Feeling sure that this must be one of the vessels of which we were in quest, Mr Reid at once gave the order for the flotilla to again move cautiously forward; and the boats' oars immediately dipped into the phosph.o.r.escent water, causing it to gleam and flash brilliantly. There is no doubt that this vivid phosph.o.r.escence of the water--which must have been visible at a long distance in the intense darkness of the night--occasioned the premature discovery of our presence which now took place; for the men had not pulled half a dozen strokes before a startled hail came pealing out across the water; to which we of course paid not the slightest attention. Failing to get a reply, the hail was hurriedly repeated, a musket was fired, and a port-fire was burned on board the craft first sighted, which now proved to be the brig which our pinnace and the _Quebec's_ launch were destined to attack. For the burning of this port-fire, though it rendered further concealment on our part impossible, we were very much obliged, as by its unearthly glare we were enabled to discern the whereabouts of the remaining vessels, at which, with a wild cheer, the crews of the boats at once dashed with the most commendable prompt.i.tude.

The ship happened to be moored in the innermost berth, or that which was farthest up the harbour; our contingent, therefore--consisting of the _Hermione's_ launch, first, and second cutters--was the last to get alongside; and by the time that we reached the craft her crew were quite ready to receive us. She was, fortunately for us, riding head to wind, with her bows pointing up the harbour, and her stern directly towards us; consequently the only guns which she could bring to bear upon us were her two stern-chasers, each of which she fired twice, without effect. We were within twenty yards of her when the guns were fired for the second time; and immediately afterwards a most formidable volley of musketry was poured into us. Strange to say, though the bullets sent a perfect shower of splinters flying about our ears, not a man in either boat was. .h.i.t; and before the Frenchmen had time to load again we were alongside--the launch on the port quarter, the first cutter under the main chains on the starboard side, and my boat under the bows. Luckily for us, they had not had time to trice up the boarding nettings, so that, with the aid of a volley from our pistols, we had not much difficulty in making our way in over the craft's low bulwarks. But when we gained the deck we found it literally crowded with Frenchmen, who met us with a most stubborn resistance; and had there been light enough for them to see what they were doing, we should probably have been driven back to our boats in less than three minutes. But the port-fire had by this time burnt itself out, or been extinguished, and the darkness, save for the intermittent flash of the pistols, was profound; so that, although there was a great deal of firing, of hacking, and hewing, and shouting, there was very little harm being done, at least to our side, so far as I could see. And if the French had the advantage of us in point of numbers, we had the advantage of them in an equally important matter; for whilst our men were dressed in their ordinary rig of blue- jackets and trousers, rendering them almost invisible in the darkness, the suddenness of our attack had compelled our enemies to turn out on deck in their shirts only, by which we were able to distinguish them pretty clearly.

The fight had been progressing in this unsatisfactory manner for about ten minutes, when suddenly the dash and rattle of oars was heard alongside, immediately followed by a ringing British cheer. In another instant a ghastly blue glare of light illumined the decks; and we saw Douglas, at the head of the pinnace's crew, fling himself in over the bulwarks, with a lighted port-fire held aloft in one hand, whilst he brandished his sword with the other. This timely reinforcement at once brought the fight to a conclusion, the Frenchmen forthwith flinging down their weapons and crying for quarter. The help came not a moment too soon, so far as Farmer was concerned; for the very first act of Mr Douglas, on reaching the deck, was to cleave to the chin a Frenchman whom he saw with both knees on Farmer's chest and with his sword shortened in his hand about to pin the unfortunate master's mate to the deck.

The Frenchmen were at once driven below and the hatches clapped over them; after which our lads were sent aloft to loose the topsails; and, the cable being cut, the ship was got under weigh. Whilst this was doing, I had time to question our gallant "second" as to the cause of his opportune appearance; and I then learned that so complete had been the surprise that the other craft had been taken almost without an effort; and that as soon as this was accomplished and the crews secured Mr Douglas had hastened to our a.s.sistance, rightly surmising that, from the longer warning given to the ship's crew and their great strength, we should have our hands pretty full with them. The moon, in her last quarter, and dwindled to the merest crescent, was just rising over the hills to the eastward of us as we swept before the land-breeze out of Jean Rabel harbour; and by her feeble light I was enabled with some difficulty to discern that, by my watch, it was just four o'clock in the morning. Thus satisfactorily terminated this cutting-out expedition; the most surprising circ.u.mstance connected with which was, perhaps, the fact that, when the hands were mustered, not one was found to have received a hurt worthy of being termed a wound.

