Latitude 19 degree Part 10

Wish to Heaven it would physic them all! Darned if I don't! Wish now I'd put a.r.s.enic in it." And then followed some language which I will not weary you by repeating. The Skipper was not the most profane man that I ever sailed with, but in those days of which I write--days long past, ah me!--that is saying a great deal more than any one to-day would imagine.

Men, and particularly men who followed the sea, did not regard profanity as we do nowadays. Cynthia was used to the Skipper's ordinary looseness of speech, and, having heard it all her life, was astonished at very little that he said. I have learned to look upon such language with disgust, and I thank the refining influences of the day in which we live for making me see how much worse than silly it was, and, though I shall try to make the Skipper's speech sound more like the Skipper of modern times, still to make him seem at all the man that his friends knew him, I must occasionally point his marks as he himself pointed them.

Cynthia stood looking steadily at her Uncle as his adjectived indignation poured forth. When his vocabulary was exhausted, he sat down on the ground, weak from his exertion. Cynthia stood looking fixedly at him. Then, as the enormity of his offence overcame him, he drew out his bandana and mopped his face.

"Beg pardon, Cynthy, but you shouldn't have been here."

Cynthia fixed him with her glances as long as she could hold her tongue between her teeth, then turned and walked away with dignity.

"Now that girl's mad! And she'll go and tell Mary 'Zekel, and I promised Mary 'Zekel--Where'd we better put that d.a.m.n thing, anyway?"

I aided the old man as he rolled the cask nearer our camping place, if the spot where we had deposited our few belongings could be called such.

We had placed our cooking utensils--or the Bo's'n had for us--the parrot's cage, and the mortuary bag in a secluded spot among the trees.

There happened to be a depression in the earth near where we sat, up beyond the line of the beach in the soft earth. We tumbled the cask in and covered it well with leaves and branches. Cynthia, whose curiosity would not allow her to remain longer away, had returned, and was watching our efforts.

"If they come back, they will demand it," remarked Cynthia.

"What! Those honest sailors?" inquired I.

I was still sore from her ill treatment of me. Cynthia's face, as much as I could see of it, was a brilliant crimson.

"Have they any weapons, Uncle Tony?" she asked, ignoring me entirely.

"Got pistols, I'll be bound, every man Jack of 'em!--By the way, Jones, what have we got in the way of firearms?"

I threw back my thin coat and displayed a pistol stuck in my belt in either side.

"Oh!" exclaimed Cynthia. "If I had known that you carried those murderous weapons, I should have refused to come ash.o.r.e with you."

"From the s.h.i.+p, or the boat?" I asked.

She blushed again, and drooped her head so that I could see nothing but the white top of the funnel.

"I've got a fine knife," said the Skipper, "and so has the Bo's'n. He has brought some ammunition ash.o.r.e, and I've got my old musket, of course."

"Do you really suppose that we shall need all those dreadful things?"

asked Cynthia, her lips white and quivering.

"And you're the girl who fired on the letter of marque?" said I, for want of a more non-committal name. "What sort of a girl are you, anyway?"

Here was an anomaly, indeed! A girl who had had the courage not only to defy her Uncle and the whole s.h.i.+p's company, but to fire a gun which made a pretty good deal of noise when close to one's ear, afraid to listen to a simple discussion of weapons of defence! The Skipper at this moment hitched himself up a little higher, and threw his whole weight against the trunk on which he was leaning. I heard a softy, mushy crumble, and his head and shoulders disappeared from view.

I arose and ran to his aid, and at once clasped his outstretched hands and pulled with all my might. He finally, with my help, succeeded in regaining his position. He spluttered and coughed, his eyes and mouth full of the dust of decay. He rose to his feet and kicked viciously at the crumbling bark. A large piece fell inward, making an opening, into which a man could have squeezed himself. At that very moment, so mysterious are the ways of Providence, there was a short, sharp whiz and ping, and a bullet struck the tree just above my head. I lost no time in looking for the cause of this a.s.sault, but only the thick green of the near wood rewarded my searching glance. I seized Cynthia by the wrist and bent her almost to her knees. I forced her to push her way into the opening.

"It may be an attack," I said, hurriedly, to the Skipper. "Go in quickly! I will follow."

No one who has not seen the great trees of Santo Domingo and Hati can believe to what a grand extent they grow. I have heard of the so-called "big trees" of California. The only one which I have seen is one placed in the grounds of the Smithsonian Inst.i.tution at Was.h.i.+ngton. I made that trip with my wife lately. We were both of us a trifle infirm for so long a jaunt, but she agreed with me, and she has also been among the great trees of Hati, that nothing that she had ever seen, with the exception of this one curiosity, exceeded the size of those trees in the island.

