“Pedro Gomez, remaining with Basseterre and one of the sailors, to guard the port-ladder way with their six-shooters loaded and levelled in front, commanding all approach aft, in the same way as the mate and poor Captain Alphonse had done in the first instance, I went off with all haste to the stern gallery to see what had become of my unfortunate friend, taking the other three sailors with me, for though taking part in the general scrimmage when the blacks invaded the poop so unexpectedly, Don Miguel and Johnson had stuck valiantly to their post by the starboard rail, and so I had no fear of another surprise on now proceeding aft.
“It was still light enough to distinguish objects near, and as I looked over the side, what was my astonishment to see his body yet afloat, not far from the ship. Aye, sir, there he was; and, stranger still, as my eye caught sight of him, the poor fellow, unconsciously, no doubt, raised one hand out of the dark water with a quick, convulsive action, just as though he were beckoning to me and imploring me to save him!
“On noticing this—a fact, of course, which showed plainly enough that he was still alive—without thinking of what I was doing, I jumped on a projecting bollard and dived from the deck of the ship into the sea.
“I soon rose to the surface, when, swimming up to the almost lifeless body in a few strokes, I caught hold of a portion of the poor fellow’s clothing and commenced turning it towards the stern of the vessel just underneath the davits, whence the boat we had been preparing for our flight was suspended all ready for lowering, and with the French sailors standing by above.
“‘Look sharp!’ I sang out to them from the water. ‘Look sharp, there! Lower away!’
“In their haste and flurry, however, the men mistook my order, and thinking I had said ‘cut away,’ instead of ‘lower away,’ one of the fools, who held a cutlass he had caught up to defend himself with when those infernal niggers rushed at us, the confounded idiot made a sweeping cut at the falls from which the boat hung, severing them at one blow!
“Down came the little craft at once with a splash, almost on the top of me; and though she managed to ship some water through her sudden immersion, she quickly righted herself on an even keel, right side up.”
“By George, I’d have keel-hauled ’em wrong side down!” cried the skipper, out of all patience at hearing of this piece of gross stupidity. “The damned awkward lubbers!”
“Yes, sir; French sailors are not like English ones, nor do they resemble our American shellbacks, who do know a thing or two!” replied the colonel. “Well, gentlemen, to make an end of my story, I may tell you that I had some difficulty in lifting the body of poor Captain Alphonse into the boat when I had clutched hold of the gunwale; but after a time I succeeded in getting him into the bows, rolling him over the side anyhow.
“Then I tried to get in myself by the stern, and had just flung one of my legs over when that villain the black ‘marquis,’ catching sight of me from the forecastle, ahead of which the boat somehow or other had drifted by this time, fired at me with probably the last cartridge he had left in his pistol, and which the devil no doubt had reserved for me.”