Chapter Sixteen.
Sam Jedfoot’s Yarn.
“Ho-ho-ho! I shall die a-laughing!” exclaimed another voice at this juncture, interrupting Sam’s terrified appeal to the spiritual powers. “Ho-ho-ho! I shall die a-laughing!”
The voice sounded like that of Tom Bullover; but, before I could look up to see if it were really he, Sam and I, the negro cook still clutching me tightly in his frantic grasp as we rolled down the little declivity on to the beach below the entrance to the cave, fetched up against Hiram; who, only just recovering from the shock he had received, was then in the act of rising from the ground, where he had dropped at the sight of Sam and his banjo—still dazed with the fright, and hardly yet knowing where he was or what had happened.
“My golly!” cried Sam, thinking him another ghost. “Lor’ sakes! Massa Duppy, do forgib me! I’ll nebbah do so moah, I’se swarr I’ll nebbah do so no moah!”
“Wa-all, I’m jiggered!” ejaculated Hiram, on the two of us coming against him with a thump, nearly knocking him again off his legs, as we scrambled to ours. “What in thunder dew this air muss mean? Jee-rusalem—it beats creation, it dew!”
Neither Sam nor I could get out a word; but, while we all stared, out of breath and speechless with astonishment, at each other, another wild shout of laughter came right over our heads from within the cave above, and I heard Tom’s voice exclaiming, as before—
“Ho-ho-ho! you’ll be the death o’ me sure, sonnies! I never seed sich a go in my life! Hang it all—Charley and Hiram, and you, Sambo—why, it’s only me! Ho-ho-ho! I shall bust meself, if you go staring round and wool-gathering like that any longer! Ho-ho-ho! this is a game, and no mistake!”
With that, the three of us looked up, and now saw Tom Bullover standing on top of the plateau in front of the cave, with a sort of long white sheet like a piece of sailcloth round him, and Sam’s banjo in one hand.
Then, the real facts of the case flashed on my mind in a moment, and I could not help joining in the carpenter’s hearty merriment at the way in which he had humbugged us all.
“Oh, Tom!” I cried; “so it was you, after all?”
“Yes; ho-ho! Charley; yes, my lad. Ho-ho-ho!”
“Guess I don’t see nuthin’ to snigger over!” growled Hiram, shamefaced at being so readily imposed on; but he was too good a sailor to mind a joke against himself, and the comicality of the situation striking him, too, like me, he was soon laughing as loudly as Tom and I.
Sam only needed this further secession likewise to set him off, his negro nature possessing the hysterical features of his race, and going readily from one extreme to the other.
A second before he had been paralysed with fright; now he was as instantly convulsed with glee.
“My gosh!” he yelled, showing his ivories as his whole face expanded into one big guffaw that utterly eclipsed all our attempts at merriment. “Hoo-hoo, yah-yah! Dat am prime, Cholly—black ghost fo’ whitey! Hoo-hoo, yah-yah! I’se die a-laffin’, like Tom! Black ghost fo’ whitey!—Hoo-hoo, yah-yah, hoo-hoo! Golly! Dat am prime, fo’ suah!”
Sam’s negro abandon and queer gestures, as he danced about and doubled himself up in his wild convulsions of mirth, were absolutely irresistible; and so we all roared in concert, like a party of lunatics, laughing until the tears actually ran down our cheeks.
“An’ how did yer fix the hull thing so smartly?” inquired the American, presently when he was able to speak. “Ye took me in finely, I guess; ye did thet so!”
“Lor’, old ship! that were easy enough, when you comes to think of it.”
“But, how?” persisted Hiram, as Tom broke off his explanation to indulge in another laugh. “Hyar’s Sam, what was ded, alive agen an’ kickin’, ez my shins ken tell, I reckon! How about his hauntin’ the shep, an’ all thet?”
“Yes, Tom,” I put in here; “how was it that he wasn’t killed?”
“Oh, Sam ’ll explain all about his bizness,” replied Tom, laughing again, the ridiculous nature of the whole thing appealing strongly to his risible faculties. “I’ve got enough to do to tell you about my own ghost—the sperrit, that is, of the black man that our second-mate spun that yarn about yesterday arternoon!”
“A–ah!” drawled out Hiram; “I begins to smell a rat, I dew.”
“But, suah dat ’perrit wasn’t reel, hey, Mass’ Tom?” interposed Sam, his eyeballs starting again out of his head, as he recollected all the mysterious occurrences in the cave. “Dat ’perrit wasn’t reel, hey? I’se take um fo’ duppy, suah?”
