As we came alongside, the captain of her, my friend Obediah, as I had no difficulty in guessing, from his very out of the way configuration, dark as it was, called out, “I says, Paul, who have you got in the starn-sheets there?”
“A bloody spy, captain; he who was with the overseer when he peppered your sheathing t’other morning.”
“Oho, bring him on board—bring him on board. I knows there be a man-of-war schooner close aboard of the island somewheres hereabouts. I sees through it all, smash my eyes!—I sees through it. But what kept you, Paul? Don’t you see the morning star has risen?”
By this time I stood on the deck of the little vessel, which was no above a foot out of the water; and Obediah, as he spoke, pointed to the small dark pit of a companion, for there was no light below, nor indeed anywhere on board, except in the binnacle, and that carefully masked, indicating by his threatening manner, that I was to get below as speedily as possible.
“Don’t you see the morning star, sir? Why, the sun will be up in an hour, I calculate, and then the sea-breeze will be down on us before we get any thing of an offing.”
The mention of the morning star recalled vividly to my recollection the scene I had so recently witnessed at the negro wake; it seemed there was another person beside poor Quacco, likely to be crammed into a hole before the day broke, and to be carried to Africa too, for what I knew; but one must needs go when the devil drives, so I slipped down into the cabin, and the schooner having weighed, made sail to the northward.
CHAPTER VIII.—The Chase of the Smuggler
Would I were in an alehouse in London,
I would give all my fame for a pot of ale, and safety.’
Henry V, III. II. 12—13.
The crib in which I was confined was as dark as pitch, and, as I soon found, as hot as the black-hole in Calcutta. I don’t pretend to be braver than my neighbours, but I would pluck any man by the beard who called me coward. In my small way I had in my time faced death in various shapes; but it had always been above board, with the open heaven overhead, and generally I had a goodly fellowship in danger, and the eyes of others were upon me. No wonder, then, that the sinking of the heart within me, which I now experienced for the first time, was bitter exceedingly, and grievous to be ‘borne. Cooped up in a small suffocating cabin, scarcely eight feet square, and not above four feet high, with the certainty of being murdered, as I conceived, were I to try to force my way on deck, and the knowledge that all my earthly prospects, all my dreams of promotion, were likely to be blasted, and for ever ruined by my sudden spiriting away, not to take into the heavy tale the misery which my poor mother and my friends must suffer, when they came to know it—and “who will tell this to thee, Mary?” rose to my throat, but could get no farther for a cursed bump that was like to throttle me. Why should I blush to own it—when the gipsy, after all, junked an old rich goutified coffee-planter at the eleventh hour, and married me, and is now the mother of half-a-dozen little Cringles or so? However, I made a strong effort to bear my misfortunes like a man, and, folding my arms, I sat down on a chest to abide my fate, whatever that might be, with as much composure as I could command, when half-a-dozen cockroaches flew flicker against my face.