‘We have had enough of the shore this bout, mates,’ quoth he. ‘I want to hear the wind whistle through tarry ropes again, and feel a stout ship dancing under my feet.’
‘Yah, yah,’ said the Hollander. ‘We zaal be Zee Roovers once more;’ and all the company flung up their hats like our leader, and swore that they would take deep vengeance on Jack Spaniard. For my part, I was well pleased, for I felt I was a sailor, and that I had no business to be following a hunter’s life ashore. I had not very much taste for shooting bullocks, and still less for breaking them up, cooking and storing them; and, although I had always cheerfully taken my turn to watch the boucan fire, my mind would often stray away upon the ocean, and I would pant for the fresh sea-breeze, and the dash of the foaming brine. As for my comrade, Nicky, he was that easy kind of going man, that he seemed to care very little whether he was on land or sea. He worked, ate, drank, sang and slept, and then rose merrily next day to go through the same routine. But Stout Jem, who was the life and soul, as well as the captain of our party, was a sailor all over. He had been many years in the Caribbean sea, was a good pilot, understood every current, and every indication of the weather; and moreover, knew by heart every buccaneering trick for easing of their cargoes the treasure-ships of the Dons.
But before we could go to sea, we must have a vessel; and saving the canoe, which was hardly fit for a cruiser we were as unprovided as though we lived on the top of a mountain. There was nothing therefore for it, as we could not go in a ship to the Spaniards, but to wait until the Spaniards should come in a ship to us, that is to say, in such a small ship as we could master, and afterwards manage. We might indeed have not found much difficulty in entering an English privateer, many of whom we knew were hovering on the coast; but being acquainted with each other well, we preferred in the first place to capture such a small craft as we could man, afterwards making such additions to our crew as might from time to time be resolved on. In the meanwhile, we continued to hunt and prepare the flesh of wild cattle and boars, so that we should have a good stock of provisions when we were ready to go to sea.
Being, as I have said, always fonder of water than land, I often induced the Mosquito Indians to allow me to go with them in their canoe, when they went to strike fish and manatee. Generally the Indians permit no one to accompany them in these expeditions, and if they are forced to allow a white man into the canoe, they will purposely miss their aim at every fish or animal they strike, and so return empty handed. However, I being a great favourite with Blue Peter, who had indeed saved my life in the fever; and losing no opportunity, by such petty gifts as I had it in my power to make, of showing my gratitude, he made no objections to my accompanying him and his comrade in many of their expeditions.
We used to start before sunrise, Blue Peter in the bows of the canoe, and Jack in the stern, both paddling quickly, while I sat amidships in the bottom. No Europeans I ever saw can paddle so silently, swiftly, and surely as the Indians on the Mosquito coast. They hold the shaft of the paddle almost upright, never touching the gunwale therewith, or splashing rudely in the water. On the contrary, the broad part of the paddle dips as clean as a knife, and the canoe glides with a perfectly smooth and rapid motion, so that, did you not observe how fast the water ripples by, you would hardly think you were moving at all. When pursuing the manatee, our usual game, the head of the canoe was turned up the creek, to the higher banks, where the shore was sedgy and low, where the mangroves reared their dismal groves, and where, the water gradually becoming brackish and muddy, there is found floating and waving from the banks, the long narrow-bladed grass on which the manatee loves to feed. The creature we hunted is a harmless beast, like a great seal. It is a misfortune for himself that he has tender white flesh, tasting like veal, and that his skin makes very good thongs and straps, which the Buccaneers use for divers purposes. Were it not so, he might float unmolested in the warm muddy water, nibbling the streaming grass, as the lazy current carries his heavy form slowly up and down the mangrove canals, twinkling his little pig-like eyes, and anxiously jerking his great stupid-looking head, if a cayman rolls with a splash from the muddy bank into the river, or a squatting flock of wild-ducks rise with a whirr from the sedgy surface of a neighbouring pool.
