The men looked at each other, shaking their heads and muttering, “Not I”; and finally Charpentier exclaimed, “You see, monsieur, there is not one of us who can navigate. What is to be done? You, monsieur, are an officer—at least so I understood François to say; perhaps you could—”
“Well,” demanded I, seeing that the fellow hesitated, “perhaps I could—what?”
“Pardon, monsieur,” exclaimed he, “I was in hopes that, considering the difficulty we are placed in by this most lamentable tragedy, you would kindly take command and navigate the schooner.”
“I see,” remarked I. “Well,” I continued, “if such is the wish of you all, I have no objection to do as you wish. But—understand me—I will only consent to navigate the schooner back to the West Indies; I will not undertake the trouble and responsibility of carrying the ship to her destination and shipping a cargo. I disapprove, on principle, of slave-trading, which I consider an iniquitous traffic, and I will have nothing to do with it; but, if you are willing, I will navigate the ship back to Port Royal,—guaranteeing you immunity from capture upon our arrival, in consideration of the rescue and succour that you have afforded me,—and, when there, you will have no difficulty in procuring someone who will navigate the schooner from thence to Havana or any other port that you may choose to go to. Just talk it over among yourselves, and let me know what you decide on doing.”
I could see that my proposal was not at all to Charpentier’s liking, or, indeed, to the liking of any of the crew; but I cared not for that. I was quite determined to have nothing whatever to do with the kidnapping of any unfortunate blacks; and in the end they were obliged to give way, although Charpentier tried hard to dissuade me from my resolution; the result being, that immediately after I had ascertained our position at noon, we wore round and shaped a course for Martinique, that island being in a direct line with Jamaica. At first I was rather apprehensive that the disappointment of the men at so unprofitable a result of the voyage would cause them to be troublesome; but it did not. The question of turning back having once been settled, they all seemed to take the matter very philosophically, the fact that they were now relieved of the mate’s tyranny perhaps reconciling them to such disappointment as they might otherwise have felt.
I need not dwell upon the return voyage, which was singularly uneventful; suffice it to say that, favoured with fine weather and a fair wind all the way, we made an exceptionally smart run across the Atlantic, entering Port Royal harbour on the morning of the twenty-second day after bearing up, and eleven weeks to a day from the date of my abduction by Dominguez.
My sudden reappearance created quite a sensation among the dockyard people, my disappearance having been involved in so much mystery that all sorts of surmises had been indulged in to account for it. Some were of opinion that I had fallen overboard into the harbour, and had found a secure hiding-place in the maw of a shark; but there were others who, happening to have been present when I was summoned from Mammy Wilkinson’s hotel upon my supposititious errand of help and rescue to young Lindsay, at once mentioned the circumstance, with the result that a very strong suspicion of foul play was aroused. My friend and patron, the admiral, was especially concerned upon my account, even going to the length of offering a reward of fifty pounds for such intelligence as should lead to my discovery; but it resulted in nothing, those worthies, Caesar and Peter, perhaps being too much afraid to utter a word of what they knew. Then there occurred more frigate actions, resulting in so heavy a pressure of work, that nobody seemed to have any time to think about the mysterious disappearance of a somewhat obscure young lieutenant. But now that I had unexpectedly turned up again, safe and sound, I was overwhelmed with congratulations, while the admiral sent a party of police to the house to which I had been conveyed, with instructions that the two negroes were to be at once found and arrested. The house, however, proved to be empty when the police made their domiciliary visit; and, as for the negroes, their whereabouts was never discovered. Possibly the excitement of my reappearance, and the talk to which it gave rise, alarmed them and caused them to beat a hasty retreat to some other island.
To my great joy, I discovered that the Diane was not yet recommissioned, the repairs and alterations to her having been greatly delayed by the more pressing work of repairing the frigates, while the admiral—in the hope that I might still turn up, and with that extreme kindness that had marked all his treatment of me—had determined not to give the command of her to anyone else until she should be absolutely ready for sea. I therefore at once stepped into my former position, and lost no time in getting as many men to work upon her as could be spared. And there was the less difficulty in accomplishing this, that Morillo was believed to be more busy than ever, several outward-bound ships being overdue without the occurrence of any bad weather to account for their disappearance. Meanwhile, during the progress of the work aboard the brigantine, I gave myself up to the task of getting together a crew, of which my old friend Black Peter constituted himself the nucleus, while several former Terns volunteered, these again inducing other men of their acquaintance to come forward and join; so that by the time that the finishing touches were being put to the Diane, I had fifty-two first-rate men waiting to go aboard as soon as the ship should be ready to receive them. But I wanted five more to complete my complement, and these I picked up by making a raid one night upon the low boarding-houses in Kingston, where the crimps were in the habit of taking in sailors and keeping them in hiding until they had extracted from them every penny of their hard-earned wages.
At length, some five weeks from the date of my reappearance, the time arrived when the Diane, being ready for sea, with her guns mounted, provisions, water, and stores of every kind on board, and sails bent, hauled off alongside the powder hulk to ship her ammunition; and that delicate job having been successfully accomplished, under my personal supervision, I went up to Kingston to dine with the admiral prior to sailing, calling at the hotel on my way in order to change my clothes. As I entered the building, the head waiter—a negro—stepped forward and handed me a letter addressed in an unknown and foreign-looking handwriting to myself. I opened it at once, and found that it bore a date a full fortnight old, and read as follows, the language being English:—
“Señor Courtenay,—You have constituted yourself my especial enemy, and have apparently declared war to the knife against me. In return I now declare my determination to destroy you by whatever means may present themselves. Thrice have you injured me, either personally or through my agents; but rest assured that a day of reckoning will come, when you shall curse the hour that gave you birth. I will fight you wherever we may happen to meet, and let the strongest conquer. If you fear not to meet me, hoist a red swallow-tailed burgee to your fore royal masthead, that I may recognise your ship from others, Morillo.”