Robert Michael Ballantyne
Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader
At first the natives seemed awe-stricken. Then, on becoming aware that the sounds which originated all this tumult came from the direction of their own village, they dropped Alice on the ground, fled precipitately down the rugged path that led from the heights to the valley and disappeared, leaving the three captives, bound and helpless, on the cliffs.
Chapter Twelve
Dangerous navigation and doubtful pilotage—Montague is hot, Gascoyne sarcastic
We turn now to the Talisman, which, it will be remembered, we left making her way slowly through the reefs towards the northern end of the island, under the pilotage of Gascoyne.
The storm, which had threatened to burst over the island at an earlier period of that evening, passed off far to the south. The light breeze which had tempted Captain Montague to weigh anchor soon died away, and before night a profound calm brooded over the deep.
When the breeze fell, Gascoyne went forward, and, seating himself on a forecastle carronade, appeared to fall into a deep reverie. Montague paced the quarter-deck impatiently, glancing from time to time down the skylight at the barometer which hung in the cabin, and at the vane which drooped motionless from the mast-head. He acted with the air of a man who was deeply dissatisfied with the existing state of things, and who felt inclined to take the laws of nature into his own hands. Fortunately for nature and himself, he was unable to do this.
Ole Thorwald exhibited a striking contrast to the active, impatient commander of the vessel. That portly individual, having just finished a cigar which the first lieutenant had presented to him on his arrival on board, threw the fag end of it into the sea, and proceeded leisurely to fill a large-headed German pipe, which was the constant companion of his waking hours, and the bowl of which seldom enjoyed a cool moment.
Ole having filled the pipe, lighted it; then, leaning over the taffrail, he gazed placidly into the dark waters, which were so perfectly calm that every star in the vault above could be compared with its reflection in the abyss below.
Ole Thorwald, excepting when engaged in actual battle, was phlegmatic, and constitutionally lazy and happy. When enjoying his German pipe he felt inexpressibly serene, and did not care to be disturbed. He therefore paid no attention to the angry manner of Montague, who brushed past him repeatedly in his hasty perambulations, but continued to gaze downwards and smoke calmly in a state of placid felicity.
“You appear to take things coolly, Mister Thorwald,” said Montague, half in jest, yet with a touch of asperity in his manner.
“I always do” (puff) “when the weather’s not warm.” (Puff puff.)
“Humph!” ejaculated Montague, “but the weather is warm just now; at least it seems so to me—so warm that I should not be surprised if a thunder squall were to burst upon us ere long.”
“Not a pleasant place to be caught in a squall,” returned the other, gazing through the voluminous clouds of smoke which he emitted at several coral reefs, whose ragged edges just rose to the level of the calm sea without breaking its mirror-like surface; “I’ve seen one or two fine vessels caught that way, just hereabouts, and go right down in the middle of the breakers.”
Montague smiled, and the commander-in-chief of the Sandy Cove army fired innumerable broadsides from his mouth with redoubled energy.
“That is not a cheering piece of information,” said he, “especially when one has reason to believe that a false man stands at the helm.”
Montague uttered the latter part of his speech in a subdued earnest voice, and the matter-of-fact Ole turned his eyes slowly towards the man at the wheel; but observing that he who presided there was a short, fat, commonplace, and uncommonly jolly-looking seaman, he merely uttered a grunt and looked at Montague inquiringly.
“Nay, I mean not the man who actually holds the spokes of the wheel, but he who guides the ship.”
Thorwald glanced at Gascoyne, whose figure was dimly visible in the fore part of the ship, and then looking at Montague in surprise shook his head gravely, as if to say—
“I’m still in the dark—go on.”
“Can Mr Thorwald put out his pipe for a few minutes and accompany me to the cabin? I would have a little converse on this matter in private.”
Ole hesitated.
“Well, then,” said the other, smiling, “you may take the pipe with you, although it is against rules to smoke in my cabin—but I’ll make an exception in your case.”
Ole smiled, bowed, and, thanking the captain for his courtesy, descended to the cabin along with him and sat down on a sofa in the darkest corner of it. Here he smoked vehemently, while his companion, assuming a rather mysterious air, said in an under tone—
“You have heard, of course, that the pirate Durward has been seen, or heard of, in those seas?”
