Cerise: A Tale of the Last Century

by G. J. Whyte-Melville

Thus at last he emerged on a clearing already trenched and hoed for the reception of sugar-canes, and, to his infinite joy, beheld his own shadow, black and distinct, in the trembling moonlight. The bush was now behind him, the slope of the hill in his favour, and he could run down, uninterrupted, towards the pale sea lying spread out like a sheet of silver at his feet. He crossed a road here that he knew must lead him into the town, but it would have taken him somewhat out of his course for the brigantine, and he had resolved to lose no time, even for the chance of obtaining a boat.

He made, therefore, direct for the shore, and in a few minutes he was standing on a strip of sand, with the retiring tide plashing gratefully on his ear, while his eyes were fixed on the tapering spars of ‘The Bashful Maid,’ and the light glimmering in her foretop.

He stepped back a few paces to lay his arms and some of his garments behind a rock, a little above high-water mark. There was small chance he would ever find them again, but he belonged to a profession of which the science is essentially precautionary, and the habit of foresight was a second nature to Slap-Jack. In a few more seconds he was up to his knees, his middle, his breast-bone, in the cooling waters, till a receding wave lifted him off his feet, and he struck out boldly for the brigantine.

How delightful to his heated skin was the contact of the pure, fresh, buoyant element! Notwithstanding his fatigue, his hurry, his anxiety, he could have shouted aloud in joy and triumph, as he felt himself wafted on those long, regular, and powerful strokes nearer and nearer to his object. It was the exultation of human strength and skill and daring, dominant over nature, unassisted by mechanical art.

Yet was there one frightful drawback, a contingency which had been present to his mind from the very beginning, even while he was beating laboriously through the jungle, but which he had never permitted himself to realise, and on which it would now be maddening to dwell: Port Welcome was infested with sharks! He forced himself to ignore the danger, and swam gallantly on, till the wash and ripple of the tide upon the shore was far behind him, and he heard only his own deep measured breathing, and the monotonous plash of those springing, regulated strokes that drove him steadily out to sea. He was already tired, and had turned on his back more than once for relief, ere the hull of the brigantine rose black and steep out of the water half a cable’s length ahead. He counted that after fifty more strokes he would summon breath to hail the watch on deck. He had scarce completed them ere a chill went curdling through his veins from head to heel, and if ever Slap-Jack lost heart it was then. The water surged beneath him, and lifted his whole body, like a wave, though the surrounding surface was smooth as a mill-pond. One desperate kick, that shot him two fathoms at a stroke, and his passing foot grazed some slimy, scaly substance, while from the corner of his eye he caught a glimpse the moment after of the back-fin of a shark. Then he hailed in good earnest, swimming his wickedest the while, and ere the voracious sea-scourge, or its consort, could turn over for a leisurely snap at him, Slap-Jack was safe in the bight of a rope, and the anchor-watch, not a little astonished, were hauling their exhausted shipmate over the side.

“Come on board, sir!” exclaimed the new arrival, scrambling breathless to his feet, after tumbling head-foremost over the gunwale, and pulling with ludicrous courtesy at his wet hair. “Come on board, sir. Hands wanted immediate. Ax your honour’s pardon. So blown I can hardly speak. First-class row among the niggers. Bobbery all over the island. Devil to pay, and no pitch hot!”

Captain George was on deck, which perhaps accounted for the rapidity of the foretopman’s rescue, and although justly affronted by so unceremonious a return on the part of a liberty-man who had out-stayed his leave, he saw at a glance that some great emergency was imminent, and prepared to meet it with habitual coolness.

“Silence, you fool!” said he, pointing to a negro amongst the crew. “Lend him a jacket, some of you. Come below at once to my cabin, and make your report. You can be punished afterwards.”

Slap-Jack followed his commander nothing loth. The after-punishment, as being postponed for twenty-four hours at least, was a matter of no moment, but a visit to the Captain’s cabin entailed, according to the etiquette of the service, a measure of grog, mixed on certain liberal principles, that from time immemorial have regulated the strength of that complimentary refreshment.

In all such interviews it is customary for the skipper to produce his spirit-case, a tumbler, and a jug of water. The visitor helps himself from the former, and esteems it only good breeding that he should charge his glass to the depth of three fingers with alcohol, filling it up with the weaker fluid. When the thickness of a seaman’s fingers is considered, and the breadth to which he can spread them out on such occasions, it is easy to conceive how little space is left near the rim of the vessel for that insipid element, every additional drop of which is considered by competent judges to spoil the beverage. Slap-Jack mixed as liberally as another. Ere his draught, however, was half-finished, or his report nearly concluded, the Captain had turned the hands up, and ordered a boat to be manned forthwith, leaving Beaudésir to command in his absence; but true to his usual system, informing no one, not even the latter, of his intentions, or his destination.