Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

  “It is true, Mr Cringle, I feel the truth of it here,” and he laid his large bony hand on his heart. “Yet I do not ask you to forgive me; I don’t expect that you can or will; but unless the devil gets possession of me again—which, so sure as ever there was a demoniac in this world, he had this afternoon when you so tempted me—I hope soon to place you in safety, either in a friendly port, or on board of a British vessel; and then what becomes of me is of little consequence, now since the only living soul who cared a dollar for me is at rest amongst the coral branches at the bottom of the deep green sea.”

  “Why, man,” rejoined I, “leave off this stuff; something has turned your brain, surely; people must die in their beds, you know, if they be not shot, or put out of the way somehow or other; and as for my small affair, why, I forgive you, man—from my heart I forgive you; were it only for the oddity of your scantling, mental and corporeal, I would do so; and you see I am not much hurt—so lend me a hand, like a good fellow, to wash the wound with a little spirits—it will stop the bleeding, and the stiffness will soon go off—so—”

  “Lieutenant Cringle, I need not tell what I know you have found out, that I am not the vulgar Yankee smuggler, fit only to be made a butt of by you and your friends, that you no doubt at first took me for; but who or what I am, or what I may have been, you shall never know—but I will tell you this much—”

  “Devil confound the fellow!—why, this is too much upon the brogue, Obed. Will you help me to dress my wound, man, and leave off your cursed sentimental speeches, which you must have gleaned from some old novel or another? I’ll hear it all by-and-by.”

  At this period I was a reckless young chap, with strong nerves, and my own share of that animal courage which generally oozes out at one’s finger ends when one gets married and turned of thirty; nevertheless I did watch with some anxiety the effect which my unceremonious interruption was to have upon him. I was agreeably surprised to find that he took it all in good part, and set himself, with great alacrity, and kindness even, to put me to rights, and so successfully that, when I was washed and cleansed, and fairly coopered up, I found myself quite able to take my place at the table; and having no fear of the College of Surgeons before my eyes, I helped myself to a little of the needful, and in the plenitude of my heart I asked Obed’s pardon for my ill-bred interruption.

  “It was not quite the thing to cut you short in the middle of your Newgate Calendar, Obed—beg pardon, your story I mean; no offence now, none in the world—eh? But where the deuce, man, got you this fine linen of Egypt?”— looking at the sleeves of the shirt Obed had obliged me with, as I sat without my coat. “I had not dreamt you had anything so luxurious in your kit.”

  I saw his brow begin to lower again, so the devil prompted me to advert, by way of changing the subject, to a file of newspapers, which, as it turned out, might have proved to be by far the most dangerous topic I could have hit upon. He had laid them aside, having taken them out of the locker when he was rummaging for the linen. “What have we here?—Kingston Chronicle, Montego Bay Gazette, Falmouth Advertiser. A great newsmonger you must be. What arrivals?—let me see;—you know I am a week from headquarters.—Let me see.”

  At first he made a motion, as if he would have snatched them out of my hands, but speedily appeared to give up the idea, merely murmuring, “What can it signify now?”

  I continued to read—”Chanticleer from a cruise—Tonnant from Barbadoes—Pique from Port-au-Prince. Oh, the next interests me—the Firebrand is daily expected from Havanna; she is to come through the Gulf, round Care Antonio, and beat up the haunts of the pirates all along the Cuba shore.” I was certain now that at the mention of this corvette mine host winced in earnest. This made me anxious to probe him further. “Why, what means this pencil mark—’Firebrand’s number off the Chesapeake was 1022?’ How the deuce, my fine fellow, do you know that?”

