Springhaven: A Tale of the Great War

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XXXII

  THE TRIALS OF FAITH

  He following day, the 27th of October, was a dark one in the calendar ofa fair and good young lady. Two years would then have passed since FaithDarling, at the age of twenty, had received sad tidings, which wouldmake the rest of her life flow on in shadow. So at least she thought,forgetful (or rather perhaps unconscious, for she had not yet learnedthe facts of life) that time and the tide of years submerge the loftiestyouthful sorrow. To a warm and stedfast heart like hers, and a naturestrong but self-controlled, no casual change, or light diversion, orsudden interest in other matters, could take the place of the motivelost. Therefore, being of a deep true faith, and staunch in the beliefof a great God, good to all who seek His goodness, she never went awayfrom what she meant, that faith and hope should feed each other.

  This saved her from being a trouble to any one, or damping anybody'scheerfulness, or diminishing the gaiety around her. She took a livelyinterest in the affairs of other people, which a "blighted being"declines to do; and their pleasures ministered to her own good cheerwithout, or at any rate beyond, her knowledge. Therefore she was likedby everybody, and beloved by all who had any heart for a brave andpitiful story. Thus a sweet flower, half closed by the storm, continuesto breathe forth its sweetness.

  However, there were times when even Faith was lost in sad remembrance,and her bright young spirit became depressed by the hope deferred thatmaketh sick the heart. As time grew longer, hope grew less; and even thecheerful Admiral, well versed in perils of the deep, and acquainted withmany a wandering story, had made up his mind that Erle Twemlow wasdead, and would never more be heard of. The rector also, the young man'sfather, could hold out no longer against that conclusion; and even themother, disdaining the mention, yet understood the meaning, of despair.And so among those to whom the subject was the most interesting in theworld, it was now the strict rule to avoid it with the lips, though theeyes were often filled with it.

  Faith Darling at first scorned this hard law. "It does seem so unkind,"she used to say, "that even his name should be interdicted, as if he haddisgraced himself. If he is dead, he has died with honour. None who eversaw him can doubt that. But he is not dead. He will come back to us,perhaps next week, perhaps to-morrow, perhaps even while we are afraidto speak of him. If it is for my sake that you behave thus, I am notquite so weak as to require it."

  The peculiar circumstances of the case had not only baffled enquiry,but from the very beginning precluded it. The man with the keenest eyes,sharpest nose, biggest ears, and longest head, of all the many sneakswho now conduct what they call "special enquiries," could have donenothing with a case like this, because there was no beginning it. Evennow, in fair peace, and with large knowledge added, the matter wouldnot have been easy; but in war universal, and blank ignorance, there wasnothing to be done but to sit down and think. And the story invited agood deal of thinking, because of its disappointing turn.

  During the negotiations for peace in 1801, and before any articles weresigned, orders were sent to the Cape of Good Hope for the return of aregiment of the line, which had not been more than three months there.But the Cape was likely to be restored to Holland, and two emptytransports returning from India were to call under convoy, and bringhome these troops. One of the officers was Captain Erle Twemlow, thenabout twenty-five years of age, and under probation, by the Admiral'sdecree, for the hand of the maiden whose heart had been his from a timeto itself immemorial. After tiresome days of impatience, the transportsarrived under conduct of a frigate; and after another week, the soldiersembarked with fine readiness for their native land.

  But before they had cleared the Bay, they met a brig-of-war directfrom Portsmouth, carrying despatches for the officer in command of thetroops, as well as for the captain of the frigate. Some barbarous tribeson the coast of Guinea, the part that is called the Ivory Coast, hadplundered and burnt a British trading station within a few miles of CapePalmas, and had killed and devoured the traders. These natives must bepunished, and a stern example made, and a negro monarch of the name ofHunko Jum must have his palace burned, if he possessed one; while hisrival, the king of the Crumbo tribe, whose name was Bandeliah, who hadstriven to protect the traders, must be rewarded, and have a treatymade with him, if he could be brought to understand it. Both sailorsand soldiers were ready enough to undertake this little spree, as theycalled it, expecting to have a pleasant run ashore, a fine bit of sportwith the negroes, and perhaps a few noserings of gold to take home totheir wives and sweethearts.

  But, alas! the reality was not so fine. The negroes who had done allthe mischief made off, carrying most of their houses with them; andthe palace of Hunko Jum, if he possessed one, was always a littleway further on. The Colonel was a stubborn man, and so was thesea-captain--good Tories both, and not desirous to skulk out of scrapes,and leave better men to pick up their clumsy breakages. Blue and redvied with one another to scour the country, and punish the natives--ifonly they could catch them--and to vindicate, with much strong language,the dignity of Great Britain, and to make an eternal example.

