A SKETCH IN THE TROPICS.
FROM A SUPERCARGO'S LOG.
It was on a November morning of the year 1816, and about half an hour before daybreak, that the door of an obscure house in the Calle St Agostino, at the Havannah, was cautiously opened, and a man put out his head, and gazed up and down the street as if to assure himself that no one was near. All was silence and solitude at that early hour, and presently the door opening wider gave egress to a young man muffled in a shabby cloak, who, with hurried but stealthy step, took the direction of the port. Hastening noiselessly through the deserted streets and lanes, he soon reached the quay, upon which were numerous storehouses of sugar and other merchandize, and piles of dye-woods, placed there in readiness for shipment. Upon approaching one of the latter, the young man gave a low whistle, and the next instant a figure glided from between two huge heaps of logwood, and seizing his hand, drew him into the hiding-place from which it had just emerged.
A quarter of an hour elapsed, and the first faint tinge of day just began to appear, when the noise of oars was heard, and presently in the grey light a boat was seen darting out of the mist that hung over the water. As it neared the quay, the two men left their place of concealment, and one of them, pointing to the person who sat in the stern of the boat, pressed his companion's hand, and hurrying away, soon disappeared amid the labyrinth of goods and warehouses.
The boat came up to the stairs. Of the three persons it contained, two sailors, who had been rowing, remained in it; the third, whose dress and appearance were those of the master of a merchant vessel, sprang on shore, and walked in the direction of the town. As he passed before the logwood, the stranger stepped out and accosted him.
The seaman's first movement, and not an unnatural one, considering he was at the Havannah and the day not yet broken, was to half draw his cutlass from its scabbard, but the next moment he let it drop back again. The appearance of the person who addressed him was, if not very prepossessing, at least not much calculated to inspire alarm. He was a young man of handsome and even noble countenance, but pale and sickly-looking, and having the appearance of one bowed down by sorrow and illness.
"Are you the captain of the Philadelphia schooner that is on the point of sailing?" enquired he in a trembling, anxious voice.
The seaman looked hard in the young man's face, and answered in the affirmative. The stranger's eye sparkled.
"Can I have a passage for myself, a friend, and two children?" demanded he.
The sailor hesitated before he replied, and again scanned his interlocutor from head to foot with his keen grey eyes. There was something inconsistent, not to say suspicious, in the whole appearance of the stranger. His cloak was stained and shabby, and his words humble; but there was a fire in his eye that flashed forth seemingly in spite of himself, and his voice had that particular tone which the habit of command alone gives. The result of the sailor's scrutiny was apparently unfavourable, and he shook his head negatively. The young man gasped for breath, and drew a well-filled purse from his bosom.
"I will pay beforehand," said he, "I will pay whatever you ask."
The American started; the contrast was too great between the heavy purse and large offers and the beggarly exterior of the applicant. He shook his head more decidedly than before. The stranger bit his lip till the blood came, his breast heaved, his whole manner was that of one who abandons himself to despair. The sailor felt a touch of compassion.
"Young man," said he in Spanish, "you are no merchant. What do you want at
Philadelphia?"
"I want to go to Philadelphia. Here is my passage money, here my pass. You are captain of the schooner. What do you require more?"
There was a wild vehemence in the tone and manner in which these words were spoken, that indisposed the seaman still more against his would-be passenger. Again he shook his head, and was about to pass on. The young man seized his arm.
"Por el amor de Dios, Capitan, take me with you. Take my unhappy wife and my poor children."
"Wife and children!" repeated the captain. "Have you a wife and children?"
The stranger groaned.
"You have committed no crime? you are not flying from the arm of justice?" asked the American sharply.
"So may God help me, no crime whatever have I committed," replied the young man, raising his hand towards heaven.
"In that case I will take you. Keep your money till you are on board. In an hour at furthest I weigh anchor."
The stranger answered nothing, but as if relieved from some dreadful anxiety, drew a deep breath, and with a grateful look to heaven, hurried from the spot.
When Captain Ready, of the smart-sailing Baltimore-built schooner, "The Speedy Tom," returned on board his vessel, and descended into the cabin, he was met by his new passenger, on whose arm was hanging a lady of dazzling beauty and grace. She was very plainly dressed, as were also two beautiful children who accompanied her; but their clothes were of the finest materials, and the elegance of their appearance contrasted strangely with the rags and wretchedness of their husband and father. Lying on a chest, however, Captain Ready saw a pelisse and two children's cloaks of the shabbiest description, and which the new-comers had evidently just taken off.
