Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

CHAPTER XVI.—The Second Cruise of the Wave

“I longed to see the Isles that gem,
Old Ocean’s purple diadem,
I sought by turns, and saw them all.”
Byron, The Bride Of Abydos, II. 355—57.

The puncture in Mr Bang’s neck from the boarding-pike was not very deep, still it was an ugly lacerated wound; and if The had not to use his own phrase, been somewhat bullnecked, there is no saying what the consequences might have been.

“Tom, my boy,” said he, after the doctor was done with him, “I am nicely coopered now—nearly as good as new—a little stiffish or so lucky to have such a comfortable coating of muscle, otherwise the carotid would have been in danger. So come here, and take your turn, and I will hold the candle.”

It was dead calm, and as I had desired the cabin to be again used as a cockpit, it was at this time full of poor fellows, waiting to have their wounds dressed, whenever the surgeon could go below. The lantern was brought, and sitting down on a wadding tub, I stripped. The ball, which I knew had lodged in the fleshy part of my left shoulder, had first of all struck me right over the collar-bone, from which it had glanced, and then buried itself in the muscle of the arm, just below the skin, where it stood out, as if it had been a sloe both in shape and colour. The collar-bone was much shattered, and my chest was a good deal shaken, and greatly bruised; but I had perceived nothing of all this at the time I was shot; the sole perceptible sensation was the feeling of cold water running down, and the pinch in the shoulder, as already described. I was much surprised (every man who has been seriously hit being entitled to expatiate) with the extreme smallness of the puncture in the skin through which the ball had entered; you could not have forced a pea through it, and there was scarcely any flow of blood.

“A very simple affair this, sir,” said the surgeon, as he made a minute incision right over the ball, the instrument cutting into the cold dull lead with a cheep, and then pressing his fingers, one on each side of it, it jumped out nearly into Aaron’s mouth.

“A pretty sugar-plum, Tom—if that collar-bone of yours had not been all the harder, you would have been embalmed in a gazette, to use your own favourite expression. But, my good boy, your bruise on the chest is serious; you must go to bed, and take care of yourself.”

Alas! there was no bed for me to go to. The cabin was occupied by the wounded, where the surgeon was still at work. Out of our small crew, nine had been killed, and eleven wounded, counting passengers—twenty out of forty-two—a fearful proportion.

The night had now fallen.

“Pearl, send some of the people aft, and get a spare square-sail from the sailmaker, and....”

“Will the awning not do, sir?”

“To be sure it will,” said I—it did not occur to me. “Get the awning triced up to the stancheons, and tell my steward to get the beds on deck a few flags to shut us in will make the thing complete.”

It was done; and while the sharp cries of the wounded, who were immediately under the knife of the doctor, and the low moans of those whose wounds had been dressed, or were waiting their turn, reached our ears distinctly through the small skylight, our beds were arranged on deck, under the shelter of the awning, a curtain of flags veiling our quarters from the gaze of the crew. Paul Gelid and Pepperpot occupied the starboard side of the little vessel; Aaron Bang and myself the larboard. By this time it was close on eight o’clock in the evening. I had merely looked in on our friends, ensconced as they were in their temporary hurricane house; for I had more work than I could accomplish on deck in repairing damages. Most of our standing, and great part of our running rigging, had been shot away, which the tired crew were busied in splicing and knotting the best way they could. Our mainmast was very badly wounded close to the deck. It was fished as scientifically as our circumstances admitted. The foremast had fortunately escaped—it was untouched; but there were no fewer than thirteen round shot through our hull, five of them between wind and water.

When every thing had been done which ingenuity could devise, or the most determined perseverance execute, I returned to our canvass—shed aft, and found Mr Wagtail sitting on the deck, arranging, with the help of my steward, the supper equipment to the best of his ability. Our meal, as may easily be imagined, was frugal in le extreme—salt beef, biscuit, some roasted yams, and cold grog—some of Aaron’s excellent rum. But I mark it down, that I question if any one of the four who partook of it, ever made so hearty a supper before or since. We worked away at the junk until we had polished the bone, clean as an elephant’s tusk, and the roasted yams disappeared in bushelfuls; while the old rum sank in the bottle, like mercury in the barometer indicating an approaching gale.

“I say, Tom,” quoth Aaron, “how do you feel, my boy?”

“Why, not quite so buoyant as I could wish. To me it has been a day of fearful responsibility.”

“And well it may,” said he. “As for myself, I go to rest with the tremendous consciousness that even I, who am not a professional butcher, have this blessed day shed more than one fellow-creature’s blood-a trembling consideration-and all for what, Tom? You met a big ship in the dark, and desired her to stop. She said she would not—You said, ‘You shall.’—She rejoined, ‘I’ll be d——d if I do.’ And thereupon you set about compelling her; and certainly you have interrupted her course to some purpose, at the trivial cost of the lives of only five or six hundred human beings, whose hearts were beating cheerily in their bosoms within these last six hours, but whose bodies are now food for fishes.”

I was stung.

“At your hands, my dear sir, I did not expect this, and”

“Hush,” said he, “I don’t blame you—it is all right; but why will not the Government at home arrange by treaty that this nefarious trade should be entirely put down? Surely all our victories by sea and land might warrant our stipulating for so much, in place of huggermuggering with doubtful ill-defined treaties, specifying that you Johnny Crapeau, and you Jack Spaniard, shall steal men, and deal in human flesh, in such and such a degree of latitude only, while, if you pick up one single slave a league to the northward or southward of the prescribed line of coast, then we shall blow you out of the water wherever we meet you. Why should poor devils, who live in one degree of latitude, be allowed to be kidnapped, whilst we make it felony to steal their immediate neighbours?” Aaron waxed warm as he proceeded. “Why will not Englishmen lend a hand to put down the slave-trade amongst our opponents in sugar growing, before they so recklessly endeavour to crush slavery in our own worn-out colonies, utterly disregardless of our rights and lives? Mind, Tom, I don’t defend slavery, I sincerely wish we could do without it, but am I to be the only one to pay the piper in compassing its extinction? If, however, it really be that Upas-tree, under whose baleful shade every kindly feeling in the human bosom, whether of master or servant, withers and dies, I ask, who planted it? If it possess the magical, and incredible, and most pestilential quality, that the English gentleman, who shall be virtuous and beneficent, and just in all his ways, before he leaves home, and after he returns home, shall, during his temporary sojourn within its influence become a very Nero for cruelty, and have his warm heart of flesh smuggled out of his bosom, by some hocus pocus, utterly unintelligible to any unprejudiced rational being, or indurated into the flint of the nether millstone, or frozen into a lump of ice.”

“Lord!” ejaculated Wagtail, “only fancy a snowball in a man’s stomach, and in Jamaica too!”

“Hold your tongue, Waggy, my love,” continued Aaron; “if all this were so, I would again ask, who planted it?—say not that we did it—I am a planter, but I did not plant slavery. I found it growing and flourishing, and fostered by the Government, and made my home amongst the branches like a respectable corbie craw, or a pelican in a wild— duck’s nest, with all my pretty little tender black branchers hopping about me, along with numberless other unfortunates, and now find that the tree is being uprooted by the very hands that planted and nourished it, and seduced me to live in it, and all....”

I laughed aloud—“Come, come, my dear sir, you are a perfect Lord Castlereagh in the congruity of your figures. How the deuce can any living thing exist among the poisonous branches of the Upas-tree—or a wild-duck build....”

“Get along with your criticism, Tom—and don’t laugh, hang it, don’t laugh—but who told you that a corbie cannot?”

“Why there are no corbies in Java.”

“Pah—botheration—there are pelicans then; but you know it is not an Upas-tree, you know it is all a chimera, and, like the air-drawn dagger of Macbeth, ‘that there is no such thing.’ Now, that is a good burst, Gelid, my lad, a’nt it?” said Bang, as he drew a long breath, and again launched forth.

“Our Government shall quarrel about sixpence here or sixpence there of discriminative duty in a foreign port, while they have clapped a knife to our throats, and a flaming fagot to our houses, by absurd edicts and fanatical intermeddling with our own colonies, where the slave-trade has notoriously, and to their own conviction, entirely ceased; while, I say it again, they will not put out their little finger to prevent, nay, they calmly look on, and permit a traffic utterly repugnant to all the best feelings of our nature, and baneful to an incalculable degree to our own West Indian possessions; provided, forsooth, the slaves be stolen within certain limits, which, as no one can prove, naturally leads to this infernal contraband, the suppression of which—Lord, what a thing to think of!—has nearly deprived the world of the invaluable services of me, Aaron Bang, Esquire, Member of Council of the Island of Jamaica, and Custos Rotulorum Populorum Jig of the Parish of——”

“Lord,” said Wagtail, “why, the yam is not half done.”

“But the rum is—ah!” drawled Gelid.

“D——n the yam and the rum too,” rapped out Bang. “Why, you belly-gods, you have interrupted such a torrent of eloquence!”

I began to guess that our friends were waxing peppery. “Why, gentlemen, I don’t know how you feel, but I am regularly done up—it is quite calm, and I hope we shall all sleep, so good-night.”

We nestled in, and the sun had risen before I was called next morning. I hope “I rose a sadder and a wiser man. Upon that morrow’s morn.”

“On deck, there,” said I, while dressing. Mr Peter Swop, one of the Firebrand’s master-mates, and now, in consequence of poor Handlead’s death, acting-master of the Wave, popped in his head through the opening in the flags. “How is the weather, Mr Swop?”

“Calm all night, sir; not a breath stirring, sir.”

“Are the sails shifted?” said I, “and the starboard main-shrouds replaced?”

“They are not yet, sir; the sails are on deck, and the rigging is now stretching, and will be all ready to get over the masthead by breakfast time, sir.”

“How is her head?”

“Why,” rejoined Swop, “it has been boxing all round the compass, sir, for these last twelve hours; at present it is north-east.” “Have we drifted much since last night, Mr Swop?”

“No, sir—much where we were, sir,” rejoined the master. “There are several pieces of wreck, and three dead bodies floating close to, sir.”

By this time I was dressed, and had gone from under the awning on deck. The first thing I did was to glance my eye over the nettings, and there perceived on our quarter, three dead bodies, as Mr Swop had said, floating——one a white Spaniard, and the others the corpses of two unfortunate Africans, who had perished miserably when the brig went down. The white man’s remains, swollen as they were, from the heat of the climate, and sudden putrefaction consequent thereon, floated quietly within pistol-shot, motionless and still; but the bodies of the two negroes were nearly hidden by the clustering sea-birds which had perched on them. There were at least two dozen shipped on each carcass, busy with their beaks and claws, while, on the other hand, the water in the immediate neighbourhood seemed quite alive, from the rushing and walloping of numberless fishes, who were tearing the prey piecemeal. The view was any thing but pleasant, and I naturally turned my eyes forward to see what was going on in the bows of the schooner. I was startled from the number of black faces which I saw.

“Why, Mr Tailtackle, how many of these poor creatures have we on board?”

“There are fifty-nine, sir, under hatches in the fore-hold,” said Timothy, “and thirty-five on deck; but I hope we shan’t have them long, sir. It looks like a breeze to windward. We shall have it before long, sir.”

At this moment Mr Bang came on deck.

“Lord, Tom, I thought it was a flea-bite, last night, but, mercy, I am as stiff and sore as a gentleman need be. How do you feel? I see you have one of your fins in a sling—eh?”

“I am a little stiff, certainly; however, that will go off; but come forward here, my dear sir; come here, and look at this shot-hole—saw you ever anything like that?”

This was the smashing of one of our pumps from a round shot, the splinters from which were stuck into the bottom of the launch, which overhung it, forming really a figure very like the letter A.

“Don’t take it to myself, Tom—no, not at all.”

At this moment the black savages on the forecastle discovered our friend, and shouts of “Sheik Cocoloo” rent the skies. Mr Bang, for a moment, appeared startled, so far as I could judge, he had forgotten that part of his exploit, and did not know what to make of it, until at last the actual meaning seemed to flash on him, when, with a shout of laughter, he bolted in through the opening of the flags to his former quarters below the awning. I descended to the cabin, breakfast having been announced, and sat down to our meal, confronted by Paul Gelid and Pepperpot Wagtail. Presently we heard Aaron sing out, the small skuttle being right overhead, “Pegtop, come here, Pegtop, I say, help me on with my neckcloth—so—that will do; now I shall go on deck. Why, Pearl, my boy, what do you want?” and before Pearl could get a word in, Aaron continued, “I say, Pearl, go to the other end of the ship, and tell your Coromantee friends that it is all a humbug that I am not the Sultan Cocoloo; farther more, that I have not a feather in my tail like a palm branch, of the truth of which I offer to give them ocular proof.”

Pearl made his salaam. “Oh, sir, I fear that we must not say too much on that subject; we have not irons for one half of them savage negirs;” the fellow was as black as a coal himself; “and were they to be undeceived, why, reduced as our crew is, they might at any time rise on, and massacre the whole watch.”

“The devil!” we could hear friend Aaron say; “oh, then, go forward, and assure them that I am a bigger ostrich than ever, and I shall astonish them presently, take my word for it. Pegtop, come here, you scoundrel,” he continued; “I say, Pegtop, get me out my uniform coat,”—our friend was a captain of Jamaica militia—“so—and my sword—that will do—and here, pull off my trowsers it will be more classical to perambulate in my shirt, in case it really be necessary to persuade them that the palm branch was all a figure of speech. Now, my hat—there—walk before me, and fan me with the top of that herring barrel.”

This was a lid of one of the wadding-tubs, which, to come up to Jigmaree’s notions of neatness, had been fitted with covers, and forth stumped Bang, preceded by Pegtop doing the honours. But the instant he appeared from beneath the flags, the same wild shout arose from the captive slaves forward, and such of them as were not fettered, immediately began to bundle and tumble round our friend, rubbing their flat noses and woolly heads all over him, and taking hold of the hem of his garment, whereby his personal decency was so seriously periled, that, after an unavailing attempt to shake them off, he fairly bolted, and ran for shelter, once more, under the awning, amidst the suppressed mirth of the whole crew, Aaron himself laughing louder than any of them all the while. “I say, Tom, and fellow sufferers,” quoth he, after he had run to earth under the awning, and looking down the scuttle into the cabin where we were at breakfast, “how am I to get into the cabin? if I go out on the quarterdeck but one arm’s length, in order to reach the companion, these barbarians will be at me again. Ah, I see.”

Whereupon, without more ado, he stuck his legs down through the small hatch right over the breakfast table, with the intention of descending, and the first thing he accomplished, was to pop his foot into a large dish of scalding hominy, or hasty-pudding, made of Indian corn meal, with which Wagtail was in the habit of commencing his stowage at breakfast. But this proving too hot for comfort, he instantly drew it out, and in his attempt to reascend, he stuck his bespattered toe into Paul Gelid’s mouth. “Oh! oh!” exclaimed Paul, while little Wagtail lay back laughing like to die; but the next instant Bang gave another struggle, or wallop, like a pelloch in shoal-water, whereby Pepperpot borrowed a good kick on the side of the head, and down came the Great Ostrich, Aaron Bang, but without any feather in his tail, as I can avouch, slap upon the table, smashing cups and saucers, and hominy, and devil knows what all, to pieces, as he floundered on the board. This was so absurd, that we were all obliged to give uncontrolled course to our mirth for a minute or two, when, making the best of the wreck, we contrived to breakfast in tolerable comfort.