“No, ye durned fule!” exclaimed Hiram, quite indignantly; “don’t ye know thet?”
“Some people weren’t so wise just now,” said Tom Bullover dryly; “eh, Hiram?”
“Nary mind ’bout thet,” growled the American, giving Tom a dig in the ribs playfully. “Heave ahead with yer yarn, or we’ll never git in the slack of it ’fore nightfall!”
“Well then, here’s the long and short of it,” said Tom, sitting down on the top of the little cliff-mound, so as to make himself as comfortable as possible, while we stood grouped around him. “You see, now, our Dutch mate’s story about the nigger that the buccaneers used to bury with their treasure put me up to taking a rise out of our friend Sambo here, who, though he was artful enough to play at being a ghost and haunt the ship, as you fellows thought all through the v’yage, was yet mortal ’fraid of them same ghostesses hisself, as I well knowed!”
“Oh, Lor’, Mass’ Tom, dunno say dat,” interrupted Sam reproachfully. “Speak fo’ true, an’ shame de debble!”
“That’s just what I’m doing, darkey. You know I’m speaking the truth; and I’m sure Charley and Hiram here can judge for theirselves, from what they saw not long ago!”
“Bully for ye!” cried Hiram, confirming Tom Bullover’s reference to himself. “Why, ye durned nigger, ye wer a’most yeller with frit jest now, when ye kinder thought ye seed one o’ them blessed ghostesses thet Tom wer a-talkin’ on!”
This effectually shut up Sam; and my friend the carpenter then went on with his account of the phenomenon we had seen.
“I knew,” said he, “that the darkey would be up here this arternoon, for I showed him the cave myself this mornin’, afore any of you beggars aboard the ship were up or stirring. I thought it would be just a good place for him to hide in, besides preventing the skipper and that brute Flinders, or any of the other hands, from coming spying round and interfering with our diskevery, which, as you know—I means you Charley and Hiram—we wished for to keep to ourselves.”
“Ay, bo,” assented Hiram approvingly; “true enuff; ye acted rightly, shipmet.”
“So I tells Sam to rig hisself up here as comf’ably as he could; and if he should hear any footsteps comin’ nigh the place he was to strike up a tune on his banjo and frighten them away, makin’ any inquisitive folk think the place was haunted by the same old ghost they knew aboard the ship.”
“What a capital idea!” said I; “how did you come to think of it?”
“I thought of more than that, Charley,” replied Tom, with a broad grin. “It wasn’t long arter I brought Sam here that I thought of makin’ the second ghost out of the proper black man belonging to the cave, that Jan Steenbock had told us on, and which you, Hiram, said you wouldn’t be frightened at nohow.”
“Stow thet,” growled Hiram, shaking his fist at Tom. “Carry on with yer yarn, an’ don’t mind me, old stick-in-the-mud!”
“I’m carryin’ on, if you’ll only let a feller tell his story in his own way. You know we agreed to come up here together this arternoon, and make a reg’ler up-and-down search for the buried treasure; and you told me, you rec’lect, to bring a port fire, such as we had aboard, for to light up the place.”
“Thet’s right enuff,” said Hiram, “thet’s right enuff; but, durn it all, heave ahead, bo! Heave ahead!”
“Well then,” continued Tom, “I gets this blessed jigmaree of a port fire from the ship; and, having done my spell at digging out the dock, my gang finishing work at four bells, I com’d up here afore you and Charley. It were then that I thinks of having a bit of a game with old Sam, while I was waitin’ for you two to join company and look for the treasure together, as we agreed atween us when we first diskivered the place.”
“And you didn’t intend to frighten us, Tom?” I asked him at this point; “mind, really?”
“No, I’ll take my davy I didn’t—that is, not at first,” replied he, grinning in his usual way. “Arterwards, in course, I couldn’t help it, when you and our Chickopee friend here took the bait so finely.”
“Ah! I’ll pay you out, bo, for it,” cried Hiram, interrupting Tom, as I had done, “never you fear. I’ll pay you out, my hearty, ’fore this time to-morrow come-never—both me and Cholly will tew, I guess, sirree!”
“Threaten’d men live long,” observed Tom with a dry chuckle. “Still, that ain’t got nothin’ to do with this here yarn. I com’d up, as I were sayin’, a good half-hour afore you; and, to spin out the time, I goes round to the cave by the way where we first lighted on it t’other day, and gets inside by the hole through the broken old door where we entered it afore our reaching this end.”