The seaman's suspicions returned at all this disguise and mystery, and a doubt again arose in his mind as to the propriety of taking passengers who came on board under such equivocal circumstances. A feeling of compassion, however, added to the graceful manners and sweet voice of the lady, decided him to persevere in his original intention; and politely requesting her to make herself at home in the cabin, he returned on deck. Ten minutes later the anchor was weighed, and the schooner in motion.
The sun had risen and dissipated the morning mist. Some distance astern of the now fast-advancing schooner rose the streets and houses of the Havannah, and the forest of masts occupying its port; to the right frowned the castle of the Molo, whose threatening embrasures the vessel was rapidly approaching. The husband and wife stood upon the cabin stairs, gazing, with breathless anxiety, at the fortress.
As the schooner arrived opposite the castle, a small postern leading out upon the jetty was opened, and an officer and six soldiers issued forth. Four men, who had been lying on their oars in a boat at the jetty stairs, sprang up.
The soldiers jumped in, and the rowers pulled in the direction of the schooner.
"Jesus Maria y José!" exclaimed the lady.
"Madre de Dios!" groaned her husband.
At this moment the fort made a signal.
"Up with the helm!" shouted Captain Ready.
The schooner rounded to; the boat came flying over the water, and in a few moments was alongside. The soldiers and their commander stepped on board.
The latter was a very young man, possessed of a true Spanish countenance—grave and stern. In few words he desired the captain to produce his ship's papers, and parade his seamen and passengers. The papers were handed to him without an observation; he glanced his eye over them, inspected the sailors one after the other, and then looked in the direction of the passengers, who at length came on deck, the stranger carrying one of the children and his wife the other. The Spanish officer started.
"Do you know that you have a state-criminal on board?" thundered he to the captain. "What is the meaning of this?"
"Santa Virgen!" exclaimed the lady, and fell fainting into her husband's arms. There was a moment's deep silence. All present seemed touched by the misfortunes of this youthful pair. The young officer sprang to the assistance of the husband, and relieving him of the child, enabled him to give his attention to his wife, whom he laid gently down upon the deck.
"I am grieved at the necessity," said the officer, "but you must return with me."
The American captain, who had been contemplating this scene apparently quite unmoved, now ejected from his mouth a huge quid of tobacco, replaced it by another, and then stepping up to the officer, touched him on the arm, and offered him the pass he had received from his passengers. The Spaniard waved him back almost with disgust. There was, in fact, something very unpleasant in the apathy and indifference with which the Yankee contemplated the scene of despair and misery before him. Such cold-bloodedness appeared premature and unnatural in a man who could not yet have seen more than five-and-twenty summers. A close observer, however, would have remarked that the muscles of his face were beginning to be agitated by a slight convulsive twitching, when, at that moment, his mate stepped up to him and whispered something. Approaching the Spaniard for the second time, Ready invited him to partake of a slight refreshment in his cabin, a courtesy which it is usual for the captains of merchant vessels to pay to the visiting officer. The Spaniard accepted, and they went below.
The steward was busy covering the cabin table with plates of Boston crackers, olives, and almonds, and he then uncorked a bottle of fine old Madeira that looked like liquid gold as it gurgled into the glasses. Captain Ready seemed quite a different person in the cabin and on deck. Throwing aside his dry say-little manner, he was good-humour and civility personified, as he lavished on his guest all those obliging attentions which no one better knows the use of than a Yankee when he wishes to administer a dose of what he would call "soft sawder." Ready soon persuaded the officer of his entire guiltlessness in the unpleasant affair that had just occurred, and the Spaniard told him by no means to make himself uneasy, that the pass had been given for another person, and that the prisoner was a man of great importance, whom he considered himself excessively lucky to have been able to recapture.
Most Spaniards like a glass of Madeira, particularly when olives serve as the whet. The American's wine was first-rate, and the other seemed to find himself particularly comfortable in the cabin. He did not forget, however, to desire that the prisoner's baggage might be placed in the boat, and, with a courteous apology for leaving him a moment, Captain Ready hastened to give the necessary orders.
When the captain reached the deck, a heart-rending scene presented itself to him. His unfortunate passenger was seated on one of the hatchways, despair legibly written on his pale features. The eldest child had climbed up on his knee, and looked wistfully into its father's face, and his wife hung round his neck sobbing audibly. A young negress, who had come on board with them, held the other child, an infant a few months old, in her arms. Ready took the prisoner's hand.