But the poor manatee, being good to eat, must submit to be harpooned and eaten. When we came to the feeding-ground which he loves, the Indians would paddle with double caution, and Blue Peter, who was the striker, would carefully examine his harpoon, and see that it lay convenient to his hand. The spear used for capturing the manatee is about eight feet long. The iron barb, a heavy and sharp piece of metal, is attached to the thicker end, and to the other is fastened a circular knob called the bobwood, round which is wound a strong line, one end of which is fast to the bobwood, the other to the iron of the harpoon. When the weapon is flung, the barb alone sinks into the creature’s flesh, the staff coming unloosed from the iron, and the line rapidly unwinding from the bobwood, as the stricken creature dives in its agony and fear. The Indians then paddle after the staff, and having seized it, gradually wear out the strength of the game, and kill it.
I shall not soon forget the first manatee hunt I saw. We embarked at early dawn, and glided silently along the green shore, from which the mist of the night was lifting and rolling in white clouds far up the mountains. After long skirting the mangrove wood, we turned from the main channel into a narrow creek, slipping along in perfect silence. Listen as I would, I could not even hear the water at the canoe’s bow, her mould was so perfect, and so steady the strokes which propelled her. The drip of the water from the paddles, as they were lifted, alone made a slight tinkling sound. The sea-breeze had not yet begun to blow, and the sun came down scorchingly upon the tangled wood and the green water, the surface of which glanced like bright, clear oil. Presently Blue Peter laid his paddle noiselessly down, and took up the harpoon. I looked anxiously ahead. Clustered round the trunk of a vast mangrove, which rose up out of the water, there was a tangled heap of soaking grass and weeds. The kneeling Indian crouched as if he were a graven image of ebony or bronze, and I saw the floating weeds move, and heard a grinding, spluttering sound, as of a cow grazing. Then the Indian moved a finger of his left hand, which he had kept outstretched; his comrade at the stern saw the sign, and a peculiar sweep of the paddle sent the canoe slantingly towards the weeds. As she diverged from her course, Blue Peter stood erect, and raising his right arm, with all the muscles swelling out like knots and lumps of iron, darted the harpoon, as it appeared to me, into the centre of the moving weeds. Instantly there was a great splash and plunge, and the canoe rocked upon a wave, which scattered the floating herbage, so that I saw disappearing in the water the broad brown back of a creature as large as a cow. Blue Peter, the instant he struck, sank again upon his knees, and snatching up the paddle, prepared to move. Meantime I could see nothing of the harpoon, for it had been carried under water. The Mosquito men then talked to each other in their own tongue, pointing to the direction in which the manatee appeared to have dived, and then began to paddle lustily. About five minutes might have elapsed, when Blue Peter exclaimed, ‘Ho!—there!’ and pointed. I, looking in the same direction, descried the staff of the harpoon seeming to fly along the surface of the water, the round bobwood throwing up a foam two feet high. Then the Mosquito-men pulled hard in chase. I could never have thought that their gaunt, brown bodies had so much strength in them. The muscles of their naked arms and chests strained and swelled, the paddle-shafts cracked, and the canoe seemed at every stroke to be lifted out of the water. Still they did not gain upon the harpoon towed by the manatee, but, on the contrary, rather lost, so that I began to fear that we would never see either harpoon or quarry; but, on a sudden, the motion of the former stopped, and it floated tranquilly upon the water. The manatee, being fatigued, had sunk to the bottom, and lay there. We now paddled carefully up, and Blue Peter caught the staff, and began to pull upon the line. Immediately that the wounded creature felt the smart, it started again. I saw the line vibrate and stretch out in a direction abeam of the canoe; but, in a moment, Jack, who held the steering-paddle, swept the bows round in the direction taken by the manatee, while Blue Peter fastened the line to the prow of the canoe. There was a jerk or two, though not so much as I expected, and straightway we began to move ahead, Peter crouching in the bows, signing to Jack how to steer. For near a quarter of an hour did the wounded beast drag us through the water, sometimes so swiftly that the foam whizzed past us—anon changing his course so suddenly, that had not the canoe been steered with perfect skill, he would have dragged us under water. Then, his strength beginning to ebb from him fast, we hauled upon the line, and gradually closed with our prey, whose blood was now reddening the water. I pitied the poor creature, as he put his head above the surface, and grunted and moaned after his fashion, but he was soon out of his pain. Slipping alongside of the carcass, Blue Peter passed his long knife around its throat, and after one or two struggles and plunges, the manatee turned over upon its back, dead. We towed him ashore, and securing him to a tree, presently paddled off in search of more game of the same sort.