Soon after the meal was finished, a light air enabled us once more to lie our course, and we gradually crept to the northward, until twelve o’clock in the forenoon, after which time it fell calm again. I went down to the cabin; Bang had been overhauling my small library, when a shelf gave way (the whole affair having been injured by a round shot in the action, which had tom right through the cabin), so down came several scrolls, rolled up, and covered with brown paper.

“What are all these?” I could hear our friend say. “They are my logs,” said I.

“Your what?”

“My private journals.”

“Oh, I see,” said Aaron. “I will have a turn at them, with your permission. But what is this so carefully bound with red tape, and sealed, and marked—let me see, ‘Thomas Cringle, his log-book.’”

He looked at me.—“Why, my dear sir, to say the truth, that is my first attempt; full of trash, believe me;—what else could you expect, from so mere a lad as I was when I wrote it?”

“The child is father to the man, Tom, my boy; so may I peruse it; may I read it for the edification of my learned allies,—Pepperpot Wagtail, and Paul Gelid, esquires?”

“Certainly,” I replied, “no objection in the world, but you will laugh at me, I know; still, do as you please, only, had you not better have your wound dressed first?”

“My wound! Poo, poo! just enough to swear by—a flea-bite never mind it; so here goes”—and he read aloud what is detailed in the “Launching of the Log,” making his remarks with so much naivete, that I daresay the reader will be glad to hear a few of them. His anxiety, for instance, when he read of the young aide-de-camp being shot and dragged by the stirrup, to know “what became of the empty horse,” was very entertaining; and when he had read the description of Davoust’s face and person, where I describe his nose, as neither fine nor dumpy—a fair enough proboscis as noses go, he laid down the Log with the most laughable seriousness.

“Now,” quoth he, “very inexplicit all this, Tom. Why, I am most curious in noses. I judge of character altogether from the nose. I never lose sight of a man’s snout, albeit I never saw the tip of my own. You may rely on it, that it is all a mistake to consider the regular Roman nose, with a curve like a shoemaker’s paring knife, or the straight Grecian, with a thin transparent ridge, that you can see through, or the Deutsch meerschaum, or the Saxon pump-handle, or the Scotch mull, or any other nose, that can be taken hold of, as the standard gnomon. No, no; I never saw a man with a large nose who was not a blockhead—eh! Gelid, my love? The pimple for me—the regular pimple but allons.”—And where, having introduced the German refugees to Captain Deadeye, I go on to say that I thereupon dived into the midshipmen’s berth for a morsel of comfort, and was soon “far into the secrets of a pork pie,”—he lay back, and exclaimed with a long drawling emphasis—“A pork pie!”

“A pork pie!” said Paul Gelid.

“Why, do you know,” said Mr Wagtail—“I—why, I never in all my life saw a pork pie.”

“My dear Pepperpot,” chimed in Gelid, “we both forget. Don’t you remember the day we dined with the Admiral at the pen, in July last?”

“No,” said Wagtail, “I totally forget it.” Bang, I saw was all this while chuckling to himself—“I absolutely forget it altogether.”

“Bless me,” said Gelid, “don’t you remember the beautiful calipeever we had that day?”

“Really I do not,” said Pepperpot, “I have had so many good feeds there.”

“Why,” continued Gelid, “Lord love you, Wagtail, not remember that calipeever, so crisp in the broiling?”

“No,” said Wagtail, “really I do not.”

“Lord, man, it had a pudding in its belly.”

“Oh, now I remember,” said Wagtail.

Bang laughed outright, and I could not help making a hole in my manners also, even prepared as I was for my jest by my sable crony Pegtop.—To proceed.

Aaron looked at me with one of his quizzical grins; “Cringle, my darling, do you keep these Logs still?”

“I do, my dear sir, invariably.”

“What,” struck in little Wagtail, “the deuce!—for instance shall I, and Paul, and Aaron there, all be embalmed or preserved” (“Say pickled,” quoth the latter) “in these said Logs of yours?” This was too absurd, and I could not answer my allies for laughing. As for Gelid, he had been swaying himself backwards and forwards, half asleep, on the hind legs of his chair all this while, puffing away at a cigar.

“Ah!” said he half asleep, and but partly overhearing what was going on; “ah, Tom, my dear, you don’t say that we shall all be handed down to our poster”—a long yawn—“to our poster” another yawn—when Bang, watching his opportunity as he sat opposite, gently touched one of the fore-legs of the balanced chair with his toe, while he finished Gelid’s sentence by interjecting, “iors,” as the conch fell back and floundered over on his stem; his tormentor drawling out in wicked mimicry.

“Yes, dear Gelid, so sure as you have been landed down on your posteriors now—ah—you shall be handed down to your posterity hereafter, by that pestilent little scamp Cringle. Ah, Tom, I know you. Paul, Paul, it will be paulo postfuturum with you, my lad.”

Here we were interrupted by my steward’s entering with his tallow face. “Dinner on the table, sir.” We adjourned accordingly.

After dinner we carried on very much as usual, although the events of the previous day had their natural effect; there was little mirth, and no loud laughter. Once more we all turned in, the calm still continuing, and next morning after breakfast, friend Aaron took to the Log again.

But the most amusing exhibition took place when he came to the description of the row in the dark stair at the agent’s house, where the negroes fight for the scraps, and capsize Treenail, myself, and the brown lady, down the steps.

“Why, I say, Tom,” again quoth Aaron, “I never knew before, that you were in Jamaica at the period you here write of.”

“Why, my dear sir, I scarcely can say that I was there, my visit was so hurried.”

“Hurried!” rejoined he, “hurried—by no means; were you not in the island for four or five hours? Ah, long enough to have authorized your writing an anti-slavery pamphlet of one hundred and fifty pages.”

I smiled.

“Oh, you may laugh, my boy, but it is true—what a subject for an anti— slavery lecture—listen and be instructed.” Here our friend shook himself as a bruiser does to ascertain that all is right before he throws up his guard, and for the first five minutes he only jerked his right shoulder this way and his left shoulder t’other way, while his fins walloped down against his sides like empty sleeves; at length, as he warmed, he stretched forth his arms like Saint Paul in the Cartoon and although he now and then could not help sticking his tongue in his cheek, still the exhibition was so true and so exquisitely comical, that I never shall forget it.—“The whole white inhabitants of Kingston are luxurious monsters, living in more than Eastern splendour; and their universal practice, during their magnificent repasts, is to entertain themselves, by compelling their black servants to belabour each other across the pate with silver ladles, and to stick drumsticks of turkeys down each other’s throats. Merciful heaven! only picture the miserable slaves, each with the spaul of a turkey sticking in his gob; dwell upon that, my dearly beloved hearers, dwell upon that—and then let those who have the atrocious hardihood to do so, speak of the kindliness of the planters hearts. Kindliness! kindliness, to cram the leg of a turkey down a man’s throat, while his yoke-fellow in bondage is fracturing his tender woolly skull—for all negroes, as is well known, have craniums, much thinner, and more fragile than an egg-shell—with so tremendous a weapon as a silver ladle? Ay, a silver ladle!!! Some people make light of a silver ladle as an instrument of punishment—it is spoken of as a very slight affair, and that the blows inflicted by it are mere child’s play. If any of you, my beloved hearers, labour under this delusion, and will allow me, for your edification, to hammer you about the chops with one of the aforesaid silver soup-ladles of those yellow tyrants, for one little half hour, I pledge myself the delusion shall be dispelled once and for ever. Well then, after this fearful scene has continued for, I dare not say how long—the black butler—ay, the black butler, a slave himself—oh, my friends, even the black butlers are slaves the very men who minister the wine in health which maketh their hearts glad, and the castor oil in sickness, which maketh them any thing but of a cheerful countenance—this very black butler is desired, on peril of having a drumstick stuck into his own gizzard also, and his skull fractured by the aforesaid iron ladles—red hot, it may be—ay, and who shall say they are not full of molten lead? yes, molten lead— does not our reverend brother Lachrimac Roarem say that the ladles might have been full of molten lead, and what evidence have we on the other side, that they were not full of molten lead? Why, none at all, none— nothing but the oaths of all the naval and military officers who have ever served in these pestilent settlements; and of all the planters and merchants in the West Indies, the interested planters—those planters who suborn all the navy and army to a man—those planters whose molasses is but another name for human blood. (Here a large puff and blow, and a swabification of the white handkerchief, while the congregation blow a flourish of trumpets.) My friends—(another puff)—my friends—we all know, my friends, that bullocks blood is largely used in the sugar refineries in England, but, alas! there is no bullocks blood used in the refineries in the West Indies. This I will prove to you on the oath of six dissenting clergymen. No. What then is the inference? Oh, is it not palpable? Do you not every day, as jurors, hang men on circumstantial evidence? Are not many of yourselves hanged and transported every year, on the simple fact being proved, of your being found stooping down in pity over some poor fellow with a broken head, with your hands in his breeches pockets in order to help him up? And can you fail to draw the proper inference in the present case? Oh, no! no! my friends, it is the blood of the negroes that is used in these refining pandemoniums of the poor negroes, who are worth one hundred pounds apiece to their masters, and on whose health and capacity for work these same planters absolutely and entirely depend.”

Here our friend gathered all his energies, and began to roar like a perfect bull of Bashan, and to swing his arms about like the sails of a windmill, and to stamp and jump, and lollop about with his body as he went on.

“Well, this butler, this poor black butler—this poor black slave butler this poor black Christian slave butler—for he may have been a Christian, and most likely was a Christian, and indeed must have been a Christian—is enforced, after all the cruelties already related, on pain of being choked with the leg of a turkey himself, and having molten lead poured down his own throat, to do what?—who would not weep?—to—to—to chuck each of his fellow-servants, poor miserable creatures! each with a bone in his throat, and molten lead in his belly, and a fractured skull—to chuck them, neck and croup, one after another, down a dark staircase, a pitch-dark staircase, amidst a chaos of plates and dishes, and the hardest and most expensive china, and the finest cut crystal— that the wounds inflicted may be the keener and silver spoons, and knives and forks. Yea, my Christian brethren, carving knives and pitchforks right down on the top of their brown mistresses, who are thereby invariably bruised like the clown in the pantomime—at least as I am told he is, for I never go to such profane Places—oh, no!—bruised as flat as pancakes, and generally murdered outright on the spot. Last of all the landlord gets up, and kicks the miserable butler himself down after his mates, into the very heart of the living mass; and this not once and away, but every day in the week, Sundays not excepted. Oh, my dear, dear hearers, can you can you, with your fleshy hearts thumping and bumping against your small ribs, forget the black butler, and the mulatto concubines, and the pitchforks, and the iron ladles full of molten lead? My feelings overpower me, I must conclude. Go in peace, and ponder these things in your hearts, and pay your sixpences at the doors.—Exeunt omnes, piping their eyes, and blowing their noses.”

Our shouts of laughter interrupted our friend, who never moved a muscle.

Again, where old Crowfoot asks his steward—“How does the privateer lay?”

“There again now,” said Aaron, with an irritable grin,—“why, Tom, your style is most pestilent—you lay here and you lay there—are you sure that you are not a hen, Tom?”

One more touch at Massa Aaron, and I have done. After coming to the description of the horrible carnage that the fire from the Transport caused on the privateer’s deck before she sheered off, I remarked “I never recall that early and dismal scene to my recollection,—the awful havoc created on the schooner’s deck by our fire, the struggling, and crawling, and wriggling of the dark mass of wounded men, as they endeavoured, fruitlessly, to shelter themselves from our guns, even behind the dead bodies of their slain shipmates—without conjuring up a very fearful and harrowing image.”

“Were you ever at Biggleswade, my dear sir?”

“To be sure I have,” said Mr Bang.

“Then did you ever see an eel-pot, with the water drawn off, when the snake-like fish were twining, and twisting, and crawling, like Brobdignag maggots, in living knots, a horrible and disgusting mass of living abomination, amidst the filthy slime at the bottom?”

“Ach—have done, Tom—hang your similes. Can’t you cut your coat by me, man? Only observe the delicacy of mine.”

“The corby craw for instance,” said I, laughing.

“Ever at Biggleswade!” struck in Paul Gelid. “Ever at Biggleswade! Lord love you, Cringle, we have all been at Biggleswade. Don’t you know,” (how he conceived I should have known, I am sure I never could tell,) “don’t you know that Wagtail and I once made a voyage to England, ay, in the hurricane months, too—ah—for the express purpose of eating eels there,—and Lord, Tom, my dear fellow,” (here he sunk his voice into a most dolorous key,) “let me tell you that we were caught in a hurricane, in the Gulf, and very nearly lost, when, instead of eating eels, sharks would have eaten usah—and at length driven into Havannah— ah. And when we did get home”—(here I thought my excellent friend would have cried outright)—“Lord, sir! we found that the fall was not the season to eat eels in after all—ah—that is, in perfection. But we found out from Whiffle, whom we met in town, and who had learned it from the guard of the North mail, that one of the last season’s pots was still on hand at Biggleswade; so down we trundled in the mail that very evening.”

“And don’t you remember the awful cold I caught that night, being obliged to go outside?” quoth Waggy.

“Ah, and so you did, my dear fellow,” continued his ally.

“But gracious—on alighting, we found that the agent of a confounded gormandizing Lord Mayor had that very evening boned the entire contents of the only remaining pot, for a cursed livery dinnerah. Eels, indeed! we got none but those of the new catch, full of mud, and tasting of mud and red worms. Wagtail was really very ill in consequence—ah.”

Pepperpot had all this while listened with mute attention, as if the narrative had been most moving, and I question not he thought so; but Bang—oh, the rogue!—looked also very grave and sympathizing, but there was a laughing devil in his eye, that showed he was inwardly enjoying the beautiful rise of his friends.

We were here interrupted by a hail from the look-out man at the masthead,——‘Land right a-head.’

“What does it look like?” said I.

“It makes in low hummocks, sir. Now I see houses on the highest one.”

“Hurrah, Nassau, New Providence, ho!”

Shortly after we made the land about Nassau, the breeze died away, and it fell nearly calm.

“I say, Thomas,” quoth Aaron, “for this night at least we must still be your guests, and lumber you on board of your seventy-four. No chance, so far as I see, of getting into port to-night; at least if we do, it will be too late to go on shore.”

He said truly, and we therefore made up our mind to sit down once more to our rough and round dinner, in the small, hot, choky cabin of the Wave. As it happened, we were all in high glee. I flattered myself that my conduct in the late affair would hoist me up a step or two on the roster for promotion, and my excellent friends were delighted at the idea of getting on shore.

After the cloth had been drawn, Mr Bang opened his fire.