"I hate tyranny," said he, "as every American must. Had you confided your position to me a few hours sooner, I would have got you safe off. But now I see nothing to be done. We are under the cannon of the fort, that could sink us in ten seconds. Who and what are you? Say quickly, for time is precious."
"I am a Columbian by birth," replied the young man, "an officer in the patriot army. I was taken prisoner at the battle of Cachiri, and brought to the Havannah with several companions in misfortune. My wife and children were allowed to follow me, for the Spaniards were not sorry to have one of the first families of Columbia entirely in their power. Four months I lay in a frightful dungeon, with rats and venomous reptiles for my only companions. It is a miracle that I am still alive. Out of seven hundred prisoners, but a handful of emaciated objects remain to testify to the barbarous cruelty of our captors. A fortnight back they took me out of my prison, a mere skeleton, in order to preserve my life, and quartered me in a house in the city. Two days ago, however, I heard that I was to return to the dungeon. It was my death-warrant, for I was convinced I could not live another week in that frightful cell. A true friend, in spite of the danger, and by dint of gold, procured me a pass that had belonged to a Spaniard dead of the yellow fever. By means of that paper, and by your assistance, we trusted to escape. Capitan!" said the young man, starting to his feet, and clasping Ready's hand, his hollow sunken eye gleaming wildly as he spoke, "my only hope is in you. If you give me up I am a dead man, for I have sworn to perish rather than return to the miseries of my prison. I fear not death—I am a soldier; but alas for my poor wife, my helpless, deserted children!"
The Yankee captain passed his hand across his forehead with the air of a man who is puzzled, then turned away without a word, and walked to the other end of the vessel. Giving a glance upwards and around him that seemed to take in the appearance of the sky, and the probabilities of good or bad weather, he ordered some of the sailors to bring the luggage of the passenger upon deck, but not to put it into the boat. He told the steward to give the soldiers and boatmen a couple of bottles of rum, and then, after whispering for a few seconds in the ear of his mate, he approached the cabin stairs. As he passed the Columbian family, he said in a low voice, and without looking at them,
"Trust in him who helps when need is at the greatest."
Scarcely had he uttered the words, when the Spanish officer sprang up the cabin stairs, and as soon as he saw the prisoners, ordered them into the boat. Ready, however, interfered, and begged him to allow his unfortunate passenger to take a farewell glass before he left the vessel. To this young officer good naturedly consented, and himself led the way into the cabin.
They took their places at the table, and the captain opened a fresh bottle, at the very first glass of which the Spaniard's eye glistened, his lips smacked. The conversation became more and more lively; Ready spoke Spanish fluently, and gave proof of a jovialty which no one would have suspected to form a part of his character, dry and saturnine as his manner usually was. A quarter of an hour or more had passed in this way, when the schooner gave a sudden lurch, and the glasses and bottles jingled and clattered together on the table. The Spaniard started up.
"Captain!" cried he furiously, "the schooner is sailing!"
"Certainly," replied the captain, very coolly. "You surely did not expect, Señor, that we were going to miss the finest breeze that ever filled a sail."
Without answering, the officer rushed upon deck, and looked in the direction of the Molo. They had left the fort full two miles behind them. The Spaniard literally foamed at the mouth.
"Soldiers!" vociferated he, "seize the captain and the prisoners. We are betrayed. And you, steersman, put about."
And betrayed they assuredly were; for while the officer had been quaffing his Madeira, and the soldiers and boatmen regaling themselves with the steward's rum, sail had been made on the vessel without noise or bustle, and, favoured by the breeze, she was rapidly increasing her distance from land. Meantime Ready preserved the utmost composure.
"Betrayed!" repeated he, replying to the vehement ejaculation of the Spaniard. "Thank God we are Americans, and have no trust to break, nothing to betray. As to this prisoner of yours, however, he must remain here."
"Here!" sneered the Spaniard—"We'll soon see about that you treacherous"—
"Here," quietly interrupted the captain. "Do not give yourself needless trouble, Señor; your soldiers' guns are, as you perceive, in our hands, and my six sailors well provided with pistols and cutlasses. We are more than a match for your ten, and at the first suspicious movement you make, we fire on you."
The officer looked around, and became speechless when he beheld the soldiers' muskets piled upon the deck, and guarded by two well armed and determined-looking sailors.