Ole nodded.
“Has it ever struck you that this Gascoyne, as he calls himself, knows more about the pirate than he chooses to tell?”
“Never,” replied Ole. Indeed nothing ever did strike the stout commander-in-chief of the forces. All new ideas came to him by slow degrees, and did not readily find admission to his perceptive faculties. But when they did gain an entrance into his thick head, nothing was ever known to drive them out again. As he did not seem inclined to comment on the hint thrown out by his companion, Montague continued, in a still more impressive tone—
“What would you say if this Gascoyne himself turned out to be the pirate?”
The idea being a simple one, and the proper course to follow being rather obvious, Ole replied with unwonted promptitude—“Put him in irons, of course, and hang him as soon as possible.”
Montague laughed. “Truly that would be a vigorous way of proceeding; but as I have no proof of the truth of my suspicions, and as the man is my guest at present, as well as my pilot, it behoves me to act more cautiously.”
“Not at all; by no means; you’re quite wrong, captain; (which is the natural result of being young—all young people go more or less;) it is clearly your duty to catch a pirate anyhow you can, as fast as you can, and kill him without delay.”
Here the sanguinary Thorwald paused to draw and puff into vitality the pipe which was beginning to die down, and Montague asked—
“But how d’you know he is the pirate?”
“Because you said so,” replied his friend.
“Nay, I said that I suspected him to be Durward—nothing more.”
“And what more would you have?” cried Ole, whose calm spirit was ruffled with unusual violence at the thought of the hated Durward being actually within his reach. “For my part I conceive that you are justified in taking him up on suspicion, trying him in a formal way (just to save appearances) on suspicion, and hanging him at once on suspicion. Quite time enough to inquire into the matter after the villain is comfortably sewed up in a hammock with a thirty-pound shot at his heels, and sent to the bottom of the sea for the sharks and crabs to devour. Suspicion is nine points of the law in these regions, Captain Montague, and we never allow the tenth point to interfere with the course of justice one way or another. Hang him, or shoot him if you prefer it, at once; that is what I recommend.”
Just as Thorwald concluded this amiable piece of advice, the deep strong tones of Gascoyne’s voice were heard addressing the first lieutenant.
“You had better hoist your royals and skyscrapers, Mr Mulroy; we shall have a light air off the land presently, and it will require all your canvas to carry the ship round the north point, so as to bring her guns to bear on the village of the savages.”
“The distance seems to me very short,” replied the lieutenant, “and the Talisman sails faster than you may suppose with a light wind.”
“I doubt not the sailing qualities of your good ship, though I could name a small schooner that would beat them in light wind or storm; but you forget that we have to land our stout ally Mr Thorwald with his men at the Goat’s Pass, and that will compel us to lose time, too much of which has been lost already.”
Without reply, the lieutenant turned on his heel and gave the necessary orders to hoist the additional sails, while the captain hastened on deck, leaving Thorwald to finish his pipe in peace, and ruminate on the suspicions which had been raised in his mind.
In less than half an hour the light wind which Gascoyne had predicted came off the land, first in a series of what sailors term “cats’ paws,” and then in a steady breeze which lasted several hours, and caused the vessel to slip rapidly through the still water. As he looked anxiously over the bow, Captain Montague felt that he had placed himself completely in the power of the suspected skipper of the Foam, for coral reefs surrounded him on all sides, and many of them passed so close to the ship’s side that he expected every moment to feel the shock that would wreck his vessel and his hopes at the same time. He blamed himself for trusting a man whom he supposed he had such good reason to doubt, but consoled himself by thrusting his hand into his bosom and grasping the handle of a pistol, with which, in the event of the ship striking, he had made up his mind to blow out Gascoyne’s brains.
About an hour later the Talisman was hove-to off the Goat’s Pass, and Ole Thorwald was landed with his party at the base of a cliff which rose sheer up from the sea like a wall.
“Are we to go up there?” inquired Ole in a rueful tone of voice, as he surveyed a narrow chasm to which Gascoyne guided him.