  He shook his head, but said nothing, and I went on reading the pencil memoranda—“‘But this is most probably changed; she now carries a red cross in the head of her foresail, and has very short lower masts, like the Hornet.’” Still he made me no answer. I proceeded—”Stop, let me see what merchant ships are about sailing. ‘Loading for Liverpool, the John Gladstone, Peter Pondeorus, master;’” and after it again in pencil—” ‘Only sugar: goes through the Gulf.’— Only sugar,” said I, still fishing; “too bulky, I suppose.—’Ariel, Jenkins, Whitehaven;’ “ remark—”‘Sugar, coffee, and logwood.’ ‘Nuestra Señora de los Dolores, to sail for Chagres on 7th proximo;’” remark—”‘Rich cargo of bale goods, but no chance of overtaking her.’—’El Rayo to sail for St Jago de Cuba on the 10th proximo;’ “ remark—”‘Sails fast; armed with a long gun and musketry; thirty hands; about ten Spanish passengers; valuable cargo of dry goods; mainmast rakes well aft;—new cloth in the foresail about half-way up; will be off the Moro about the 13th.’—And what is this written in ink under the above?—’The San Pedro from Chagres, and Marianita from Santa Martha, although rich, have both got convoy.’—Ah, too strong for your friends, Obed— I see, I see.—’Francis Baring, Loan French, master’—an odd name, rather, for a skipper:” remark—” ‘Forty seroons of cochineal and some specie; is to sail from Morant Bay on 5th proximo, to go through the windward passage; may be expected off Cape St Nicolas on the 12th, or thereby.’” I laid down the paper and looked him full in the face. “Nicolas is an ominous name. I fear the good ship Francis Baring will find it so. Some of the worthy saint’s clerks to be fallen in with off the Mole, eh? Don’t you think as I do, Obed?” Still silent. “Why, you seem to take great delight in noting the intended departures and expected arrivals, my friend—merely to satisfy your curiosity, of course; but, to come to close quarters with you, captain, I now know pretty well the object of your visiting Jamaica now and then; you are indeed no vulgar smuggler”

  “It is well for you and good for myself, Mr Cringle, that something weighs heavy at my heart at this moment, and that there is that about you which, notwithstanding your ill-timed jesting, commands my respect and engages my good-will—had it not been so, you would have been alongside of poor Paul at this moment.” He leant his arms upon the table, and gazed intensely on my face, as he continued in a solemn tremulous tone—”Do you believe in auguries, Mr Cringle? Do you believe that ‘coming events cast their shadows before?’”— Oh, that little Wiggy Campbell had been beside me, to have seen the figure and face of the man who now quoted him!

  “Yes, I do; it is part of the creed of every sailor to do so; I do believe that people have had forewarnings of peril to themselves or their friends.”

  “Then what do you think of the mate beckoning me with his dead hand to follow him?”

  “Why, you are raving, Obed; you saw that he had been much convulsed, and that the limb, from the contraction of the sinews, much was forcibly kept down in the position it broke loose from—the spunyarn gave way, and of course it started up—nothing wonderful in all this, although it did at the time somewhat startle me. I confess.”

  “It may be so, it may be so; I don’t know,” rejoined he, “but taken along with what I saw before—” Here his voice sank into so hollow and sepulchral a tone as to be almost unintelligible. “But there is no use in arguing on the subject. Answer me this, Lieutenant Cringle, and truly, so help you God at your utmost need. Did the mate leave the cabin at any moment after I was wounded by the splinter? And he seized one of my hands convulsively with his iron paw, while he pointed up through the open scuttle towards heaven with the other, which trembled like a reed. The moon shone strong on the upper part of his countenance, while the yellow smoky glare of the candle over which he bent, blending harshly and unharmoniously with the pale silver light, fell full on his uncouth figure, and on his long scraggy bare neck and chin and cheeks, giving altogether a most unearthly expression to his savage features, from the conflicting tints and changing shadows cast by the flickering moonbeams streaming fitfully through the skylight on the one hand, as the vessel
rolled to and fro, and by the large torch-like candle on the other, as it wavered in the night wind. The Prince of the Powers of the Air might have sat for his picture by proxy. It was just such a face as one has dreamed of after a hot supper and cold ale, when the whisky had been forgotten—horrible, changing, vague, glimmering, and undefined; and as if something was still wanting to complete the utter frightfulness of his aspect, the splinter wound in his head burst afresh from his violent agitation, and streamed down in heavy drops from his forehead, falling warm on my hand. I was much shaken at being adjured in this tremendous way, with the hot blood glueing our hands together, but I returned his grasp as steadily as I could, while I replied, with all the composure he had left me, and that would not have quite filled a Winchester bushel—

  “He never left my side from the time he offered to take your place after you had been wounded.”

  He fell back against the locker as if he had been shot through the heart; his grasp relaxed, he drew his breath very hard, and I thought he had fainted.

  “Then it was not him that stood by me; I thought it might have been him, but I was a fool, it was impossible.”