"You would not dare"—exclaimed he.
"Indeed would I," replied Ready; "but I hope you will not force me to it. You must remain a few hours longer my guest, and then you can return to port in your boat. You will get off with a month's arrest, and as compensation, you will have the satisfaction of having delivered a brave enemy from despair and death."
The officer ground his teeth together, but even yet he did not give up all hopes of getting out of the scrape. Resistance was evidently out of the question, his men's muskets being in the power of the Americans who, with cocked pistols and naked cutlasses, stood on guard over them. The soldiers themselves did not seem very full of fight, and the boatmen were negroes, and consequently non-combatants. But there were several trincadores and armed cutters cruising about, and if he could manage to hail or make a signal to one of them, the schooner would be brought to, and the tables turned. He gazed earnestly at a sloop that just then crossed them at no great distance, staggering in towards the harbour under press of sail. The American seemed to read his thoughts.
"Do me the honour, Señor," said be, "to partake of a slight dejeuner-à-la fourchette in the cabin. We will also hope for the pleasure of your company at dinner. Supper you will probably eat at home."
And so saying, he motioned courteously towards the cabin stairs. The Spaniard looked in the seaman's face, and read in its decided expression, and in the slight smile of intelligence that played upon it, that he must not hope either to resist or outwit his polite but peremptory entertainer. So, making a virtue of necessity, he descended into the cabin.
The joy of the refugees at finding themselves thus unexpectedly rescued from the captivity they so much dreaded, may be more easily imagined than described. They remained for some time without uttering a word; but the tears of the lady, and the looks of heartfelt gratitude of her husband were the best thanks they could offer their deliverer.
On went the schooner; fainter and fainter grew the outline of the land, till at length it sank under the horizon, and nothing was visible but the castle of the Molo and the topmasts of the vessels riding at anchor off the Havannah. They were twenty miles from land, far enough for the safety of the fugitive, and as far as it was prudent for those to come who had to return to port in an open boat. Ready's good-humour and hearty hospitality had reconciled him with the Spaniard, who seemed to have forgotten the trick that had been played him, and the punishment he would incur for having allowed himself to be entrapped. He shook the captain's hand as he stepped over the side, the negroes dipped their oars into the water, and in a short time the boat was seen from the schooner as a mere speck upon the vast expanse of ocean.
The voyage was prosperous, and in eleven days the vessel reached its destination. The Columbian officer, his wife and children, were received with the utmost kindness and hospitality by the young and handsome wife of Captain Ready, in whose house they took up their quarters. They remained there two months, living in the most retired manner, with the double object of economizing their scanty resources, and of avoiding the notice of the Philadelphians, who at that time viewed the patriots of Southern America with no very favourable eye. The insurrection against the Spaniards had injured the commerce between the United States and the Spanish colonies, and the purely mercantile and lucre-loving spirit of the Philadelphians made them look with dislike on any persons or circumstances who caused a diminution of their trade and profits.
At the expiration of the above-mentioned time, an opportunity offered of a vessel going to Marguerite, then the headquarters of the patriots, and the place where the first expeditions were formed under Bolivar against the Spaniards. Estoval (that was the name by which the Columbian officer was designated in his passport) gladly seized the opportunity, and taking a grateful and affectionate leave of his deliverer, embarked with his wife and children. They had been several days at sea before they remembered that they had forgotten to tell their American friends their real name. The latter had never enquired it, and the Estovals being accustomed to address one another by their Christian names, it had never been mentioned.
Meantime, the good seed Captain Ready had sown, brought the honest Yankee but a sorry harvest. His employers had small sympathy with the feelings of humanity that had induced him to run the risk of carrying off a Spanish state-prisoner from under the guns of a Spanish battery. Their correspondents at the Havannah had had some trouble and difficulty on account of the affair, and had written to Philadelphia to complain of it. Ready lost his ship, and could only obtain from his employers certificates of character of so ambiguous and unsatisfactory a nature, that for a long time he found it impossible to get the command of another vessel.
In the autumn of 1824, I left Baltimore as supercargo of the brig Perverance, Captain Ready. Proceeding to the Havannah, we discharged our cargo, took in another, partly on our own account, partly on that of the Spanish government, and sailed for Callao on the 1st December, exactly eight days before the celebrated battle of Ayacucho dealt the finishing blow to Spanish rule on the southern continent of America, and established the independence of Peru. The Spaniards, however, still held the fortress of Callao, which, after having been taken by Martin and Cochrane four years previously, had again been treacherously delivered up, and was now blockaded by sea and land by the patriots, under the command of General Hualero, who had marched an army from Columbia to assist the cause of liberty in Peru.
