The huts were built upon a green bank, rising pleasantly from the sea, the little headland of which I spoke sheltering it. Behind some lofty ridges, partly covered with luxuriant wood, which here and there had been cleared, certain small fields were marked out, these last being planted with a brown herb, like overgrown rhubarb, which they told me was tobacco. At the water’s edge was a rude wharf, made of wood called shingles—and several canoes and European-built boats lay there. While I was sauntering about, one of the former put off, navigated by two Indians, who spoke both French and English reasonably well. These Indians were better and more neatly attired than the whites; they were of a sallow-brown hue, had long, lank black hair, and very bright eyes. In person they were tall, raw-boned, and muscular. In the canoe they carried an assortment, as it were, of spears, called fizgigs and harpoons, for striking fish; at which exercise they are inconceivably expert, often killing in a forenoon what will form a good dinner for a hundred men. The Mosquito men, for so are these Indians called, are therefore very highly prized by the whites, who give them good wages to go on board their ships, or to stay at their settlements on shore, to provide turtle or manatee for the company. While I was looking at them, Nicky came up to me, and we walked through the village together, he bringing me into many of the cabins, all of which were similar to his own. Those of the men who were not in the mountains or savannahs hunting, were attending to their boucans, or fires, for the drying of the meat, and I thought as I saw them, working like butchers and cooks, that I would rather take the huntsman’s part of the business. All around lay the quarters of slaughtered beeves and hogs, while the Buccaneers, armed with long knives, cut the flesh from the bones. These lumps were then carefully salted in open sheds used for that purpose, and after being well steeped in brine, were placed on the boucan—that is to say, upon the grille of wood above a slow fire, which gradually dried and cooked the meat, giving it at the same time a sort of smoky taste, which however is not without an aroma to the palate. This method of preserving meat may be called national in these islands, for so did the original Charibs dress their food, whether fish or flesh. These savages were so fond of this cookery, and of such endurance, that an Indian returning from the chase, fatigued and hungry, would often wait patiently by the boucan, or as they called it, the barbecu, the best part of a day, until a fish or slice of hog, or beeve, was well cooked, the morsel being suspended almost two feet above a little and slow fire. The Charibs, being cannibals, were often in use to treat their prisoners just as they treated their game, and I know many who, visiting some of the smaller windward islands, and also the Brazilian coast, saw great flitches of human flesh, smoked and barbecued, hanging in the huts. The meat, when sufficiently preserved in the manner which I have described, the Buccaneers placed in storehouses, built so that both land and sea winds may play well around them. The hides are also prepared in a rude fashion, and the tallow, the whole being periodically sold, either for money or goods, to the captains of privateers for their crews, or to certain planters in those islands in which cattle do not abound. The latter are the best customers, making regular contracts with the Buccaneers for the supply of a certain quantity of meat and hides for a fixed sum, the stipulations on both sides being honourably adhered to. Many of the Buccaneers have servants and hired assistants, who are chiefly employed in conveying the cattle from the spot where they are killed to the boucan, and afterwards in helping to stow away the food. Although this appeared to be a regular settlement, its inhabitants led but a roving life. Many of them intended to go to sea for a change at the first opportunity, and others, conceiving that there were more cattle and fewer hunters to the eastward, spoke of shifting their quarters. This I heard while wandering about with Nicky, from boucan to boucan, and hut to hut. The scene indeed was a new one to me. Such groups of wild-looking blood-stained men; such slashing and cutting of meat, as though one were in the shambles; such shouting and singing in different tongues, mixed with the clamour of dogs and the screams of parrots, and other birds from the neighbouring groves; such quaffing of bumpers of brandy and constant smoking of tobacco; such an appearance indeed of rude plenty and coarse health and enjoyment—all this made a curious impression on me, and I returned to the hut pondering on it.
‘Well,’ says Nicky, ‘will you stay with us, and be my comrade, in lieu of poor Benjamin? Here is his stock in trade,’ pointing to two good guns and a little assortment of household stuff. ‘By the rules of the coast, as you know, we all work in couples. Each man has his comrade, with whom he shares all: and when one dies, the survivor is entitled to his partner’s wealth and implements—the last of which I will very willingly bestow upon you, should you deem it meet to join me.’