We had scarcely got clear of the land with our prizes--consisting of one ship and three brigs--when we discovered three schooners and two sloops standing out from Port au Paix; and as they, like ourselves, were heading directly for the squadron in the offing, we conjectured--and rightly, as it afterwards proved--that they were the vessels which Lieutenant Burdwood had been sent in to attack.

Late in the evening of the following day we rejoined the remainder of the squadron, and Captain Pigot at once proceeded on board the admiral to report the complete success of the expedition. Nothing was settled that night as to the disposal of the prizes, but on the following forenoon it was arranged that, as both the _Quebec_ and ourselves were getting short of provisions and water, we should escort the prizes into Port Royal, and at the same time avail ourselves of the opportunity to revictual.

We reached our destination in due time without adventure, and as it then seemed likely that there would be some delay in the matter of revictualling, Mr Reid improved the occasion to give the spars and rigging a thorough overhaul. This, with such repairs and renewals as were found necessary, kept all hands busy for four full days, at the end of which time the ship was once more all ataunto. Meanwhile, from some unexplained cause or other, the provisions were coming on board very slowly, much, it must be confessed, to the delight of the crew, who, having worked hard at the overhauling and repairs of the rigging--to say nothing of their behaviour at Jean Rabel--now confidently expected at least a day's liberty with its accompanying jollification ash.o.r.e. But when the request for it was made Captain Pigot point-blank refused in language of the most intemperate and abusive character, stigmatising the whole crew as, without exception, a pack of skulking, cowardly ruffians.

He added a pretty broad hint that in his opinion the officers were nearly, if not quite as bad as the men, and finished up by swearing roundly that not a man or boy, forward or aft, should set foot on sh.o.r.e, even though the ship should remain in harbour until she grounded upon her own beef-bones.

This was exasperating enough in all conscience, even for the hands forward, who, though there were certainly some rough characters among them, were by no means _all_ bad--indeed a full half of the entire crew were really as smart willing fellows as one need wish to see; but it was even worse for the officers, for we had all been looking eagerly forward to a certain ball which was about to be given by the governor, to which every one of us had received an invitation. The disappointment was so keen and so general that good-natured "old David"--as our genial "first"

was dubbed by all hands--took it upon himself to respectfully remonstrate with the skipper upon so arbitrary and high-handed a treatment of the ship's company, with no result, however, except that the first lieutenant received an unmitigated snubbing for his pains.

The revictualling of the ship was completed about five o'clock in the evening upon which the ball was to take place; there was plenty of time, therefore, for us aft to have availed ourselves of the governor's invitation had the skipper seen fit, but he remained obdurate, and we consequently had to content ourselves with watching the departure of the officers from the other ships, and framing such excuses as came uppermost at the moment in reply to the inquiries of such of them as pa.s.sed near us as to why we were not going. This was made all the more difficult from the fact that, though we were under orders to sail at daybreak next morning, there were no less than three other ships in harbour similarly circ.u.mstanced, the officers of which were nevertheless going to be present at the ball. The only consolation we could find was in the reflection that, whereas the others would commence the duties of the next day f.a.gged out with a long night's dancing, we should rise to them refreshed, with a more or less sound night's rest; and with this small crumb of comfort we were fain to go below and turn in.

When the hands were called next morning it was found that Captain Pigot was still absent from the ship, but as he was expected to turn up at any moment the messenger was pa.s.sed and the cable hove short. A slight stir was occasioned by the crews of the other three ships making preparations to get under way; and as these craft one after the other let fall and sheeted home their topsails, finally tripping their anchors and making their way to sea with the last of the land-breeze, it became evident that something out of the ordinary course must have occurred to delay our skipper. It was close upon eight bells when the gig was sighted pulling down from the direction of Kingston, and when a few minutes later Captain Pigot came up over the side, it was noticed that he was ghastly pale and that his right arm was in a sling. He seemed to be suffering considerably, and it was in a somewhat wavering voice that he said to the first-lieutenant:

"Are you all ready, Mr Reid? Then get your anchor, sir, and let us be off at once. And, Mr Courtenay, be good enough to tell the surgeon I wish to see him in my cabin."