“That is the way. It’s not so bad as it looks. When you get to the top, follow the little path that leads along the cliffs northward, and you will reach the brow of a hill from which the native village will be visible. Descend and attack it at once, if you find men to fight with—if not, take possession quietly. Mind you don’t take the wrong turn; it leads to places where a wild-cat would not venture even in daylight. If you attend to what I have said, you can’t go wrong. Good night. Shove off.”
The oars splashed in the sea at the word, and Gascoyne retained to the ship, leaving Ole to lead his men up the Pass as he best might.
It seemed as if the pilot had resolved to make sure of the destruction of the ship that night; for, not content with running her within a foot or two of innumerable reefs, he at last steered in so close to the shore that the beetling cliffs actually seemed to overhang the deck. When the sun rose, the breeze died away; but sufficient wind continued to fill the upper sails and to urge the vessel gently onward for some time after the surface of the sea was calm.
Montague endeavoured to conceal and repress his anxiety as long as possible, but when at length a line of breakers without any apparent opening presented themselves right ahead, he went up to Gascoyne and said in a stern under tone—
“Are you aware that you forfeit your life if my vessel strikes?”
“I know it,” replied Gascoyne, coolly throwing away the stump of his cigar and lighting a fresh one, “but I have no desire either to destroy your vessel or to lose my life; although, to say truth, I should have no objection, in other circumstances, to attempt the one and to risk the other.”
“Say you so?” said Montague, with a sharp glance at the countenance of the other, where, however, he could perceive nothing but placid good humour “that speech sounds marvellously warlike, methinks, in the mouth of a sandal-wood trader.”
“Think you, then,” said Gascoyne, with a smile of contempt, “that it is only your fire-eating men of war who experience bold impulses and heroic desires?”
“Nay, but traders are not wont to aspire to the honour of fighting the ships that are commissioned to protect them.”
“Truly, if I had sought protection from the warships of the king of England, I must have sailed long and far to find it,” returned Gascoyne. “It is no child’s play to navigate these seas, where bloodthirsty savages swarm in their canoes like locusts. Moreover I sail, as I have told you before, in the China Seas where pirates are more common than honest traders. What would you say if I were to take it into my head to protect myself?”
“That you were well able to do so,” answered Montague, with a smile; “but when I examined the Foam I found no arms save a few cutlasses and rusty muskets that did not seem to have been in recent use.”
“A few bold men can defend themselves with any kind of weapons. My men are stout fellows not used to flinch at the sound of a round shot passing over their heads.”
The conversation was interrupted here by the ship rounding a point and suddenly opening up a view of a fine bay, at the head of which, embosomed in trees and dense underwood, stood the native village of which they were in search.
Just in front of this village lay a small but high and thickly wooded island, which, as it were, filled up the head of the bay, sheltering it completely from the ocean, and making the part of the sea which washed the shores in front of the houses resemble a deep and broad canal. This stripe of water was wide and deep enough to permit of a vessel of the largest size passing through it; but to any one approaching the place for the first time there seemed to be no passage for any sort of craft larger than a native canoe. The island itself was high enough to conceal the Talisman completely from the natives until she was within half gunshot of the shore.
Gascoyne still stood on the fore part of the ship as she neared this spot, which was so beset with reefs and rocks that her escape seemed miraculous.
“I think we are near enough for the work that we have to do,” suggested Montague in some anxiety.
“Just about it, Mr Montague,” said Gascoyne, as he turned towards the stern and shouted—
“Port your helm.”
“Port it is,” answered the man at the wheel.
“Steady.”
“Back the topsails, Mr Mulroy.”
The sails were backed at once, and the ship became motionless with her broadside to the village.
“What are we to do now, Mr Gascoyne,” inquired Montague, smiling in spite of himself at the strange position in which he found himself.
“Fire away at the village as hard as you can,” replied Gascoyne, returning the smile.
“What! do you really advise me to bombard a defenceless place in which, as far as I can see, there are none but women and children?”
“Even so!” returned the other, carelessly, “at the same time I would advise you to give it them with blank cartridge.”
“And to what purpose such waste of powder?” inquired Montague.
