Chapter Twenty Two.
“A Dios!”
“I can quite believe you, señor,” said Captain Farmer on his return after a very brief interval, resuming the thread of the discourse as if no interruption had occurred. “Pray continue your story. I am dying to know what happened to checkmate that scoundrel of a mate as he was going to take another shot at you, thus defeating the design of the murdering ruffian.”
“Without doubt, Señor Capitano, I will tell you,” replied the Spaniard, drawing a long breath as he recommenced his yarn. “As the villain Gomez cocked and raised the revolver again—for I could see him plainly from the light of the ship’s lantern flashing on the barrel—Dios! I perceived under the sheet of the foresail, which was flapping loosely about, for we were becalmed and the vessel was drifting aimlessly as she pleased, the mutineers taking no heed of anything but their accursed drink—I perceived, I say, a steamer approaching, end on and going apparently at full speed. I could have shouted out to warn the men on the forecastle, for the gag had been miraculously removed from my mouth, as I have told you, only a minute or so. But, Carramba, I would not have lifted my voice to have saved them, had I possessed a hundred mouths; for, I thought of my brother and his wife and child, and I exulted at their coming fate—Dios! My heart was throbbing with joy.”
“How awful,” said Captain Farmer, on the Spaniard’s voice failing him at the terrible recollection of his experiences; “but, I can sympathise with you.”
“Es Verdad, it was awful—so awful, that my heart was nigh bursting and my brain seemed on fire,” replied the other in a calmer tone. “However, I had not long to wait, the whole thing, from the first moment I observed the steamer to the collision, lasting barely a second of time, although to me it was an eternity; for, as I saw the steamer, and heard the sound of her paddle-wheels, even as the villain Gomez aimed at me, the prow of the avenging vessel—which I regarded then, as now, as an instrument in the hand of God—came crashing into the bows of our ship, cutting through her hull and deck, and crumpling up the forecastle, señor, as if it had been a paper bag.”
“And the mutineers?”
“Carramba!” cried the Spaniard, whose vindictiveness I thought appalling; only, of course, one had to make allowances for what he had suffered and the crimes the men of whom he spoke had committed. “They were all mangled and crushed in a moment, in the midst of their game of monte, as they were fighting and quarrelling over the stakes. The villain Gomez had his skull cracked like an eggshell by the foremast coming down on top of him, as it went by the board with all its yards and gear. The maintopmast, then fell also leaving La Bella Catarina the wreck you saw, Señor Lieutenant, and you, young gentleman, before she foundered.”
He bowed to Mr Jellaby, as well as to myself, on saying this, as if to emphasise his description.
“Did not the steamer stop?”
“No, Señor Capitano,” replied he in answer to this question of Captain Farmer’s. “Everybody must have been asleep aboard, I think, just before it happened, and they had no lookout man on the watch; although as it was in the early grey of the morning, and we had no lights except that lantern on the forecastle, which could not have been seen at any distance, and was, of course, extinguished in the general smash-up afterwards, it was perhaps not to be wondered that they ran us down. The collision, though, appeared to wake them up, for I saw a dark figure on the paddle-box nearest to me as the steamer swung herself clear of us and forged ahead again. She had a good deal of way on, and by the time she stopped her engines she was some distance away and lost to sight in the darkness, there being a slight surface fog on the water; so, hearing nothing and seeing nothing of us, her people must have come to the conclusion that we had gone to the bottom, and so put her on her course again.”
“Why,” inquired the captain, “did not those wretched scoundrels cry out when the steamer came on them like that?”
“How could they? It was all done in a moment, as I have told you. One instant the devils were there, gambling and drinking and swearing amongst themselves, and the next, cr–r–r–ash, and they were gone to their patron saint below!”
“And then you were alone?”
