Chapter Twenty One.
The Spanish Captain’s Story.
When I went up on deck that morning I could hardly believe my eyes, on seeing that the storm and all its wild surroundings had miraculously disappeared; for, the sun was shining brightly on a blue sea that seemed to ripple with laughter and the good old ship was speeding along under all plain sail, looking none the worse for the buffeting she had experienced only a few hours before!
“Rather a change from yesterday, ain’t it, youngster?” observed Mr Gilham, who was officer of the watch, addressing me kindly, noticing the expression of astonishment on my face as I glanced up aloft and then over the side. “Things look a little more ship-shape than they were then.”
“Yes, sir,” I replied. “But what a fearful gale it was!”
“Pooh, nonsense, Vernon!” cried he, with a laugh. “Don’t overlay your yarns like that. We’ve certainly had a bit of a blow, but I’ve seen it much worse crossing the bay!”
Of course, I could not contradict him; and, I may here mention that on narrating the circumstance to Dad on my return home some time afterwards, he said that he had never known a sailor acknowledge anything unusual about a storm at the immediate moment of its occurrence, or even shortly afterwards.
All those with whom he had ever been brought in contact, Dad told me, might possibly allow that the wind was “freshening,” perhaps, or “blowing stiffly,” or “inclined to be rough”; but, a gale or a hurricane they would never admit, in spite of the fact of its “blowing great guns and small-arms!”
Should anyone, Dad also said, incautiously hazard some definite opinion on the state of the weather, any seaman thus spoken to would invariably recall a previous occasion within his own experience when it was really bad enough to speak about—it being the rule with all true sons of the sea to minimise danger and laugh at the perils they have escaped, instead of making mountains out of molehills in the manner natural to most landsmen!
Besides thus upsetting my ideas as to the terrible ordeal we had gone through, concerning which, however, I held to my own view in spite of his protest to be contrary, although, of course, I did not tell him so, Mr Gilham informed me that we had suffered no serious damage beyond the injury to the topsail yard.
This, he said, too, was much less than Mr Cleete, the carpenter, had made out, that worthy being one of the sort of men who always take a despondent view of everything.
The spar, however, was sent down and replaced by a spare yard which we carried; and everything was all right aloft now.
We had lost something in another way, though; for, when Mr Quadrant took the sun at noon, with all of us youngsters standing round him with our sextants, like a parcel of chickens gathered about an old hen, which indeed the master greatly resembled with his shock head of hair and fussy manner, the ship was found to be in latitude 44 degrees 5 minutes north and longitude 7 degrees 50 minutes west.
She had been driven to the south-east by the gale, aided by the drift of the current setting in to the Bay of Biscay.
This was more than two hundred miles out of our proper track, and far too much to the eastward to be able to weather the northern extremity of the Spanish coast, which would soon be perilously near to us, running as we then were to the sou’-sou’-west.
Fortunately for us, though, the wind had now veered to the southward; and, as we were sailing on the port tack, by giving the ship a good deal of weather helm and bracing round the yards, we were able to bear up to the westward out of the ill-omened bay, steering west by south until we were in longitude 11 degrees 10 minutes west and well clear of Cape Finisterre, when we hauled our wind and shaped a course direct for Madeira.
This, however, was not until next day; and, I recollect, after we luffed up again and bore to the southward, a lot of talk went on in the gunroom at dinner-time about the probability of our stopping or not at that beautiful island, the gem of the Atlantic.
“I say, Jack Vernon,” sang out Larkyns to me, across the table, “I suppose you know why it is called Madeira?”
“No,” I replied. “Why?”
“Well,” he began, “it is rather a romantic story—”
“Then, I shouldn’t think it can be much in your line,” interrupted Mr Stormcock, who somehow or other was always down upon any chap for ever starting a yarn. “You tell very practical ones; only, instead of the term ‘story’ I would use a shorter and more expressive word.”
“Say ‘lie’ if you like; I know you mean it,” rejoined Larkyns, in no way put out by the rude insinuation and continuing his narrative quite composedly. “But, you’re wrong in this case, old Stormy, for ‘faix it’s no lie I’m telling you now,’ as the doctor’s Irish marine would say. It’s the plain, unadulterated truth. I had the tale from a Portuguese monk at Funchal.”
“Funchal,” put in Mr Fortescue Jones, the assistant-paymaster, caressing his whiskers as usual and cocking his eye as if he were going to catch Larkyns tripping. “When were you there?”