We talked for some time about the matter. My own mind was naturally buoyant, and my spirits easily fitted themselves to circumstances; and so, concluding that I would lead an adventurous life, and see much well worthy of being beheld, we in the end concluded a bargain; and then putting on a doublet which had belonged to poor Benjamin, and which being almost new, was but slightly smirched with blood, my partner summoned in several of the chief men to the hut; and they being accommodated with great goblets of brandy, admitted me by acclamation into the body of the brave Huntsmen and Buccaneers, and the ancient order of Brethren of the Coast, baptizing me in brandy, with various mummeries, by the nick-name of Will Thistle, as showing my Scottish nativity. Then Jonas, who was there, would fain have had a carouse, but they persuaded him not, saying that there was ample work to do, and little time to do it in, before the ships would arrive from Jamaica and Nevis for boucan.
Behold me now, therefore, a Buccaneer on the coast of Hispaniola! I let my beard and moustache grow, and they and my hair, which was naturally luxuriant, mingling, I speedily looked as grim and grisly as any of them. My comrade, Nicky, was a good man and true; he had really felt the death of Benjamin his partner, and so had been at first more grave and more reserved than usual. But as this natural feeling wore away, he became truly a merry madcap, with a jest, sometimes of the coarsest, or a lusty sea-song, or a tale of brave privateersmen, ever in his mouth. Under his tuition, I soon became a good shot, and learned to break up a bull or cow most scientifically with the knife. Also I became acquainted with the various trees and shrubs, birds and beasts of the coast. I knew how to fell the mountain cabbage, and to roast the savoury plantain in the hot cinders. I could bake the mealy cassava cake, and I knew how to bore the Frank palm for the luscious sap which flows from the wounded bark. Besides, these great forests and fair beaches teem with infinite food. We turned the lazy turtles which we found upon the shore, or hunted for their eggs in the hot sand. We intercepted and roasted the land-crab in his annual journey from the mountains; we shot the guano or yellow lizard, as he whimpered in the boughs, and prejudice being set aside, found his flesh like that of a barn-door fowl; while the racoon and the monkey both formed good roasts when we tired of pork and beef. Then on every pond bred flocks of fat ducks, and, in the season, the delicious ortolan fed amid the guinea grass. Great hosts of pigeons built in the high trees and the rocks, and the bright-coloured woodpeckers afforded us many a savoury dish. For the sea, the Mosquito men kept us well supplied. Standing in the bows of the canoe, with their barbed spears poised and ready, and their keen eyes fixed upon the water beneath, there was hardly a fish at which they darted their harpoons which the next moment lay not quivering and bleeding in the bottom of the boat.
CHAPTER V.
HOW WE ENCOUNTER GREAT DANGERS, THE SPANIARDS
ATTACKING US.
I have said that the bay on which we lived was part of the mouth or estuary of the river Marmousette, which, rising in distant mountains, falls into the sea, between Port Plate, a great land-bound gulf, and a high cape called Point de Cas Rouge. A mile or so further up the country than the Buccaneer settlement, the coast was low and marshy; the mangroves here grew in great abundance, and divers deep channels of salt water ran away from the main branch of the sea, and led, some of them, to great open savannahs, covered with rich grass, where the wild cattle loved to come and feed. One day, five of us started in a small pirogue, which could barely contain such a crew, to seek for bulls and cows in these swampy prairies—a Buccaneer called Walshe, who perfectly knew the mangrove canals, acting as pilot. We paddled up alongside of the bank, and having come to the swampy ground, directed the canoe through certain intricate channels in the forest of mangroves, with the intent of coming to a bit of the savannah favourable for our sport, which Walshe knew. It was curious, thus rowing, as it were, through a submerged forest. The water beneath us was very deep—for we were obliged to keep in the channels by reason of the mangroves growing on the muddy banks—and quite transparent, so long as the fat black slime remained undisturbed. Over head, the mangroves formed a complete canopy, so that we paddled in a hot green twilight, looking through long vistas of this natural alcove, or else trying in vain to make our eyesight penetrate more than a few yards athwart the infinity of grey, slimy stems. At this time, the tide was flowing inward, floating alongside of us broad layers of thick, rich scum, which gradually, as it were, clung to the trees on either side, leaving the mid-passage clear.