“And then?” I asked, on Tom’s pausing for a moment in his narrative—“and then?”
“Why, then I saw poor Sam, with his back turned towards me, a-sittin’ down on that rock as we called ‘the ghost’s pulpit,’ and playin’ his blessed old banjo as sweetly as you please, without thinkin’ that I or any one else were within miles of him! So, seein’ this were a good chance for finding whether Master Sammy, as was thought a ghost hisself aboard, liked ghosts as he didn’t know of, I catches up a bit o’ sailcloth that was lying on the ground, which he’d taken up there to sarve for his bed, and, I claps this over my head and shoulders, like a picter my mother had in the parlour at home of ‘Samuel and the Witch of Endor.’ Then, I lights the port fire and gives a yell to rouse up the darkey, and arter that—ho-ho! my hearties, you knows what happened. Ho-ho! it was as good as a play!”
“Golly! Me taut yer one duppy, fo’ suah, Massa Tom!” said Sam, after another chorus of laughter from all of us all round. “Me taut yer was de debble!”
“Not quite so bad as that, my hearty,” mildly suggested Tom, grinning at the compliment. “Still, I don’t think I made such a bad ghost altogether for a green hand!”
“Don’t ye kinder think ye frit me, bo!” declaimed Hiram vehemently. “It wer the sight o’ thet durned nigger thaar, a-sottin’ an playin’ his banjo—him ez we all thought ez ded ez a coffin nail, an’ buried fathoms below the sea, an’ which all on us hed b’leeved ter hev haunted the shep fur the hull v’y’ge. Ay, thet it wer, streenger, what ez frit me an’ made me fall all of a heap, an’ thaar I lies till Cholly an’ the durned nigger riz me up agen by tumblin’ athwart my hawse!”
“I think I was the most frightened of all,” I now frankly confessed, on Hiram thus bravely acknowledging his own terror. “I really for the moment believed that I was actually looking at two real, distinct ghosts, or spirits—the one that of Sam, which you, Tom and Hiram, know I already thought I had seen before on board the ship; and the second apparition that of the negro slave which Mr Steenbock told us of. But, how is it that Sam is here at all—how did he escape?”
“Let him tell his yarn in his own way, the same as I have done mine,” replied Tom. “Ax him.”
“Now Sam,” said I, “tell us all about it.”
“Ay, dew,” chimed in Hiram; “fire away, ye old black son of a gun!”
“All right, Mass’ Hiram an’ yer, too, Cholly. I’se tell you de trute, de hole trute, an’ nuffin’ but de trute, s’help me!”
“Carry on, you blooming old crocodile, carry on!”
Taking Tom Bullover’s words in the sense in which they were meant, as a sort of friendly encouragement to proceed, Sam, nothing loath to air his long-silent tongue, soon satisfied the eager curiosity of Hiram and myself—giving us a full account of his adventures from the time that we saw him drop from the rigging, when all the crew, with the solitary exception of his ally the carpenter, believed him to have been murdered and his body lost overboard.
“I’se specks,” he commenced, “dat yer all ’members when de cap’en shake him billy-goat beard, an’ shoot dis pore niggah in de tumjon, an’ I’se drop inter de bottom ob de sea, hey?”
“Yes,” replied Hiram; while I added: “But, how on earth did you manage to save your life and get on board again?”
“Dis chile cleberer dan yer tinks,” replied Sam proudly. “When de cap’en shoot, I’se jump one side like de Bobolink bird, an’ de bullet, dat he tink go troo my tumjon, go in de air. I’se make one big miscalkerfation, dough, fo’ my han’ mis de riggin’ when I’se stretch up to catch him, an’ I’se tumble inter de water.”
“Poor Sam!” said I. “Your heart must have come right into your mouth, eh?”
“Inter my mout, sonny?” he repeated after me. “Bress yer, it come up inter my mout, an’ I’se swaller it agen, an’ him go right down to de pit ob my tumjon! Lor’, Cholly, I’se tink I wer drown, fo’ suah, an’ nebbah come up no moah, fo’ de wave come ober my head an’ ebberyting! Den, jest as I’se scrape along de side ob de ship an’ wash away aft in de wake astern, I’se catch holt ob de end ob de boom-sheet, dat was tow oberboard.”