“Tom, my boy, I respect your service, but I have no great ambition to belong to it. I am sure no bribe that I am aware of could ever tempt me to make ‘my home upon the deep,’ and I really am not sure that it is a very gentlemanly calling after all.—Nay, don’t look glum; what I meant was, the egregious weariness of spirit you must all undergo from consorting with the same men day after day, hearing the same jokes repeated for the hundredth time, and, whichever way you turn, seeing the same faces morning, noon, and night, and listening to the same voices. Oh! I should die in a year’s time were I to become a sailor.”

“But,” rejoined I, “you have your land bores in the same way that we have our sea bores; and we have this advantage over you, that if the devil should stand at the door, we can always escape from them sooner or later, and can buoy up our souls with the certainty that we can so escape from them at the end of the cruise at the farthest; whereas if you happen to have taken root amidst a colony of bores on shore, why you never can escape, unless you sacrifice all your temporalities for that purpose; ergo, my dear sir, our life has its advantages, and yours has it disadvantages.”

“Too true—too true,” rejoined Mr Bang. “In fact, judging from my own small experience, Borism is fast attaining a head it never reached before. Speechifying is the crying and prominent vice of the age. Why will the ganders not recollect that eloquence is the gift of heaven, Thomas? A man may improve it unquestionably, but the Promethean fire, the electrical spark, must be from on high. No mental perseverance or education could ever have made a Demosthenes, or a Cicero, in the ages long past; nor an Edmund Burke.”

“Nor an Aaron Bang in times present,” said I.

“Hide my roseate blushes, Thomas,” quoth Aaron, as he continued—“Would that men would speak according to their gifts, study Shakspeare and Don Quixote, and learn of me; and that the real blockhead would content himself with speaking when he is spoken to, drinking when he is drunken to, and ganging to the kirk when the bell rings. You never can go into a party nowadays, that you don’t meet with some shallow, prosing, pestilent ass of a fellow, who thinks that empty sound is conversation; and not unfrequently there is a spice of malignity in the blockhead’s composition; but a creature of this calibre you can wither, for it is not worth crushing, by withholding the sunshine of your countenance from it, or by leaving it to drivel on, until the utter contempt of the whole company claps to change the figure—a wet night—cap as an extinguisher on it, and its small stinking flame flickers and goes out of itself. Then there is your sentimental water-fly, who blaws in the lugs of the women, and clips the King’s English, and your high-flying dominie body, who whumles them outright. I speak in a figure. But all these are as dust in the balance to the wearisome man of ponderous acquirements, the solemn blockhead who usurps the pas, and if he happen to be rich, fancies himself entitled to prose and palaver away, as if he were Sir Oracle, or as if the pence in his purse could ever fructify the cauld parritch in his pate into pregnant brain. There is a plateful of P’s for you at any rate, Tom. Beautiful exemplification of the art alliterative—an’t it?”

‘Oh that Heaven the gift would gie us,
To see ourselves as others see us!’

My dear boy, speechifying has extinguished conversation. Public meetings, God knows, are rife enough, and why will the numskulls not confine their infernal dullness to them? why not be satisfied with splitting the ears of the groundlings there? why will they not consider that convivial conversation should be lively as the sparkle of musketry, brilliant, sharp, and sprightly, and not like the thundering of heavy cannon, or heavier bombs.—But no—you shall ask one of the Drawleys across the table to take wine. ‘Ah,’ says he—and how he makes out the concatenation, God only knows—‘this puts me in mind, Mr Thingumbob, of what happened when I was chairman of the county club, on such a day. Alarming times these were, and deucedly nervous I was when I got up to return thanks. My friends, said I, this unexpected and most unlooked— for honour—this’—Here blowing all your breeding to the winds, you fire a question across his bows into the fat pleasant fellow, who speaks for society beyond him, and expect to find that the dull sailor has hauled his wind, or dropped astern—(do you twig how nautical I have become in my lingo under Tailtackle’s tuition, Tom?)—but, alas! no sooner has the sparkle of our fat friend’s wit lit up the whole worshipful society, than at the first lull, down comes Drawley again upon you, like a heavy-sterned Dutch dogger, right before the wind—‘As I was saying—this unexpected and most unlooked-for honour’—and there you are pinned to the stake, and compelled to stand the fire of all his blunt bird-boltst for half an hour on end. At length his mud has all dribbled from him, and you hug yourself—‘Ah,—come, here is a talking man opening his fire, so we shall have some conversation at last.’ But alas and alack a day! Prosey the second chimes in, and works away, and hems and haws, and hawks up some old scraps of schoolboy Latin and Greek, which are all Hebrew to you, honest man, until at length he finishes off by some solemn twaddle about fossil turnips and vitrified brickbats; and thus concludes Fozy No. 2. Oh, shade of Edie Ochiltree! that we should stand in the taunt of such unmerciful spendthrifts of our time on earth! Besides, the devil of it is, that whatever may be said of the flippant palaverers, the heavy bores are generally most excellent and amiable men, so that one can’t abuse the sumphs with any thing like a quiet conscience.”

“Come,” said I, “my dear sir, you are growing satirical.”

“Quarter less three,” sung out the leadsman in the chains.

We were now running in past the end of Hog Island to the port of Nassau, where the lights were sparkling brightly. We anchored, but it was too late to go on shore that evening, so, after a parting glass of swizzle, we all turned in for the night.

To be near the wharf, for the convenience of refitting, I had run the schooner close in, being aware of the complete security of the harbour, so that in the night I could feel the little vessel gently take the ground. This awoke me and several of the crew, for accustomed as sailors are to the smooth bounding motion of a buoyant vessel, rising and falling on the heaving bosom of the ocean, the least touch on the solid ground, or against any hard floating substance, thrills to their hearts with electrical quickness. Through the thin bulkhead I could hear the officers speaking to each other.

“We are touching the ground,” said one.

“And if we be, there is no sea here—all smooth-land-locked entirely,” quoth another.

So all hands of us, except the watch on deck, snoozed away once more into the land of deep forgetfulness. We had all for some days previously been over-worked, and over-fatigued; indeed, ever since the action had caused the duty of the little vessel to devolve on one half of her original crew, those who had escaped had been subjected to great privations, and were nearly worn out.

It might have been four bells in the middle watch, when I was awakened by the discontinuance of Mr Swop’s heavy step over head; but judging that the poor fellow might have toppled over into a slight temporary snooze, I thought little of it, persuaded as I was that the vessel was lying in the most perfect safety. In this belief I was falling over once more, when I heard a short startled grunt from one of the men in the steerage,—then a sudden sharp exclamation from another—a louder ejaculation of surprise from a third—and presently Mr Wagtail, who was sleeping on a matrass spread on the locker below me, gave a spluttering cough. A heavy splash followed, and, simultaneously, several of the men forward shouted out “Ship MI of water—water up to our hammocks;” while Waggy, who had rolled off his narrow couch, sang out at the top of his pipe, “I am drowned, Bang. Tom Cringle, my dear—Gelid, I am drowned— we are all drowned—the ship is at the bottom of the sea, and we shall have eels enough here, if we had none at Biggleswade. Oh! murder! murder!”

“Sound the well,” I could hear Tailtackle, who had run on deck, sing out.

“No use in that,” I called out, as I splashed out of my warm cot, up to my knees in water.

“Bring a light, Mr Tailtackle; a bottom plank must have started, or a but, or a hidden-end. The schooner is full of water beyond doubt, and as the tide is still making, stand by to hoist out the boats, and get the wounded into them. But don’t be alarmed, men; the schooner is on the ground, and it is near high-water. So be cool and quiet. Don’t bother now—don’t.”

By the time I had finished my extempore speech I was on deck, where I soon found that, in very truth, there was no use in sounding the well, or manning the pumps either, as some wounded plank had been crushed out bodily by the pressure of the vessel when she took the ground; and there she lay—the tidy little Wave—regularly bilged, with the tide flowing into her.

Every one of the crew was now on the alert. Bedding and bags and some provisions were placed in the boats of the schooner; and several craft from the shore, hearing the alarm, were now alongside; so danger there was none, except that of catching cold, and I therefore bethought me of looking in on my guests in the cabin. I descended and waded into our late dormitory with a candle in my hand and the water nearly up to my waist. I there found my steward, also with a light, splashing about in the water, catching a stray hat here, and fishing up a spare coat there, and anchoring a chair, with a piece of spunyarn, to the pillar of the small side-berth on the starboard side, while our friend Massa Aaron was coolly lying in his cot on the larboard, the bottom of which was by this time within an inch of the surface of the water, and bestirring himself in an attempt to get his trowsers on, which by some lucky chance he had stowed away under his pillow overnight, and there he was sticking up first one peg and then another, until by sidling and shifting in his narrow lair, he contrived to rig himself in his nether garments. “But, steward, my good man,” he was saying when I entered, “where is my coat, eh?” The man groped for a moment down in the water, which his nose dipped into, with his shirt-sleeves tucked up to his arm-pits, and then held up some dark object, that, to me at least, looked like a piece of black cloth hooked out of a dyer’s vat. Alas! this was Massa Aaron’s coat; and while the hats were bobbing at each other in the other corner like seventy-fours, with a squadron of shoes in their wakes, and Wagtail was sitting in the side-berth with his wet night-gown drawn about him, his muscular development in high relief through the clinging drapery, and bemoaning his fate in the most pathetic manner—that can be conceived, our ally Aaron exclaimed, “I say, Tom, how do you like the cut of my Sunday coat, eh?” while our friend Paul Gelid, who it seems had slept through the whole row, was at length startled out of his sleep, and sticking one of his long shanks over the side of his cot in act to descend, immersed it in the cold salt brine.

“Lord! Wagtail,” he exclaimed, “my dear fellow, the cabin is full of water—we are sinking—ah! Deucedly annoying to be drowned in this hole, amidst dirty water, like a tubful of ill—washed potatoes—ah.”

“Tom—Tom Cringle,” shouted Mr Bang at this juncture, while he looked over the edge of his cot on the stramash below, “saw ever any man the like of that? Why, see there—there, just under your candle, Tom—a bird’s nest floating about with a mavis in it, as I am a gentleman.”

“D——n your bird’s nest and mavis too, whatever that may be,” roared little Mr Pepperpot.

“By Jupiter, it is my wig, with a live rat in it.”

“Confound your wig!—ah,” quoth Paul, as the steward fished up what I took at first for a pair of brimfull water-stoups. “Zounds! look at my boots.”

“And confound both the wig and boots, say I,” sung out Mr Bang. “Look at my Sunday coat. Why, who set the ship onfire, Tom?”

Here his eye caught mine, and a few words sufficed to explain how we were situated, and then the only bother was how to get ashore, and where we were to sojourn, so as to have our clothes dried, as nothing could now be done until daylight. I therefore got our friends safely into a Nassau boat alongside, with their wet trunks and portmanteaus in charge of their black servants, and left them to fish their way to their lodging-house as they best could. By this, the wounded and the sound part of the crew had been placed on board of two merchant brigs, that lay close to us; and the masters of them proving accommodating men, I got them alongside, as the tide flowed, one on the starboard, the other on the larboard side, right over the Wave; and next forenoon, when they took the ground, we rigged two spare topmasts from one vessel to another, and making the main and fore rigging of the schooner fast to them, as the tide once more made, we weighed her, and floated her alongside of the sheer-hulk, against which we were enabled to heave her out, so as to get at the leak, and then by rigging bilge-pumps, we contrived to free her and keep her dry. The damaged plank was soon removed; and, being in a fair way to surmount all my difficulties, about half-past five in the evening I equipped myself in dry clothes, and proceeded on shore to call on our friends at their new domicile. When I entered. I was shown into the dining hall by my ally, Pegtop.

“Massa will be here presently, sir.”

“Oh—tell him he need not hurry himself:—But how are Mr Bang and his friends?”

“Oh, dem all wery so so, only Massa Wagtail hab take soch a terrible cold, dat him tink he is going to dead; him wery sorry for himshef, for true massa.”

“But where are the gentlemen, Pegtop?”

“All, every one on dem, is in him bed. Wet clothes have been drying all day.”

“And when do they mean to dine?”

Here Pegtop doubled himself up, and laughed like to split himself.

“Dem is all dining in bed, Massa. Shall I show you to dem?”

“I shall be obliged; but don’t let me intrude. Give my compliments, and say I have looked in simply to enquire after their health.”

Here Mr Wagtail shouted from the inner apartment.

“Hillo! Tom, my boy! Tom Cringle!—here, my lad, here!”

I was shown into the room from whence the voice proceeded, which happened to be Massa Aaron’s bedroom: and there were my three friends stretched on sofas, in their night-clothes, with a blanket, sheet, and counterpane over each, forming three sides of a square round a long table, on which a most capital dinner was smoking, with wines of several kinds, and a perfect galaxy of wax candles, and their sable valets, in nice clean attire, and smart livery coats, waiting on them.

“Ah, Tom,” quoth Massa Paul, “delighted to see you,—come, you seem to have dry clothes on, so take the head of the table.”

I did so; and broke ground forthwith with great zeal.

“Tom, a glass of wine, my dear,” said Aaron. “Don’t you admire us classical, after the manner of the ancients, eh? Wagtail’s head-dress, and Paul’s night-cap—oh, the comforts of a woollen one! Ah, Tom, Tom, the Greeks had no Kilmamock—none.”

We all carried on cheerily, and Bang began to sparkle.

“Well, now since you have weighed the schooner and found not much wanting I feel my spirits rising again.—A glass of champagne, Tom, your health, boy.—The dip the old hooker has got must have surprises the rats and cockroaches. Do you know, Tom, I really have an idea of writing a history of the cruise; only I am deterred from the melancholy consciousness that every blockhead nowadays fancies he can write.”

“Why, my dear sir, are you not coquetting for a compliment? Don’t we all know, that many of the crack articles in Ebony’s Mag” “Bah,” clapping his hand on my mouth; “hold your tongue; all wrong in that....”

“Well, if it be not you then, I scarcely know to whom to attribute them. Until lately, I only knew you as the warm hearted West Indian gentleman; but now I am certain I am to....”

“Tom, hold your tongue, my beautiful little man. For, although I must plead guilty to having mixed a little in literary society in my younger days—Alas! my heart, those days are gane.”

“Ah, Mr Swop,” continued Mr Bang, as the master was ushered into the room. “Plate and glasses for Mr Swop.”

The sailor bowed, perched himself on the very edge of his chair, scarcely within long arm’s length of the table, and sitting bolt upright, as if he had swallowed a spare studdingsail-boom, drank our healths, and smoothed down his hair on his brow.

“Captain, I come to report the schooner ready to...”

“Poo,” rattled out Mr Bang; “time for your tale by and by;—help yourself to some of that capital beef, Peter,—So—Yes, my love,” continued our friend, resuming his yarn. “I once coped even with John Wilson himself. Yea, in the fullness of my powers, I feared not even the Professor.”

“Indeed!” said I.

“True, as I am a gentleman. Why, I once, in a public trial of skill, beat him, even him, by eighteen measured inches, from toe to heel.”

