Sometimes alow to warn;
But it reads us all this lesson—
True love is never dead,
The symbol shines on every sea
That shone from Beachy Head!
CHAPTER XVIII.
A KNAVE OF THE CREW PLAYING WITH COGGED DICE IS KEEL-HAULED.
Four days after leaving the reefs, we saw land ahead, and presently were running in amid the clusters of the Samballas Isles. On every side of us, these rich islands flung, as it were, their masses of foliage into the sea; bushes clothing the rocks where such existed, and at other points thick mangrove woods, the stems of the trees often covered with oysters, growing far into the water. These forests appeared to swarm with birds and beasts. We heard the loud screams of thousands of unknown fowls resounding from the woods; and often, as we skirted the shore, watching places where the trees did not grow thick, we descried troops of monkeys going chattering along, or herds of peccary and deer, breaking through the bushes. Sea-birds also abounded. Great clouds of plovers flew, wheeling and circling along the shore, and the white sandy beaches and the sea were dotted with turtles basking in the sun, or lazily sleeping on the top of the smooth water. The Samballas Islands are thinly inhabited by scattered tribes of Indians, who subsist by hunting and fishing, and are very willing to aid as guides or pilots to the English and French privateers who put in here; so that the first canoe which we saw made directly towards us, and the two Indians who guided it came on board very readily, and were treated with brandy and wine, much to their satisfaction. From them we learned that several privateers had been lately in these islands, to careen and provision; and that the Spaniards from Porto Bello and Carthagena, had sent a fleet of armadilloes, as they are called, being small vessels of war, which had swept all the channels between the islands, and had captured one privateer, a tartan of four guns, commanded by Captain Coxon, having surprised her in a creek where she was careening. We questioned these Indians respecting the galleon which the Spanish prisoner at Jamaica had told us of. They know that many rich ships sailed annually from Carthagena to Old Spain, but could tell no particulars, conjecturing, however, that if any vessel with a freight of price were now fitting for sea, she would sail after the return of the armadilloes to Carthagena, judging that they would have, for the present, cleared the coast. This information, which jumped with our own ideas, made us very anxious to take in what provisions we stood in want of, and be off to the westward; and the same afternoon the friendly Indians piloted the schooner into a very snug bay, where we lay with trees all round us, except at one point where an opening in the woods conducted to a noble savannah, whither we often went to hunt. While we lay here, all hands were fully occupied. Upon the beach, near the schooner, we erected a place for preparing boucan, which we preferred to regularly salted meat: and of which Nicky Hamstring, who had a natural turn for cooking in all its branches, was appointed superintendent. Then the Mosquito men went daily in their canoe, and struck turtle and manatee. Hunting parties, whereof I generally made one, explored the woods and brought good store of peccary and deer down to the boucan. We shot also the tender young monkies, who often made my heart sore by their screaming and moaning when they felt the lead, and by the pitiful way in which, when they came by a broken bone, they would handle the useless limb, and grin and weep with the pain. Besides these, we made food of the guanas or yellow lizards, who live amid the branches, and love to bask in the sun upon the topmost boughs, and also of a species of red land-crab, which our men call soldiers, from their colour, and which run nimbly about, generally at the roots of trees, hiding themselves quickly in holes, and burrowing like rabbits. The Indians who conducted our schooner into the bay, lived with others not far off, in smoky huts, which were surrounded by patches of cleared land, wherein they grew good store of yams and plantains, which they sold very willingly for hatchets, saws, and such like implements, with powder and lead. Meantime, while a great part of the crew were thus busy on shore, Captain Jem, with the hands who remained on board the schooner, was occupied in changing her appearance as much as possible; for we knew that the Spaniards have no lack of spies either in Jamaica or the other English islands, and we misdoubted that an account of the schooner had been sent to Cuba, and from thence to the Main. We, therefore, repainted the ship, making a great yellow streak from stem to stern, with false ports, and also made a shift to alter, to the eye at least, the trim of the ship, by placing false bulwarks towards the stern, which heightening her from the foremast all the way aft—the painted streak being made to correspond with the new bulwarks—caused the schooner to have a clumsy look, as though she were down by the head, in consequence of carrying an ill-stowed cargo. We also changed the set of the masts, by putting heavy strains upon the rigging; and lastly, we patched the sails, although they were new and good, with old canvas; conducting our operations with such good effect, that the crew swore to a man, that had they been away for a week, they would never have recognised the schooner for the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’
Being at length in readiness for our cruise, we towed the ship out of the little bay, and commenced beating to windward through the islands, passing the isle called Las Sound, where the Buccaneers have a legend, that the heart of Sir Francis Drake lies buried in four caskets, of lead, of iron, of silver and of gold. I see no reason, however, for believing that his heart was not in his body when that was committed to the deep in the bay of Porto Bello, amid the thunder of artillery, and the crash of the martial music, in which the great admiral so much delighted. As we worked up against strong westerly breezes, we met with several fleets of large canoes, laden with sugar, hogs, yams, and corn, running before the trades; but as we were now approaching Carthagena, we thought it most prudent to let these piraguas pass by unmolested, hoisting Spanish colours, and making as though we were a friendly trader. So in due time, we left the westernmost of the Samballas keys to the leeward, and stood off to the north-west, designing to make a long stretch out to sea, so as to prevent any intelligence of our whereabouts being conveyed along the main land to Carthagena.
Towards the afternoon of the day on which we cleared the Samballas, I having the charge of the deck, could not help noticing the miserable plight of one Simon Radley, a young sailor, who was a very quiet well-behaved fellow, and a favourite on board. When we left Jamaica, he had been very well dressed in seaman fashion; but now, he was clothed merely in rags, without a shirt, and his shoes were only bits of canvas swathed round his feet, and very coarsely sewn together. Besides all this, the poor fellow looked almost broken-hearted, and went about his work very sadly,