever Told Page 47