I stared.

“I was the slighter man of the two, certainly. Still, in a flying leap, I always had the best of it, until he astonished the world with the Isle of Palms. From that day forth, my springiness and elasticity left me. Fallen was my muscles brawny vaunt. I quailed. My genius stood rebuked before him. Nevertheless, at hop-step-and-jump I was his match still. When out came the City of the Plague! From that the Great Ostrich could not hold the candle to the Flying Philosopher. And now, heaven help me! I can scarcely cover nineteen feet, with every advantage of ground for the run. It is true, the Professor was always in condition, and never required training; now, unless I had time for my hard food, I was seldom in wind.”

Mr Peter Swop, emboldened and brightened by the wine he had so industriously swilled, and willing to contribute his quota of conversation, having previously jumbled in his noddle what Mr Bang had said about an ostrich, and hard food, asked, across the table “Do you believe ostriches eat iron, Mr Bang?”

Mr Bang slowly put down his glass, and looking with the most imperturbable seriousness the innocent master right in the face, exclaimed:

“Ostriches eat iron!—Do I believe ostriches eat iron, did you say, Mr Swop? Will you have the great kindness to tell me if this glass of madeira be poison, Mr Swop? Why, when Captain Cringle there was in the Bight of Benin, from which ‘One comes out where a hundred go in,’ on board of the—what—d’ye-call-her? I forget her name—they had a tame ostrich, which was the wonder of the whole squadron. At the first go off it had plenty of food, but at length they had to put it on short allowance of a Winchester bushel of tenpenny nails and a pump-bolt a day; but their supplies failing, they had even to reduce this quantity, whereby the poor bird, after unavailing endeavours to get at the iron ballast, was driven to pick out the iron bolts of the ship in the clear moonlight nights, when no one was thinking of it; so that the craft would soon have been a perfect wreck. And as the commodore would not hear of the creature being killed, Tom there undertook to keep it on copper bolts and sheathing until they reached Cape Coast. But it would not do; the copper soured on its stomach, and it died. Believe an ostrich eats iron, quotha! But to return to the training for the jump I used to stick to beef-steaks and a thimbleful of Burton ale; and again I tried the dried knuckle parts of legs of five-year-old black faced muttons; but, latterly, I trained best, so far as wind was concerned, on birsled pease and whisky....”

“On what?” shouted I, in great astonishment. “On what?”

“Yes, my boys; parched pease and whisky. Charge properly with birsled pease, and if you take a caulkers just as you begin your run, there is the linstock to the gun for you, and away you fly through the air on the self-propelling principle of the Congreve Rocket. Well might that amiable, and venerable, and most learned Theban, Cockibus Bungo, who always held the stakes on these great occasions, exclaim, in his astonishment, to Cheesey, the janitor of many days—as ‘Like fire from flint I glanced away,’ disdaining the laws of gravitation—by Mercury, I swear,—yea, by his winged heel, I shall have at the Professor yet, if I live, and whisky and birsled pease fail me not.”

Here Paul and I laughed outright; but Mr Wagtail appeared out of sorts, somehow; and Swop looked first at one, and then at another, with a look of the most ludicrous uncertainty as to whether Mr Bang was quizzing him, or telling a verity.

“Why, Wagtail,” said Gelid, “what ails you, my boy?”

I looked towards our little amiable fat friend. His face was much flushed, although I learned that he had been unusually abstemious, and he appeared heated and restless, and had evidently feverish symptoms about him.

“Who’s there?” said Wagtail, looking towards the door with a raised look.

It was Tailtackle, with two of the boys carrying a litter, followed by Peter Mangrove, as if he had been chief mourner at a funeral. Out of the litter a black paw, with fishes or splints whipped round it by a band of spunyam, protruded, and kept swaying about like a pendulum.

“What have you got there, Mr Tailtackle?”

The gunner turned round.

“Oh, it is a vagary of Peter Mangrove’s, sir. Not contented with getting the doctor to set Sneezer’s starboard foreleg, he insists on bringing him away from amongst the people at the capstan-house.”

“True, Massa—Massa Tailtackle say true; de poor dumb dog never shall cure him leg none at all, mong de men dere; dey all love him so mosh, and make of him so mosh, and stuff him wid salt wittal so mosh, till him blood inflammation like a hell; and den him so good temper, and so gratify wid dere attention, dat I believe him will eat till him kickeriboo of sorefut, [surfeit, I presumed;] and, beside, I know de dog healt will instantly mend if him see you. Oh, Massa Aaron, [our friend was smiling,] it not like you to make fun of poor black fellow, when him is take de part of soch old friend as poor Sneezer. De Captain dere cannot laugh, dat is if him will only tink on dat fearful cove at Puerto Escondido, and what Sneezer did for bote of we dere.”

“Well, well, Mangrove, my man,” said Mr Bang, “I will ask leave of my friends here to have the dog bestowed in a corner of the piazza, so let the boys lay him down there, and here is a glass of grog for you—so. Now go back again,”—as the poor fellow had drank our health’s.

Here Sneezer, who had been still as a mouse all this while, put his black snout out of the hammock, and began to cheep and whine in his gladness at seeing his master, and the large tears ran down his coal black muzzle as he licked my hand, while every now and then he gave a short fondling bark, as if he had said, “Ah, master, I thought you had forgotten me altogether, ever since the action where I got my leg broke by a grape-shot, but I find I am mistaken.”

“Now, Tailtackle, what say you?”

“We may ease off the tackles to-morrow afternoon,” said the gunner, “and right the schooner, sir; we have put in a dozen cashew knees, as tough as leather, and bolted the planks tight and fast. You saw these heavy quarters did us no good, sir; I hope you will beautify her again, now since the Spaniard’s shot has pretty well demolished them already. I hope you won’t replace them, sir. I hope Captain Transom may see her as she should be, as she was when your honour had your first pleasure cruise in her.” Here—but I may have dreamed it I thought the quid in the honest fellow’s cheek stuck out in higher relief than usual for a short space.

“We shall see, we shall see,” said I.

“I say, Don Timotheus,” quoth Bang, “you don’t mean to be off without drinking our healths?” as he tipped him a tumbler of brandy grog of very dangerous strength.

The warrant officer drank it, and vanished, and presently Mr Gelid’s brother, who had just returned from one of the out islands, made his appearance, and after the greeting between them was over, the stranger advanced, and with much grace invited us en masse to his house. But by this time Mr Wagtail was so ill, that we could not move that night, our chief concern now being to see him properly bestowed; and very soon I was convinced that his disease was a violent bilious fever.

The old brown landlady, like all her caste, was a most excellent nurse; and after the most approved and skilful surgeon of the town had seen him, and prescribed what was thought right, we all turned in. Next morning, before any of us were up, a whole plateful of cards were handed to us, and during the forenoon these were followed by as many invitations to dinner. We had difficulty in making our election, but that day I remember we dined at the beautiful Mrs C——‘s, and in the evening adjourned to a ball—a very gay affair; and I do freely avow, that I never saw so many pretty women in a community of the same size before. Oh! it was a little paradise, and not without its Eve. But such an Eve! I scarcely think the old Serpent himself could have found it in his heart to have beguiled her.

“I say, Tom, my dear boy,” said Mr Bang, “do you see that darling? Oh, who can picture to himself, without a tear, that such a creature of light, such an ethereal-looking thing, whose step ‘would ne’er wear out the everlasting flint,’ that floating gossamer on the thin air, shall one day become an anxious-looking, sharp-featured, pale-faced, loud tongued, thin-bosomed, broad bottomed wife!”

The next day, or rather in the same night, his Majesty’s ship Rabo arrived, and the first tidings we had of it in the morning were communicated by Captain Qeuedechat himself, an honest, uproarious sailor, who chose to begin, as many a worthy ends, by driving up to the door of the lodging in a cart.

“Is the Captain of the small schooner that was swamped, here?” he asked of Massa Pegtop.

Free and easy this, thought I.

“Yes, sir, Captain Cringle is here, but him no get up yet.” “Oh, never mind, tell him not to hurry himself; but where is the table laid for breakfast?”

“Here, sir,” said Pegtop, as he showed him into the piazza.

“Ah, that will do—so give me the newspaper—tol de rol,” and he began reading and singing, in all the buoyancy of mind consequent on escaping from shipboard after a three months cruise.

I dressed and came to him as soon as I could; and the gallant Captain, whom I had figured to myself a fine light gossamer lad of twenty-two, stared me in the face as a fat elderly cock of forty at the least; and as to bulk, I would not have guaranteed that eighteen stone could have made him kick the beam. However, he was an excellent fellow, and that day he and his crew were of most essential service in assisting me in refitting the Wave, for which I shall always be grateful. I had spent the greater part of the forenoon in my professional duty, but after two o’clock I had knocked off, in order to make a few calls on the families to whom I had introductions, and who were afterwards so signally kind to me. I then returned to our lodgings in order to dress for dinner, before I sallied forth to worthy old Mr N——‘s, where we were all to dine, when I met Aaron.

“No chance of our removing to Peter Gelid’s this evening.”

“Why?” I asked.

“Oh, poor Pepperpot Wagtail is become alarmingly ill; inflammatory symptoms have appeared, and”—Here the colloquy was cut short by the entrance of Mrs Peter Celid—a pretty woman enough. She had come to learn herself from our landlady, how Mr Wagtail was, and with the kindliness of the country, she volunteered to visit poor little Waggy in his sick-bed. I did not go into the room with her; but when she returned, she startled us all a good deal, by stating her opinion that the worthy man was really very ill, in which she was corroborated by the doctor, who now arrived. So soon as the medico saw him, he bled him, and after prescribing a lot of effervescing draughts, and various febrifuge mixtures, he left a large blister with the old brown landlady, to be applied over his stomach if the wavering and flightiness did not leave him before morning. We returned early after dinner from Mr N——‘s to our lodgings, and as I knew Gelid was expected at his brother’s in the evening, to meet a large assemblage of kindred, and as the night was rainy and tempestuous, I persuaded him to trust the watch to me; and as our brown landlady had been up nearly the whole of the previous night, I sent for Tailtackle to spell me, while the black valets acted with great assiduity in their capacity of surgeon’s mates. About two in the morning Mr Wagtail became delirious, and it was all that I could do, aided by my sable assistants, and an old black nurse, to hold him down in his bed. Now was the time to clap on the blister, but he repeatedly tore it off, so that at length we had to give it up for an impracticable job; and Tailtackle, whom I had called from his pallet, where he had gone to lie down for an hour, placed the caustico, as the Spaniards call it, at the side of the bed.

“No use in trying this any more at present,” said I; “we must wait until he gets quieter, Mr Tailtackle; so go to your bed, and I shall lie down on this sofa here, where Marie Paparoche” (this was our old landlady) “has spread sheets, I see, and made all comfortable. And send Mr Bang’s servant, will you;” (friend Aaron had ridden into the country after dinner to visit a friend, and the storm, as I conjectured, had kept him there;) “he is fresh, and will call me in case I be wanted, or Mr Wagtail gets worse.”

I lay down, and soon fell fast asleep, and I remembered nothing, until I awoke about eleven o’clock next morning, and heard Mr Bang speaking to Wagtail, at whose bedside he was standing.

“Pepperpot, my dear, be thankful—you are quite cool—a fine moisture on your skin this morning—be thankful, my little man how did your blister rise?”

“My good friend,” quoth Wagtail, in a thin weak voice, “I can’t tell—I don’t know; but this I perceive, that I am unable to rise, whether it has risen or no.”

“Ah—weak,” quoth Gelid, who had now entered the room.

“Nay,” said Pepperpot, “not so weak as deucedly sore, and on a very unromantic spot, my dears.”

“Why,” said Aaron, “the pit of the stomach is not a very genteel department, nor the abdomen neither.”

“Why,” said Wagtail, “I have no blister on either of those places, but if it were possible to dream of such a thing, I would say it had been clapped on....”

Here his innate propriety tongue-tied him.

“Eh?” said Aaron; “what—has the caustico that was intended for the frontiers of Belgium been clapped by mistake on the broad Pays Bas?”

And so in very truth it turned out; for while we slept, the patient had risen, and sat down on the blister that lay, as already mentioned, on a chair at his bedside, and again toppling into bed, had fallen into a sound sleep, from which he had but a few moments before the time I write of awoke.

“Why, now,” continued Aaron, to the doctor of the Wave who had just entered—“why, here is a discovery, my dear doctor. You clap a hot blister on a poor fellow’s head to cool it, but Doctor Cringle there has cooled Master Wagtail’s brain, by blistering his stern—eh?—Make notes, and mind you report this to the College of Surgeons.”

I cleared myself of these imputations. Wagtail recovered; our refitting was completed; our wood, and water, and provisions, replenished; and, after spending one of the happiest fortnights of my life, in one continued round of gaiety, I prepared to leave—with tears in my eyes, I will confess—the clear waters, bright blue skies, glorious climate, and warm hearted community of Nassau, New Providence. Well might that old villain Blackbeard have made this sweet spot his favourite rendezvous. By the way, this same John Teach or Blackbeard, had fourteen wives in the lovely island; and I am not sure but I could have picked out something approximating to the aforesaid number myself, with time and opportunity, from among such a galaxy of loveliness as then shone and sparkled in this dear little town. Speaking of the pirate Blackbeard, I ought to have related that one morning when I was at breakfast at Mrs C——‘s, the amiable, and beautiful, and innocent girl matron ay, you supercilious son of a sea-cook, you may turn up your nose at the expression, but if you could have seen the burden of my song as I saw her, and felt the elegancies of her manner and conversation as I felt them—but let us stick to Blackbeard, if you please. We were all comfortably seated at breakfast; I had finished my sixth egg, had concealed a beautiful dried snapper, before which even a rizzard haddock sank into insignificance, and was bethinking me of finishing off with a slice of Scotch mutton-ham, when in slid Mr Bang. He was received with all possible cordiality, and commenced operations very vigorously.

He was an amazing favourite of our hostess, (as where was he not a favourite?) so that it was some time before he even looked my way. We were in the midst of a discussion regarding the beauty of New Providence, and the West India Islands in general; and I was remarking that nature had been liberal, that the scenery was unquestionably magnificent in the larger islands, and beautiful in the smaller; but there were none of those heart-stirring reminiscences, none of those thrilling electrical associations, which vibrate to the heart at visiting scenes in Europe famous in antiquity—famous as the spot in which recent victories had been achieved—famous even for the very freebooters, who once held unlawful sway in the neighbourhood. “Why, there never has flourished hereabouts, for instance, even one thoroughly melodramatic thief.” Massa Aaron let me go on, until he had nearly finished his breakfast. At length he fired a shot at me.