As yet we had not caught a glimpse of our secret foe. Whether he had caught sight of us or not I did not know, but, as a second bullet whizzed past my head, I hastily secreted myself also within the hollow trunk. I whispered to Cynthia to push over more to the side, and give room to her Uncle and myself. I could hear the beating of her heart, I stood so near her. Several bullets struck the tree, and one entered and dropped upon my foot. And now I heard some cries of anger. My curiosity became too much for me. I stood as near the opening as I could and placed my eye just over the edge of it. The voices grew louder, the bullets flew faster, and then from the bushes emerged a retreating party. Their backs were toward us. They were firing as they retreated.

They were dark men, but not of pure African type.

They were unclothed, except for some trousers of white linen and a thin sort of s.h.i.+rt. They wore belts and carried the national weapon, the machete, stuck through the leather bands.

"Are you afraid of fainting?" I asked Cynthia. "Here, take a whiff of this." I had a little kit in my pocket which I had seized upon as I left the s.h.i.+p. I felt for the vial of sal-volatile, telling what it was by the smell of the cork, and pressing it into her hand.

"Faint!" she replied with scorn. "If I could only see something, I should enjoy it hugely."

"It would not be safe," I whispered. "Stand farther back. They may discover us, in any case."

"Stand farther in, Cynthy," whispered the Skipper. "I'd like nothing better than to join one side or the other, but I can't risk it with you here."

I pushed my knife through the soft, spongy wood where the bullet had entered, and made the hole larger. Here I could see, myself unseen.

"Do let me look, Mr. Jones," said Cynthia.

As any bullet which struck the tree might enter it, and she was in equal danger anywhere inside the tree, I saw no reason why she should not look if she felt so inclined. I gave up my place to her, and had to content myself with peeping through the large hole through which we had entered.

The line of retreat was now changed, for I saw the Hatiens veer to the right, toward the beach, still firing as they retreated. There were yells and wild noises. The attacking party seemed close to us, and these sounds did not seem unfamiliar. As we gazed at this unexpected sight, we perceived that the retreating party had with, them a young girl. She was tied by the wrists to the belt of one of the men, who fired as he backed toward us. The girl did not struggle to free herself, but ran backward as the men ran. She seemed a not unwilling captive. The tall, thin mulatto would fire a shot, turn and pull his captive after him, then load and fire again. There was blood upon the girl's clothing and upon the clothes of her captors.

"Oh, that poor child!" whispered Cynthia. "I must go out and take her away from that brute!" I barred the way.

"It would be death for us all, perhaps," said I. "Wait! The attacking party may be her friends. Whatever we do, I beg of you keep concealed.

That is your only safety."

"Don't be a fool, Cynthy!" whispered the Skipper hoa.r.s.ely. "No one knows what's going to happen." And so prophetic were his words that, as we listened, we heard a thoroughly American whoop, partic.i.p.ated in by several voices, and who should burst from the undergrowth, shouting as they came, but Bill Tomkins, followed by McCorkle, Bill Ware, the Growler, Hummocks, Tanby, and all the rest of them.

CHAPTER III.

WE CHANGE OUR CAMP, AND CYNTHIA DISCOVERS A DISTURBING ELEMENT.

The attacking party seemed to remember the little camp where they had remained for so short a time. As they advanced upon the Hatiens, they gazed around, as if the place were familiar to them, but at the same time they continued to come forward, and to fire as fast as they could load their pistols. They outnumbered the Hatiens, as they were thirteen and the Hatiens only four. As the Hatiens backed toward the sh.o.r.e and to the eastward of our shelter, we lost sight of them entirely. I took the Skipper by the shoulders and drew him away from his position. I opened my knife and tried to pierce a hole through the tree on the side toward the water, so that I could follow the men with my eyes, but the wood was more firm than at the place where we had entered the cavity, and I could not manage it. We heard the sound of bullets rattling among the leaves, and fierce cries and oaths, mingled with long sobbing wails from the young captive, but we could now see nothing of the battle.

It was exasperating to be obliged to remain in seclusion. We might have joined the attacking party, but, though no one enjoyed a scrimmage more than I, I reflected that if the Captain or I should be killed the chances were that Cynthia would be left at the mercy of the sailors or the Hatiens, and I could not decide in my own mind which would be the worst. The sailors were all very well so long as they had the eye and nerve of two men to oppose them, but if either one of us should be killed, the girl would be left with only one protector, and should anything befall him she might better be dead than to fall into the hands of the Hatiens or of that drunken crew of sailors.

Thinking of the Hatiens brought to my mind the keg of rum. I turned to the Skipper--rather, to the place where I knew him to be--and said:

"Captain, we do not know what may happen. These brutes may return and find the cask, and we ought to have a little of that liquor."

"No danger of their finding it," whispered the Skipper.

"Well, perhaps not," said I. "But I think I had better steal out, now that they have pa.s.sed by, and get what I can. Where did the Bo's'n put the cup?"

"No need to look for that, Jones; here's my flat bottle. I didn't fill it last time I used it. Knew I had plenty on board. Take this."

I groped in the dark and my hand met the Skipper's. I took the bottle from him and went to the opening in the tree. I put my head out cautiously and listened. Shots were still being exchanged, though they sounded much farther away. I withdrew inside the tree again.