Of all these circumstances we were ignorant, until we arrived within a few leagues of the port of Callao. Then we learned them from a vessel that spoke us, but we still advanced, hoping to find an opportunity to slip in. In attempting to do so, we were seized by one of the blockading vessels, and the captain and myself taken out and sent to Lima. We were allowed to take our personal property with us, but of brig or cargo we heard nothing for some time. I was not a little uneasy; for the whole of my savings during ten years' clerkship in the house of a Baltimore merchant were embarked in the form of a venture on board the Perseverance.
The captain, who had a fifth of the cargo, and was half owner of the brig, took things very philosophically, and passed his days with a penknife and stick in his hand, whittling away, Yankee fashion; and when he had chapped up his stick, he would set to work notching and hacking the first chair, bench, or table that came under his hand. If any one spoke to him of the brig, he would grind his teeth a little, but said nothing, and whittled away harder than ever. This was his character, however. I had known him for five years that he had been in the employ of the same house as myself, and he had always passed for a singularly reserved and taciturn man. During our voyage, whole weeks had sometimes elapsed without his uttering a word except to give the necessary orders.
In spite of his peculiarities, Captain Ready was generally liked by his brother captains, and by all who knew him. When he did speak, his words (perhaps the more prized on account of their rarity) were always listened to with attention. There was a benevolence and mildness in the tones of his voice that rendered it quite musical, and never failed to prepossess in his favour all those who heard him, and to make them forget the usual sullenness of his manner. During the whole time he had sailed for the Baltimore house, he had shown himself a model of trustworthiness and seamanship, and enjoyed the full confidence of his employers. It was said, however, that his early life had not been irreproachable; that when he first, and as a very young man, had command of a Philadelphian ship, something had occurred which had thrown a stain upon his character. What this was, I had never heard very distinctly stated. He had favoured the escape of a malefactor, ensnared some officers who were sent on board his vessel to seize him. All this was very vague, but what was positive was the fact, that the owners of the ship he then commanded, had had much trouble about the matter, and Ready himself remained long unemployed, until the rapid increase of trade between the United States and the infant republics of South America had caused seamen of ability to be in much request, and he had again obtained command of a vessel.
We were seated one afternoon outside the French coffeehouse at Lima. The party consisted of seven or eight captains of merchant vessels that had been seized, and they were doing their best to kill the time, some smoking, others chewing, but nearly all with penknife and stick in hand, whittling as for a wager. On their first arrival at Lima, and adoption of this coffeehouse as a place of resort, the tables and chairs belonging to it seemed in a fair way to be cut to pieces by these indefatigable whittlers; but the coffeehouse keeper had hit upon a plan to avoid such deterioration of his chattels, and had placed in every corner of the rooms bundles of sticks, at which his Yankee customers cut and notched, till the coffeehouse assumed the appearance of a carpenter's shop.
The costume and airs of the patriots, as they called themselves, were no small source of amusement to us. They strutted about in all the pride of their fire-new freedom, regular caricatures of soldiers. One would have on a Spanish jacket, part of the spoils of Ayacucho—another, an American one, which he had bought from some sailor—a third a monk's robe, cut short, and fashioned into a sort of doublet. Here was a shako wanting a brim, in company with a gold-laced velvet coat of the time of Philip V.; there, a hussar jacket and an old-fashioned cocked hat. The volunteers were the best clothed, also in great part from the plunder of the battle of Ayacucho. Their uniforms were laden with gold and silver lace, and some of the officers, not satisfied with two epaulettes, had half-a-dozen hanging before and behind, as well as on their shoulders.
As we sat smoking, whittling, and quizzing the patriots, a side-door of the coffeehouse was suddenly opened, and an officer came out whose appearance was calculated to give us a far more favourable opinion of South American militaires. He was a man about thirty years of age, plainly but tastefully dressed, and of that unassuming, engaging demeanour which is so often found the companion of the greatest decision of character, and which contrasted with the martial deportment of a young man who followed him, and who, although in much more showy uniform, was evidently his inferior in rank. We bowed as he passed before us, and he acknowledged the salutation by raising his cocked hat slightly but courteously from his head. He was passing on when his eyes suddenly fell upon Captain Ready, who was standing a little on one side, notching away at his tenth or twelfth stick, and at that moment happened to look up. The officer started, gazed earnestly at Ready for the space of a moment, and then, with delight expressed on his countenance, sprang forward, and clasped him in his arms.