“In the Majestic, when I was a cadet,” promptly returned the mid, taking up the cudgels at once. “It was in the same year you were tried by court-martial for breaking your leave!”
This was a “settler” for poor Mr Jones.
“Go on, Larkyns,” I said, at this point, to change the conversation and cover the paymaster’s confusion as he bent his head over his plate. “I want to hear that yarn of yours about Madeira.”
“All right, Johnny,” he replied in his chaffy way; “only, you don’t pronounce the name right, my son. It should be called ‘My-deary,’ not ‘Madeir-ah.’ Hang it all, Stormcock, stow that!”
“Don’t apologise,” said the master’s mate, who just at that instant had thrown a biscuit at Larkyns, causing the violent interjection which he interpolated in his story. “I thought I would supply the proper accentuation for you, that’s all.”
“If you don’t look out and leave me alone, I will pretty soon accentuate your nose, Stormy,” retorted the other, all good humour again, as he always was; for he took a joke, even of the most practical sort, as freely as he perpetrated one. “Yes, Johnny Vernon, it should be called ‘My-deary,’ and I’ll tell you why. The island, so the monk told me, owes its origin, or rather discovery, to two lovers who fled thither in the year fourteen hundred and something. One of these lovyers, my young friend, was a Scotchman named Robert Matchim, and the other was a Miss Anna D’Arfet, a young lady residing at Lisbon, whose parents objected to Robert and refused to match her with Matchim.”
Mr Stormcock pitched another biscuit immediately at Larkyns, crying out at the same time—
“That’s for your bad pun!”
The wag, however, dodged it and proceeded with his yarn.
“Being a Scotchman, although poor, as few of the nation are,” proceeded he, aiming this retaliatory shot at the master’s mate, who, he knew, hailed from the North and hadn’t a spare bawbee to bless himself with, “our friend, Robert Matchim, being as brave as he was bold, would not be done by a pitiful Portuguese laird. So, he pawned the title-deeds of his ancestral estates in Skye, where I forgot to mention he lived when at home; and, chartering a caravel, which happened luckily to be lying at anchor off the port at the time, smuggled his sweetheart on board and sailed away—with the intention of eloping to France, where her stern paryent would, he thought, be unable to follow him for certain political reasons.”
“Very good so far,” interposed Mr Stormcock again at this point, in an ironical tone. “Pray go on; it is most interesting!”
“Glad you like it,” said Larkyns, coolly, without turning a hair. “Well, then, to finish the story. Very unfortunately for these fond lovyers, a storm arose, like that bit of breeze we had t’other day. This blew them out of their course and they lost their reckoning, landing at this very island, of which we are speaking instead of at some French port as they expected. The spot they pitched on was called Machico Bay on the eastern side; and there they lived happy ever after, having the additional satisfaction after departing this life of being both buried in one grave. Their last resting-place was seen by a party of Spaniards who subsequently re-discovered the island; when these sentimental mariners, noting the names of the aforesaid lovyers on their joint tombstone, and the account there detailed of their strange adventures, very romantically and devoutly erected a chapel to their memory. This chapel exists to this very day and can be seen by you, Stormy, or any other unbeliever in the truthfulness of my yarn! It is for this reason, my worthy Johnny, that I insist that the island shall be properly styled ‘My-deary’; for, as Robert loved Anna, he would naturally have addressed her as ‘My-deary.’ Do you twig, young ’un, eh?”
“Oh, yes,” I answered with a snigger, “I think, though, it’s rather far-fetched.”
“So it is,” said he. “It came from Madeira; and that’s some six hundred miles, more or less, from where we now are.”
At that moment, Corporal Macan appeared at the door of the gunroom and walked up to where I was sitting.
“If you plaize, sor,” he said, pulling his forelock, “the docthor would loike to say yez in the sick bay.”
“Indeed, Macan,” I cried. “Do you know what he wants me for?”
“The jintleman we tuk off the wrack’s rekivered his sinses, an’ none ov us, sure, can under-constubble his furrin lingo barrin’ yersilf, sor. So, the docther wants ye fur to say what he’s jabberin’ about.”
“All right,” said I, bolting as quickly as I could a piece of “plum duff” which Dobbs had just brought me. “Tell the doctor I’m coming.”