I, happening to be in the bow of the canoe as look-out man, amused myself by gazing down into the green, translucent sea, ahead of the ripples caused by the progress of the canoe. The channel could not have been less than three fathoms deep, yet I saw, as clearly as though there were nothing but air beneath me, the broad, moving leaves of great plants at the bottom, and the heaps, and coils, and meshes of twisted stalks, and long, serpent-like withes springing from the fat mud, and which waved with a slow and sickly motion as the passing tide stirred them. There were also great shoals of fish of divers kinds, which fled away on all sides as we advanced; but what fascinated my gaze was the appearance of a huge blue shark, which I could distinctly see cleaving the water about half way between the boat’s keel and the bottom, and keeping pace with us very exactly. I was in the very act of raising my head to tell what I had seen, when I heard a loud exclamation from Walshe, who was steering, and who exclaimed that there was a rope stretched across the passage. The words were hardly out of his mouth, when the canoe struck the obstacle, broached to with the swing of the tide, and in an instant turned over, tilting us all, with a huge splash, into the water. As I went souse into the sea, the vision of the horrible monster which I had just seen shot through my very heart and brain, and striking out with convulsive strokes, in a moment I clutched a mangrove stem, and then, almost unknowing how I did it, I swung myself into the tree. Turning round, I looked for my companions; two were clinging to the canoe, which was drifting rapidly away with the tide. Nicky, my comrade, was in a similar position to myself, but on the opposite side of the creek; but poor Walshe was struggling in mid-channel, vainly trying, in his flurry, to swim against tide. We both shouted to him to sheer to one side; but just as he was attempting to do so, I saw a bluish white glimmer shoot through the troubled water beneath him, and at that moment, the poor fellow gave such an unearthly yell, that the woods echoed, flinging his arms about, and dashing the water into a foam, in the midst of which he disappeared, his cry ending in a loud, choking gurgle. Then there rose and rolled a great smooth, boiling wave, tinged with blood, as the shark, having secured his prey, turned again on his belly, and dived into the deep water. Nicky and I sat looking at each other for near the space of ten minutes without uttering a syllable. Then we began, I know not why, to talk in low whispers, and to consult upon our own situation. Our hope was, that the two hunters, who had stuck by the canoe, would be able to right it, and return for us, and so, joining our voices, we shouted loud and long, but the only answer which came back was the clamour of parrots and other birds, and the hissing sound of the water pouring between the slimy mangrove stems. We had no fire-arms, they having gone to the bottom when the canoe upset; so, having shouted ourselves hoarse, we had nothing for it but painfully to converse with each other. Our discourse turned upon the cause of our mishap. The rope was, by this time, far beneath the water, but we could observe the tremor of the two stout mangroves to which it was attached. It was Nicky’s opinion that there were Spaniards upon the coast, and that we had fallen into one of their traps—they being aware that we sometimes used these canals to paddle to the savannahs, and return with the ebb of the tide. ‘If so,’ said my comrade, ‘we shall not be left long here, and shall come by a fate not much better than that of poor Sam Walshe.’ I inquired if there was no hope of escape at low water, when we might wade through the water to firm ground; but my comrade replied, that unless we were giants, we could hope nothing from that. Neither would it be practicable to clamber shorewards from tree to tree, on account of the great multiplicity of canals and passages which traverse the mangroves, the smaller of which harboured caymans in their muddy depths. ‘No, no,’ concluded Nicky, ‘we can do nothing; we must wait and take our chance.’
Presently the tide began silently to ebb, and in due time it left the marsh bare. But, oh! what a dismal spectacle that was! Everywhere fat banks of black mud, nourishing everlasting mangroves, the obscene slime here piled up in great rotting masses, there smooth in beds, from which bubbles of impure air would come bursting to the surface, and sending up hideous smells of putrefaction. The air, indeed, became as the air of a pest-house. Dank vapours began to roll amid the trees, a sort of seething steam boiled up from the pools and canals, and by night-time a wet grey fog, which was as the very breath of fever, brooded all through the marsh. The night wind was hardly felt amid these woody solitudes; and if a gust sometimes swept by us, it only brought the unwholesome vapour in fresh supplies. From time to time, we called to each other. Nicky recommended me to keep the collar of my doublet between my teeth, so as to breathe through the stuff, but we suffered terribly from hunger. With the morning, the fog lifted, and the tide, which had of course flowed and ebbed during the night, began to flow again. Still, there was no appearance of relief. We would even have welcomed the arrival of the Spaniards, but not an oar or paddle-splash broke the terrible silence. We were both, I think, falling into a sort of stupor, when Nicky suddenly shouted to me.
‘There—see, there!’ he cried; ‘down the channel!’