  He made a desperate effort to recover his composure, and succeeded.

  “And, pray, Master Obediah,” quoth I, “what did you see?”

  He answered me sharply—”Never mind, never mind—here, Potomac, lend us a hand to sling a cot for this gentleman; there now, see the lanyard is sound, and the lacing all tight and snug; now, put that mattress into it, and there is linen in the chest.”

  In a trice my couch was rigged, all comfortable, snow-white linen, nice pillow, soft mattress, &c., and Obed, filling me another tumbler, helped himself also; he then drank to my health, wished me a sound sleep, promised to call me at daylight, and, as he left the cabin, he said, “Mr Cringle, had it been my object to have injured you, I would not have waited until now. You are quite safe, so far as depends on me, so take your rest—good night, once more.”

  I tumbled into bed, and never once opened my eyes until Obed called me at daylight, that is, at five in the morning, according to his promise.

  By this time we were well in with the Cuba shore; the land might be two miles from us, as we could see the white surf. Out at sea, although all around was clear as crystal, there was nothing to be seen of the Gleam or Firebrand, but there were ten or twelve fishing canoes, each manned with from four to six hands, close aboard of us; we seemed to have got becalmed in the middle of a small fleet of them. The nearest to us hailed in Spanish, in a very friendly way.

  “Como estamos capitan, que hay de nuevo; hay algo de bueno, para los pobresPescadores?” and the fellow who had spoken laughed loudly.

  The captain desired him to come on board, and then drew him aside, conversing earnestly with him. The Spanish fisherman was a very powerful man; he was equipped in a blue cotton shirt, Osnaburg trousers, sandals of untanned bullock’s hide, a straw hat, and wore the eternal greasy red sash and long knife. He was a bold, daring-looking fellow, and frequently looked frowningly on me, and shook his head impatiently, while the captain, as it seemed, was explaining to him who I was. Just in this nick of time my friend Potomac handed up my uniform coat (I had previously been performing my ablutions on deck in my shirt and trousers), which I put on, swab and all, thinking no harm. But there must have been mighty great offence, nevertheless, for the fisherman, in a twinkling, casting a fierce look at me, jumped overboard like a feather, clearing the rail like a flying-fish, and swam to his canoe, that had shoved off a few paces.

  When he got on board he stood up and shook his clenched fist at Obed, shouting, “Picaro, traidor, Ingleses hay abordo, quieres engañarnos!” He then held up the blade of his paddle, a signal which all the canoes answered in a moment in the same manner, and then pulled towards the land, from whence a felucca, invisible until that moment, now swept out, as if she had floated up to the surface by magic, for I could neither see creek nor indentation on the shore, nor the smallest symptom of any entrance to a port or cove. For a few minutes the canoes clustered round this necromantic craft, and I could notice that two or three hands from each of them jumped on board; they then paddled off in a string, and vanished one by one amongst the mangrove bushes as suddenly as the felucca had appeared. All this puzzled me exceedingly—I looked at Obed—he was evidently sorely perplexed.

  “I had thought to have put you on board a British vessel before this, or, failing that, to have run down and landed you at St Jago, Mr Cringle, as I promised; but you see I am prevented by these honest men there. Get below, and as you value your life, and I may say mine, keep your temper, and be civil.”

  I did as he suggested, but peeped out of the cabin skylight to see what was going on, notwithstanding. The felucca was armed with a heavy carronade on a pivot, and as full of men as she could hold—fierce, half-naked, savage-looking fellows; she swept rapidly up to us, and closing on our larboard quarter, threw about five-and-twenty of her genteel young people on board, who immediately secured the crew, and seized Obed. However, they, that is the common sailors, seemed to have no great stomach for the job, and had it not been for the fellow I had frightened overboard, I don’t think one of them would have touched him. Obed bore all this with great equanimity.

  “Why, Francisco,” he said to this personage, in good Spanish, “why, what madness is this? your suspicions are groundless; it is as I tell you, he is my prisoner, and whatever he may have been to me, he can be no spy on you.”

  “Cuchillo entonces,” was the savage reply.

  “No, no,” persisted Obediah, “get cool, man, get cool; I am pledged that no harm shall come to him; and further, I have promised to put him ashore at St Jago, and I will be as good as my word.”

