Will Weatherhelm Part 21

"We'll trust to you not deserting us," sung out Mr Randolph. "If a gale were to spring up, we should have hard work to keep her afloat; remember that."

"What's that you say? I can't hear," answered Mr Simon, as his s.h.i.+p shot ahead of ours.

"He heard well enough, but does not intend to heed, I fear," said Mr Randolph, turning round and walking hurriedly up and down the deck. "We must trust to our own energies, and my lads will stick by me, I know that."

Our cargo consisted of sugar, coffee, and rice, and other valuable but bulky articles produced in the East, so that we could not move them to get at the leaks. A very steady man, Thomas Andrews, a quarter-master, was acting as first mate, and he having spoken well of me to Mr Randolph, I was appointed to do duty as second mate, or, I might say more justly, to take charge of a watch. Mr Randolph seemed to put a good deal of confidence in me, and he now summoned Andrews and me, and consulted us what it might be best to do towards stopping the leaks.

"It is bad enough now," he observed, "but it will be much worse should a gale spring up and cause the s.h.i.+p to labour heavily."

Andrews and I offered to hunt about to try and find out where the worst leaks existed. We accordingly worked our way down into the bows of the s.h.i.+p in every direction, at no little risk of being suffocated, and at length we a.s.sured ourselves from the appearance of the planking, which looked as if the bows had been stove in, that she had run against the b.u.t.t-end of a piece of timber. It seemed a miracle how the s.h.i.+p could have kept afloat with so large a fracture in her bottom. We reported our discovery to Mr Randolph, who descended with us to examine the danger.

"Well, if the worst comes to the worst, we can but get on board the _Nautile_," he observed. "In the meantime, we'll do our best to keep the old s.h.i.+p afloat."

Mr Randolph directed me to take charge of the s.h.i.+p, and to keep an eye on the proceedings of the Frenchmen, while he and Andrews, with two men, descended below with all the planks and carpenter's tools to be found, to try and repair, as far as they could, the damage. Night was coming on, so that it was important to get the work done as speedily as possible. I meantime turned my eye every now and then at our consort, for she was evidently getting further ahead than she was accustomed to do. I hoped, however, that she would soon shorten sail or lay to for us, as she had always done at nightfall. Still she stood on.

Darkness was coming down rapidly on us, and at length I could scarcely distinguish her. I did not like to tell Mr Randolph, for of course this would only interrupt the work in which he was engaged; but I marked well the point by the compa.s.s in which I had last seen the _Nautile_, that we might know where to look for her in the morning.

Three hours pa.s.sed away before Mr Randolph and Andrews returned on deck. They said that they had been able to patch up the leak far better than they expected, and that, if the weather held moderate, we might hope to carry the s.h.i.+p into Plymouth.

The night pa.s.sed by much as usual. The French prisoners had hitherto behaved very well, and seemed so inclined to be peaceable and orderly that insensibly our vigilance over them relaxed. It was my morning watch on deck, I looked out anxiously for the _Nautile_ when daylight dawned. Brighter and brighter grew the day, but in vain I rubbed my eyes. Not a sign of her was to be seen.

Mr Simon had, then, cruelly and shamefully deserted us. Complaints, and more than complaints, both loud and deep, were uttered. He knew our condition,--he knew that we were any moment liable to founder,--and still he had made sail and left us merely to get home a few days sooner, or to run some little less risk himself of recapture. It is very seldom that I have heard of conduct so selfish in the navy, or, indeed, in the merchant service.

I do not want to make out that seamen are better than other men, but I maintain that they are certainly not worse, and that in many respects they are as honest and free from vice as any other cla.s.s of men. One thing was very certain, we could not hope to overtake him. We must therefore take care of ourselves as best we could. The leak had been partially stopped, and if we continued to enjoy fine weather, we might get into port very well; and, as Andrews observed, "The prize is not always to the strong, nor the race to the swift." Our consort might run his head into the very dangers he was so anxious to avoid.

We went on very well for two or three days longer, and then I could not help remarking that there was a considerable change in the manner of the Frenchmen. They were far less obedient and civil than they had been, and when ordered to perform any duty, they went about it in a sulky, disagreeable manner.

Mr Randolph, I thought, did not observe the change, but I mentioned the subject to Andrews.

"I'll keep my eye on the fellows," said he. "They'll find it rather difficult to catch a weasel asleep."

A few days after this we fell in with a westerly breeze, which increased rapidly into a strong gale, and away we ran before it much faster than the old _Mouche_ had yet been made to fly.