“Yes, so far as I knew; but I was not quite certain yet that the scoundrel Gomez had not lied merely to sport with my misery, and that, perhaps, my poor brother might be still alive. However as the hours wore on without him ever making his appearance, and the crash of the collision would have well-nigh wakened the dead, I gave up hope, beginning to wonder then, as the sun rose up and the sea became illumined with light, whether some passing vessel might not sight the wreck and bear down to rescue me. By-and-by, though, on morning melting into day, and, later on, the afternoon waning on the approach of the
shades of night, without ever a distant sail coming in sight to banish my despair, this hope, too, fled.”
“You saw nothing, then?”
“Nothing but the seagulls, which swooped down over my head to see whether I were alive or dead; and it was fortunate my hands were free, or else they would have pecked out my eyes. Nothing but these and the boundless waste of the ocean, whose waters lapped the sides of the ship, which kept afloat, much to my surprise. Her buoyant cargo supported her, although her hold was full up to the main deck, and the sea washing in and out of her forwards; and, there was I, tied up there in the rigging like a dog, listening to the melancholy sound of the breaking waves. I was, you must recollect, utterly unable to help myself, for my arms were pinioned like my legs, although my hands were loose and I could move them about: but, otherwise, I was powerless and could not stir from the place where I was lashed, the ropes binding me being just secured beyond my reach by that villain Gomez, so as to make my agony all the greater.”
“It must have been fearful,” said Captain Farmer. “I wonder your brain did not give way.”
“Thanks be to God, no! My reason was preserved throughout this terrible ordeal for some wise purpose or other; though, I must say, I prayed for death to release me from my sufferings, a maddening thirst now consuming me, to add to the torture that was preying on my mind,” replied the other, shuddering at the recollection. “At last, the wind began to blow more strongly and the sea to get up. This lessened my pangs of thirst; but, the waves, constantly breaking over the side, almost drowned me, so one evil took the place of another, and this was all the benefit I reaped from the change. It must have been the following day, I think, for I became so numbed with the cold and exposure, the circulation of my blood being arrested by my cramped position, that I took no heed how the time went, when a ship at length hove in sight, and my heart began to beat again with renewed hope, in spite of my despairing thoughts and misery. Oh, heavens! The ship came nearer and nearer, so that I could see she was a vessel of war belonging to the French nation, and my torturing hope became a certainty. But, would you believe it, señor, when she had closed the wreck so that I could see the gun-ports on her upper deck, she luffed up and bore away again, hoisting her tricolour flag, which I shall always loathe the sight of now, as if in mockery of my condition. Fancy, deserting a shipwrecked man like that!”
“The commander of this very ship stopped us to say he had sighted the wreck of your vessel; but, unhappily, he was unable to lay-to to send a boat aboard,” explained Captain Farmer, to excuse the French captain’s conduct. “If he had not done this, perhaps we would never have come across you and been able to take you off, which I am heartily glad we were fortunate enough to succeed in doing!”
“Gracias, señor,” rejoined the Spaniard, stretching out his hand, which our captain gripped in cordial interchange of friendship, “but you did not tell another ship to go to my rescue, you came yourself! The English are always brave and generous!”
“By Jove, he’s right about that French ship,” observed Mr Jellaby to me, aside, when the captain had translated this remark of the Spaniard, leaving out, however, his personal compliment to himself and our nation. “It was a scurvy trick to sail off like that, without examining the wreck. But it’s just like those Johnny Crapauds, youngster. They’re deuced good fair-weather friends but never stand by a fellow in distress!”
“I have not much more to tell you,” went on the Spaniard after those little reciprocities between him and the captain. “It was one morning that the French vessel abandoned me and the next that yours came to my help. Dios, I could not believe I was in my senses when I heard the voices of your officers! I thought I was in a state of delirium and that the sight of your ship, especially after the disappointment of the preceding day, was only a mirage of my imagination, like the Fata Morgana!”
“But, you hailed us, sir,” I said here, on the captain motioning me to come forward. “Why, you answered me when I spoke to you, sir!”