“Ye hev got thet durned lubber Jim Chowder to thank fur thet,” said Hiram, interrupting him to explain this fortunate circumstance, which I now recollected Captain Snaggs alluding to when I was waiting at table in the cabin the same evening, before the tragic occurrence happened. “It’s the fust time I ever recomembers ez how an unsailorlike act like thet ever did good to airy a soul!”
“Nebbah yer min’ dat, Mas’ Hiram,” rejoined Sam, with much heartiness. “I’se allers tink afore dat Jim Chowder one pore cuss, but now I’se pray fo’ him ebbery day ob my life!”
“Ay, bo,” said Tom, with affected gravity; “and for me to, eh?”
“I will, suah,” answered Sam, in the same serious way in which he had previously spoken, not wishing to joke about the matter. “But, Jim Chowder or no Jim Chowder, who ebbah let dat rope tow oberboard was sabe my life! I’se catch holt ob him an’ climb on ter de rudder chain, where I’se hang wid my head out ob de water till it was come dark, an’ de night grow ober de sea. Den, when I’se tink de cap’en drink nuff rum to get drunk, an’ not fo’ see me come on board agen, I’se let my ole leg wash up wid de wave to de sill ob de stern port; an’ den, when I’se look an see dere was nobody in de cabin, I’se smash de glass ob de window an’ climb inside.”
“And then it was, I suppose,” said I, taking up the burden of his story, “that I took your real self, as you crept through the cabin, for your ghost?”
“Dat troo, Cholly. Yer see me, dough, by de light ob de moon, fo’ I’se take care blow out de swing lamp in cabin, dat nobody might see nuffin. I’se reel glad, dough, dat I’se able friten de cap’en an’ make him tink see um duppy!”
“Wa-all, I guess ye come out o’ that smart enuff,” said Hiram, with a hearty thump of approval that doubled up poor Sam, more effectually than his convulsions of laughter had previously done. “But, whaar did ye manage ter stow yerself when ye comed out o’ the cabin?”
“I’se creep along de deck, keepin’ under de lee ob de moonlight; an’ den when nobody was lookin’ I’se go forwards an’ crawl down into the forepeak. Den, it was dat Mass’ Tom hyar see me.”
“And a pretty fine fright you gave me too!” said that worthy, bursting out into another laugh at the recollection. “It was the next mornin’, as I went down into the sail room under the forepeak, to fetch up a spare tops’le, when I comes across my joker here. I caught hold at first of his frizzy head, thinking it were a mop one of the hands had forgotten below; but when I turned my lantern there I seed Sam, who I thought miles astern, safe and snug in old Davy Jones’ locker. Lord! shipmates, you could ha’ knocked me down with a feather and club-hauled me for a nincompoop!”
“Wer ye ez frit ez I wer jest now?” asked Hiram quizzingly. “Mind, quite ez much ez I wer?”
“Ay, bo,” replied Tom, “I dessay I were, if the truth be told.”
This pleased Hiram immensely.
“Then, I guess I don’t see whaar yer crow comes in, my joker!” he exclaimed, giving Tom a similar thump on the back to that which he had a short time before bestowed on Sam—a slight token of affection by no means to be sneezed at. “Why, ye wer cacklin’ like a durned old hen with one egg, ’bout Cholly an’ I bein’ frit jest now, thinkin’ we seed Sam’s ghostess, when hyar, ye sez now, ye wer frit yerself the same at the fust sight ye seed of him!”
“Ay, bo; but I wern’t going to tell you that, nor ’bout another fright I next had, when the darkey and I were a-smoking down in the forepeak and nearly set the ship a-fire,” said Tom knowingly, with a shrewd, expressive wink to each of us respectively in turn, before he resumed his story. “But, to go on properly with my yarn from the beginning, when I found Sam’s head wasn’t a mop, but belonged to his real darkey self, and that he wasn’t drownded after all, why, I made him as snug as I could down below, thinking it were best for him to keep hid, for if the skipper saw him on dock and knew he were alive he would soon be shooting him again, or else ill-treating him in the way he had already done. Sam agreed to act by my advice on my promising to take him down grub and all he might want into the forepeak; but, bless you, the contrary darkey wouldn’t act up to this arrangement arter a day or two.”
“Dat was ’cause yer hab forget to bring de grub,” interposed Sam, to explain this apparent breach of contract on his part. “I’se cook, an’ not used fo’ ter go widout my vittles fo’ nobody!”