“I say, Tom, you are expatiating, I see. Nothing heart stirring, say you? In new countries it would bother you to have old associations certainly; and you have had your Rob Roy, I grant you, and the old country has had her Robin Hood. But has not Jamaica had her Three fingered Jack? Ay, a more gentlemanlike scoundrel than either of the former. When did jack refuse a piece of yam, and a cordial from his horn, to the wayworn man, white or black? When did he injure a woman? When did Jack refuse food and a draught of cold water, the greatest boon, in our ardent climate, that he could offer, to a wearied child? Oh, there was much poetry in the poor fellow! And here, had they not that most melodramatic (as you choose to word it) of thieves, Blackbeard, before whom Bluebeard must for ever hide his diminished head? Why, Bluebeard had only one wife at a time, although he murdered five of them, whereas Blackbeard had seldom fewer than a dozen, and he was never known to murder above three. But I have fallen in with such a treasure! Oh, such a discovery! I have been communing with Noah himself with an old negro, who remembers this very Blackbeard—the pirate Blackbeard.”

“The deuce,” said I; “impossible!” “But it is true. Why it is only ninety-four years ago since the scoundrel flourished, and this old cock is one hundred and ten. I have jotted it down—worth a hundred pounds. Read, my adorable Mrs C——, read.”

“But, my dear Mr Bang,” said she, “had you not better read it yourself?”

“You, if you please,” quoth Aaron, who forthwith set himself to make the best use of his time.

MEMOIR OF JOHN TEACH, ESQUIRE VULGARLY CALLED BLACKBEARD.
BY AARON BANGS, ESQUIRE, F.R.S.
“He was the mildest mannered man.
That ever scuttled ship, or cut a throat;
With such true breeding of a gentleman,
You never could discern his real thought.
Pity he loved adventurous life’s variety,
He was so great a loss to good society.”

John Teach, or Blackbeard, was a very eminent man—a very handsome man, and a very devil amongst the ladies.

He was a Welshman, and introduced the leek into Nassau about the year 1718, and was a very remarkable personage, although, from some singular imperfection in his moral constitution, he never could distinguish clearly between meum and tuum.

He found his patrimony was not sufficient to support him; and as he disliked agricultural pursuits as much as mercantile, he got together forty or fifty fine young men one day, and borrowed a vessel from some merchants that was lying at the Nore, and set sail for the Bahamas. On his way he fell in with several West Indiamen, and, sending a boat on board of each, he asked them for the loan of provisions and wine, and all their gold, and silver, and clothes, which request was in every instance but one civilly acceded to; whereupon, drinking their good healths, he returned to his ship. In the instance where he had been uncivilly treated, to show his forbearance, he saluted them with twenty one guns; but by some accident the shot had not been withdrawn, so that unfortunately the contumacious ill bred craft sank, and as Blackbeard’s own vessel was very crowded, he was unable to save any of the crew. He was a great admirer of fine air, and accordingly established himself on the island of New Providence, and invited a number of elegant young men, who were fond of pleasure cruises, to visit him, so that presently he found it necessary to launch forth in order to borrow more provisions.

At this period he was a great dandy; and amongst other vagaries, he allowed his beard to grow a foot long at the shortest, and then plaited it into three strands, indicating that he was a bashaw of no common dimensions. He wore red breeches, but no stockings, and sandals of bullock’s hide. He was a perfect Egyptian in his curiousness in fine linen, and his shirt was always white as the driven snow when it was clean, which was the first Sunday of every month. In waistcoats he was especially select; but the cut of them very much depended on the fashion in favour with the last gentleman he had borrowed from. He never wore any thing but a full dress purple velvet coat, under which bristled three brace of pistols, and two naked stilettoes, only eighteen inches long, and he had generally a lighted match fizzing in the bow of his cocked scraper whereat he lighted his pipe, or fired off a cannon, as pleased him.

One of his favourite amusements, when he got half slewed, was to adjourn to the hold with his compotators, and kindling some brimstone matches, to dance and roar, as if he had been the devil himself, until his allies were nearly suffocated. At another time he would blow out the candles in the cabin, and blaze away with his loaded pistols at random, right and left, whereby he severely wounded the feelings of some of his intimates by the poignancy of his wit, all of which he considered a most excellent joke. But he was kind to his fourteen wives so long as he was sober, as it is known that he never murdered above three of them. His borrowing, however, gave offence to our government, no one can tell how; and at length two of our frigates, the Lime and Pearl, then cruising off the American coast, after driving him from his, stronghold, hunted him down in an inlet in North Carolina, where, in an eight-gun schooner, with thirty desperate fellows, he made a defence worthy of his honourable life, and fought so furiously that he killed and wounded more men of the attacking party than his own crew consisted of; and following up his success, he boarded, sword in hand, the headmost of the two armed sloops, which had been detached by the frigates, with ninety men on board, to capture him; and being followed by twelve men and his trusty lieutenant, he would have carried her out and out, maugre the disparity of force, had he not fainted from loss of blood, when, falling on his back, he died where he fell, like a hero—“His face to the sky, and his feet to the foe” leaving eleven forlorn widows, being the fourteen wives, minus the three that he had throttled.

“NO CHIVALROUS ASSOCIATIONS indeed! Match me such a character as this.”

We all applauded to the echo. But I must end my song, for I should never tire in dwelling on the happy days we spent in this most enchanting little island. The lovely blithe girls, and the hospitable kind hearted men, and the children! I never saw such cherubs, with all the sprightliness of the little pale-faced creoles of the West Indies, while the healthy bloom of Old England blossomed on their cheeks.

“I say, Tom,” said Massa Aaron, on one occasion when I was rather tedious on the subject, “all those little cherubs, as you call them, at least the most of them, are the offspring of the cotton bales captured in the American war.”

“The what?” said I.

“The children of the American war—and I will prove it thus taking the time from no less an authority than Hamlet, when he chose to follow the great Dictator, Julius Caesar himself, through all the corruption of our physical nature, until he found him stopping a beer barrel—(only imagine the froth of one of our disinterested friend Buxton’s beer barrels, savouring of quassia, not hop, fizzing through the clay of Julius Caesar the Roman!)—as thus: If there had been no Yankee war, there would have been no prize cargoes of cotton sent into Nassau; if there had been no prize cargoes sent into Nassau, there would have been little money made; if there had been little money made, there would have been fewer marriages; if there had been fewer marriages, there would have been fewer cherubs. There is logic for you, my darling.”

“Your last is a non sequitur, my dear sir,” said I, laughing. “But, in the main, Parson Malthus is right, out of Ireland that is, after all.”

That evening I got into a small scrape, by impressing three apprentices out of a Scotch brig, and if Mr Bang had not stood my friend, I might have, got into serious trouble. Thanks to him, the affair was soldered.

When on the eve of sailing, my excellent friends, Messrs Bang, Gelid, and Wagtail, determined, in consequence of letters which they had received from Jamaica, to return home in a beautiful armed brig that was to sail in a few days, laden with flour. I cannot well describe how much this moved me. Young and enthusiastic as I was, I had grappled myself with hooks of steel to Mr Bang; and now, when he unexpectedly communicated his intention of leaving me, I felt more forlorn and deserted than I was willing to plead to.

“My dear boy,” said he, “make my peace with Transom. If urgent business had not pressed me, I would not have broken my promise to rejoin him; but I am imperiously called for in Jamaica, where I hope soon to see you.” He continued, with a slight tremor in his voice, which thrilled to my heart, as it vouched for the strength of his regard,—“If ever I am where you may come, Tom, and you don’t make my house your home, provided you have not a better of your own, I will never forgive you.” He paused. “You young fellows sometimes spend faster than you should do, and quarterly bills are long of coming round. I have drawn for more money than I want. I wish you would—let me be your banker for a hundred pounds, Tom.”

I squeezed his hand. “No, no—many, many thanks, my dear sir but I never outrun the constable. Goodbye, God bless you. Farewell, Mr Wagtail—Mr Gelid, adieu.” I tumbled into the boat and pulled on board. The first thing I did was to send the wine and sea stock, a most exuberant assortment unquestionably, belonging to my Jamaica friends, ashore; but, to my surprise, the boat was sent back, with Mr Bang’s card, on which was written in pencil, “Don’t affront us, Captain Cringle.” Thereupon I got the schooner under weigh, and no event worth narrating turned up until we anchored close to the post office at Crooked Island, two days after.

We found the Firebrand there, and the post-office mail-boat, with her red flag and white horse in it, and I went on board the corvette to deliver my official letter, detailing the incidents of the cruise, and was most graciously received by my captain.

There was a sail in sight when we anchored, which at first we took for the Jamaica packet; but it turned out to be the Tinker, friend Bang’s flour-loaded brig; and by five in the evening our friends were all three once more restored to us, but, alas! so far as regarded two of them, only for a moment. Messrs Gelid and Wagtail had, on second thoughts, it seems, hauled their wind to lay in a stock of turtle at Crooked Island, and I went ashore with them, and assisted in the selection from the turtle crawls filled with beautiful clear water, and lots of fine lively fresh-caught fish, the postmaster being the turtle merchant.

“I say, Paul, happier in the fish way here than you were at Biggleswade eh?” said Aaron.

After we had completed our purchases, our friends went on board the corvette, and I was invited to meet them at dinner, where the aforesaid postmaster, a stout conch, with a square-cut coatee and red cape and cuffs, was also a guest.

He must have had but a dull time of it, as there were no other white inhabitants that I saw, on the island besides himself; his wife having gone to Nassau, which he looked on as the prime city of the world, to be confined, as he told us. Bang said, that she must rather have gone to be delivered from confinement; and, in truth, Crooked Island was a most desolate domicile for a lady; our friend the postmaster’s family, and a few negroes employed in catching turtle, and making salt, and dressing some scrubby cotton-trees, composing the whole population. In the evening the packet did arrive, however, and Captain Transom received his orders.

“Captain Transom, my boy,” quoth Bang towards nightfall, “the best of friends must part—we must move—good—night—we shall be off presently good—by”—and he held out his hand.

“Devil a bit,” said Transom; “Bang, you shall not go, neither you nor your friends. You promised, in fact shipped with me for the cruise, and Lady——has my word and honour that you shall be restored to her longing eye, sound and safe—so you must all remain, and send down the flour brig to say you are coming.”

To make a long story short, Massa Aaron was boned, but his friends were obdurate, so we all weighed that night; the Tinker bearing up for Jamaica, while we kept by the wind, steering for Conaives in St Domingo.

The third day we were off Cape St Nicholas, and getting a slant of wind from the westward, we ran up the Bight of Leogane all that night, but towards morning it fell calm; we were close in under the highland, about two miles from the shore, and the night was the darkest I ever was out in anywhere. There were neither moon nor stars to be seen, and the dark clouds settled down, until they appeared to rest upon our mastheads, compressing, as it were, the hot steamy air upon us until it became too dense for breathing. In the early part of the night it had rained in heavy showers now and then, and there were one or two faint flashes of lightning, and some heavy peals of thunder, which rolled amongst the distant hills in loud shaking reverberations, which gradually became fainter and fainter, until they grumbled away in the distance in hoarse murmurs, like the low notes of an organ in one of our old cathedrals; but now there was neither rain nor wind—all nature seemed fearfully hushed; for where we lay, in the smooth bight, there was no swell, not even a ripple on the glasslike sea; the sound of the shifting of a handspike, or the tread of the men, as they ran to haul on—a rope, or the creaking of the rudder, sounded loud and distinct. The sea in our neighbourhood was strongly phosphorescent, so that the smallest chip thrown overboard struck fire from the water, as if it had been a piece of iron cast on flint; and when you looked over the quarter, as I delight to do, and tried to penetrate into the dark clear profound beneath, you every now and then saw a burst of pale light, like a halo, far down in the depths of the green sea, caused by the motion of some fish, or of what Jack, no great natural philosopher, usually calls blubbers; and when the dolphin or skip-jack leapt into the air, they sparkled out from the still bosom of the deep dark water like rockets, until they fell again into their element in a flash of fire. This evening the corvette had showed no lights, and although I conjectured she was not far from us, still I could not with any certainty indicate her whereabouts. It might now have been about three o’clock, and I was standing on the aftermost gun on the starboard side, peering into the impervious darkness over the tafferel, with my dear old dog Sneezer by my side, nuzzling and fondling after his affectionate fashion, while the pilot, Peter Mangrove, stood within handspike length of me. The dog had been growling, but all in fun, and snapping at me, when in a moment he hauled off, planted his paws on the rail, looked forth into the night, and gave a short, anxious bark, Ii e the solitary pop of the sentry’s musket to alarm the main guard in outpost work.

Peter Mangrove advanced, and put his arm round the dog’s neck. “What you see, my shild?” said the black pilot.

Sneezer uplifted his voice, and gave a long continuous growl.

“Ah!” said Mangrove sharply, “Massa Captain, something near we—never doubt dat—de dog yeerie someting we can’t yeerie, and see someting we can’t see.”

I had lived long enough never to despise any caution, from whatever quarter it proceeded. So I listened, still as a stone. Presently I thought I heard the distant splash of oars. I placed my hand behind my ear, and waited with breathless attention. Immediately I saw the sparkling dip of them in the calm black water, as if a boat, and a large one, was pulling very fast towards us. “Look out, hail that boat,” said I.

“Boat ahoy!” sung out the man, to whom I had spoken. No answer. “Coming here?” reiterated the seaman. No better success. The boat or canoe, or whatever it might be, was by this time close aboard of us, within pistol-shot at the farthest—no time to be lost, so I hailed myself, and this time the challenge did produce an answer.

“Sore boat-fruit and wegitab.”

“Shore boat, with fruit and vegetables, at this time of night—I don’t like it,” said I. “Boatswain’s mate,—all hands—pipe away the boarders. Cutlasses, men—quick, a piratical row—boat is close to.” And verily we had little time to lose, when a large canoe or row—boat, pulling twelve oars at the fewest, and carrying twenty—five men, or thereabouts, swept up on our larboard quarter, hooked on, and the next moment upwards of twenty unlooked—for visitors scrambled up our shallow side, and jumped on board. All this took place so suddenly that there were not ten of my people ready to receive them, but those ten were the prime men of the ship.

“Surrender, you scoundrels—surrender. You have boarded a man-of-war. Down with your arms, or we shall kill you to a man.”

But they either did not understand me, or did not believe me, for the answer was a blow from a cutlass, which, if I had not parried with my night-glass, which it broke in pieces, might have effectually stopped my promotion.

“Cut them down, boarders, down with them—they are pirates,” shouted I; “heave cold shot into their boat alongside—all hands, Mr Rousemout,” to the boatswain, “call all hands.”