“By jingo, talk of the devil!” observed Larkyns, bursting into a laugh as Macan turned to go away. “Why, I was only just talking of that blessed Irish marine a minute ago, and here he has come on the scene in person, with his rum brogue.”
“Hush!” I said. “He’ll hear you.”
“No matter if he does,” rejoined Larkyns. “I suppose he knows he has got the Cork brogue strong enough to hang a cat-block from. Besides, he won’t mind what I say.”
“Faix, that’s thrue for yez, sor,” muttered the corporal, who caught this remark as he was going out of the gunroom door, his ears being as sharp as those of a fox. “Begorrah, it’s moighty little onyone ivver does mind what ye says at all, at all!”
With which doubtful compliment, capable of a double construction, Corporal Macan marched on in front of me, holding his head very erect and with a broad grin on his face, as if conscious of carrying off the honours of the war, towards Dr Nettleby’s sanctum on the main deck.
Here, on entering, I noticed the Spaniard sitting up in one of the doctor’s easy chairs.
He was near an open port, looking very different to what he was the last time I had seen him, a healthy colour being now in his face; although this was still very much drawn and careworn, but his black hair and beard were tidily arranged, much improving his personal appearance.
He raised his eyes as I came into the cabin, and smiled faintly, seeming to recognise me somehow or other, though he was certainly off his head on board the wreck and could not have remembered what took place there.
“He, señor muchaco—so, young gentleman,” said he, on my approaching nearer to him. “Ta hablas Española—you speak my language then?”
“Si, señor—yes, sir,” I replied. “Un poco—a very little!”
His face instantly brightened, and he poured out a flood of Spanish which I could hardly follow, he spoke so quickly; although, I could gather that he wanted to know where he was and how he had been rescued, inquiring as well what had become of the rest who were in the ship with him.
The doctor, to whom I tried to translate what he said, cautioned me to be very careful what I told him in reply; for, the man, he said, was still in a critical state and any sudden shock would retard his recovery.
I was, therefore, very guarded in my answers to his questions, letting out all he wished to learn only little by little, as he drew it from me by his interrogations.
He expressed the most fervent gratitude on my narrating how we had boarded his water-logged vessel and the difficulty Mr Jellaby had in releasing him from his dangerous position; and, he bowed his thanks to Doctor Nettleby, addressing him as “Señor Medico—Mr Doctor,” for his kind care of him.
But, when I came to describe what the lieutenant and I had seen in the cabin, his manner changed at once; his eyes rolling with fury and his thin, nervous hands clenching in impotent rage and despair, and he tried to stand up, raising himself out of the chair.
“Ay la povera señora—oh, the poor lady!” he cried out, his eyes now filling and his mouth working with emotion, which he vainly tried to suppress as I told him of the poor dead lady and the little baby floating about on the floor, both of them murdered—”É la péquiña niña—and the little child, too!”
On my telling him next, in answer to another question, about the fine-looking fellow with the revolver in his hand, his feelings could no longer be suppressed.
“Mi hermano! Oh, my brother!” he exclaimed, bursting into tears. “Muerto! muerto! dead, dead!”
Doctor Nettleby and I turned away, it being painful in the extreme to see a grown man such as he crying like a child; for his breast was heaving and his shoulders shaking with the sobs he endeavoured to conceal, and he hid his face in his hands as he leant back again in the chair.
After a bit, on his becoming more composed again, the doctor gave him a stimulant, which quieted his nerves.
Just then the captain came in, followed by Lieutenant Jellaby, to make inquiries, the doctor having reported his patient convalescent.
“El capitano—this is the Captain,” said I, to attract his attention to the new arrivals as they advanced up to his chair. “El capitano del nostro buque—the captain of our ship!”
I also pointed out in like fashion Mr Jellaby, saying that he was the officer who had effected his rescue; and the Spaniard bowed silently to both.
Captain Farmer, however, did not need any introduction from me, for he spoke the other’s language fluently, being a most accomplished linguist; so, he and the poor fellow were soon on the best of terms, the survivor from the wreck proceeding presently to tell the succinct history of the ill-fated vessel.
This we had all been longing to hear; and Captain Farmer now translated it word for word for the benefit of the doctor and Mr Jellaby, who, as I have already said, did not understand the original Spanish in which it was rendered.
