"Now, Dogvane—hand up the breaker—quick, man, quick." My request was unnecessary; it was on deck in an instant; but before I could turn round, the men of the brig made a rush aft, and seized the cask, making a vain attempt to carry it forward; alas! poor fellows, they had not the strength of children. We easily shoved them aside, as it was necessary they should not get water-logged by too free a use of it at first.—"Now, Dogvane, mind what I tell you—make that small tub there full of five-water grog—no stronger, mind—and serve out a pint to each of these poor fellows, and not a drop more at present." I seized a glass of the first of it, and ran below. "Here," said I, to the black servant—"here, take a mouthful yourself, and then give some to your mistress." She shook her head, and made as if she would have helped her mistress first; but the selfishness of her own grinding misery conquered the poor creature's resolution; and dashing, rather than carrying the glass to her mouth, she ravenously swallowed the whole contents in a second, and then fell flat on the deck with a wild laugh.
"Oh, massa, I can't help it—nobody love missis like Juba; but once I taste him, I could not help it for de life-blood of me, massa. Oh, my eye, my eye like cinder—like red-hot bullet dem is, massa—oh, for one tear, one leetle tear—oh, dere come one tear; but God, God, him is hot more as boiling rum, and salt—ah, ah, ah"—and the poor creature rolled about the deck in the uttermost distress.
The master of the vessel had by this time entered, and lifted up his wife into a sitting position; and there she sat, with her parched mouth all agape, the black fur on her tongue, and with glazed and half-shut eyes; her pinched features, and death-like complexion evincing tearfully the strength of her sufferings.
He poured some water into her mouth, but she could not swallow it; he tried again, and from the gurgling noise in her throat, I thought she was suffocating, especially as I noticed, as if conscious that she was departing, she now clutched her poor wasted baby to her shrunk bosom with all the little strength she possessed. But she had swallowed a little, and this revived her; and after several other trials, the poor fellow had the happiness to see his wife snatched from the jaws of death, and able to sit up by herself with her back against the locker. She now began to moan heavily, and to rock herself to and fro over her helpless, all but dead infant, as it lay, struggling faintly, and crying with its small imploring voice, on her knee; at length she acquired sufficient strength to gasp out, "God bless you, sir—God bless you—you have saved my child, and all of us—God bless you,"—and then resumed her moaning, as if she was suffering something that she herself could not describe. I sent on board for more water, and some tea and other small luxuries from my private stock; and that same evening, as the sun was setting, under a canopy of glorious clouds, beneath which the calm sea glowed like molten gold, gradually melting into gorgeous purple, I saw a small dark ripple ruffling its mirror-like surface in the east, and gradually steal down towards where we lay. The next moment I felt a light zephyr-like air on the palm of my wet hand as I held it up. Presently, as the grey cat's-paws became darker, and fluttered down stronger and nearer to us, and were again withdrawn, and shifted about, shooting out and shortening like streamers, Mr Peak sung out, "There, there's the breeze at last, sir, there;" and the smooth shining canals that divided the blue shreds of ripples gradually narrowed, while the latter increased and came down stronger, until the whole sea to windward was roughened into small dark waves, that increased as the night fell, and both the Midge and brig were buzzing along on their course to Havanna before a six-knot breeze.
The next evening we were under the Moro Castle, where we anchored. At daylight on the following morning we ran in through the narrow entrance, under the tremendous forts that crown its high banks on each side, and anchored before this most magnificent city, this West Indian Liverpool; while its batteries and bastions, with the grinning cannon peering through numberless embrasures, the tall spires and towers, the highest of the houses, the masts and drying sails of numberless vessels, with their gay flags, British, American, French, Spanish, and of almost every country in the world, were glancing bright and fresh in the early sunbeams, under a floating canopy of thin blue smoke from the charcoal fires. All which magnificent description goes for this much: the unsentimental Dons were doffing their nightcaps, and donning their breeches, while the fires were lighting to prepare their coffee and chocolate.
That forenoon I went on shore, and delivered my letters to Mr M——, one of the most extensive English merchants in the place, a kind and most hospitable man. He invited me to dine with him, and to accept of a bed at his house in the evening, both of which were too good offers to be sneezed at. We had a very large party at dinner, composed of a lot of Mr M——'s clerks, several masters of merchantmen, and the captain and two lieutenants of an American frigate lying there, all three of the latter, by the way, extremely pleasant men.
There was one of Mr M——'s adherents present, a very odd creature, and rather a wildish one, an Irishman; what his real name was I forget now, but he was generally called Listado. His prime object during dinner was to quiz the Americans, but they took it very good-naturedly. He then tried his hand on me, in what I believe is vulgarly called trotting, which is to get one on his hobby, and appear to listen most anxiously all the while, although every one but yourself sees you are made to show your paces more for the amusement of the company than their information. At length I saw through the rogue, and dismounted, laughing heartily at the cleverness with which he had paraded me.
In the evening, the mercantile members of our party retired to the counting-house, the Americans returned to their ship, and I strolled about the town until the night fell, when I returned by appointment for Listado, with whom I went to the opera, which far surpassed any thing I expected to see or hear in that quarter of the world. After it was over, we adjourned to some lodging-house or tavern in the neighbourhood, and perpetrated the heinous sin of eating a heavy supper, for which I paid afterwards, as will be seen.
It so happened that the aforesaid Monsieur Listado had given up his bed to me, and slept himself on a small pallet beside the wall in the same room. At the right hand of the head of my bed, a lofty door opened into an adjoining room, a large dreary unfurnished apartment, with several packages of goods scattered about on the floor. On examination, I found there was no window in it, nor any light admitted except through the door into our room, which was the only opening into it. It was a regular cul de sac.
We must have been some hours asleep when I awoke, or thought I did, pretty much the same thing so far as my feelings at the moment went, lying on my back, with my hands crossed on my breast, like the statue of a knight templar. These said paws of mine seemed by the way to be of an inconceivable weight, as if they had actually been petrified, and to press so heavily on my chest as to impede my breathing. Suddenly one of my little fingers grew, like Jonah's gourd, to a devil of a size; and next moment the thumb of the other hand, as if determined not to be outdone by the minikin on the left, became a facsimile of a Bologna sausage; so there I lay like a large lobster, with two tremendous claws. My nose then took its turn, and straightway was converted into one of Mr M——'s cotton bags, that lay in the store below, containing three hundred-weight, more or less.