Unfortunately the sea got up, and the s.h.i.+p began to labour very much.

The consequence was, as we had expected, the leak we had patched up once more burst open, and it became necessary to keep all hands, watch and watch, at the pumps. Mr Randolph took his spell like the rest of us, and no one seemed to work with a more hearty goodwill.

I watched with some anxiety to see what the Frenchmen would do. First one of them fell down while working at the pumps, and when we picked him up he said that he was so ill he could not labour any more, but must go to his hammock. Then another followed his example, and then a third, and a fourth, till only one remained besides the three blacks, who went on working away as merrily as ever.

The fifth Frenchman seemed suddenly to get into very good humour, and to exert himself as much as any of us. Had the gale continued, I believe that we should all of us really have been knocked up, but happily we very quickly ran out of it, and once more we had smooth water and a fair breeze.

While the sea was still running high, the only Frenchman who remained on deck, as he was coming aft, slipped and fell. Two of the blacks only were near him. They picked him up, while he cried out with pain, a.s.serting that he had either broken his arm or put it out of joint. He insisted on being carried to his hammock, and when Mr Randolph offered to try and doctor him, he shrieked out and declared that he could not bear the pain of being touched. At last we were obliged to let him alone, and then we had all our five prisoners laid up and apparently useless.

It thus became more important than ever to try once more to stop the leak. Mr Randolph and Andrews accordingly set about it as they had done the first time, taking with them two hands. This left only two others, besides me, on deck, and the three blacks. Negroes have, I have always fancied, very little command over their countenances, and if a person is accustomed to watch them, he will always be able to discover, almost as easily as he would among a party of children, whether there is anything in the wind. Now, as I saw the negroes moving about the decks, I felt very sure from the roll of their eyes and the way in which every now and then they exhibited their teeth, that they had a grand secret among them. I stepped aft, and telling the man at the helm to be on his guard, I called Sam Jones, the only other man left on deck, and sent him down into the cabin to collect all the arms he could find, to load the pistols and muskets, and to place them just inside the companion-hatch, so that I could get at them in a moment.

"Now," said I to Jones, "just go forward as if you were thinking of nothing particular, and then slip quietly down below and tell Mr Randolph that I think there's something wrong, that he had better be on his guard and return on deck as quickly as possible. Do you jump up again without a moment's delay. Get a handspike or anything you can lay hold of, and keep guard over the fore-hatchway, and see that neither the blacks nor any of the Frenchmen go down there."

"But the Frenchmen, they can't do any harm; they are all sick in bed,"

observed Jones.

"Don't be too certain of their sickness," I observed. "They may be sick, but it is just possible that they are shamming, and it is well to be on the safe side."

Without further delay, Jones went forward to do as I directed him. I meanwhile stood by the companion-hatch, ready to hand a musket up to Thompson, the man at the helm, should occasion arise to require it. The Frenchmen, I ought to have said, all slept together in a part of the hold which was planked off for their accommodation. I kept watching the blacks narrowly. I saw their eyes turned every now and then towards the main hatchway. I was convinced that no time was to be lost if bloodshed was to be prevented.

"A heavy squall coming on," I shouted out. "Hands aloft and furl topsails! Here, Sambo, Julius, Quasha, aloft with you quickly and furl the main-topsail." They pretended not to hear me, but once more looked down the hatchway. "Do you hear? Up with you, you scoundrels!" I shouted out at the top of my voice, loud enough, I thought, at all events, for Jones to hear me. At that moment the heads of three Frenchmen appeared above the combing of the main hatchway.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN.

OVERPOWER MUTINEERS--A SUSPICIOUS SAIL--CHASED--CAPTURED BY FRENCH PRIVATEER--CARRIED INTO SAINT MALO--PLAN FOR ESCAPING--CAROUSE OF PRIVATEER'S CREW--LA MOTTE'S DANGEROUS EXPEDITION--ESCAPE FROM HARBOUR.

The moment I saw the heads of the Frenchmen, I handed out a musket from the companion-hatch, and gave it to Thompson, while I took one myself and levelled it at them. "Ah, my friends, understand that I will fire at the first man of you who steps on deck!" I sang out. "Return to your beds, if you are sick, but on deck you must not venture."

Thompson imitated my example, and we both stood with our muskets levelled and ready to put our threats into execution. At first the Frenchmen popped down again very quickly, but gaining courage, they all five put their heads up again at the same moment.

Looking round and seeing only Thompson and me on deck, they sprang up as if they were about to make a desperate rush towards us, thinking of course that they could easily overcome two men.