“I may have done so, my dear young gentleman,” he replied with a faint smile, patting me on the head in an affectionate sort of way, as if he were caressing a pet poodle, so at least Mr Jellaby said afterwards to the other fellows; “but, I have no recollection of it, I assure you. Still, I must say that your voice seemed familiar to me just now, when you first came into the cabin here and addressed me. It seemed to me a voice that I had heard in a dream.”
He then proceeded to compliment me on my Spanish, saying, in true hidalgo fashion, that I spoke it better than himself, which, as Mr Jellaby remarked, had to be taken “with a good deal of side on!”
Don Ferdinando Olivarez, to give him his rightful name, concluded his narrative by asking Captain Farmer to land him at Madeira, where he had friends who would supply all his needs, giving him the means to return home to Cadiz, to which port, he said, he must go back for business reasons; besides having to report the loss of his ship, though, as he added with a sigh, he no longer had a “home” there, now that his poor brother was dead, for he was the last of his race!
Of course, the captain promised to comply with his request, explaining that, although he had not intended stopping at the island, we would in any case have passed pretty close to it in our passage to the Cape; and that he would be only too glad to call in and put our passenger ashore, regretting, however, that he should have to lose the pleasure of his company so soon.
Dr Nettleby at this point interrupted any further exchange of civilities between the captain and the Spaniard, who was profuse in his thanks, declaring that his patient required rest, or he would not be able to go ashore either at Madeira or any other place on this planet.
The stern medico, who had been very much interested in Don Ferdinando’s story, or he would never have permitted so much talking, then bundled us all incontinently out of the sick bay, Captain Farmer included.
Four days later we arrived off Funchal, passing, at the eastern extremity of the island, Machico Bay, where the lovers mentioned by Larkyns landed and lived and died, according to the legend. This, the Spanish captain said was quite true, for he had seen the grave himself and the little church erected to their memory, a statement that quite delighted our friend Larkyns, as he was able to throw it in the teeth of Mr Stormcock as soon as he heard it, in refutation of the base calumny of the latter in asserting that he had invented the yarn he told us at mess.
I was very sorry when Don Ferdinando left the ship, for his misfortunes and the fact of my having been in the boat that rescued him, made him seem like an old friend whom I had known for years, although we had only been such a short time acquainted.
He was very kind, too, in noticing me; and, before he was rowed ashore in the captain’s gig, he presented me with a real gold medallion with the image and superscription stamped thereon of Saint Nicholas, the protector of all sailors. The Spanish captain told me that this had originally belonged to the great navigator, Christopher Columbus, of whom he was a distant descendant, and that it had been in his family for generations. He had always worn it, he said, next his heart as a preservative against shipwreck, and he fervently believed it was owing to his having it on him that he had been so miraculously saved when everyone else who had been on board La Bella Catarina with him had perished.
His now giving it to me was the most practical proof of his friendship he could offer, as he valued it beyond anything he possessed, and I only took it for fear of hurting his feelings, for I did not like to deprive him of it. He was, in truth, a noble fellow, and showed that his gratitude did not merely lie in mere empty words and idle compliments.
No, “out of sight out of mind” was not his guiding maxim, like it is of some people whom we all have met in the course of our lives; for, even after he had uttered his farewell as he rowed away from the ship in the captain’s gig, wishing us with a graceful wave of the hand “A Dios!” he did not forget us, sending back by the coxswain a splendid present of flowers and fruit and vegetables, almost loading the gig, indeed, for the acceptance of the wardroom and gunroom messes. He forwarded, as well, a case of valuable wine of some special vintage for Captain Farmer’s own table.
No one in fact who had done him a kindness when on board passed out of his remembrance, apparently, on his leaving; for, to the doctor he sent a diamond ring, to Lieutenant Jellaby a lady’s fan, which, judging by what he had heard of his partiality for the fair sex, I suppose he thought would please him most; and to Corporal Macan and Bill Bates, who had been especially prominent at his rescue, a box of cigars each, while he also sent to the captain a handsome sum of money for him to distribute amongst the crew as he thought best.