Tom Cringle's Log

by Michael Scott

From the very moment of his death, the body began rapidly to swell, and become discoloured; the face and neck, especially, were nearly as black as ink within half an hour of it, when blood began to flow from the mouth, and other symptoms of rapid decomposition succeeded each other so fast, that by nine in the morning we had to sew him up in a boat sail, with a large stone, and launch the body into the sea.

We continued to struggle against the breeze until eleven o’clock in the forenoon of the 27th, when the wind again increased to such a pitch, that we had to cast off our tow, and leave her on the coast under the charge of little Reefpoint, with instructions to remain in the creek where he was, until the schooner picked him up; we then pushed once more through the surf for Porto Bello, where we arrived in safety at five P.m. Next morning at daylight we got under weigh, and stood down for the canoe, and having received the money on board, and the Spaniards who accompanied it, and poor mulo, we made sail for Kingston, Jamaica, and on the 4th of the following month were off Carthagena once more, having been delayed by calms and light winds. The captain of the port shoved out to us, and I immediately recognized him as the officer to whom poor old Deadeye once gave a deuced fright, when we were off the town, in the old Torch, during the siege, and about a fortnight before she foundered in the hurricane; but in the present instance he was all civility; on his departure we made sail, and arrived at Kingston, safe and sound, in the unusually short passage of sixty hours from the time we left Carthagena.

Here the first thing I did was to call on some of my old friends, with one of whom I found a letter lying for me from Mr Bang, requesting a visit at his domicile in St Thomas in the Vale so soon as I arrived; and through the extreme kindness of my Kingston allies, I had, on my intention of accepting it being known, at least half a dozen gigs offered to me, with servants and horses, and I don’t know what all. I made my selection, and had arranged to start at day-dawn next morning, when a cousin of mine, young Palma, came in where I was dining, and said that his mother and the family had arrived in town that very day, and were bound on a picnic party next morning to visit the Falls in St David’s. I agreed to go, and to postpone my visit to friend Aaron for the present; and very splendid scenery did we see; but as I had seen the Falls of Niagara, of course I was not astonished. There was a favourite haunt and cave of Three-fingered Jack shown to us in the neighbourhood, very picturesque and romantic, and all that sort of thing, but I was escorting my Mary, and the fine scenery and roaring waters were at this time thrown away on me. However, there was one incident amusing enough. Mary and I had wandered away from the rest of the party, about a mile above the cascade, where the river was quiet and still, and divided into several tiny streams or pools, by huge stones that had rolled from the precipitous banks, down into its channel; when on turning an angle of the rock, we came unexpectedly on my old ally Whiffle, with a cigar in his mouth, seated on a cane bottomed chair, close to the brink of the water, with a little low table at his right hand, on which stood a plate of cold meat, over which his black servant held a green branch, with which he was brushing the flies away, while a large rummer of cold brandy grog was immersed in the pool at his feet, covered up with a cool plantain leaf. He held a long fishing rod in his hands, eighteen feet at the shortest, fit to catch salmon with, which he had to keep nearly upright, in order to let his hook drop into the pool, which was not above five feet wide—why he did not heave it by hand I am sure I cannot tell; indeed, I would as soon have thought of angling for gold fish in my aunt’s glass globe—and there he sat fishing with great complacency. However, he seemed a little put out when we came up. “Ah, Tom, how do you do?—Miss, your most obsequious—no rain mullet deucedly shy, Tom— ah! what a glorious nibble—there—there again—I have him;” and sure enough, he had hooked a fine mountain mullet, weighing about a pound and a half, and in the ecstasy of the moment, and his hurry to land him handsomely, he regularly capsized in his chair, upset the rummer of brandy grog and table and all the rest of it. We had a good laugh, and then rejoined our party, and that evening we all sojourned at Lucky Valley, a splendid coffee estate, with a most excellent man and an exceedingly obliging fellow for a landlord.

Next day we took a long ride, to visit a German gentleman, who had succeeded in a wonderful manner in taming fish. He received us very hospitably, and after lunch, we all proceeded to his garden, through which ran a beautiful stream of the clearest water. It was about four feet broad, and a foot deep, where it entered the garden, but gradually widened in consequence of a dam with stakes at the top having been erected at the lower part of it, until it became a pool twelve feet broad, and four feet deep, of the most beautiful crystal clear water that can be imagined, while the margin on both sides was fringed with the fairest flowers that Europe or the tropics could afford. We all peered into the stream, but could see nothing except an occasional glance of a white scale or fin now and then.—“Liverpool!” shouted the old German who was doing the honours—“Liverpool, come bring de food for de fis.” Liverpool, a respectable-looking negro, approached, and stooping down at the water’s edge, held a piece of roasted plantain close to the surface of it. In an instant, upwards of a hundred mullet, large fine fish, some of them above a foot long, rushed from out the dark clear depths of the quiet pool, and jumped, and walloped, and struggled for the food, although the whole party were standing close by. Several of the ladies afterwards tried their hand, and the fish, although not apparently quite so confident, after a tack here and a tack there, always in the end came close to and made a grab at what was held to them.

That evening I returned to Kingston, where I found an order lying for me to repair as second-lieutenant on board the Firebrand once more, and to resign the command of the Wave to no less a man than Moses Yerk, esquire; and a happy man was Moses, and a gallant fellow he proved himself in her, and earned laurels and good freights of specie, and is now comfortably domiciled amongst his friends.

The only two Waves, that I successfully made interest at their own request to get back with me, were Tailtackle, and little Reefpoint.

Time wore on—days and weeks and months passed away, during which we were almost constantly at sea, but incidents worth relating had grown scarce, as we were now in piping times of peace, when even a stray pirate had become a rarity, and a luxury denied to all but the small craft people. On one of our cruises, however, we had been working up all morning to the southward of the Pedro shoals, with the wind strong at east, a hard fiery sea-breeze. We had hove-about, some three hours before, and were standing in towards the land, on the starboard tack, when the look-out at the masthead hailed.

“The water shoals on the weather bow, sir;” and presently, “breakers right ahead.”

“Very well,” I replied—“all right.”

“We are nearing the reefs, sir,” said I, walking aft and addressing Captain Transom; “shall we stand by to go about, sir?”