“The furthering of the plans which I have been appointed to carry out,” answered Gascoyne somewhat stiffly, as he turned on his heel and walked away.
The young captain reddened and bit his lip, as he gave the order to load the guns with blank cartridge, and made preparation to fire this harmless broadside on the village. The word to “fire” had barely crossed his lips when the rocks around seemed to tremble with the crash of a shot that came apparently from the other side of the island, for its smoke was visible, although the vessel that discharged it was concealed behind the point. The Talisman’s broadside followed so quickly, that the two discharges were blended in one.
Chapter Thirteen
Doings on board the “Foam.”
The nature of this part of our story requires that we should turn back, repeatedly, in order to trace the movements of the different parties which co-operated with each other.
While the warlike demonstrations we have described were being made by the British cruiser, the crew of the Foam were not idle.
In consequence of the capture of Bumpus by the savages, Gascoyne’s message was, of course, not delivered to Manton, and the first mate of the sandalwood trader would have known nothing about the fight that raged on the other side of the island on the Sunday, but for the three shots, fired by the first lieutenant of the Talisman, which decided the fate of the day.
Being curious to know the cause of the firing, Manton climbed the mountains until he gained the dividing ridge—which, however, he did not succeed in doing till late in the afternoon, the way being rugged as well as long. Here he almost walked into the midst of a flying party of the beaten savages; but dropping suddenly behind a rock, he escaped their notice. The haste with which they ran, and the wounds visible on the persons of many of them, were sufficient to acquaint the mate of the Foam with the fact that a fight had taken place in which the savages had been beaten; and his knowledge of the state of affairs on the island enabled him to jump at once to the correct conclusion that the Christian village had been attacked.
A satanic smile played on the countenance of the mate as he watched the savages until they were out of sight; then, quitting his place of concealment, he hurried back to the schooner, which he reached some time after nightfall.
Immediately on gaining the deck he gave orders to haul the chain of the anchor short, to shake out the sails, and to make other preparations to avail himself without delay of the light breeze off the land which his knowledge of the weather and the locality taught him to look for before morning.
While his orders were being executed, a boat came alongside with that part of the crew which had been sent ashore by Gascoyne to escape the eye of the British commander. It was in charge of the second mate—a short, but thick-set and extremely powerful man, of the name of Scraggs—who walked up to his superior the moment he came on board, and, in a tone somewhat disrespectful, asked what was going to be done.
“Don’t you see,” growled Manton; “we’re getting ready to sail.”
“Of course I see that,” retorted Scraggs, between whom and his superior officer there existed a feeling of jealousy as well as of mutual antipathy, for reasons which will be seen hereafter; “but I should like to know where we are going, and why we are going anywhere without the captain. I suppose I am entitled to ask that much.”
“It’s your business to obey orders,” said Manton, angrily.
“Not if they are in opposition to the captain’s orders,” replied Scraggs, firmly, but in a more respectful tone; for in proportion as he became more mutinous, he felt that he could afford to become more deferential. “The captain’s last orders to you were to remain where you are; I heard him give them, and I do not feel it my duty to disobey him at your bidding. You’ll find, too, that the crew are of my way of thinking.”
Manton’s face flushed crimson, and, for a moment, he felt inclined to seize a handspike and fell the refractory second mate therewith; but the looks of a few of the men who were standing by and had overheard the conversation, convinced him that a violent course of procedure would do him injury. Swallowing his passion, therefore, as he best could, he said—
“Come, Mr Scraggs, I did not expect that you would set a mutinous example to the men; and if it were not that you do so out of respect for the supposed orders of the captain, I would put you in irons at once.”
Scraggs smiled sarcastically at this threat, but made no reply, and the mate continued—
“The captain did indeed order me to remain where we are, but I have since discovered that the black dogs have attacked the Christian settlement, as it is called, and you know as well as I do, that Gascoyne would not let slip the chance to pitch into the undefended village of the niggers, and pay them off for the mischief they have done to us more than once. At any rate, I mean to go round and blow down their log huts with Long Tom; so you can go ashore if you don’t like the work.”
