“Could not you send for them?” asked Captain Bland. “I wish to relieve the anxiety of my wife and daughter.”
“I’ll go on shore, sir, and bring them back!” I exclaimed, eagerly.
“More easily said than done,” observed the captain. “However, you may go.”
I hurried on deck, selected Pepper and Salt and two Sandwich islanders, all of whom I could trust—which I could not the English seamen—lowered a boat, and pulled away. I trusted to Medley and the doctor, who were on shore, to help me. My aim was to get hold of the men before they were too tipsy to move. Going up the river we landed at Donna Anna’s, where I found Medley, and together we hastened on to Tumbez. On the way we fell in with our doctor, McCabe. We told him our object.
“I’ll manage it for you,” he said. “I’ll frighten them out of their wits, and make them ready enough to return on board. I’ll just hint to them that the liquor is poisoned, and so it is, for it’s poison itself. They saw how the other watch looked when they came back, more dead than alive, and they’ll be ready enough to believe me. I’ll go on first, and then do you come up, and we’ll get them down to the boat before they’ve time to think about it.”
We agreed, and the doctor hurried on. We followed slowly. On arriving at the town we found some of the men already half-seas over, and the rest looking very much scared at what the doctor had told them. Some proposed attacking the place, and burning it down in revenge, but we suggested that they would be better employed in carrying their helpless shipmates to the boats, that they might be the sooner under the doctor’s care. The wine-shop keepers and their friends, afraid of losing their prey, did their utmost to prevent this, but we succeeded, and half-carrying half-dragging, we got the tipsy men down to the boats. The doctor observing that exercise was the best thing to keep off the effects of the poison, the more sober willingly took to the oars, and to the surprise of the captain we soon made our appearance alongside. The doctor took good care to dose all hands round, and though several were very ill from the effects of the abominable aguadente, he got the credit of saving their lives.
The captain, having no excuse for not sailing, gave the order to weigh at daybreak. The question was in what direction we should steer? Should we go back to the Galapagos, look into their harbours, and cruise about those islands? It was not likely that the mate of the “Lady Alice,” after losing his captain, would remain long in that neighbourhood when all hope of finding him had been abandoned. Captain Bland thought that he would go either to the Marquesas or Sandwich Islands, to obtain hands, without whom he could not prosecute the object of the voyage.
“Then what will your wife and daughter do?” asked Captain Hake. “Will they remain on board, or take a passage home in the first full ship they fall in with?”
“They will remain on board the ‘Lady Alice’, I feel sure of that,” said Captain Bland, in a tone of confidence. “They’ll not give me up so quickly. They’ll think that I have got on board some ship, or landed on one of the islands, or have come across to the mainland. Women do not give up those they love in the way indifferent persons are apt to do. They’ll not believe I am lost, but oh! how terribly anxious they’ll be, notwithstanding, poor dears, poor dears!” and my kind friend hid his face in his hands to conceal his grief.
I had all the time the thought in my mind of that abominable schooner with her miscreant crew, and the terrible dread that she might have fallen in with the “Lady Alice” while her boats were away, and run off with her. What resistance could the five or six people left on board offer, even though they might have suspected her character before she got up to them? Still, I had the wisdom to keep these thoughts to myself.