We closed. The assailants had no firearms, but they were armed with swords and long knives, and as they fought with desperation, several of our people were cruelly haggled; and after the first charge, the combatants on both sides became so blended, that it was impossible to strike a blow, without running the risk of cutting down a friend. By this time all hands were on deck; the boat alongside had been swamped by the cold shot that had been hove crashing through her bottom, when down came a shower from the surcharged clouds, or waterspout—call it which you will—that absolutely deluged the decks, the scuppers being utterly unable to carry off the water. So long as the pirates fought in a body, I had no fears, as, dark as it was, our men, who held together, knew where to strike and thrust; but when the torrent of rain descended in bucketfuls, the former broke away, and were pursued singly into various corners about the deck, all escape being cut off from the swamping of their boat. Still they were not vanquished, and I ran aft to the binnacle, where a blue light was stowed away,—one of several that we had got on deck to bum that night, in order to point out our whereabouts to the Firebrand. I fired it, and rushing forward cutlass-in-hand, we set on the gang of black desperadoes with such fury, that after killing two of them outright, and wounding and taking prisoners seven, we drove the rest overboard into the sea, where the small-armed men, who by this time had tackled to their muskets, made short work of them, guided as they were by the sparkling of the dark water, as they struck out and swam for their lives. The blue light was immediately answered by another from the corvette, which lay about a mile off; but before her boats, two of which were immediately armed and manned, could reach us, we had defeated our antagonists, and the rain had increased to such a degree, that the heavy drops, as they fell with a strong rushing noise into the sea, flashed it up into one entire sheet of fire.

We—secured our prisoners, all blacks and mulattoes, the most villainous looking scoundrels I had ever seen, and shortly after it came on to thunder and lighten, as if heaven and earth had been falling together. A most vivid flash—it almost blinded me. Presently the Firebrand burnt another blue light, whereby we saw that her maintopmast was gone close by the cap, with the topsail, and upper spars, and yards, and gear, all hanging down in a lumbering mass of confused wreck; she had been struck by the levin brand, which had killed four men, and stunned several more.

By this time the cold grey streaks of morning appeared in the eastern horizon, and soon after the day broke; and by two o’clock in the afternoon, both corvette and schooner were at anchor at Conaives. The village, for town it could not be called, stands on a low hot plain, as if the washings of the mountains on the left hand side as we stood in had been carried out into the sea, and formed into a white plateau of sand; all was hot and stunted, and scrubby. We brought up inside of the corvette, in three fathoms water. My superior officer had made the private signal to come on board and dine. I dressed, and the boat was lowered down, and we pulled for the corvette, but our course lay under the stern of the two English ships that were lying there loading cargoes of coffee.

“Pray, sir,” said a decent-looking man, who leant on the tafferel of one of them—“Pray, sir, are you going on board of the Commodore?”

“I am,” I answered.

“I am invited there too, sir; will you have the kindness to say I will be there presently?”

“Certainly—give way, men.”

Presently we were alongside the corvette, and the next moment we stood on her deck, holystoned white and clean, with my stanch friend Captain Transom and his officers, all in full fig, walking to and fro under the awning, a most magnificent naval lounge, being thirty two feet wide at the gangway, and extending fifty feet or more aft, until it narrowed to twenty at the tafferel. We were all—the two masters of the merchantmen, decent respectable men in their way, included—graciously received, and sat down to an excellent dinner, Mr Bang taking the lead as usual in all the fun; and we were just on the verge of cigars and cold grog, when the first lieutenant came down and said that the captain of the port had come off, and was then on board.

“Show him in,” said Captain Transom, and a tall, vulgar-looking blackamoor, dressed apparently in the cast-off coat of a French grenadier officer, entered the cabin with his chapeau in his hand, and a Madras handkerchief tied round his woolly skull. He made his bow, and remained standing near the door.

“You are the captain of the port?” said Captain Transom. The man answered in French, that he was. “Why, then, take a chair, sir, if you please.”

He begged to be excused and after tipping off his bumper of claret, and receiving the Captain’s report, he made his bow and departed.

I returned to the Wave, and next morning I breakfasted on board of the Commodore, and afterwards we all proceeded on shore to Monsieur B——‘s, to whom Massa Aaron was known. The town, if I may call it so, had certainly a very desolate appearance. There was nothing stirring; and although a group of idlers, amounting to about twenty or thirty, did collect about us on the end of the wharf, which, by the by, was terribly out of repair, yet they all appeared ill clad, and in no way so well furnished as the blackies in Jamaica; and when we marched up through a hot, sandy, unpaved street into the town, the low, one-story, shabby looking houses were falling into decay, and the streets more resembled river-courses than thoroughfares, while the large carrion crows were picking garbage on the very crown of the causeway, without apparently entertaining the least fear of us, or of the negro children who were playing close to them, so near, in fact, that every now and then one of the urchins would aim a blow at one of the obscene birds, when it would give a loud discordant croak, and jump a pace or two, with outspread wings, but without taking flight. Still many of the women, who were sitting under the small piazzas, or projecting eaves of the houses, with their little stalls, filled with pullicate handkerchiefs, and pieces of muslin, and ginghams for sale, were healthy-looking, and appeared comfortable and happy. As we advanced into the town, almost every male we met was a soldier, all rigged and well dressed, too, in the French uniform; in fact, the remarkable man, King Henry, or Christophe, took care to have his troops well fed and clothed in every case. On our way we had to pass by the Commandant, Baron B——‘s house, when it occurred to Captain Transom that we ought to stop and pay our respects; but Mr Bang, being bound by no such etiquette, bore up for his friend Monsieur B——‘s. As we approached the house—a long, low, one-story building, with a narrow piazza, and a range of unglazed windows, staring open, with their wooden shutters, like ports in a ship’s side, towards the street—we found a sentry at the door, who, when we announced ourselves, carried arms all in regular style. Presently a very good looking negro, in a handsome aide-de-camp’s uniform, appeared, and, hat in hand, with all the grace in the world, ushered us into the presence of the Baron, who was lounging in a Spanish chair half asleep, but on hearing us announced he rose, and received us with great amenity. He was a fat elderly negro, so far as I could judge, about sixty years of age, and was dressed in very wide jean trowsers, over which a pair of well polished Hessian boots were drawn, which, by adhering close to his legs, gave him, in contrast with the wide puffing of his garments above, the appearance of being underlimbed, which he by no means was, being a stout old Turk.

After a profusion of congees and fine speeches, and superabundant assurances of the esteem in which his master King Henry held our master King George, we made our bows and repaired to Monsieur B——‘s, where I was engaged to dine. As for Captain Transom, he went on board that evening to superintend the repairs of the ship.

There was no one to meet us but Monsieur B——and his daughter, a tall and very elegant brown girl, who had been educated in France, and did the honours incomparably well. We sat down, Massa Aaron whispering in my lug, that in Jamaica it was not quite the thing to introduce brown ladies at dinner; but, as he said, “Why not? Neither you nor I are high caste creoles—so en avant.”

Dinner was nearly over, when Baron B——‘s aide-de-camp slid into the room. Monsieur B——rose. “Captain Latour, you are welcome—be seated. I hope you have not dined?”

“Why no,” said the negro officer, as he drew a chair, while he exchanged glances with the beautiful Eugenie, and sat himself down close to el Senor Bang.

“Hillo, Quashie! Whereaway, my lad? a little above the salt, an’t you?” ejaculated our amigo; while Pegtop, who had just come on shore, and was standing behind his master, stared and gaped in the greatest wonderment. But Mr Bang’s natural good breeding, and knowledge of the world, instantly recalled him to time and circumstances; and when the young officer looked at him, regarding him with some surprise, he bowed, and invited him, in the best French he could muster, to drink wine. The aide-de-camp was, as I have said, jet-black as the ace of spades, but he was, notwithstanding, so far as figure went, a very handsome man tall and well made, especially about the shoulders, which were beautifully formed, and, in the estimation of a statuary, would probably have balanced the cucumber curve of the shin; his face, however, was regular negro-flat nose, heavy lips, fine eyes, and beautiful teeth, and he wore two immense gold earrings. His woolly head was bound round with a pullicate handkerchief, which we had not noticed until he took off his laced cocked hat. His coat was the exact pattern of the French staff uniform at the time—plain blue, without lace, except at the cape and cuffs, which were of scarlet cloth, covered with rich embroidery. He wore a very handsome straight sword, with steel scabbard, and the white trowsers, and long Hessian boots, already described as part of the costume of his general.

Mr Bang, as I have said, had rallied by this time, and with the tact of a gentleman, appeared to have forgotten whether his new ally was black, blue, or green, while the claret, stimulating him into self possession, was evaporating in broken French. But his man Pegtop had been pushed off his balance altogether; his equanimity was utterly gone. When the young officer brushed past him, at the first go off, while he was rinsing some glasses in the passage, his sword banged against Pegtop’s derriere as he stooped down over his work. He started and looked round, and merely exclaimed—“Eigh, Massa Niger, wurra dat!” But now, when, standing behind his master’s chair, he saw the aide-de-camp consorting with him whom he looked upon as the greatest man in existence, on terms of equality, all his faculties were paralysed.

“Pegtop,” said I, “hand me some yam, if you please.”

He looked at me all agape, as if he had been half strangled.

“Pegtop, you scoundrel,” quoth massa Aaron, “don’t you hear what Captain Cringle says, sir?”

“Oh yes, massa;” and thereupon the sable valet brought me a bottle of fish sauce, which he endeavoured to pour into my wineglass. All this while Eugenie and the aide-de-camp were playing the agreeable—and in very good taste, too, let me tell you.

I had just drank wine with mine host, when I cast my eye along the passage that led out of the room, and there was Pegtop dancing, and jumping, and smiting his thigh, in an ecstasy of laughter, as he doubled himself up, with the tears welling over his cheeks.

“Oh, Lord! Oh!—Massa Bang bow, and make face, and drink wine, and do every ting shivil, to one dam black rascall nigger!—Oh, blackee more worser clan me, Gabriel Pegtop——Oh, Lard!—ha! ha! ha!”—Thereupon he threw himself down in the piazza, amongst plates and dishes and shouted and laughed in a perfect frenzy, until Mr Bang got up, and thrust the poor fellow out of doors, in a pelting shower, which soon so far quelled the hysterical passion, that he came in again, grave as a judge, and took his place behind his master’s chair once more, and every thing went on smoothly. The aide-de-camp, who appeared quite unconscious that he was the cause of the poor fellow’s mirth, renewed his attentions to Eugenie; and Mr Bang, Monsieur B——, and myself, were again engaged in conversation, and our friend Pegtop was in the act of handing a slice of melon to the black officer, when a file of soldiers, with fixed bayonets, stept into the piazza, and ordered arms, one taking up his station on each side of the door. Presently another aide-de-camp, booted and spurred, dashed after them; and, as soon as he crossed the threshold, sung out, “Place, pour Monsieur le Baron.”

The electrical nerve was again touched—“Oh!—oh!—oh! Caramighty! here comes anoder on dem,” roared Pegtop, sticking the slice of melon, which was intended for Mademoiselle Eugenie, into his own mouth, to quell the paroxysm, if possible, (while he fractured the plate on the black aide’s skull,) and immediately blew it out again, with an explosion, and a scattering of the fragments, as if it had been the blasting of a stone quarry.

“Zounds, this is too much,”—exclaimed Bang, as he rose and kicked the poor fellow out again, with such vehemence, that his skull, encountering the paunch of our friend the Baron, who was entering from the street at that instant, capsized him outright, and away rolled his Excellency the General de Division, Commandant de L’Arrondissement, &c. &c. digging his spurs into poor Pegtop’s transom, and sacring furiously, while the black servant roared as if he had been harpooned by the very devil. The aides started to their feet and one of them looked at Mr Bang, and touched the hilt of his sword, grinding the word ‘satisfaction’ between his teeth, while the other ordered the sentries to run the poor fellow, whose mirth had been so uproarious, through. However, he got off with one or two brogues in a very safe place; and when Monsieur B——explained how matters stood, and that the “pauvre diable,” as the black Baron coolly called him, was a mere servant, and an uncultivated creature, and that no insult was meant, we had all a hearty laugh, and every thing rolled right again. At length the Baron and his black tail rose to wish us a good evening, and we were thinking of finishing off with a cigar and a glass of cold grog, when Monsieur B——‘s daughter returned into the piazza, very pale, and evidently much frightened. “Mon pere,” said she while her voice quavered from excessive agitation—“My father—why do the soldiers remain?”

We all peered into the dark passage, and there, true enough, were the black sentries at their posts beside the doorway, still and motionless as statues. Monsieur B——, poor fellow, fell back in his chair at the sight, as if he had been shot through the heart.

“My fate is sealed—I am lost—oh, Eugenie!” were the only words he could utter.

“No, no,” exclaimed the weeping girl, “God forbid—the Baron is a kind hearted man—King Henry cannot—no, no—he knows you are not disaffected, he will not injure you.”

Here one of the black aides-de-camp suddenly returned. It was the poor fellow who had been making love to Eugenie during the entertainment. He looked absolutely blue with dismay; his voice shook, and his knees knocked together as he approached our host.

He tried to speak, but could not. “Oh, Pierre, Pierre,” moaned, or rather gasped Eugenie, “what have you come to communicate? what dreadful news are you the bearer of?” He held out an open letter to poor B——, who, unable to read it from excessive agitation, handed it to me. It ran thus:

“MONSIEUR LE BARON, Monsieur—has been arrested here this morning; he is a white Frenchman, and there are strong suspicions against him. Place his partner M. B——under the surveillance of the police instantly. You are made answerable for his safe custody.”

“Witness his Majesty’s hand and seal, at Sans Souci, this——”

The Count.

“Then I am doomed,” groaned poor Mr B——. His daughter fainted, the black officer wept, and having laid his senseless mistress on a sofa, he approached and wrung B——‘s hand. “Alas, my dear sir—how my heart bleeds! But cheer up—King Henry is just—all may be right—all may still be right; and so far as my duty to him will allow, you may count on nothing being done here that is not absolutely necessary for holding ourselves blameless with the Government.”

Enough and to spare of this. We slept on shore that night, and a very neat catastrophe was likely to have ensued thereupon. Intending to go on board ship at daybreak, I had got up and dressed myself, and opened the door into the street to let myself out, when I stumbled unwittingly against the black sentry, who must have been half asleep, for he immediately stepped several paces back, and presenting his musket, the clear barrel glancing in the moonlight, snapped it at me. Fortunately it missed fire, which gave me time to explain that it was not M. B——, attempting to escape; but that day week he was marched to the prison of La Force, near Cape Henry, where his partner had been previously lodged; and from that hour to this, neither of them were ever heard of. Next evening I again went ashore, but I was denied admittance to him; and, as my orders were imperative not to interfere in any way, I had to return on board with a heavy heart.

The day following, Captain Transom and myself paid a formal I visit to the black Baron, in order to leave no stone unturned to obtain poor B——‘s release if we could. Mr Bang accompanied us. We found the sable dignitary lounging in a grass hammock, (slung from corner to corner of a very comfortless room, for the floor was tiled, the windows were unglazed, and there was no furniture whatsoever but an old-fashioned mahogany sideboard and three wicker chairs) apparently half-asleep, or ruminating after his breakfast. On our being announced by a half-naked negro servant, who aroused him, he got up and received us very kindly I beg his lordship’s pardon, I should write graciously—and made us take wine and biscuit, and talked and rattled; but I saw he carefully avoided the subject which he evidently knew was the object of our visit. At length, finding it would be impossible for him to parry it much longer single-handed, with tact worthy of a man of fashion, he called out “Marie! Marie!” Our eyes followed his, and we saw a young and very handsome brown lady rise, whom we had perceived seated at her work when we first entered, in a small dark back porch, and advance after curtseying to us seriatim, with great elegance, as the old fat niger introduced her to us as “Madame la Baronne.”