"Captain Ready!"
"That is my name," quietly replied the captain.
"Is it possible you do not know me?" exclaimed the officer.
Ready looked hard at him, and seemed a little in doubt. At last he shook his head.
"You do not know me?" repeated the other, almost reproachfully, and then whispered something in his ear.
It was now Ready's turn to start and look surprised. A smile of pleasure lit up his countenance as he grasped the hand of the officer, who took his arm and dragged him away into the house.
A quarter of an hour elapsed, during which we lost ourselves in conjectures as to who this acquaintance of Ready's could be. At the end of that time the captain and his new (or old) friend re-appeared. The latter walked away, and we saw him enter the government house, while Ready joined us, as silent and phlegmatic as ever, and resumed his stick and penknife. In reply to our enquiries as to who the officer was, he only said that he belonged to the army besieging Callao, and that he had once made a voyage as his passenger. This was all the information we could extract from our taciturn friend; but we saw plainly that the officer was somebody of importance, from the respect paid him by the soldiers and others whom he met.
The morning following this incident we were sitting over our chocolate, when an orderly dragoon came to ask for Captain Ready. The captain went out to speak to him, and presently returning, went on with his breakfast very deliberately.
When he had done, he asked me if I were inclined for a little excursion out of the town, which would, perhaps, keep us a couple of days away. I willingly accepted, heartily sick as I was of the monotonous life we were leading. We packed up our valises, took our pistols and cutlasses, and went out.
To my astonishment the orderly was waiting at the door with two magnificent Spanish chargers, splendidly accoutred. They were the finest horses I had seen in Peru, and my curiosity was strongly excited to know who had sent them, and whither we were going. To my questions, Ready replied that we were going to visit the officer whom he had spoken to on the preceding day, and who was with the besieging army, and had once been his passenger, but he declared he did not know his name or rank.
We had left the town about a mile behind us, when we heard the sound of cannon in the direction we were approaching; it increased as we went on, and about a mile further we met a string of carts, full of wounded, going in to Lima. Here and there we caught sight of parties of marauders, who disappeared as soon as they saw our orderly. I felt a great longing and curiosity to witness the fight that was evidently going on—not, however, that I was particularly desirous of taking share in it, or putting myself in the way of the bullets. My friend the captain jogged on by my side, taking little heed of the roar of the cannon, which to him was no novelty; for having passed his life at sea, he had had more than one encounter with pirates and other rough customers, and been many times under the fire of batteries, running in and out of blockaded American ports. His whole attention was now engrossed by the management of his horse, which was somewhat restive, and he, like most sailors, was a very indifferent rider.
On reaching the top of a small rising ground, we beheld to the left the dark frowning bastions of the fort, and to the right the village of Bella Vista, which, although commanded by the guns of Callao, had been chosen as the headquarters of the besieging army—the houses being, for the most part, built of huge blocks of stone, and offering sufficient resistance to the balls. The orderly pointed out to us the various batteries, and especially one which was just completed, and was situated about three hundred yards from the fortress. It had not yet been used, and was still masked from the enemy by some houses which stood just in its front.
While we were looking about us, Ready's horse, irritated by the noise of the firing, the flashes of the guns, and perhaps more than any thing by the captain's bad riding, became more and more unmanageable, and at last taking the bit between his teeth started off at a mad gallop, closely followed by myself and the orderly, to whose horses the panic seemed to have communicated itself. The clouds of dust raised by the animals' feet, prevented us from seeing whither we were going. Suddenly there was an explosion that seemed to shake the very earth under us, and Ready, the orderly, and myself, lay sprawling with our horses on the ground. Before we could collect our senses and get up, we were nearly deafened by a tremendous roar of artillery close to us, and at the same moment a shower of stones and fragments of brick and mortar clattered about our ears.
The orderly was stunned by his fall; I was bruised and bewildered. Ready was the only one who seemed in no ways put out, and with his usual phlegm, extricating himself from under his horse, he came to our assistance. I was soon on my legs, and endeavouring to discover the cause of all this uproar.