“How could I get below to you when we had bad weather and the hatches were battened down?” retorted Tom Bullover, in his turn. “Howsomdever, to stop arguefying, Master Sammy, finding himself hungry and knowing something of the stowage below from having been in the ship on a previous voyage, he manages to work a passage through the hold to the after part right under the cuddy; and from there my gentleman, if you please, makes his way on deck again through the hatchway in the captain’s cabin, not forgetting to rummage the steward’s pantry for provisions when he goes by!”
“An’ mighty little grub was dere, suah,” put in the negro cook, with great dignity. “I’se feel mean as a pore white if yer was ebbah come to my galley an’ fin’ sich a scrubby lot tings! Dere was nuffin’ fit fo’ a decent culler’d pusson ter eat—dat feller Morris Jones one big skunk!”
“I guess ye air ’bout right,” agreed Hiram; while Tom and I signified our assent likewise by nodding our heads with great unction. “He’s the biggest skunk I ever wer shipmets with afore!”
“Let him slide, for he don’t consarn us now,” said Tom, continuing the narrative of Sam’s story. “Well, you must know, our darkey friend here, having taken first to prowling about the ship for grub, keeps it up arterwards for pleesure and devarshun, thinking it a jolly lark to make the hands believe the old barquey was haunted. Then, one day he gets hold of his banjo from out of Hiram’s chest in the fo’c’s’le, where old Chicopee really did stow it away arter he bought it at the auction o’ Sam’s traps, as he thought he did, although I persuaded him and you Charley, too, if you remember, that the banjo had been left hanging up still in the galley in the place where Sam used to keep it. Once, indeed, when Sam forgot to put it back arter playing on it in the hold, where he had taken it, I brought it up and hung it on its old peg in the galley right afore your very eyes, Hiram!”
“I recollect, Tom,” said I; “and so, Sam used to play on it in the hold below, then, when we heard the mysterious music coming from we knew not where?”
“Yes, that’s so,” replied he. “At first, Sam touched the strings only now and then, ’specially when the wind was blowing high, and he thought that nobody would hear the sound from the rattling of the ship’s timbers and all; but, when I noticed how you above on deck could distinguish, not only the notes of the banjo, but also the very air that Sam played, and how the skipper was terrified and almost frightened out of his boots when he recognised the tune, which he had heard Sam chaunt often and often in the galley of an evening, why, then, I puts up the darkey to keep on the rig, so as to punish our brute of a skipper for his cold-blooded attempt at murdering poor Sam—which, but for the interposition of Providence, would have succeeded!”
Before Tom could proceed any further, however, consternation fell upon us all, as if a bombshell had burst in our midst; for, Sam, who was looking the opposite way to us and could see over our heads, suddenly sprang upon his feet, his mouth open from ear to ear and his teeth chattering with fear, while his short, woolly hair seemed literally to crinkle up and stand on end.
“O Lor’! O Lor’!” he exclaimed. “Look dere! Look dere!”
And there, right before us, stood the skipper himself, snorting and sniffing and foaming with rage, his keen, ferrety eyes piercing us through and through—so close, that his long nose almost touched me, and his billy-goat beard seemed to bristle right into my face, I being the nearest to him.
I felt a cold shiver run through me that froze the very marrow of my bones!
Captain Snaggs had, no doubt, overheard all our conversation, listening quietly, hidden behind the bushes that grew up close to the entrance to the cave, until Tom’s last words proved too much for his equanimity, when his indignation forced him to come out from his retreat. He was certainly in an awful rage, for he was so angry that he could hardly speak at first, but fairly sputtered with wrath; and, if a look would have annihilated us, we mast all have been killed on the spot.
He was a terrible sight!
“Oh, thet’s yer little game, my jokers!” he yelled out convulsively, as soon as he could articulate his words, glaring at us each in turn. “So, thet durned nigger ain’t dead, arter all, hey? Snakes an’ alligators! Why, it’s a reg’ler con-spiracy all round—rank mutiny, by thunder! I guess I’ll hev ye all hung at the yard-arm, ev’ry man Jack of ye, fur it, ez sure ez my name’s Ephraim O Snaggs!”
His passion was so intense that we were spellbound for the moment, not one of us venturing to speak or reply to his threats—he staring at us as if he could ‘eat us without salt,’ as the saying goes, while we remained stock-still and silent before him.
As for Sam, he wallowed on the ground in terror, for the captain looked and acted like a madman.
Hiram Bangs alone had the pluck to open his mouth and confront the skipper.