“His wife?” whispered Aaron; “the old rank goat!”

Her brown ladyship did the honours of the wine-ewer with the perfect quietude and ease of a well-bred woman. She was a most lovely clear skinned quadroon girl. She could not have been twenty; tall and beautifully shaped. Her long coal-black tresses were dressed high on her head, which was bound round with the everlasting Madras handkerchief, in which pale blue was the prevailing colour; but it was elegantly adjusted, and did not come down far enough to shade the fine development of her majestic forehead—Pasta’s in Semiramide was not more commanding. Her eyebrows were delicately arched and sharply defined, and her eyes of jet were large and swimming; her nose had not utterly abjured its African origin, neither had her lips, but, notwithstanding, her countenance shone with all the beauty of expression so conspicuous in the Egyptian sphinx Abyssinian, but most sweet—while her teeth were as the finest ivory, and her chin and throat, and bosom, as if her bust had been an antique statue of the rarest workmanship. The only ornaments she wore were two large virgin gold ear-rings, massive yellow hoops without any carving, but so heavy that they seemed to weigh down the small thin transparent ears which they perforated; and a broad black velvet band round her neck, to which was appended a large massive crucifix of the same metal. She also wore two broad bracelets of black velvet clasped with gold. Her beautifully moulded form was scarcely veiled by a cambric chemise, with exceedingly short sleeves, over which she wore a rose-coloured silk petticoat, short enough to display a finely formed foot and ankle, with a well-selected pearl white silk stocking, and a neat low-cut French black kid shoe. As for gown, she had none. She wore a large-sparkling diamond ring on her marriage finger, and we were all bowing before the deity, when our attention was arrested by a cloud of dust at the top of the street, and presently a solitary black dragoon sparked out from it, his accoutrements and headpiece blazing in the sun, then three more abreast, and immediately a troop of five-and-twenty cavaliers, or thereabouts, came thundering down the street. They formed opposite the Baron’s house, and I will say I never saw a better appointed troop of horse anywhere. Presently an aide-de-camp scampered up; and having arrived opposite the door, dismounted, and entering, exclaimed, “Les Comtes de Lemonade et Marmalade.”—“The who?” said Mr Bang; but presently two very handsome young men of colour, in splendid uniforms, rode up, followed by a glittering staff, of at least twenty mounted officers. They alighted, and entering, made their bow to Baron B——. The youngest, the Count Lemonade, spoke very decent English, and what between Mr Bang’s and my bad, and Captain Transom’s very good, French, we all made ourselves agreeable. I may state here, that Lemonade and Marmalade are two districts of the island of St Domingo, which had been pitched on by Christophe to give titles to two of his fire—new nobility. The grandees had come on a survey of the district, and although we did not fail to press the matter of poor B——‘s release, yet they either had no authority to interfere in the matter, or they would not acknowledge that they had, so we reluctantly took leave, and went on shipboard.

“Tom, you villain,” said Mr Bang, as we stepped into the boat, “if my eye had caught yours when these noblemen made their entree, I should have exploded with laughter, and most likely have had my throat cut for my pains. Pray, did his highness of Lemonade carry a punch-ladle in his hand? I am sure I expected he of Marmalade to have carried a jelly can? Oh, Tom, at the moment I heard them announced, my dear old mother flitted before my mind’s eye, with the bright, well-scoured, large brass pans in the background, as she superintended her handmaidens in their annual preservations.”

After the fruitless interview, we weighed, and sailed for Port au Prince, where we arrived the following evening.

I had heard much of the magnificence of the scenery in the Bight of Leogane, but the reality far surpassed what I had pictured to myself. The breeze, towards noon of the following day, had come up in a gentle air from the westward, and we were gliding along before it like a spread eagle, with all our light sails abroad to catch the sweet zephyr, which was not even strong enough to ruffle the silver surface of the landlocked sea, that glowed beneath the blazing midday sun, with a dolphin here and there cleaving the shining surface with an arrowy ripple, and a brown-skinned shark glaring on us, far down in the deep, clear, green profound, like a water fiend, and a slow-sailing pelican overhead, after a long sweep on poised wing, dropping into the sea like lead, and flashing up the water like the bursting of a shell, as we sailed up into a glorious amphitheatre of stupendous mountains, covered with one eternal forest, that rose gradually from the hot sandy plains that skirted the shore; while what had once been smiling fields, and rich sugar plantations, in the long misty level districts at their bases, were now covered with brushwood, fast rising up into one impervious thicket; and as the Island of Conave closed in the view behind us to seaward, the sun sank beyond it, amidst rolling masses of golden and blood-red clouds, giving token of a goodly day to-morrow, and gilding the outline of the rocky islet (as if to a certain depth it had been transparent) with a golden halo, gradually deepening into imperial purple. Beyond the shadow of the tree-covered islet, on the left hand, rose the town of Port-au-Prince, with its long streets rising like terraces on the gently swelling shore, while the mountains behind it, still gold tipped in the declining sunbeams, seemed to impend frowningly over it, and the shipping in the roadstead at anchor off the town were just beginning to fade from our sight in the gradually increasing darkness, and a solitary light began to sparkle in a cabin window and then disappear, and to twinkle for a moment in the piazzas of the houses on shore like a will-of-the-wisp, and the chirping buzz of myriads of insects and reptiles was coming off from the island a-stem of us, borne on the wings of the light wind, which, charged with rich odours from the closing flowers, fanned us “like the sweet south, soft breathing o’er a bed of violets,” when a sudden flash and a jet of white smoke puffed out from the hill-fort above the town, the report thundering amongst the everlasting hills, and gradually rumbling itself away into the distant ravines and valleys, like a lion growling itself to sleep, and the shades of night fell on the dead face of nature like a pall, and all was undistinguishable.—When I had written thus far—it was at Port-au-Prince, at Mr S——‘s—Mr Bang entered—“Ah! Tom—at the log, polishing—using the plane—shaping out something for Ebony let me see.”

Here our friend read the preceding paragraphs. They did not please him.

“Don’t like it, Tom.”

“No? Pray, why, my dear sir?—I have tried to” “Hold your tongue, my good boy.”

“Cease, rude Boreas, blustering railer,
List old ladies o’er your tea,
At description Tom’s a tailor,
When he is compared to me.
Tooral looral loo.”

“Attend—brevity is the soul of wit,—ahem. Listen how I shall crush all your lengthy yam into an eggshell. ‘The Bight of Leogane is a horseshoe—Cape St Nicholas is the caulker on the northern heel Cape Tiberoon, the ditto on the south—Port-au-Prince is the tip at the toe towards the east—Conaives, Leogane, Petit Trouve, &c. &c. &c. are the nails, and the Island of Gonave is the frog.’ Now every human being who knows that a horse has four legs and a tail—of course this includes all the human race, excepting tailors and sailors—must understand this at once; it is palpable and plain, although no man could have put it so perspicuously, excepting my friend William Cobbettt or myself. By the way, speaking of horses, that blood thing of the old Baron’s nearly gave you your quietus t’other day, Tom. Why will you always pass the flank of a horse in place of going ahead of him, to use your own phrase? Never ride near a led horse on passing when you can help it; give him a wide berth, or clap the groom’s corpus between you and his heels; and never, never go near the croup of any quadruped bigger than a cat, for even a cow’s is inconvenient, when you can by any possibility help it.”

I laughed—“Well, well, my dear sir—but you undervalue my equestrian capability somewhat too, for I do pretend to know that a horse has four legs and a tail.”

There was no pleasing Aaron this morning, I saw.

“Then, Tummas, my man, you know a deuced deal more than I do. As for the tail, conceditur—but devilish few horses have four legs nowadays, take my word for it. However, here comes Transom; I am off to have a lounge with him, and I will finish the veterinary lecture at some more convenient season. Tol lol de rol.”—Exit singing.

The morning after this I went ashore at daylight, and, guided by the sound of military music, proceeded to the Place Republicain, or square before President Petion’s palaces where I found eight regiments of foot under arms, with their bands playing, and in the act of defiling before General Boyer who commanded the arrondissement. This was the garrison of Port-au-Prince, but neither the personal appearance of the troops, nor their appointments, were at all equal to those of King Henry’s well dressed and well drilled cohorts that we saw at Conaives. The President’s guards were certainly fine men, and a squadron of dismounted cavalry, in splendid blue uniforms, with scarlet trowsers richly laced, might have vied with the elite of Nap’s own, barring the black faces. But the materiel of the other regiments was not superfine, as M. Boyer, before whom they were defiling, might have said.

I went to breakfast with Mr S——, one of the English merchants of the place, a kind and most hospitable man; and under his guidance, the Captain, Mr Bang, and I, proceeded afterwards to call on Petion. Christophe, or King Henry, had some time before retired from the siege of Port-au-Prince, and we found the town in a very miserable state. Many of the houses were injured from shot; the President’s palace, for instance, was perforated in several places, which had not been repaired. In the antechamber you could see the blue heavens through the shot holes in the roof.—“Next time I come to court, Tom,” said Mr Bang, “I will bring an umbrella.” Turning out of the parade, we passed through a rickety, unpainted open gate, in a wall about six feet high; the space beyond was an open green or grass-plot, parched and burned up by the sun, with a common fowl here and there fluttering and hotching in the hole she had scratched in the and soil; but there was neither sentry nor servant to be seen, nor any of the usual pomp and circumstance about a great man’s dwelling. Presently we were in front of a long, low, one story building, with a flight of steps leading up into an entrance hall, furnished with several gaudy sofas, and half-a-dozen chairs with a plain wooden floor, on which a slight approach to the usual West India polish had been attempted, but mightily behind the elegant domiciles of my Kingston friends in this respect. In the centre of this room stood three young officers, fair mulattoes, with their plumed cocked-hats in their hands, and dressed very handsomely in French uniforms; and it always struck me as curious, that men who hated the very name of Frenchman, as the devil hates holy water, should copy all the customs and manners of the detested people so closely. I may mention here once for all, that Petion’s officers, who, generally speaking, were all men of colour, and not negroes, were as much superior in education, and, I fear I must say, in intellect, as they certainly were in personal appearance, to the black officers of King Henry, as his soldiery were superior to those of the neighbouring black republic.

“Ah, Monsieur S——, comment vous portez vous? je suis bien aise de vous voir,” said one of the young officers; “how are you, how have you been?”

“Vous devenez tout a fait rare,” quoth a second. “Le President will be delighted to see you. Why, he says he thought you must have been dead, and les messieurs La....”

“Who?—introduce us.”

It was done in due form—the Honourable Captain Transom, Captain Cringle of his Britannic Majesty’s schooner, Wave, and Aaron Bang, Esquire. And presently we were all as thick as pickpockets.

“But come, the President will be delighted to see you.” We followed the officer who spoke, as he marshalled us along, and in an inner chamber, wherein there were also several large holes in the ceiling through which the sun shone, we found President Petion, the black Washington, sitting on a very old ragged sofa, amidst a confused mass of papers, dressed in a blue military undress frock, white trowsers, and the everlasting Madras handkerchief bound round his brows. He was much darker than I expected to have seen him, darker than one usually sees a mulatto, or the direct cross between the negro and the white, yet his features were in no way akin to those of an African. His nose was as high, sharp, and well defined as that of any Hindoo I ever saw in the Hoogly, and his hair was fine and silky. In fact, dark as he was, he was at least three removes from the African; and when I mention that he had been long in Europe—he was even for a short space acting adjutant general of the army of Italy with Napoleon—his general manner, which was extremely good, kind and affable, was not matter of so much surprise.

He rose to receive us with much grace, and entered into conversation with all the ease and polish of a gentleman—“le me porte assez bien aujourd’hui; but I have been very unwell, M. S——, so tell me the news.” Early as it was, he immediately ordered in coffee; it was brought by two black servants, followed by a most sylph-like girl, about twelve years of age, the President’s natural daughter; she was fairer than her father, and acquitted herself very gracefully. She was rigged, pin for pin, like a little woman, with a perfect turret of artificial flowers twined amongst the braids of her beautiful hair; and although her neck was rather overloaded with ornaments, and her poor little ears were stretching under the weight of the heavy gold and emerald earrings, while her bracelets were like manacles, yet I had never seen a more lovely little girl. She wore a frock of green Chinese crape, beneath which appeared the prettiest little feet in the world.

We were invited to attend a ball in the evening, given in honour of the President’s birthday, and after a sumptuous dinner at our friend M. S——‘s, we all adjourned to the gay scene. There was a company of grenadiers of the President’s guard, with their band, on duty in front of the palace, as a guard of honour; they carried arms as we passed, all in good style; and at the door we met two aides-de-camp in full dress, one of whom ushered us into an anteroom, where a crowd of brown, with a sprinkling of black ladies, and a whole host of brown and black officers, with a white foreign merchant here and there, were drinking coffee, and taking refreshments of one kind or another. The ladies were dressed in the very height of the newest Parisian fashion of the day hats and feathers, and jewellery, real or fictitious, short sleeves, and shorter petticoats fine silks, and broad blonde trimmings and flounces, and low-cut corsages—some of them even venturing on rouge, which gave them the appearance of purple dahlias; but as to manner, all lady-like and proper; while the men, most of them militaires, were as fine as gold and silver lace, and gay uniforms, and dress-swords could make them and all was blaze, and sparkle, and jingle; but the black officers, in general, covered their woolly pates with Madras handkerchiefs, as if ashamed to show them, the brown officers alone venturing to show their own hair. Presently a military band struck up with a sudden crash in the inner-room, and the large folding doors being thrown open, the ballroom lay before us, in the centre of which stood the President, surrounded by his very splendid staff, with his daughter on his arm. He was dressed in a plain blue uniform, with gold epaulets, and acquitted himself extremely well, conversing freely on European politics, and giving his remarks with great shrewdness, and a very peculiar naivete. As for his daughter, however much she might appear to have been overdressed in the morning, she was now simple in her attire as a little shepherdesses plain white muslin frock, white sash, white shoes, white gloves, pearl ear-rings and necklace, and a simple, but most beautiful, camilla japonica in her hair. Dancing now commenced, and all that I shall say is, that before I had been an hour in the room, I had forgotten whether the faces around me were black, brown, or white; every thing was conducted with such decorum. However, I could see that the fine jet was not altogether the approved style of beauty, and that many a very handsome woolly-headed belle was destined to ornament the walls, until a few of the young white merchants made a dash amongst them, more for the fun of the thing, as it struck me, than any thing else, which piqued some of the brown officers, and for the rest of the evening blackee had it hollow. And there was friend Aaron waltzing with a very splendid woman, elegantly dressed, but black as a coal, with long kid gloves, between which and the sleeve of her gown, a space of two inches of the black skin, like an ebony armlet, was visible; while her white dress, and rich white satin hat, and a lofty plume of feathers, with a pearl necklace and diamond earrings, set off her loveliness most conspicuously. At every wheel round Mr Bang slewed his head a little on one side, and peeped in at one of her bright eyes, and then tossing his cranium on t’other side, took a squint in at the other, and then cast his eyes towards the roof, and muttered with his lips as if he had been shot all of a heap by the blind boy’s but-shaft; but every now and then as we passed, the rogue would stick his tongue in his cheek, yet so slightly as to be perceptible to no one but myself. After this heat, Massa Aaron and myself were perambulating the ballroom, quite satisfied with our own prowess and I was churming to myself, “Voulez vous dansez, mademoiselle”—“De tout mon coeur,” said a buxom brown dame, about eighteen stone by the coffee-mill in St James’s Street. That devil Aaron gave me a look that I swore I would pay him for, the villain; as the extensive mademoiselle, suiting the action to the word, started up, and hooked on, and as a cotillion had been called, there I was, figuring away most emphatically, to Bang and Transom’s great entertainment. At length the dance was at an end, And a waltz was once more called, and having done my duty, I thought I might slip out between the acts; so I offered to hand my solid armful to her seat—“Certainement vouz pouvez bien restez encore un moment.”

