We were all on board by the appointed time on the following morning. Captain Starkey received us with civil indifference, and I noticed that the elaborate sneers which sat upon the countenances of Dupont and the lieutenant did not appear in the slightest degree to ruffle or affect him; but the averted eye and scornful air of Donna Antonia as she passed with Señora Arguellas toward the cabin, drawing her mantilla tightly round her as she swept by, as if—so I perhaps wrongfully interpreted the action—it would be soiled by contact with a poltroon, visibly touched him—only, however, for a few brief moments. The expression of pain quickly vanished, and his countenance was as cold and stern as before. There was, albeit, it was soon found, a limit to this, it seemed, contemptuous forbearance. Dupont, approaching him, gave his thought audible expression, exclaiming, loud enough for several of the crew to hear, and looking steadily in the captain's face: “Lâche!” He would have turned away, but was arrested by a gripe of steel. “Ecoutez, monsieur,” said Captain Starkey: “individually, I hold for nothing whatever you may say; but I am captain and king in this ship, and I will permit no one to beard me before the crew, and thereby lessen my authority over them. Do you presume again to do so, and I will put you in solitary confinement, perhaps in irons, till we arrive at Jamaica.” He then threw off his startled auditor, and walked forward. The passengers, colored as well as white, were all on board; the anchor, already apeak, was brought home; the bows of the ship fell slowly off, and we were in a few moments running before the wind, though but a faint one, for Point Morant.
No one could be many hours on board the Neptune without being fully satisfied that, however deficient in dueling courage her captain might be, he was a thorough seaman, and that his crew—about a dozen of as fine fellows as I have ever seen—were under the most perfect discipline and command. The service of the vessel was carried on as noiselessly and regularly as on board a ship of war; and a sense of confidence, that should a tempest or other sea-peril overtake us, every reliance might be placed in the professional skill and energy of Captain Starkey, was soon openly or tacitly acknowledged by all on board. The weather throughout happily continued fine, but the wind was light and variable, so that for several days after we had sighted the blue mountains of Jamaica, we scarcely appeared sensibly to diminish the distance between them and us. At last the breeze again blew steadily from the northwest, and we gradually neared Point Morant. We passed it, and opened up the bay at about two o'clock in the morning, when the voyage might be said to be over. This was a great relief to the cabin-passengers—far beyond the ordinary pleasure to land-folk of escaping from the tedium of confinement on shipboard. There was a constraint in the behavior of every body that was exceedingly unpleasant. The captain presided at table with freezing civility; the conversation, if such it could be called, was usually restricted to monosyllables; and we were all very heartily glad that we had eaten our last dinner in the Neptune. When we doubled Point Morant, all the passengers except myself were in bed, and a quarter of an hour afterward Captain Starkey went below, and was soon busy, I understood, with papers in his cabin. For my part I was too excited for sleep, and I continued to pace the deck fore and aft with Hawkins, the first-mate, whose watch it was, eagerly observant of the lights on the well-known shore, that I had left so many months before with but faint hopes of ever seeing it again. As I thus gazed landward, a bright gleam, as of crimson moonlight, shot across the dark sea, and turning quickly round, I saw that it was caused by a tall jet of flame shooting up from the main hatchway, which two seamen, for some purpose or other, had at the moment partially opened. In my still weak state, the terror of the sight—for the recollection of the barrels of powder on board flashed instantly across my mind—for several moments completely stunned me, and but that I caught instinctively, at the rattlings, I should have fallen prostrate on the deck. A wild outcry of “Fire! fire!”—the most fearful cry that can be heard at sea—mingled with and heightened the dizzy ringing in my brain, and I was barely sufficiently conscious to discern, amid the runnings to and fro, and the incoherent exclamations of the crew, the sinewy, athletic figure of the captain leap up, [pg 497] as it were, from the companion-ladder to the deck, and with his trumpet-voice command immediate silence, instantly followed by the order again to batten down the blazing hatchway. This, with his own assistance, was promptly effected, and then he disappeared down the forecastle. The two or three minutes he was gone—it could scarcely have been more than that—seemed interminable; and so completely did it appear to be recognized that our fate must depend upon his judgment and vigor, that not a word was spoken, nor a finger, I think, moved, till he reappeared, already scorched and blackened with the fire, and dragging up what seemed a dead body in his arms. He threw his burden on the deck, and passing swiftly to where Hawkins stood, said in a low, hurried whisper, but audible to me; “Run down and rouse the passengers, and bring my pistols from the cabin-locker. Quick! Eternity hangs on the loss of a moment.” Then turning to the startled but attentive seamen, he said in a rapid but firm voice: “You well know, men, that I would not on any occasion or for any motive deceive you. Listen, then, attentively. Yon drunken brute—he is Lieutenant Arguellas' servant—has fired with his candle the spirits he was stealing, and the hold is a mass of fire which it is useless to waste one precious moment in attempting to extinguish.”
A cry of rage and terror burst from the crew, and they sprang impulsively toward the boats, but the captain's authoritative voice at once arrested their steps. “Hear me out, will you? Hurry and confusion will destroy us all, but with courage and steadiness every soul on board may be saved before the flames can reach the powder. And remember,” he added, as he took his pistols from Hawkins and cocked one of them, “that I will send a bullet after any man who disobeys me, and I seldom miss my aim. Now, then, to your work—steadily, and with a will!”
It was marvelous to observe the influence his bold, confident, and commanding bearing and words had upon the men. The panic-terror that had seized them gave place to energetic resolution, and in an incredibly short space of time the boats were in the water. “Well done, my fine fellows! There is plenty of time, I again repeat. Four of you”—and he named them—“remain with me. Three others jump into each of the large boats, two into the small one, and bring them round to the landward side of the ship. A rush would swamp the boats, and we shall be able to keep only one gangway clear.”
The passengers were by this time rushing upon deck half-clad, and in a state of the wildest terror, for they all knew there was a large quantity of gunpowder on board. The instant the boats touched the starboard side of the bark, the men, white as well as colored, forced their way with frenzied eagerness before the women and children—careless, apparently, whom they sacrificed so that they might themselves leap to the shelter of the boats from the fiery volcano raging beneath their feet. Captain Starkey, aided by the four athletic seamen he had selected for the duty, hurled them fiercely back. “Back, back!” he shouted. “We must have funeral order here—first the women and children, next the old men. Hand Señora Arguellas along; next the young lady her daughter: quick!”
As Donna Antonia, more dead than alive, was about to be lifted into the boat, a gush of flame burst up through the main hatchway with the roar of an explosion; a tumultuous cry burst from the frenzied passengers, and they jostled each other with frightful violence in their efforts to reach the gangway. Dupont forced his way through the lane of seamen with the energy of a madman, and pressed so suddenly upon Antonia that, but for the utmost exertion of the captain's Herculean strength, she must have been precipitated into the water.
“Back, unmanly dastard! back, dog!” roared Captain Starkey, terribly excited by the lady's danger; and a moment after, seizing Dupont fiercely by the collar, he added: “or if you will, look there but for a moment,” and he pointed with his pistol-hand to the fins of several sharks plainly visible in the glaring light at but a few yards' distance from the ship. “Men,” he added, “let whoever presses forward out of his turn fall into the water.”
“Ay, ay, sir!” was the prompt mechanical response.
This terrible menace instantly restored order; the colored women and children were next embarked, and the boat appeared full.
“Pull off,” was the order: “you are deep enough for safety.”