Manton knew well, when he made this allusion to mischief formerly done to the crew of the Foam, that he touched a rankling sore in the breast of Scraggs, who in a skirmish with the natives some time before had lost an eye; and the idea of revenging himself on the defenceless women and children of his enemies was so congenial to the mind of the second mate, that his objections to act willingly under Manton’s orders were at once removed.
“Ha!” said he, commencing to pace to and fro on the quarter-deck with his superior officer, while the men made the necessary preparations for the intended assault, “that alters the case, Mr Manton. I don’t think, however, that Gascoyne would have taken advantage of the chance to give the brutes what they deserve, for I must say he does seem to be unaccountably chicken-hearted; perhaps it’s as well that he’s out of the way. Do you happen to know where he is or what he’s doing?”
“Not I. No doubt he is playing some sly game with this British cruiser, and I dare say he may be lending a hand to the settlers, for he’s got some strange interests to look after there, you know,” (here both men laughed,) “and I shouldn’t wonder if he was beforehand with us in pitching into the niggers. He is always ready enough to fight in self-defence, though we can never get him screwed up to the assaulting point.”
“Ay, we saw something of the fighting from the hill tops, but as it is no business of ours, I brought the men down in case they might be wanted aboard.”
“Quite right, Scraggs. You’re a judicious fellow to send on a dangerous expedition. I’m not sure, however, that Gascoyne would thank you for leaving him to fight the savages alone.” Manton chuckled as he said this, and Scraggs grinned maliciously as he replied—
“Well, it can’t exactly be said that I’ve left him, seeing that I have not been with him since we parted aboard of this schooner, and as to his fightin’ the niggers alone,—hasn’t he got ever so many hundred Christian niggers to help him to lick the others?”
“True,” said Manton, while a smile of contempt curled his lip. “But here comes the breeze, and the sun won’t be long behind it. All the better for the work we’ve got to do. Mind your helm there. Here, lads, take a pull at the topsail halyards; and some of you get the nightcap off Long Tom. I say, Mr Scraggs, should we shew them the red, by way of comforting their hearts?”
Scraggs shook his head dubiously. “You forget the cruiser. She has eyes aboard, and may chance to set them on that same red, in which case it’s likely she would shew us her teeth.”
“And what then?” demanded Manton, “are you also growing chicken-hearted. Besides,” he added in a milder tone, “the cruiser is quietly at anchor on the other side of the island, and there’s not a captain in the British navy who could take a pinnace, much less a ship, through the reefs at the north end of the island without a pilot.”
“Well,” returned Scraggs, carelessly, “do as you please. It’s all one to me.”
While the two officers were conversing, the active crew of the Foam were busily engaged in carrying out the orders of Manton, and the graceful schooner glided swiftly along the coast before the same breeze which urged the Talisman to the north end of the island. The former, having few reefs to avoid, approached her destination much more rapidly than the latter, and there is no doubt that she would have arrived first on the scene of action had not the height and form of the cliffs prevented the wind from filling her sails on two or three occasions.
Meanwhile, in obedience to Manton’s orders, a great and very peculiar change was effected in the outward aspect of the Foam. To one unacquainted with the character of the schooner, the proceedings of her crew must have seemed unaccountable as well as surprising. The carpenter and his assistants were slung over the sides of the vessel, upon which they plied their screwdrivers for a considerable time with great energy, but, apparently, with very little result. In the course of a quarter of an hour, however, a long narrow plank was loosened, which, when stripped off, discovered a narrow line of bright scarlet running quite round the vessel, a little more than a foot above the water-line. This having been accomplished, they next proceeded to the figurehead, and, unscrewing the white lady who smiled there, fixed in her place a hideous griffin’s head, which, like the ribbon, was also bright scarlet. While these changes were being effected, others of the crew removed the boat that lay on the deck, bottom up, between the masts, and uncovered a long brass pivot-gun of the largest calibre, which shone in the saffron light of morning like a mass of burnished gold. This gun was kept scrupulously clean and neat in all its arrangements; the rammers, sponges, screws, and other apparatus belonging to it, were neatly arranged beside it, and four or five of its enormous iron shot were piled under its muzzle. The traversing gear connected with it was well greased, and, in short, everything about the gun gave proof of the care that was bestowed on it.