The Spaniard said that his name was Don Ferdinando Olivarez and that he had been the captain and part owner of the barque, which was bound from Cadiz to Havana with a cargo of the wines of Xeres. She had on board, besides, a large quantity of specie, which the Spanish Government were sending out for the payment of the troops in Cuba.
“Your ship was named La Bella Catarina, señor,” said I, at this point, as he had not mentioned this fact, though I don’t think Captain Farmer approved of my interruption, for he gave me a look which made me shut up at once, “was she not sir?”
“Yes, young gentleman,” he replied. “She was so-called after my poor sister-in-law, the murdered lady whose body you saw in the cabin which proved her tomb—Ay que hermosa esta—oh, how beautiful she was! She was the wife of my only brother, Don Pedro Olivarez, who died in defending her. Thus his corpse you also beheld. Oh, my friends, he was the noblest, best and bravest brother in the world. He had, alas, a joint share with me in that accursed vessel.”
He was overcome with emotion again when he had got so far; and Dr Nettleby, fearing the narration was too much for him in his present weak state, wanted him to leave off his story until he felt better.
But after resting a minute or two and taking another sip of the cordial the doctor handed him, the Spaniard insisted on going on with the painful recital.
His brother, he said, had charge of the specie sent out in their ship; and, as his wife had been recommended change of air, he determined to take her with him on the voyage to Cuba, thinking the trip out and home would do her good, as well as the poor little baby, who had been only born two months to the very day on which they sailed from Cadiz.
All went well with them until they were near the Azores, or Western Islands, where the ship sprang a leak and met with such baffling winds that she was driven back to the eastward, close in to the Portuguese coast; when the crew, who were tired out with keeping to the pumps, managed to broach the cargo and madden themselves with the liquor they found below.
“What happened next?” asked Captain Farmer, on his pausing here to take breath and put the cordial to his lips. “I suppose they got drunk on the sherry, my friend?”
“Ah, yes, los maladettos—the cursed devils!” replied the Spanish captain, his eyes flashing with anger. “If the brutes had only got drunk, neither my brother nor I would have minded it much, although they might have done so at our expense, it being our wine which they wasted, the brutes!”
He then went on to state that the men became so violent and insubordinate, that when his brother and himself battened down the hatches to prevent their broaching any more of the casks, they broke into open mutiny.
The mate was the ringleader of the conspiracy.
It was this rascal, he said, who informed the crew that they had specie aboard, which the mutineers now demanded should be given up to them and they be allowed to leave the ship in one of her boats, the mate telling them that the vessel was almost in sight of Vigo—a fact which he, the captain, had only disclosed to him in confidence that very day within an hour or so of the outbreak, so that the mutiny appeared to be a planned thing.
“Well,” said Captain Farmer, “what did you do then?”
“We refused their insolent demand, of course,” he answered, “in spite of the mate and another scoundrel drawing their knives and making for us. My brother knocked down Gomez at once, and the sailor I kicked into the scuppers; the two of us then retreated to the cabin, where we kept them at bay for the whole of that night and all the following day, as we had with us all the firearms in the ship, and it was out of their power to dislodge us.”
“And how was it then you did not succeed in getting the upper hand of them in the end, instead of the affair turning out as it did?”
In reply to this question from our captain, the Spaniard’s emotion again overcame him.
“Ay, it was all my fault, and I of all men am the most miserable!” he cried. “Yo, I it was who caused the death of those I loved best!”
“Carramba, Señor Capitano,” said Captain Farmer, trying to soothe him. “You do yourself an injustice. I can’t see where you were to blame!”
“Ah, but I do,” he answered doggedly, as if he had made up his mind on the point and no argument would persuade him to the contrary. “I ought to have recollected that there was no water or provisions in the cabin, the steward, who had joined the mutineers, keeping these always in the fore part of the ship; and, there was the poor señora, who had her little baby to nurse, suffering from hunger and thirst, as we could see, my brother and I, although she never uttered a word of complaint!”
“Poor, brave lady,” observed the captain. “She deserved a better fate!”
“Si, si, yes, yes,” said the other, “She did not complain—no, never; but, how could we stand by and see her suffer? My brother Pedro, when it came on to nightfall on the close of the second day of our blockade in the cabin, said that he would adventure out in search of food and water, the mutineers then having drunk themselves to sleep. I, however, pointed out that he had a wife and child dependent on his life, while I had no claims on mine and insisted on my right to take the risk, the more especially from my being the master of the ship. Still, he would not give in; and, ultimately, we cast the dice to decide the matter and I won the cast.”