With which he turned short round and walked somewhat unsteadily away, not making his appearance on deck again for nearly a week.

It afterwards transpired that his awkward temper had led to a quarrel, during the progress of the ball, between himself and one of the soldier officers from Up-park Camp, which quarrel had terminated in a meeting on the Palisades, the soldier escaping unscathed, whilst Captain Pigot had emerged from the encounter with his arm broken by a bullet from his adversary's pistol.

Noon that day found us off Morant Point thrashing to windward under single-reefed topsails, with a sea running which every now and then made the frigate careen gunwale-to.

CHAPTER SIX.

A REMONSTRANCE--AND ITS SEQUEL.

Our instructions, it seemed, were that we should cruise to the southward of Saint Domingo, from Cape Tiburon as far eastward as the Mona Pa.s.sage, giving an occasional look into Port-au-Prince. We accordingly carried on all that day, taking a second reef in the topsails at sunset, and heaving the ship round on the starboard tack at midnight, which brought us well in under the lee of Cape Tiburon by daybreak next morning. We were then on our cruising ground; sail was shortened, and the frigate, being hove about, was allowed to jog along under easy canvas.

Thenceforward, until Captain Pigot reappeared on deck, we had a pleasant and comfortable time of it; for although the discipline of the ship was never for one moment relaxed, there was an utter absence of all that worry and petty tyranny, and, above all, those daily floggings which the skipper seemed to consider essential to the maintenance of a proper degree of subordination and smartness on the part of the crew.

With the reappearance of Captain Pigot on deck, however, this brief period of rest and quietness came to an end. The pain and irritation of his wound, together, perhaps, with the reflection that he had been worsted in an encounter brought about by his own arrogant and overbearing demeanour, seemed to have chafed his temper almost to the point of madness. The floggings were resumed with greater severity than ever; and every time the hands were turned up a boatswain's-mate, armed with a colt, was stationed at each hatchway, with instructions to "freshen the way" of the last man on the ladder. And the same with shortening or making sail, the last man out of the rigging on each mast received a liberal application of the execrable colt to his shoulders.

It certainly had the effect of making the men smart in a double sense, but it also made them, perhaps, the most discontented crew in the service.

Thus matters went on, steadily growing from bad to worse, until the month of September set in. We had been dodging off and on, carefully beating over every inch of our cruising ground and looking into every likely and unlikely spot, in the hope of picking up a prize or two, and our non-success had been simply phenomenal. It really seemed as though every craft worth the trouble of capture had deserted our part of the world altogether. This of course resulted, as was perhaps only natural, in a further accession of acerbity fore and aft, the brunt of which of course fell upon the hands forward, who--what with drill of one sort and another, perpetual making and shortening of sail, shifting of spars and canvas, overhauling and setting-up of the rigging, lengthy, tedious, and wholly unnecessary boat expeditions, in addition to the incessant floggings and coltings already referred to--at length found their lives a positive burden to them. This kind of treatment could, of course, produce but one result, and, by the period before-named, the crew had been wrought up to such a pitch of exasperation and revengeful fury, that I am convinced they would have refused to go to the guns had we encountered an enemy. It may easily be imagined how difficult and anxious a task it was for the officers to carry on the duty of the ship under such circ.u.mstances as these.

It had by this time become clear to everybody--excepting, apparently, Captain Pigot himself--that the existing state of affairs could not possibly last much longer; and at length the first lieutenant, recognising the gravity of the situation, took it upon himself to invite the second and third lieutenants and the master to a consultation in his own cabin, the result of which consultation was a resolve to adopt the extreme measure of making a collective representation and appeal to the skipper. This being decided, it was determined to carry out the resolve on that same evening, the time to be during the first dog-watch, it being Captain Pigot's habit to retire to his cabin after eight bells had been struck, and to devote an hour or so to reading before dinner.

Accordingly, no sooner had the skipper left the deck than I was despatched by Mr Reid to apprise Mr Douglas, Mr Maxwell, and Mr Southcott of the fact, and to state that the first lieutenant awaited them on the quarter-deck. We midshipmen had of course been left in the dark as to the proposed interview; but the message of which I was the bearer was of so very unusual a character that I at once suspected there must be something out of the common in prospect; and when, a few minutes later, I saw the four princ.i.p.al officers of the ship march with portentously solemn faces into the cabin, I determined that, right or wrong, I would know what was in the wind.

