Latitude 19 degree Part 16

Here was the best and sweetest woman that I had ever known, and I had told three absolute falsehoods in less than an hour's time, and was ready to tell another--many others, in fact--should circ.u.mstances demand it.

"I think it very wrong to tell a falsehood," said Cynthia. "I never tell one"--a short pause--"_unless it is absolutely necessary_."

Meanwhile she was feeling under her collar. When her fingers came to view again, they held a little gold chain and locket. I looked at the locket curiously.

"My lover's portrait," said Cynthia, looking up at me with a saucy smile. She calmly and with patience prepared to pull apart the two pieces of the slide or clasp that held the delicate chain together.

"This was my baby chain; I have worn it ever since I was a little thing.--How old, Uncle Tony?"

The Skipper blew his nose.

"I remember my sister putting that chain on you before you could walk, Cynthy," he said. "I remember she said it was big enough to grow in."

"I have never taken it off but twice," said Cynthia; "once to slip the locket on empty, and once to slip it on after I put the picture in it."

"Let us have a look at William," said I, chagrined that I had not destroyed the only likeness extant of that hated individual.

"You shall see it some time," returned Cynthia. "There!" She took the ring from her pocket, slipped the chain through the circle made by the serpent's body, and clasped it around her neck.

"Don't do it!" I remonstrated. "There may be something in the Bo's'n's fears, after all."

"Nonsense!" laughed Cynthia, as she tucked the ring down below her collar and rearranged her tie. Her dress was still neat and fresh, but as I looked at her I wondered how long it would be before she would appear like other s.h.i.+pwrecked women.

And now I beckoned to the Bo's'n. He started and came haltingly up the beach. I cast my eyes on the loose pebbles at my feet for a moment and discovered what I wanted. As children we had often played with what we called lucky stones. A lucky stone was a little stone washed by the motion of the water into an open circle. The lucky stone that I picked up was a glittering piece of rock, and shone in the sun.

"We can not spare the Bo's'n's services," I said, "and he won't come back to camp until the ring is thrown away, so here goes."

The Bo's'n was nearing us slowly on the left, and the Hatien girl as reluctantly upon the right. When the Bo's'n was perhaps a hundred feet away, I threw back my arm and hurled the pebble as far away as I could.

It glittered as it flew through the air, and entered the water with a splash at about three hundred feet from the sh.o.r.e. I was considered a good thrower in my time.

The Bo's'n advanced now with more confidence, though he looked continually out into the bay at the concentric rings in the water, which were approaching the beach where we stood.

"Expect that fool is looking to see it bob up and swim ash.o.r.e," laughed the Skipper. The Hatien girl now returned also. She drew close to Cynthia, and laid her cheek down on her skirt in a respectful way.

"_Li negue a peu_," she whispered. She looked at the place where the stone had gone down and shuddered. She shook her head several times.

"_ca, retou'! ca retou'!_" she said.

"I understand her talk a little, sir," volunteered the Bo's'n. "I lived with a Dominican, Mr. Jones, sir, for a year. I was with Toussaint's army when he marched to Hati." That seemed ancient history to me, and I gazed on the Bo's'n with respect. "It was then I learned about----" He broke off suddenly.

"What did Lacelle say, Bo's'n?" asked Miss Archer.

"She says the negro is afraid, miss. That's what she meant to say, miss.

The Hatiens don't speak what they call the fine French, miss. It's half African and half French, miss."

"Captain," I said, "we are wasting a good deal of time over nothing, seems to me. There is something that we should do as soon as possible."

I drew him aside and told him about the dead sailors.

"Come on," said the Skipper readily. "Bo's'n, you stay and watch the camp, and if any danger threatens, signal us."

"What with, Cap'n, sir?"

"Why, as you did before."

The Bo's'n became very red, looked at Miss Archer sheepishly, and said, "Yessir." The Minion had now appeared mysteriously from somewhere, and, after ordering him to stay with the party and help the Bo's'n "clean up," we started. We pushed the boat into the water. The Skipper took the steering oar and I took the sculls, and we pulled westward. When we arrived at our destination, I beached the boat and walked with the Captain up the slope to where the dead sailors were lying.

"Dear! dear!" said the Captain. "Wilson and Tanby! How natural they look! Poor fellows! You'll never tumble up again to the sound of the Bo's'n's whistle, my lads."

"And he'll never pipe any more to your crew," said I, as I thought of the sleeping forms we had left behind us the night before. I stood looking about me. "Captain, there's something queer about this place.

It's uncanny, it seems to me. When I left the men here, a half hour ago, there were three--our two men and the Hatien, and two graves. Now there is no Hatien, and three graves instead of two."

"Lord! you don't say so! Well, I have seen queer things in my time, a sight of queer things. Nothing ever surprises me. Let's give the poor fellows a decent burial and get back to camp. I don't quite like leaving Cynthy with that crazy Bo's'n----"

"We have no spades, Captain," said I.

He saw what I meant, for he turned and looked at the graves.

"How's that?" he asked, jerking his head over his shoulder toward the water.

"The only way now," I answered.

We lifted the poor fellows and laid them gently in the bows side by side, and then pulled for the open water.