  But white bones are what the white man makes, under that slimy sunshineand putrefying moon. Weary, slack-jointed, low-hearted as they were, thedeadly coast-fever fell upon them, and they shivered, and burned, andgroaned, and raved, and leaped into holes, or rolled into camp fires.The Colonel died early, and the Naval Captain followed him; none stoodupon the order of their going; but man followed man, as in a funeral, tothe grave, until there was no grave to go to. The hand of the Lordwas stretched out against them; and never would one have come backto England, out of more than five hundred who landed, except for themanhood and vigour of a seaman, Captain Southcombe, of the transportGwalior.

  This brave and sensible man had been left with his ship lying off to besignalled for, in case of mishap, while his consort and the frigate weredespatched in advance to a creek, about twenty leagues westward, wherethe land-force triumphant was to join them. Captain Southcombe, withevery hand he could muster, traced the unfortunate party inland, andfound them led many leagues in the wrong direction, lost among quagmiresbreathing death, worn out with vermin, venom, and despair, and hemmedin by savages lurking for the night, to rush in upon and make an end ofthem. What need of many words? This man, and his comrades, did more thanany other men on the face of this earth could have done without Britishblood in them. They buried the many who had died without hope of thedecent concealment which our life has had, and therefore our death longsfor; they took on their shoulders, or on cane wattles, the many who hadmade up their minds to die, and were in much doubt about having done it,and they roused up and worked up by the scruff of their loose places thefew who could get along on their own legs. And so, with great spirit,and still greater patience, they managed to save quite as many asdeserved it.

  Because, when they came within signal of the Gwalior, CaptainSouthcombe, marching slowly with his long limp burdens, found ready onthe sand the little barrel, about as big as a kilderkin, of true andunsullied Stockholm pitch, which he had taken, as his brother tookMadeira, for ripeness and for betterance, by right of change of climate.With a little of this given choicely and carefully at the back of everysick man's tongue, and a little more spread across the hollow of hisstomach, he found them so enabled in the afternoon that they were gladto sit up in the bottom of a boat, and resign themselves to an All-wiseProvidence.

  Many survived, and blessed Captain Southcombe, not at firstcordially--for the man yet remains to be discovered who is grateful tohis doctor--but gradually more and more, and with that healthy actionof the human bosom which is called expectoration, whenever gratefulmemories were rekindled by the smell of tar. But this is a trifle; manyuseful lives were saved, and the Nation should have thanked CaptainSouthcombe, but did not.

  After these sad incidents, when sorrow for old friends was tempered bythe friendly warmth afforded by their shoes, a muster was held by theMajor in command, and there was only one officer who could neitherassert himself
alive, nor be certified as dead. That one was ErleTwemlow, and the regiment would rather have lost any other two officers.Urgent as it was, for the safety of the rest, to fly with every featherfrom this pestilential coast, sails were handed, boats despatched, anddealings tried with Hunko Jum, who had reappeared with promptitude, themoment he was not wanted. From this noble monarch, and his chiefs, andall his nation, it was hard to get any clear intelligence, because theirown was absorbed in absorbing. They had found upon the sands a cask ofAdmiralty rum, as well as a stout residue of unadulterated pitch. Noses,and tongues, and historical romance--for a cask had been washed ashorefive generations since, and set up for a god, when the last drop waslicked--induced this brave nation to begin upon the rum; and fashion (aspowerful with them as with us) compelled them to drink the tar likewise,because they had seen the white men doing it. This would have made ithard to understand them, even if they had been English scholars, whichtheir ignorance of rum proved them not to be; and our sailors verynearly went their way, after sadly ascertaining nothing, except that thecask was empty.

  But luckily, just as they were pushing off, a very large, black headappeared from behind a vegetable-ivory tree, less than a quarter of amile away, and they knew that this belonged to Bandeliah, the reveredking of the Crumbos, who had evidently smelled rum far inland. Withhim they were enabled to hold discourse, partly by signs, and partly bymeans of an old and highly polished negro, who had been the rat-catcherat the factory now consumed; and the conclusion, or perhaps theconfusion, arrived at from signs, grunts, grins, nods, waggings offingers and twistings of toes, translated grandiloquently into brokenEnglish, was not far from being to the following effect:

  To wit, that two great kings reigned inland, either of them able to eatup Hunko Jum and Bandeliah at a mouthful, but both of them too proud toset foot upon land that was flat, or in water that was salt. They ruledover two great nations called the Houlas, and the Quackwas, going out ofsight among great rivers and lands with clear water standing over them.And if the white men could not understand this, it was because theydrank salt-water.