Fortunately for my purpose it was my watch below, and my absence from the deck would consequently not be noticed. It took me but a moment to form my plans, and not much more to execute them. The ship had a full p.o.o.p, under which the captain's cabin was situated; the weather was warm, and all the ports were open. Slipping off my shoes and thrusting them beneath a gun, where they were not likely to be discovered, I made my way in my stockings up on to the p.o.o.p, which was entirely deserted, and at once slipped over the side into the mizzen channels. The lid of one of the ports was then immediately beneath me, and I knew beforehand that there was just room for me to squeeze in upon it, where, though my att.i.tude must be somewhat constrained, I should be perfectly concealed from every eye, whilst I should also be able to hear with tolerable distinctness every word which might be spoken in the cabin in an ordinary conversational tone of voice.

Now, I am not going to defend my conduct. I know, and I knew at the time, that I was doing what I had no business to do, but I was quite free from any feeling of absolute wrong-doing; I had an instinctive perception that the interview in which I was about to play the part of eaves-dropper was in some way connected with the critical state of affairs then prevailing on board, and I felt that whilst my cognisance of what was about to pa.s.s could be hurtful to n.o.body, the knowledge might be advantageous to myself, and possibly to others also. If I acted wrongly I must be content to bear the blame; the fact remains that I posted myself safely and undetected in the position I had fixed upon, and overheard almost every word which pa.s.sed in the brief interview between the skipper and his visitors.

As I swung myself out over the channels and settled myself into my somewhat cramped quarters I heard Captain Pigot's strident voice speaking in a tone of surprised inquiry; but I was too busy just then to catch what he said. By the time he had finished, however, I was all ready to listen; and I presently heard Mr Reid reply:

"We have taken the unusual step, sir, of waiting upon you thus in a body, to direct your attention, in the most respectful manner, to the present condition and temper of the ship's company, the which we conceive to have resulted wholly from your excessive severity toward them. They are, almost to a man, in such an excited and dangerous frame of mind that we have the greatest difficulty in maintaining discipline, and keeping them under proper control. Indeed, to adequately carry on the duty of the ship has become almost an impossibility; and--to speak the truth frankly, sir--on comparing notes with my brother officers we have come to the conclusion that the men are no longer to be depended upon in case of an emergency. Matters cannot possibly remain much longer in their present state, a change of some sort is inevitable; and we would most respectfully suggest, sir, to your earnest and immediate consideration the desirability of adopting a more lenient and generous line of policy--"

"Great Heaven! man, do you know what you are saying?" gasped the skipper. And the crash of a falling chair together with the quiver in his voice seemed to indicate that he had started to his feet in a paroxysm of fury which he was ineffectually struggling to suppress.

"How dare you," he continued--"how dare anyone or all of you presume to call in question my conduct, or dictate to me the line of policy which I shall pursue with regard to my crew--a lazy, skulking, cowardly set of vagabonds, three-fourths of whom are foreigners? Why, man, if it had not been for the severe discipline of which you complain they would have had the ship away from us ere now. I know the cla.s.s of men I have to deal with, aboard here, and I also know how to deal with them; and you may take my word for it that I will never rest satisfied until I have made them the smartest crew in the service. As to the difficulty you profess to experience in carrying on the duty of the ship, I must confess I have not observed it, the rascals have always appeared active and willing enough whenever I have been on deck--thanks to that wholesome fear of the cat with which I have imbued them; and if the difficulty _really_ exists, I cannot but think, gentlemen, the fault must be with yourselves, and it can easily be cured by a somewhat firmer maintenance, rather than a relaxation, of that rigid discipline which you deprecate. And I will take this opportunity of mentioning, whilst we are upon the subject, my very strong disapproval of the manifest tendency which I have observed in the officers of this ship to overlook and condone what I suppose _they_ would term _trifling_ infractions of duty. In so doing, gentlemen, you have made a most grievous mistake, which, however, I will do my best to remedy in the immediate future.

There is nothing like plenty of flogging if you wish to keep such curs in proper order."

