As it was useless arguing with so pertinacious a disputant we were compelled humbly to submit. The horse had one stall—we took possession of the other. To make ourselves as comfortable as circumstances would allow, we collected all the hay and straw and reeds, so as to form a thick layer of dry materials between our bodies and the damp ground—for damp it was, in spite of the heat of the climate. It was too late in the day for us to attempt more, and, weary in mind and body, we climbed up into our nests, and were soon asleep. I was awoke by the wheezing and coughing of the asthmatic old horse, and, looking up, I saw what appeared to me an extraordinary phenomenon. Suddenly the air around us was filled with bright sparkles of light. Now they flashed on one side, now on the other; now the whole space above our heads was illuminated; then all was darkness; then the lights—thousands of them there appeared to be—burst forth once again, more brilliantly than ever. I could not help rousing up Manby, to ask him what he thought about the matter.
“The matter, Hurry!” he answered, yawning; “why, that our stable stands in a particularly damp situation, and that the place is full of fire-flies. You’ll hear frogs croaking before long, and see great big water-snakes crawling about, and reptiles of all sorts. The snakes, they tell me, are harmless; but it is not pleasant to awake and find one encircling one’s neck. However, we shall soon get accustomed to them, so people say, and that’s a comfort. I don’t know whether it is pleasanter to be asleep or awake. Just now, when you roused me up, I was dreaming that I was a horse, and that ugly copper-skinned landlord of ours was trying to put a saddle on my back to take a long ride, but I would not let him, and so he was thrashing me unmercifully. I dare say he would treat his beast much in the same way if left to himself.”
“Do not let us be talking of our dreams. Our waking thoughts are sufficiently unpleasant,” I observed.
After a time we managed to go to sleep again, but for some weeks scarcely a night passed without our being disturbed by unusual noises or by the visits of snakes or reptiles of some sort. Once we were invaded by a whole army of land-crabs, which were passing across the island, and it was some time before we could persuade them to turn aside from our door. Many paid the penalty of their temerity with their lives, and were cooked next morning for breakfast. By-the-bye, in the cooking department we were at first sadly deficient, but from the instruction we received from some of our French masters, we soon became great adepts in the art, and were independent of any help. One reason why we did not succeed at first was the scanty supply of food with which we were furnished. The Frenchmen, however, showed us where we might go out into the woods near the village, and gather vegetables and roots and nuts of all sorts for ourselves. After that we were never in want of the bare necessaries of life. We received an allowance from the French Government for our subsistence. The lieutenants received three shillings a day; the purser, master and surgeons only two; and the midshipmen but one shilling; on which, poor fellows, it was scarcely possible for them to exist. The captains were allowed more, I believe, and had a house found them some little way from Ou Trou, where they were able to live in somewhat less discomfort than we did. They used, however, their best exertions to lessen the inconveniences we were doomed to suffer; but the authorities paid but little attention to their representations. The residence hired by the midshipmen was even smaller and in a more dilapidated condition than ours, and from the smallness of their allowance, considering that their appetites were fully as good as ours, they were truly very badly off, poor fellows. We of the lieutenant’s rank accordingly consulted together, and agreed to have our mess in common for them and for ourselves. The midshipmen gratefully accepted our offer, and each of us threw his pay into a common stock and appointed two caterers to make the necessary arrangements and to contract with one of the copper-coloured French shopkeepers to supply us with breakfast and dinner and to do our washing. These arrangements being made, we flattered ourselves that all would go on swimmingly. Certainly our provisions were better and more abundant than we had expected; but we fancied that we had fallen in with a liberal-minded man, who was anxious to treat us well. We had a dreary time of it, however. Day after day passed away much in the same way. We had no shooting or fishing—no musical instruments—so that we had not even music to relieve the monotony of our existence. We had but few books also; some of us read them; but, generally speaking, under the relaxing influence of the climate, we felt very little inclined for any literary pursuit. A few games were invented which served to kill time, but killing time is not a pleasant or inspiriting occupation, especially when a man reflects that time is sure to kill him in the end. We walked about the neighbourhood of our dreary abode as far as we were allowed to go, but we soon got weary of the negro huts, and the palm-trees and the rice fields and the coffee plantations, and the cocoa-nuts and plantains and bananas, and the monkeys and opossums and racoons, and parrots and humming-birds. I dare say, if we had not been prisoners and compelled, as it were, to see the wonderful productions of animal and vegetable life, we should have been highly interested in them—at least, we ought to have been. One or two of our surgeons, who had a little turn for natural history, contrived to pass their time by collecting specimens, and examining into the nature and habits of the animals which abounded in the country; but naval officers, especially in those days, did not trouble their heads much about such matters, and were somewhat inclined to look down upon those who did. We talked of our prospects—they were gloomy enough; we tried sometimes to sing, but for that we had not much spirits; and so the days passed away. It would have been surprising, even in a healthy climate, if disease had not attacked us under similar circumstances. For some time it stood aloof, but it came at last, and made ample amends for its delay by its violence. We had been about a month at Ou Trou, when one day we were all seated at dinner in a sort of courtyard, which being in shade served us as our mess-room and drawing-room, unless the weather was bad, when we had to retire into our hot, stifling little house. We were all in tolerably fair spirits that day. O’Driscoll had been telling some of his good stories, more than one song had been sung, and jokes were flying about, far more than was usually the case. There were a few absentees in consequence of sickness, and we heard also that Captain Williams, lately commanding the Active, was ill. Poor man! he severely felt the loss of his ship, though, having been compelled to yield to a vastly superior force, no blame was attached to him. His spirits, it was said, had never risen again since he was taken prisoner, and he was thus but ill able to combat with the baneful effects of the climate and the irksomeness of imprisonment. Just then, however, few of our party were thinking about anything but the present moment and the unusually good dinner we had been enjoying, when who should make his appearance near the head of the table but Monsieur Roquion our purveyor, with a smiling countenance and a long bill in his hand.
Our caterers inquired why he had come.
“For to present my litte compte to you, gentilmen,” he answered, for he indulged occasionally in a few words of English, especially when he wanted to say anything very disagreeable.
One of the caterers took the bill, and we saw them both looking over it together, and pulling wonderfully long faces.
“What is the matter?” asked Delisle. “Anything wrong with the account? Let us know the worst. It cannot be very bad, I hope.”
“Only our excellent friend here has brought us in a charge of a hundred dollars more than we expected to have to pay, or than we ought to pay,” was the answer.
“Never mind; we’ll contest it, and the fellow will have to go without the money, I hope.”