Our unruly steeds had brought us close to the new battery, at the very moment that the train of a mine under the houses in front of it had been fired. The instant the obstacle was removed, the artillerymen had opened a tremendous fire on the fort. The Spaniards were not slow to return the compliment, and fortunate it was that a solid fragment of wall intervened between us and their fire, or all our troubles about the brig, and every thing else, would have been at an end. Already upwards of twenty balls had struck the old broken wall. Shot and shell were flying in every direction, the smoke was stifling, the uproar indescribable. It was so dark with the smoke and dust from the fallen houses, that we could not see an arm's length before us. The captain asked two or three soldiers who were hurrying by, where the battery was; but they were in too great haste to answer, and it was only when the smoke cleared away a little, that we discovered we were not twenty paces from it. Ready seized my arm, and pulling me with him, I the next moment found myself standing beside a gun, under cover of the breastworks.
The battery consisted of thirty, twenty-four, and thirty-six pounders, served with a zeal and courage which far exceeded any thing I had expected to find in the patriot army. The fellows were really more than brave, they were foolhardy. They danced rather than walked round the guns, and exhibited a contempt of death that could not well be surpassed. As to drawing the guns back from the embrasures while they loaded them, they never dreamed of such a thing. They stood jeering and scoffing the Spaniards, and bidding them take better aim.
It must be remembered, that this was only three months after the battle of Ayacucho, the greatest feat of arms which the South American patriots had achieved during the whole of their protracted struggle with Spain. That victory had literally electrified the troops, and inspired them with a courage and contempt of their enemy, that frequently showed itself, as on this occasion, in acts of the greatest daring and temerity.
At the gun by which Ready and myself took our stand, half the artillerymen were already killed, and we had scarcely come there, when a cannon shot took the head off a man standing close to me. The wind of the ball was so great that I believe it would have suffocated me, had I not fortunately been standing sideways in the battery. At the same moment, something hot splashed over my neck and face, and nearly blinded me. I looked, and saw the man lying without his head before me. I cannot describe the sickening feeling that came over me. It was not the first man I had seen killed in my life, but it was the first whose blood and brains had spurted into my face. My knees shook and my head swam; I was obliged to lean against the wall, or I should have fallen.
Another ball fell close beside me, and strange to say, it brought me partly to myself again; and by the time a third and fourth had bounced into the battery, I began to take things pretty coolly—my heart beating rather quicker than usual, I acknowledge; but, nevertheless, I began to find an indescribable sort of pleasure, a mischievous joy, if I may so call it, in the peril and excitement of the scene.
Whilst I was getting over my terrors, my companion was moving about the battery with his usual sang-froid, reconnoitring the enemy. He ran no useless risk, kept himself well behind the breastworks, stooping down when necessary, and taking all proper care of himself. When he had completed his reconnoissance, he, to my no small astonishment, took off his coat and neck-handkerchief, the latter of which he tied tight round his waist, then taking a rammer from the hand of a soldier who had just fallen, he ordered, or rather signed to the artilleryman to draw the gun back.
There was something so cool and decided in his manner, that they obeyed without testifying any surprise at his interference, and as though he had been one of their own officers. He loaded the piece, had it drawn forward again, pointed and fired it. He then went to the next gun and did the same thing there. He seemed so perfectly at home in the battery, that nobody ever dreamed of disputing his authority, and the two guns were entirely under his direction. I had now got used to the thing myself, so I went forward and offered my services, which, in the scarcity of men, (so many having been killed,) were not to be refused, and I helped to draw the guns backwards and forward, and load them. The captain kept running from one to the other, pointing them, and admirably well too; for every shot took effect within a circumference of a few feet on the bastion in front of us.
This lasted nearly an hour, at the end of which time the fire was considerably slackened, for the greater part of our guns had become unserviceable. Only about a dozen kept up the fire, (the ball, I was going to say,) and amongst them were the two that Ready commanded. He had given them time to cool after firing, whereas most of the others, in their desperate haste and eagerness, had neglected that precaution. Although the patriots had now been fifteen years at war with the Spaniards, they were still very indifferent artillerymen—for artillery had little to do in most of their fights, which were generally decided by cavalry and infantry, and even in that of Ayacucho there were only a few small field-pieces in use on either side. The mountainous nature of the country, intersected, too, by mighty rivers, and the want of good roads, were the reasons of the insignificant part played by the artillery in these wars.