The devil confound you and Aaron Bang, thought I—but waltz I must, and away we whirled until the room spun round faster than we did, and when I was at length emancipated, my dark fair and fat one whispered, in a regular die-away, “J’espere vous revoir bientot.” All this while there was a heavy firing of champagne and other corks, and the fun grew so fast and furious, that I remembered very little more of the matter, until the morning breeze whistled through my muslin curtains, or musquitto net, about noon on the following day.

I arose, and found mine host setting out to bathe at Madame Le Clerc’s bath, at Marquesan. I rode with him; and after a cool dip we breakfasted with President Petion at his country-house there, and met with great kindness. About the house itself there was nothing particularly to distinguish it from many others in the neighbourhood; but the little statues, and fragments of marble steps, and detached portions of old fashioned wrought-iron railing, which had been grouped together, so as to form an ornamental terrace below it, facing the sea, showed that it had been a compilation from the ruins of the houses of the rich French planters, which were now blackening in the sun on the plain of Leogane. A couple of Buenos Ayrean privateers were riding at anchor in the bight just below the windows, manned, as I afterwards found, by Americans. The President, in his quiet way, after contemplating them through his glass, said, “Ces pavilions sont bien neuf.”

The next morning, as we were pulling in my gig, no less a man than Massa Aaron steering, to board the Arethusa, one of the merchantmen lying at anchor off the town, we were nearly run down by getting athwart the bows of an American schooner standing in for the port. As it was, her cutwater gave us so smart a crack that I thought we were done for; but our Palinurus, finding he could not clear her, with his inherent self possession put his helm to port, and kept away on the same course as the schooner, so that we got off with the loss of our two larboard oars, which were snapped off like parsnips, and a good heavy bump that nearly drove us into staves.

“Never mind, my dear sir, never mind,” said I; “but hereafter listen to the old song:”

‘Steer clear of the stem of a sailing ship.’

“Massa Aaron was down on me like lightning”

“Or the stern of a kicking horse, Tom.”

While I continued—

‘Or you a wet jacket may catch, and a dip.’

He again cleverly clipped the word out of my mouth,

“Or a kick on the croup, which is worse, Tom.”

“Why, my dear sir, you are an improvisatore of the first quality.”

We rowed ashore, and nothing particular happened that day, until we sat down to dinner at Mr S—‘s. We had a very agreeable party. Captain Transom and Mr Bang were, as usual, the life of the company; and it was verging towards eight o’clock in the evening, when an English sailor, apparently belonging to the merchant service, came into the piazza, and planted himself opposite to the window where I sat.

He made various nautical salaams, until he had attracted my attention. “Excuse me,” I said to Mr S——, “there is some one in the piazza wanting me.” I rose.

“Are you Captain Transom?” said the man.

“No, I am not. There is the Captain; do you want him?”

“If you please, sir,” said the man.

I called my superior officer into the narrow dark piazza.

“Well, my man,” said Transom, “what want you with me?”

“I am sent, sir, to you from the Captain of the Haytian ship, the E——, to request a visit from you, and to ask for a prayer book.”

“A what?” said Transom.

“A prayer book, sir. I suppose you know that he and the Captain of that other Haytian ship, the P——, are condemned to be shot tomorrow morning.”

“I know nothing of all this,” said Transom. “Do you, Cringle?”

“No, sir,” said I.

“Then let us adjourn to the dining room again; or, stop, ask Mr S——and Mr Bang to step-here for a moment.”

They appeared; and when Transom explained the affair, so far as consisted with his knowledge, Mr S——told us that the two unfortunates in question were, one of them, a Guernsey man, and the other a man of colour, a native of St Vincent’s, whom the President had promoted to the command of two Haytian ships that had been employed in carrying coffee to England; but on their last return voyage, they had introduced a quantity of base Birmingham coin into the Republic; which fact having been proved on their trial, they had been convicted of treason against the state, condemned, and were now under sentence of death; and the government being purely military, they were to be shot tomorrow morning. A boat was immediately sent on board, the messenger returned with a prayer book; and we prepared to visit the miserable men.

Mr Bang insisted on joining us—ever first where misery was to be relieved—and we proceeded towards the prison. Following the sailor, who was the mate of one of the ships, presently we arrived before the door of the place where the unfortunate men were confined. We were speedily admitted; but the building had none of the common appurtenances of a prison. There were neither long galleries, nor strong ironbound and clamped doors, to pass through; nor jailers with rusty keys jingling; nor fetters clanking; for we had not made two steps past the black grenadiers who guarded the door, when a sergeant showed us into a long ill-lighted room, about thirty feet by twelve—in truth, it was more like a gallery than a room—with the windows into the street open, and no precautions taken, apparently at least, to prevent the escape of the condemned. In truth, if they had broken forth, I imagine the kind hearted President would not have made any very serious enquiry as to the how.

There was a small rickety old card table, covered with tattered green cloth, standing in the middle of the floor, which was composed of dirty unpolished pitch pine planks, and on this table glimmered two brown wax candles, in old fashioned brass candlesticks. Between us and the table, forming a sort of line across the floor, stood four black soldiers, with their muskets at their shoulders, while beyond them sat, in old fashioned armchairs, three figures, whose appearance I never can forget.

The man fronting us rose on our entrance. He was an uncommonly handsome elderly personage; his age I should guess to have been about fifty. He was dressed in white trowsers and shirt, and wore no coat; his head was very bald, but he had large and very dark whiskers and eyebrows, above which towered a most splendid forehead, white, massive, and spreading. His eyes were deep-set and sparkling, but he was pale, very pale, and his fine features were sharp and pinched. He sat with his hands clasped together, and resting on the table, his fingers twitching to and fro convulsively, while his under jaw had dropped a little, and from the constant motion of his head, and the heaving of his chest, it was clear that he was breathing quick and painfully.

The figure on his right hand was altogether a more vulgar-looking personage. He was a man of colour, his caste being indicated by his short curly black hair, and his African descent vouched for by his obtuse features; but he was composed and steady in his bearing. He was dressed in white trowsers and waistcoat, and a blue surtout; and on our entrance he rose, and remained standing. But the person on the elder prisoner’s left hand riveted my attention more than either of the other two. She was a respectable looking, little, thin woman, but dressed with great neatness, in a plain black silk gown. Her sharp features were high and well formed; her eyes and mouth were not particularly noticeable, but her hair was most beautiful—her long shining auburn hair—although she must have been forty years of age, and her skin was like the driven snow. When we entered, she was seated on the left hand of the eldest prisoner, and was lying back on her chair, with her arms crossed on her bosom, her eyes wide open, and staring upwards towards the roof, with the tears coursing each other down over her cheeks, while her lower jaw had fallen down, as if she had been dead—her breathing was scarcely perceptible—her bosom remaining still as a frozen sea, for the space of a minute, when she would draw a long breath, with a low moaning noise, to which succeeded a convulsive crowing gasp, like a child in the hooping-cough, and all would be still again.

At length Captain Transom addressed the elder prisoner. “You have sent for us, Mr——what can we do for you, in accordance with our duty as English officers?”

The poor man looked at us with a vacant stare—but his fellow sufferer instantly spoke. “Gentlemen, this is kind—very kind. I sent my mate to borrow a prayer book from you, for our consolation now must flow from above—man cannot comfort us.”

The female, who was the elder prisoner’s wife, suddenly leant forward in her chair, and peered intently into Mr Bang’s face “Prayer book,” said she—“prayer book—why, I have a prayer book I will go for my prayer book”—and she rose quickly from her seat,

“Restez”—quoth the black sergeant—the word seemed to rouse her—she laid her head on her hands, on the table, and sobbed out as if her heart were bursting—“Oh God! oh God! is it come to this—is it come to this?” the frail table trembling beneath her, with her heart crushing emotion. His wife’s misery now seemed to recall the elder prisoner to himself. He made a strong effort, and in a great degree recovered his composure.

“Captain Transom,” said he, “I believe you know our story. That we have been justly condemned I admit, but it is a fearful thing to die, Captain, in a strange country, and by the hands of these barbarians, and to leave my own dear”—Here his voice altogether failed him—presently he resumed. “The Government have sealed up my papers and packages, and I have neither Bible nor prayer book—will you spare us the use of one, or both, for this night, sir?”

The Captain said, he had brought a prayer book, and did all he could to comfort the poor fellows. But, alas! their grief “knew not consolation’s name.”

Captain Transom read prayers, which were listened to by both of the miserable men with the greatest devotion, while all the while, the poor woman never moved a muscle, every faculty appearing to be once more frozen up by grief and misery. At length, the elder prisoner again spoke. “I know I have no claim on you, gentlemen; but I am an Englishman at least I hope I may call myself an Englishman, and my wife there is an Englishwoman—when I am gone oh, gentlemen, what is to become of her? If I were but sure that she would be cared for, and enabled to return to her friends, the bitterness of death would be past.” Here the poor woman threw herself round her husband’s neck, and gave a shrill sharp cry, and relaxing her hold, fell down across his knees, with her head hanging back, and her face towards the roof, in a dead faint. For a minute or two, the husband’s sole concern seemed to be the condition of his wife.

“I will undertake that she shall be sent safe to England, my good man,” said Mr Bang.

The felon looked at him—drew one hand across his eyes, which were misty with tears, held down his head, and again looked up at length he found his tongue. “That God who rewardeth good deeds here, that God whom I have offended, before whom I must answer for my sins by daybreak to morrow, will reward you—I can only thank you.” He seized Mr Bang’s hand and kissed it.

With heavy hearts we left the miserable group, and I may mention here, that Mr Bang was as good as his word, and paid the poor woman’s passage home, and, so far as I know, she is now restored to her family.

We slept that night at Mr S——‘s, and as the morning dawned we mounted our horses, which our worthy host had kindly desired to be ready, in order to enable us to take our exercise in the cool of the morning. As we rode past the Place d’armes, or open space in front of the President’s palace, we heard sounds of military music, and asked the first chance passenger what was going on. “Execution militaire; or rather,” said the man, “the two sea captains, who introduced the base money, are to be shot this morning—there against the rampart.” Of the fact we were aware, but we did not dream that we had ridden so near the whereabouts.

“Ay, indeed?”—said Mr Bang. He looked towards the Captain. “My dear Transom, I have no wish to witness so horrible a sight, but still—what say you—shall we pull up, or ride on?”

The truth was that Captain Transom and myself were both of us desirous of seeing the execution—from what impelling motive, let learned blockheads, who have never gloated over a hanging, determine; and quickly it was determined that we should wait and witness it.

First advanced a whole regiment of the President’s guards, then a battalion of infantry of the line, close to which followed a whole bevy of priests clad in white, which contrasted conspicuously with their brown and black faces. After them marched two firing parties of twelve men each, drafted indiscriminately, as it would appear, from the whole garrison; for the grenadier cap was there intermingled with the glazed shako of the battalion company, and the light morion of the dismounted dragoon. Then came the prisoners. The elder culprit, respectably clothed in white shirt, waistcoat, and trowsers, and blue coat, with an Indian silk yellow handkerchief bound round his head. His lips were compressed together with an unnatural firmness, and his features were sharpened like those of a corpse. His complexion was ashy blue. His eyes were half shut, but every now and then he opened them wide, and gave a startling rapid glance about him, and occasionally he staggered a little in his gait. As he approached the place of execution, his eyelids fell, his under-jaw dropped, his arms hung dangling by his side like empty sleeves; still he walked on, mechanically keeping time, like an automaton, to the measured tread of the soldiery. His fellow sufferer followed him. His eye was bright, his complexion healthy, his step firm, and he immediately recognised us in the throng, made a bow to Captain Transom, and held out his hand to Mr Bang, who was nearest to him, and shook it cordially. The procession moved on. The troops formed into three sides of a square, the remaining one being the earthen mound, that constituted the rampart of the place. A halt was called. The two firing parties advanced to the sound of muffled drums, and having arrived at the crest of the glacis, right over the counterscarp, they halted on what, in a more regular fortification, would have been termed the covered way. The prisoners, perfectly unfettered, advanced between them, stepped down with a firm step into the ditch, led each by a grenadier. In the centre of it they turned and kneeled, neither of their eyes being bound. A priest advanced, and seemed to pray with the brown man fervently; another offered spiritual consolation to the Englishman, who seemed now to have rallied his torpid faculties, but he waved him away impatiently, and taking a book from his bosom, seemed to repeat a prayer from it with great fervour. At this very instant of time, Mr Bang caught his eye. He dropped the book on the ground, placed one hand on his heart, while he pointed upwards towards heaven with the other, calling out in a loud clear voice, “Remember!” Aaron bowed. A mounted officer now rode quickly up to the brink of the ditch, and called out, “Depechez.”

The priests left the miserable men, and all was still as death for a minute. A low solitary tap of the drum—the firing parties came to the recover, and presently taking the time from the sword of the staff officer who had spoken, came down to the present, and fired a rattling, straggling volley. The brown man sprang up into the air three or four feet, and fell dead; he had been shot through the heart; but the white man was only wounded, and had fallen, writhing, and struggling, and shrieking, to the ground. I heard him distinctly call out, as the reserve of six men stepped into the ditch, “Dans la tete dans la tete.” One of the grenadiers advanced, and, putting his musket close to his face, fired. The ball splashed into his skull, through the left eye, setting fire to his hair and clothes, and the handkerchief bound round his head, and making the brains and blood flash up all over his face, and the person of the soldier who had given him the coup de grace.

A strong murmuring noise, like the rushing of many waters, growled amongst the ranks and the surrounding spectators, while a short sharp exclamation of horror every now and then gushed out shrill and clear, and fearfully distinct above the appalling monotony.

The miserable man stretched out his legs and arms straight and rigidly, a strong shiver pervaded his whole frame, his jaw fell, his muscles relaxed, and he and his brother in calamity became a portion of the bloody clay on which they were stretched.

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