But upon the whole, I better loved our fishing expeditions than the hunt of the manatee. The poor defenceless brute always inspired me with pity. There is a meekness about his face which moves one. He makes no attempt to turn to bay or show fight, but is slaughtered as unresistingly as a calf, and the haunts he loves are the muddy and unwholesome canals among the mangrove swamps. But in spearing fish we often rowed down the bay to the rocky points and ledges of reef which formed the outermost horns of the lagoon. There the clear, blue sea, white spangled by the merry strength of the sea-breeze, stretched illimitably out, and the everlasting surf flung aloft its clouds of sparkling spray, high up among the rocks, now and then giving the bushes a taste of the savour of brine. It was in the still pools and channels, formed by breakwaters of rock, that the canoe was then navigated. Let the sea-breeze be blowing, and the surging swells be tossing in, as hard and fast as they might, there was always calm water behind the reefs—so calm and so clear! I might think that I was looking into the swirlings of our trout-pool in the Balwearie Burn, but for the bright, jagged coral, and the strange sea-weeds at the bottom, and the still stranger fishes floating, as it were, in pure mid air, but a fathom down beneath the keel of the canoe. Gliding over these translucent waters, sometimes scraping the battered side of our skiff against the rough coral edges; sometimes receiving a sparkling shower of spray when a bigger wave than ordinary burst upon the outside reef, the Mosquito men were in their glory. Blue Peter stood erect in the bow, his black, flashing eyes fixed on the water as though he would note every scollop in the edge of the jagged sea-weed, or every wavy ridge on the bed of white sand, and his long thin fish-spear darting occasionally down into the flood to be straightway drawn, bending and quivering, back with a noble fish, writhing and floundering, impaled upon the barbs. Always upon these expeditions I kept a good look-out seaward, and often mounted pinnacles of rock that I might have the better view. Once or twice I saw a sail, apparently set on board a small vessel, slipping quickly down to the westward, or beating painfully to windward; but the barks were too far at sea for me to make out aught of their character or country.
During this period of my sojourn in Hispaniola it was our custom to spend the evenings together in the principal hut—that which was first constructed, and which was of an ample bigness. Here, seated round a great chest, which served for a table, we smoked our pipes, drank pretty deep draughts of the rich palm wine, and told in turn stories of our lives and adventures. The hut being only wattled, and that very imperfectly, the strong land breeze blew through and through it, causing the flame of our solitary lamp to waver and flicker, and not unfrequently putting it out altogether. We sat upon bundles made of our clothes, or heaps of dried grass, and must, in sooth, have appeared a parcel of strange ragamuffins, with our faces burnt to mahogany colour by the sun; our hair and beards long, tangled, and matted; and our clothes, being coarse doublets and short jackets, cut in uncouth shapes, and often red and greasy with the blood and fat of the animals which it was our business to kill. Stout Jem, being reckoned the head and commander of our party, sat on a kind of settle for a throne, and the rest of us crowded as near the great chest as we could, the two Mosquito men excepted, who commonly sat apart squatted on their hams, and speaking to each other softly in their own tongue. Sometimes we would play dice on these evenings, not for money, of which we had none, but for the carcasses of the cattle which we had killed and flayed; but as the play was always fair and the dice true, it was generally found that no one either lost or gained much in the long run. It was, however, the storytelling nights I loved the best. Many of the tales then told were indeed very vulgar and common, and unworthy of being recorded, turning solely upon butcheries of the Spaniards at sea, and upon great seasons of debauch, after a successful cruise, in Tortugas or Jamaica. Not a few tales were also told of ghosts and omens, and such extravagances, which the superstitious nature of sailors causes them to believe and to hearken greedily to. I heard many such histories both at this time and afterwards, and I design to insert one here, not because I think it at all credible, but because it is a very good specimen of the histories of ghosts, phantoms, and other supernatural appearances which were current among the Buccaneers. This story was told by Stout Jem very solemnly, and listened to with no less eagerness; and in recounting it I will endeavour to put the matter into the narrator’s words, of which, for an uncultivated seaman, he had a good flow. Stout Jem called his history ‘The Legend of Foul-Weather Don,’ and to it I will devote the next chapter.