During the progress of this speech the skipper had gradually recovered the control of his temper; the tremulous tones of anger in his voice were succeeded by those of bitter sarcasm; and the manifest sneer with which he concluded made my blood boil.

There was a momentary pause, then I heard the first lieutenant say:

"With all submission, sir, permit me to say that I believe--nay, that I am _convinced_--you wholly misunderstand the character and disposition of the crew. Some of them--far too many of them, indeed--_are_ foreigners, who have neither the strength nor the spirit to perform their duties as efficiently as Englishmen would, but I believe that, for the most part, they honestly do their best; and for honest service, faithfully performed, perpetual flogging seems to me but a poor reward.

The jail-birds among our own countrymen are the most difficult subjects to deal with, and flogging only hardens them; if I had to deal with them I should be far more disposed to look for a cure from the contempt and raillery of their shipmates. Besides, the rogues are so cunning that they frequently succeed in shifting the blame on to other shoulders; and when one man gets punished for another's offences we know that the tendency is to make him sullen and discontented. I could name at least a dozen men who, from being bright smart, active, reliable men at the commencement of the cruise, have degenerated into as many idle skulks, solely because their good qualities have received no recognition, and they have been punished over and over again for the faults of others.

And as to our leniency toward the men--"

"There, that will do, Mr Reid; the less said on that head the better,"

interrupted the skipper impatiently. "This discussion has gone far enough," he continued, "and I must now request you all to withdraw. You have--relieved your consciences, let us say, by entering this formal protest and expressing your disapproval of my method of dealing with the hands forward; now let the matter drop. And hark ye, one and all, if there is any repet.i.tion of this impertinent interference with me, by the Heaven above us I will clap the presumptuous individual who attempts it in irons, and bring him to court-martial at the first convenient port we reach. Now go, and be hanged to you!"

"Very well, sir," said old David, "we _will_ go; but, before we leave your presence, permit me to observe that--"

I heard no more, for, perceiving that the interview was about to somewhat abruptly terminate, I judged it best to effect an escape from my place of concealment whilst escape was still possible, and I forthwith proceeded hurriedly to do so. I managed to make my way back to the quarter-deck without attracting attention, and had barely secured my shoes and replaced them on my feet when the first lieutenant and his companions emerged from the p.o.o.p cabin and began to pace the quarter- deck in apparently careless conversation, though I could tell, by the gloomy expression of their countenances, that they were discussing an anything but agreeable topic.

At length the westering sun approached the horizon; and Mr Douglas and Mr Southcott retired to their cabins in antic.i.p.ation of Captain Pigot's appearance on deck to watch the nightly operation of reefing topsails, leaving Mr Reid and Mr Maxwell to slowly pace the quarter-deck side by side. It being now my watch on deck, I stationed myself in the waist on the larboard side of the deck and endeavoured to forget the gloomy forebodings which had arisen out of the conversation I had recently overheard by abandoning myself to the soothing influences of the glorious eventide.

It was indeed a glorious evening, such as is seldom or never to be met with outside the tropics. The wind had gradually fallen away during the afternoon until it had dropped stark calm; and there the ship lay, with her head to the northward, gently rolling on the long gla.s.sy swell which came creeping stealthily up out from the northward and eastward. The small islands of Mona and Monita--the latter a mere rock--lay broad on our larboard quarter about eight miles distant, two delicate purplish pink blots on the south-western horizon, whilst Desecho reared its head above the north-eastern horizon on our starboard bow, a soft grey marking in the still softer grey haze of the sky in that quarter. A great pile of delicately-tinted purple and ruby clouds with golden edges lay heaped up in detached fantastic ma.s.ses along the glowing western horizon, shaped into the semblance of an aerial archipelago, with far- stretching promontories and peninsulas, and boldly jutting capes and headlands with deep gulfs and winding straits of rosy sky between. Some of these celestial islands were shaped along their edges into a series of minute gold-tipped projections and irregularities, which needed only the slightest effort of the fancy to become converted into the spires and pinnacles of a populous city or busy seaport; whilst certain minute detached flakelets of crimson and golden cloud dotted here and there about the aerial channels might easily be imagined to be fairy argosies navigating the celestial sea. Gazing, as I did, enraptured, upon that scene of magical beauty, it was not difficult to guess at the origin of that most poetical--as it is perhaps the oldest--nautical superst.i.tion, which gives credence to the idea that there exists, far away beyond the sunset, an enchanted region which poor storm-beaten sailors are sometimes permitted to reach, and wherein, during an existence which is indefinitely prolonged, they enjoy a complete immunity from all those perils and hardships with which the seaman's life is ordinarily environed; wherein life is one long day of ineffable peace and rest and tranquillity; and from whence every disagreeable influence is permanently banished.