The dinghy's painter was lying in the bottom of the boat, and as I rowed the Skipper untwisted and split the rope. Of course, I had known quite well why he lifted two heavy rocks from the beach and laid them under the thwarts. When I had rowed for about ten minutes, the Skipper said, "Way enough!" I trailed my oars, and together we prepared the men for the last sad rites. With one end of a rope around the body of each, and the other fastened securely around one of the rocks, we lowered them one after another into that deep over which for so many years they had sailed happy-go-lucky fellows. As they sank below the surface, the Skipper s.h.i.+fted his squatting position into a kneeling one, raised his eyes to the blue above him, clasped his weather-beaten hands, and said:

"Oh, Thou who holdest the oceans of the earth in the hollow of Thy hands, hold these poor sailors, we pray Thee, within Thy tender keeping, and when the sea gives up its dead, good Lord, and they are called aft to Thy mast, where they must answer up, no s.h.i.+rking, remember the many trials and temptations of poor Jack, dear Father, and judge them _as_ sailors, and _not as human beings_!"

"Amen!" said I.

CHAPTER V.

A MYSTERIOUS FLIGHT.

I could not restrain a smile, even at this most solemn moment, as I heard the Skipper's ending. I sat looking at the water for a little--at the resting place of the men, which was marked for a short time by the bubbles which came to the surface; and then a light wind ruffled the water, and I closed my eyes, breathing a few words for the living as well as for the dead. When I opened them again, I had lost trace of those nameless graves for all time.

As I rowed the boat swiftly toward sh.o.r.e, away from that scene of sadness, I pondered upon the situation. It seemed to me that the others had not considered seriously enough our strangely exceptional fate. In most accounts of s.h.i.+pwreck and adventure the castaways are left upon a desolate island with savages more or less gentle, who help and care for them; or else the natives are bloodthirsty wretches, who, if they come in contact with the s.h.i.+pwrecked people, are outnumbered and overcome.

Then a vessel heaves in sight at the right moment, and takes the unfortunates to home and happiness. There was the alternative of being s.h.i.+pwrecked upon an utterly desolate land, where provisions were few and enemies none. Our case was not any one of these three. We had not been obliged to seek refuge upon a desert island, far from home and friends.

On the contrary, we were but twelve hundred miles at the most from Belleville, which was the centre of our world. The anxiety which filled my thoughts was caused by recent facts in our history, which followed each other rapidly through my mind, and which gave me reason to fear that if we could not quickly get safe pa.s.sage away from the island something of a dangerous nature might befall us. That black monarch, "King Henry of the North," as he chose to style himself, was at this time reigning over the island of Hati with resolute and powerful sway.

No absolute monarch ever ruled a people with as decided and unbrooked a will as Henri Christophe. The French occupation, which had lasted about one hundred years, had been finally ended with the revolution of 1793.

Toussaint l'Ouverture had instigated and led the most b.l.o.o.d.y rebellion of modern times. The slave of the Breda plantation, through insurrection, wars, and bloodshed, had become a great general, and so the dictator of the entire island known as Santo Domingo. It is an almost incredible fact that Toussaint was a gentle and humane man, even though he rose against and ma.s.sacred the whites that his people with him might throw off the yoke of slavery. Had Toussaint been alive at this day, I knew that we should have had nothing to fear, but his mantle had fallen upon other shoulders, and those who had succeeded him had lost sight of the primary cause of the uprising. Like some other reformers, his path ran with blood, but it was either that or continued slavery for himself and his people. Toussaint was the grand figure of the Hatien revolution. The Marquis d'Hermonas said of him, "G.o.d in this terrestrial globe could not commune with a purer spirit." It was well known that Toussaint's enemies were treated with a gentleness and consideration which was abnormal in those days of bloodthirsty cruelty and excess. But at the time of which I write Toussaint had died in the Alps. The French, short-sighted as to a policy which should have urged upon them the recognition of Toussaint as the best governor which the island could procure, instead of treating with him, and forming an honourable peace, decoyed him on board one of their s.h.i.+ps. He was sent to France, where he died in the Chateau de Joux. His death was caused by Alpine rigour, and it is hinted that it was aided by unnatural means. Toussaint was a courageous general, a keen legislator, an astute philosopher, a good citizen, a generous enemy, and a faithful friend. Had we but had such a man to turn to, I should have felt no fear, but there had been wars and bloodshed since Toussaint's time. His generals, Dessalines, Christophe, and Petion, had continued the war with the greatest bitterness. They had driven out the French, who, however, had left their various mixed progeny behind them. That progeny, the product of two races, who despised their black mothers and hated their white fathers, were always at war with the blacks and whites alike. Then Dessalines, following the example of Bonaparte, in 1804, crowned himself emperor, saying, "I am the only n.o.ble in Hati." This would be laughable if the results had not been so disastrous and far reaching. Then came the downfall of Dessalines. Then Petion was elected president. There were more conspirings, more treachery, and more bloodshed, and finally Christophe crowned himself king. This was in 1811, about ten years before the last cruise of the Yankee Blade.

Back from the coast, about eight to ten miles as the crow flies, upon a mountain height which overlooks the sea and land as far as the eye can reach, Christophe had built his wonderful citadel, the tragic erection of which cost a life for each stone laid.

This black prince lived in the greatest luxury and, as far as his light shone, in unbounded magnificence. No refusal was ever brooked by him. If a workman was ordered to accomplish the impossible, and the article desired was not forthcoming at the time set by the despot, the unfortunate being was dragged from his hiding place and hurled off the precipice of the citadel. I had heard that thirty thousand men had perished in this way. I remember now the words of a historian whose book I have lately read:

"As long as a stone of this wall shall stand, so long will there remain a monument to one of the greatest savages and murderers who has ever disgraced G.o.d's earth."