“You then left the cabin?”
“Yes, señor. My brother barricaded the door behind me and kept watch with his revolver, while I crept forwards stealthily. I reached the steward’s pantry in the deckhouse amidships, without being seen and secured some polenta and a baraca of water; when, as I was creeping aft again and close to the poop, that villain of a mate caught hold of my arm, pointing a stiletto in my face at the same time, and threatening to stab me if I uttered a cry. But, before I could open my mouth, he shoved a gag in it and then proceeded to drag me to the side of the ship, lashing me to the spot whence your two officers released me some three days afterwards, if my calculation is correct.”
“Good heavens!” exclaimed the captain. “What agony you must have suffered tied up like that, and without anything to eat or drink, I suppose, all the while?”
“Nothing, not a bite or drop, passed my lips from the time of the night of the mutiny until your brave officers and men, Señor Capitano, so nobly came to my assistance.”
“You must then have been quite five days without sustenance,” said Captain Farmer, astonished at his endurance. “I wonder you lived through it, with all that exposure to the weather, too!”
“Ah, it was nothing. I did not think of myself,” replied the other. “I was in torture for my brother and his poor wife and little child, for, as soon as I was gagged and bound, I saw Gomez and six of the villains all draw their knives and start towards the poop; and, presently, I heard the shriek of a woman’s voice which I recognised as my sister’s, the señora, and then four pistol-shots in rapid succession, after which I don’t know what happened for a time. I must have lost my senses or fainted.”
“And then?”
“When I came to myself again,” continued the Spanish captain, as we all listened breathlessly to his narrative, “it was near morning and the light of the coming dawn beginning to show in the eastern sky; so, hearing a lot of talking and quarrelling going on, I looked towards the forecastle, whence the sound seemed to proceed.”
“Well,” said Captain Farmer, who was as interested apparently as I was, “what did you see?”
“I saw a lot of the crew sitting round a tub of brandy, some of which we had shipped along with the wine as part of our cargo, although it had escaped their observation at first, being stowed low down, under the casks of the sherry. However, they had discovered it now, and had evidently been having an orgie, all of them being more than half drunk. They were swearing and fighting, playing cards by the dim light of one of the ship’s lanterns, which was stuck up on the deck beside them. I noticed, too, that a heap of gold was piled up on top of an empty brandy tub, standing to the right of the man dealing the cards, which showed that they had managed to break open the treasure chest containing the government specie; and, I was in an agony of apprehension about my brother’s fate, not to speak of his wife and child, when, with a wild shout, one of the villains threw down his cards and clutched at the pile of gold, scrambling up on his feet at the same time and making for the side of the ship where I was lashed against the bulwarks. It was that scoundrel Gomez.”
“The mate, eh?”
“Yes, Señor Capitano. He had a revolver, I saw, in his hand, which he must have got from the cabin after murdering my brother. This thought flashed through my mind instantly, and as it did so, the wretch advanced nearer to the break of the forecastle and fired at me, calling out at the same time, ‘Carramba, I’ve settled your dog of a brother and now I am going to finish you off!’ The good God, however, defeated his purpose, for the bullet did not penetrate my brain as he intended. No, strange to say, it shot away the knot of the rope’s-end that was passed across my mouth to gag me, relieving me at once from considerable pain.”
“Did he not fire again?”
“No,” replied the Spaniard, his countenance lighting up with a sort of ferocious joy that made me think for the moment he had gone suddenly mad at the recollection of his past sufferings. “Before the villain could aim a second shot in my direction, the most wonderful thing happened that, I believe, could ever have occurred. Yes, Señor Capitano, I declare to you, it was the most wonderful thing, now that I recall it again in speaking to you, that I have ever heard of in all my life. Ay, so wonderful and providential, that it would seem incredible to me were I not certain by this very occurrence, which has brought it home to me, that there is a Power above which watches over us and preserves us from danger, no matter how imminent that danger may be, and when the help of man is of no avail; a Power, too, that as frequently punishes the wicked in the very act of their wickedness, as happened in this case.”
At that moment, the sentry who always stood on guard without the door of the sick bay entered the cabin, and saluting Captain Farmer, said the first lieutenant wished to speak to him; whereupon the captain, apologising for having to absent himself at such a critical point, at once withdrew, saying that he would not be long away.