  “You can’t if you would,” rejoined Francisco; “the Snake is at anchor under the Moro.”

  “Then he must go with us.”

  “We shall see as to that,” said the other; then raising his voice, he shouted to his ragamuffins, “Comrades, we are betrayed; there is an English officer on board, who can be nothing but a spy; follow me!”

  And he dashed down the companion ladder, knife in hand, while I sprang through the small scuttle, like a rat out of one hole when a ferret is put in at the other, and crept as close to Obed as I could. Francisco, when he missed me, came on deck again. The captain had now seized a cutlass in one hand, and held a cocked pistol in the other. It appeared he had greater control, the nature of which I now began to comprehend, over the felucca’s people than Francisco bargained for, for at the moment the latter went below, they released him, and went forward in a body. My persecutor again advanced close up to me, seized me by the collar with one hand, and tried to drag me forward, brandishing his naked knife aloft in the other.

  Obed stuck his pistol in his belt, and promptly caught his sword-arm; “Francisco,” he exclaimed, still in Spanish, “fool, madman, let go your hold! let go, or by the heaven above us, and the hell we are both hastening to, I will strike you dead!”

  The man paused, and looked round to his own people, and seeing one or two encouraging glances and gestures amongst them, he again attempted to drag me away from my hold on the taffrail. Something flashed in the sun and the man fell! His left arm, the hand of which still clutched my throat, while mine grasped its wrist, had been shred from his body by Obed’s cutlass, like a twig; and, O God, my blood curdles to my heart even now when I think of it! the dead fingers kept the grasp sufficiently long to allow the arm to fall heavily against my side, where it hung for a second, until the muscles relaxed, and it dropped on the deck. The instant that Obed struck the blow, he caught hold of my hand, threw away his cutlass, and advanced towards the group of the felucca’s men, pistol in hand.

  “Am I not your captain, ye cowards—have I ever deceived you yet—have I ever flinched from heading you where the danger was greatest—have you not all that I am worth in your hands, and will you murder me now?”

  “Viva, el noble capitan, viva!”

  And th
e tide turned as rapidly in our favour as it had lately ebbed against us.

  “As for that scoundrel, he has got no more than he deserves,” said he turning to where Francisco lay, bleeding like a carcass in the shambles; “but tie up his arm, some of ye, I would be sorry he bled to death.”

  It was unavailing—the large arteries had emptied his whole life-blood—he had already gone to his account.

  This most miserable transaction, with all its concomitant horrors, to my astonishment, did not seem to make much impression on Obed, who now, turning to me, said, with perfect composure—

  “You have there another melancholy voucher for my sincerity,” pointing to the body; “but time presses, and you must now submit to be blindfolded, and that without further explanation at present.”

  I did so with the best grace I could, and was led below, where two beauties, with loaded pistols and a drawn knife each, obliged me with their society, one seated on each side of me on the small locker, like two deputy butchers ready to operate on an unfortunate veal. It had now fallen dead calm, and from what I heard, I conjectured that the felucca was sweeping in towards the land with us in tow, for the sound of the surf grew louder and louder. By-and-by we seemed to slide beyond the long smooth swell into broken water, for the little vessel pitched sharp and suddenly, and again all was still, and we seemed to have sailed into some land-locked cove. From the loud echo of the voices on deck, I judged that we were in a narrow canal, the banks of which were reflecting the sound; presently this ceased, and although we skimmed along as motionless as before, I no longer heard the splash of the felucca’s sweeps, the roar of the sea gradually died away, until it sounded like distant thunder, and I thought we touched the ground now and then, although slightly. All at once the Spanish part of the crew—for we still had a number of the felucca’s people with us— sang out “Palanka,” and we began to pole along a narrow marshy lagoon, coming so near the shore occasionally, that our sides were brushed by the branches of the mangrove bushes. Again the channel seemed to widen, and I could hear the felucca once more ply her sweeps. In about ten minutes after this the anchor was let go, and for a quarter of an hour nothing was heard on deck but the bustle of the people furling sails, coiling down the ropes, and getting everything in order, as is usual in coming into port. It was evident that several boats had boarded us soon after we anchored, as I could make out part of the greetings between the strangers and Obed, in which my own name recurred more than once. In a little while all was still again, and Obed called down the companion to my guards, that I might come on deck—a boon I was not long in availing myself of.