I was abruptly aroused from my fanciful musings by the sound of the ship's bell, four strokes upon which proclaimed the end of the first dog-watch. The momentary bustle of calling the watch immediately followed, in the midst of which came the customary orders to reef topsails. Simultaneously with the appearance of the larboard watch, Captain Pigot issued from his cabin and, ascending the p.o.o.p ladder, made his way aft to the taffrail, from which position he was able to command a view of the proceedings on each topsail-yard. The royals and topgallant-sails were very smartly clewed up and furled; and, as the topsail halyards were let run, I saw the skipper pull out his watch and, noting the time by it, hold it face upwards in his hand.

"Soho!" thought I, "that does not look very much as though the first lieutenant's remonstrance had produced any beneficial effect; there's trouble in store for some of those unfortunates on the yards if they are not exceptionally lively."

The hands themselves, who had not failed to mark the skipper's actions, seemed to think so too, and they set about their work with the activity of wild-cats. But "the more hurry the less speed" is an old adage; and so it proved in the present case, the men on the mizzen topsail-yard managing so to bungle matters that when, on the expiration of two and a half minutes--the outside limit of time allowed by the skipper for reefing a topsail--Captain Pigot closed his watch with a snap and replaced it smartly in his pocket, several of the reef-points still remained to be tied.

"Now," thought I, "look out for squalls." And as the thought pa.s.sed through my mind the squall came, in the shape of a hail from the skipper himself.

"Mizzen topsail-yard, there!" he shouted, "what are you about, you lazy lubbers? Do you intend to spend the remainder of the watch in reefing that topsail? Wake up, and put some life into your motions, for (and here came an oath) I'll flog the last man off the yard."

The work was completed ere he had finished speaking, and the men began hurriedly and in some little confusion to lay in off the yard. There was a decided scramble for the topmast rigging, each man naturally striving to be off the yard before his neighbour, and thus exposing himself and those immediately about him to a very considerable amount of peril.

Mr Reid, who was also on the p.o.o.p near the skipper, saw this, and hailed the men with:

"Steady, there, on the mizzen topsail-yard; steady, men, and take things quietly, or some of you will be meeting with a nasty accident."

The men's fear of an accident was, however, less than their dread of a flogging, and the hustling went on, much, apparently to the amus.e.m.e.nt of Captain Pigot, who smiled cynically as he silently watched the struggle.

The two captains of the to were in the most disadvantageous position of all, as they, bent supposed to be the two smartest hands on the yard, had laid out, one to each yard-arm to pa.s.s and haul out the earrings and they would consequently, in the ordinary course of things be the last men off the yard. This, however, meant a flogging for at least one of them, which they were resolved to escape if possible. Instead, therefore, of laying in along the foot-rope like the rest of the men, they scrambled up on the yard, by the aid of the lifts, and standing erect on the spar, started to run in along it toward the mast. They managed very well until they reached the little struggling crowd about the topmast rigging, when, to avoid them, the two men made a spring simultaneously for the back-stays. How it happened can never be known, but, somehow or other, both overleaped themselves missed the back-stays, and came crashing down on the p.o.o.p where they lay motionless upon the white planks which in another moment were crimsoned with their blood.

Captain Pigot turned ghastly pale as this sudden and terrible consequence of his tyrannical behaviour presented itself to him; but he never moved a single step to help either of the injured men. The first lieutenant, however, sprang forward and raised the head of one poor fellow, whilst I, springing up the p.o.o.p ladder, went to the a.s.sistance of the other. The man to whom I went lay on his face, and, as I turned him over and raised his head, I turned sick and faint at the ghastly sight which met my horrified gaze. The features were battered out of all recognition, the lower jaw was broken, and from what appeared to be the crushed face the blood was spurting in a torrent which almost instantly drenched through my small-clothes and wetted me to the skin.