But these were not the only alterations made in the mysterious schooner. Round both masts were piled a number of muskets, boarding-pikes, cutlasses, and pistols, all of which were perfectly clean and bright, and the men—fierce enough and warlike in their aspect at all times—had now rendered themselves doubly so, by putting on broad belts with pistols therein, and tucking up their sleeves to the shoulders, thereby displaying their brawny arms as if they had dirty work before them. This strange metamorphosis was finally completed when Manton, with his own hands, ran up to the peak of the mainsail a bright scarlet flag with the single word “Avenger” on it in large black letters.
During one of those lulls in the breeze to which we have referred, and while the smooth ocean glowed in the mellow light that ushered in the day, the attention of those on board the Avenger (as we shall call the double-faced schooner when under red colours) was attracted to one of the more distant cliffs, on the summit of which human beings appeared to be moving.
“Hand me that glass,” said Manton to one of the men beside him. “I shouldn’t wonder if the niggers were up to some mischief there. Ah! just so,” he exclaimed, adjusting the telescope a little more correctly, and again applying it to his eye. “They seem to be scuffling on the top of yonder precipice. Now there’s one fellow down; but it’s so far off that I can’t make out clearly what they’re about. I say, Mr Scraggs, get the other glass and take a squint at them—you are farther sighted than I am.”
“You’re right; they are killin’ one another up yonder,” observed Scraggs, surveying the group on the cliffs with calm indifference.
“Here comes the breeze,” exclaimed Manton, with a look of satisfaction. “Now, look alive, lads; we shall be close on the nigger village in five minutes—it’s just round the point of this small island close ahead. Come, Mr Scraggs, we’ve other business on hand just now than squinting at the scrimmages of these fellows.”
“Hold on,” cried Scraggs with a grin; “I do believe they’re going to pitch a feller over that cliff. What a crack he’ll come down into the water with, to be sure. It’s to be hoped the poor man is dead, for his own sake, before he takes that flight. Hallo!” added Scraggs with an energetic shout and a look of surprise, “I say, that’s one of our men; I know him by his striped flannel shirt. If he would only give up kicking for a second I’d make out his – humph! it’s all up with him now, poor fellow, whoever he is.”
As he said the last words, the figure of a man was seen to shoot out from the cliff, and, descending with ever increasing rapidity, to strike the water with terrific violence, sending up a jet of white foam as it disappeared.
“Stand by to lower the gig,” shouted Manton.
“Ay, ay, sir,” was the hearty response of the men, as some of them sprang to obey.
“Lower away!”
The boat struck the water, and its crew were on the thwarts in a moment. At the same time the point of the island was passed, and the native village opened up to view.
“Load Long Tom—double shot!” roared Manton, whose ire was raised not so much at the idea of a fellow-creature having been so barbarously murdered, as at the notion of one of the crew of his schooner having been so treated by contemptible niggers. “Away, lads, and pick up that man.”
“It’s of no use,” remonstrated Scraggs; “he’s done for by this time.”
“I know it,” said Manton, with a fierce oath, “bring him in, dead or alive; if the sharks leave an inch of him, bring it to me. I’ll make the black villains eat it raw.”
This ferocious threat was interlarded with and followed by a series of terrible oaths which we think it inadvisable to repeat.
“Starboard!” he shouted to the man at the helm, as soon as the boat shot away on its mission of mercy.
“Starboard it is.”
“Steady!”
While he gave these orders, Manton sighted the brass gun carefully, and, just as the schooner’s head came up to the wind, he applied the match.
Instantly a cloud of smoke obscured the centre of the little vessel as if her powder magazine had blown up, and a deafening roar went ringing and reverberating from cliff to cliff as two of the great iron shot were sent groaning through the air and pitched right into the heart of the village.
It was this tremendous shot from Long Tom, followed almost instantaneously by the entire broadside of the Talisman, that saved the life of Alice, possibly the lives of her young companions also,—that struck terror to the hearts of the savages, causing them to converge towards their defenceless homes from all directions, and that apprised Ole Thorwald and Henry Stuart that the assault on the village had commenced in earnest.