Telling Thompson to aim at the blacks in the rigging to keep them there, I covered the foremost Frenchman with my musket. I could have killed him on the spot, but I was most unwilling to shed blood except in the very last necessity. Once more I sang out. He continued advancing.

"I have given you ample warning!" I cried out. My finger was on the trigger.

At that moment Mr Randolph, followed by Andrews and the other men, sprang on deck, and seeing the state of affairs, each of them grasping a handspike, they ran towards the Frenchmen.

The latter soon saw that their opportunity was lost. The negroes, for the sake of being more out of the way, as they fancied, of Thompson's musket, had climbed as high as they could up the rigging, so that he was able to hold another Frenchman in check. The Frenchman nearest to me, seeing my resolute bearing, and having no fancy for throwing his life away even for the sake of his companions, very wisely backed against them, and they seeing Mr Randolph and his party advancing from forward, to avoid getting their heads broken, leaped precipitately down the hatchway, whence they had but just before emerged.

Leaving Thompson to keep the blacks aloft with his musket, I sprang to the hatchway and sang out, "We do not want to do you any harm, but if you attempt any trick, for our own sakes we must shoot every one of you!" I said this because I saw one of them striking away over a tinder-box, with the intention, I had little doubt, of trying to set the s.h.i.+p on fire.

Mr Randolph highly applauded me for what I had done. On looking below and seeing what the Frenchmen were about, he and Andrews, with Jones and another man, leaped down among them, and seizing the first they could lay hands on, lifted him up crop and heels to me. The move so much astonished his companions, that they did not come to his a.s.sistance; and another being treated in the same way, we had their forces divided, and very speedily brought them to terms. We first lashed the hands of the two we had on deck behind them, and made them sit down with their backs against the bulwarks on the starboard side, and then we got up the other three one by one, and placed them, bound in the same way, on the opposite side. Next we called down the blacks, and arranged them round the mainmast.

"Now, my friends, by all the laws of war you ought to be shot!" said Mr Randolph. "We treated you very kindly; we gave you of the best of everything on board, and in return you have attempted to knock us on the head, and to take the s.h.i.+p from us. However, it was natural that you should wish to recover what was once your own, so that if you will promise, on the honour of Frenchmen, not to make another attempt of the sort, we will allow you your freedom during the day-time, on certain conditions. Three of you must remain forward, and never come abaft the foremast unless I call you; and two must never go before the mizzen-mast; at night we must shut you all up. I warn you, also, that as surely as any one of you attempts to infringe these regulations, I will shoot him. We are very good friends; I do not bear you the slightest enmity, but our own safety demands this."

Our prisoners shrugged their shoulders. "_C'est la fortune de la guerre_," was the only answer they at first made. They most of them understood pretty clearly what Mr Randolph had said; besides, one, who understood English the best, interpreted to the rest.

Mr Randolph waited a little time. "Do you agree to my terms?" he asked.

"_Oui, monsieur_; _oui, oui_," was answered by all of them simultaneously.

"If I grant you your freedom at once, will you give me your honour to act as I desire?" asked Mr Randolph. "I do not wish you to do so while you sit there bound like slaves."

The idea seemed to take their fancy amazingly, and as soon as we had unlashed their arms, by Mr Randolph's orders, they got up, and all together, putting their hands on their b.r.e.a.s.t.s, swore solemnly not again to attempt to retake the s.h.i.+p. It is impossible to describe their manner, or the air with which they uttered the words.

They did not seem, however, much to like being kept separate from each other, but Mr Randolph very wisely would not abate in any way the regulations he had formed. He allowed one of them at a time to go into the caboose to cook, for they did not at all approve of our style of cooking, and one of them, who spoke English, remarked that it was only fit for bears and wolves. We laughed, and observed, in return, that people have different tastes, and that we had no fancy for the kickshaws and trifles which satisfied them. (_Quelque chose_ and _troufles_, perhaps I ought to have written.)

When a Frenchman is asked what he will have for dinner, he begins by saying _quelque chose au troufles_, and then goes on to enumerate all sorts of things, just as an Englishman replies, a mutton-chop or beefsteak, and finally orders turtle-soup, salmon, and a venison pasty; not that I can own to having ever been guilty of such a proceeding.

After we had settled with the Frenchmen, we allowed the blacks to come down, and ordering them into the waist, told them to keep there on pain of being shot, and on no account to communicate with any one else.

They, grinning, pointed to our muskets, and a.s.sured us that while we kept those in our hands they would most implicitly obey us.