Whilst we were thus hard at work, who should enter the battery but the very officer we had left Lima to visit? He was attended by a numerous staff, and was evidently of very high rank. He stood a little back, watching every movement of Captain Ready, and rubbing his hands with visible satisfaction. Just at that moment the captain fired one of the guns, and, as the smoke cleared away a little, we saw the opposite bastion rock, and then sink down into the moat. A joyous hurra greeted its fall, and the general and his staff sprang forward.
It would be necessary to have witnessed the scene that followed in order to form any adequate idea of the mad joy and enthusiasm of its actors. The general seized Ready in his arms, and eagerly embraced him, then almost threw him to one of his officers, who performed the like ceremony, and, in his turn, passed him to a third. The imperturbable captain flew, or was tossed, like a ball, from one to the other. I also came in for my share of the embraces.
I thought them all stark-staring mad; and, indeed, I do not believe they were far from it. The balls were still hailing into the battery; one of them cut a poor devil of an orderly nearly in two, but no notice was taken of such trifles. It was a curious scene enough; the cannon-balls bouncing about our ears—the ground under our feet slippery with blood—wounded and dying lying on all sides—and we ourselves pushed and passed about from the arms of one black-bearded fellow into those of another. There was something thoroughly exotic, completely South American and tropical, in this impromptu.
Strange to say, now that the breach was made, and a breach such that a determined regiment, assisted by well-directed fire of artillery, could have had no difficulty in storming the town, there was no appearance of any disposition to profit by it. The patriots seemed quite contented with what had been done; most of the officers left the batteries, and the thing was evidently over for the day. I knew little of Spanish Americans then, or I should have felt less surprised than I did at their not following up their advantage. It was not from want of courage; for it was impossible to have exhibited more than they had done that morning. But they had had their moment of fury, of wild energy and exertion, and the other side of the national character, indolence, now showed itself. After fighting like devils, at the very moment when activity was of most importance, they lay down and took the sièsta.
We were about leaving the battery, with the intention of visiting some of the others, when our orderly came up in all haste, with orders to conduct us to the general's quarters. We followed him, and soon reached a noble villa, at the door of which a guard was stationed. Here we were given over to a sort of major-domo, who led us through a crowd of aides-de-camp, staff-officers, and orderlies, to a chamber, whither our valises had preceded us. We were desired to make haste with our toilet, as dinner would be served so soon as his Excellency returned from the batteries; and, indeed, we had scarcely changed our dress, and washed the blood and smoke from our persons, when the major-domo re-appeared, and announced the general's return.
Dinner was laid out in a large saloon, in which some sixty officers were assembled when we entered it. With small regard to etiquette, and not waiting for the general to welcome us, they all sprang to meet us with a "Buen venidos, capitanes!"
The dinner was such as might be expected at the table of a general commanded at the same time an army and the blockade of a much-frequented port. The most delicious French and Spanish wines were there in the greatest profusion; the conviviality of the guests was unbounded, but although they drank their champagne out of tumblers, no one showed the smallest symptom of inebriety.
The first toast given, was—Bolivar.
The second—Sucre.
The third—The Battle of Ayacucho.
The fourth—Union between Columbia and Peru.
The fifth—Hualero.
The general rose to return thanks, and we now, for the first time, knew his name. He raised his glass, and spoke, evidently with much emotion.
"Senores! Amigos!" said he, "that I am this day amongst you, and able to thank you for your kindly sentiments towards your general and brother in arms, is owing, under Providence, to the good and brave stranger whose acquaintance you have only this day made, but who is one of my oldest and best friends." And so saying he left his place, and approaching Captain Ready, affectionately embraced him. The seaman's iron features lost their usual imperturbability, and his lips quivered as he stammered out the two words—
"Amigo siempre."
The following day we passed in the camp, and the one after returned to
Lima, the general insisting on our taking up our quarters in his house.
From Hualero and his lady I learned the origin of the friendship existing between the distinguished Columbian general and my taciturn Yankee captain. It was the honourable explanation of the mysterious stain upon Ready's character.
Our difficulties regarding the brig were now soon at an end. The vessel and cargo were returned to us, with the exception of a large quantity of cigars belonging to the Spanish government. These were, of course, confiscated, but the general bought them, and made them a present to Captain Ready, who sold them by auction; and cigars being in no small demand amongst that tobacco-loving population, they fetched immense prices, and put thirty thousand dollars into my friend's pocket.
To be brief, at the end of three weeks we sailed from Lima, and in a vastly better humour than when we arrived there.
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