  Moreover, they said that of these two kings, the king of the Houlas wasa woman, the most beautiful ever seen in all the world, and able tojump over any man's head. But the king of the Quackwas was a man, andalthough he had more than two thousand wives, and was taller by ajoint of a bamboo than Bandeliah--whose stature was at least six feetfour--yet nothing would be of any use to him, unless he could come to anagreement with Mabonga, the queen of the Houlas, to split a durra strawwith him. But Mabonga was coy, and understanding men, as well as jumpingover them, would grant them no other favour than the acceptance of theirpresents. However, the other great king was determined to have herfor his wife, if he abolished all the rest, and for this reason he hadcaught and kept the lost Englishman as a medicine-man; and it was notlikely that he would kill him, until he failed or succeeded.

  To further enquiries Bandeliah answered that to rescue the prisoner wasimpossible. If it had been his own newest wife, he would not push out atoe for her. The great king Golo lived up in high places that overlookedthe ground, as he would these white men, and his armies went like windand spread like fire. None of his warriors ate white man's flesh; theywere afraid it would make them cowardly.

  A brave heart is generally tender in the middle, to make up for being sofirm outside, even as the Durian fruit is. Captain Southcombe had walkedthe poop-deck of the Gwalior many a time, in the cool of the night, withErle Twemlow for his companion, and had taken a very warm liking to him.So that when the survivors of the regiment were landed at Portsmouth,this brave sailor travelled at his own cost to Springhaven, and toldthe Rector the whole sad story, making it clear to him beyond all doubt,that nothing whatever could be done to rescue the poor young man fromthose savages, or even to ascertain his fate. For the Quackwas were aninland tribe, inhabiting vast regions wholly unknown to any European,and believed to extend to some mighty rivers, and lakes resemblinginland seas.

  Therefore Mr. Twemlow, in a deep quiet voice, asked Captain Southcombeone question only--whether he might keep any hope of ever having, bythe mercy of the Lord, his only son restored to him. And the sailorsaid--yes; the mistake would be ever to abandon such a hope, for atthe moment he least expected it, his son might stand before him. Hepretended to no experience of the western coast of Africa, and niggershe knew were a very queer lot, acting according to their own lights,which differed according to their natures. But he was free to say, thatin such a condition he never would think of despairing, though it mightbecome very hard not to do so, as time went on without bringing anynews. He himself had been in sad peril more than once, and once itappeared quite hopeless; but he thought of his wife and his children athome, and the Lord had been pleased to deliver him.

  The parson was rebuked by this brave man's faith, who made no pretencewhatever to piety; and when they said Goodbye, their eyes were brightwith the goodwill and pity of the human race, who know trouble notinflicted as yet upon monkeys. Mr. Twemlow's heart fell when the sailorwas gone, quite as if he had lost his own mainstay; but he bracedhimself up to the heavy duty of imparting sad news to his wife anddaughter, and worst of all to Faith Darling. But the latter surprisedhim by the way in which she bore it; for while she made no pretenceto hide her tears, she was speaking as if they were needless. Andthe strangest thing of all, in Mr. Twemlow's opinion, was her curiouspersistence about Queen Mabonga. Could any black woman--and she supposedshe must be that--be considered by white people to be beautiful? HadCaptain Southcombe ever even seen her; and if not, how could he be insuch raptures about her attractions? She did not like to say a word,because he had been so kind and so faithful to those poor soldiers, whomit was his duty to bring home safe; but if it had not been for that, shemight have thought that with so many children and a wife at Limehouse,he should not have allowed his mind to dwell so fondly on the personalappearance of a negress!

  The Rector was astonished at this injustice, and began to revise hisopinion about Faith as the fairest and sweetest girl in all the world;but Mrs. Twemlow smiled, when she had left off crying, and said thatshe liked the dear child all the better for concluding that Ponga--orwhatever her name was--must of necessity and at the first glance falldesperately in love with her own Erle. Then the Rector cried, "Oh, tobe sure, that explained it! But he never could have thought of that,without his wife's assistance."

  Two years now, two years of quiet patience, of busy cheerfulness now andthen, and of kindness to others always, had made of Faith Darling a ladyto be loved for a hundred years, and for ever. The sense of her sorrowwas never far from her, yet never brought near to any other by herself;and her smile was as warm, and her eyes as bright, as if there had neverbeen a shadow on her youth. To be greeted by her, and to receive herhand, and one sweet glance of her large goodwill, was enough to make anold man feel that he must have been good at some time, and a young manhope that he should be so by-and-by; though the tendency was generallycontented with the hope.