ページの画像
PDF
ePub

timber clamped with iron, stretching across the creek. We were not unprepared for this; one of two old 32-pound carronades, which, in anticipation of some obstruction of the sort, had been got on deck from amongst the Gleam's ballast, and properly slung, was now made fast to the middle timber of the boom, and let go, when the weight of it sunk it to the bottom, and we passed on. We pulled on for about half a mile further, when I noticed, high up on a sunny cliff, that shot boldly out into the clear blue heavens, a small red flag suddenly run up to the top of a tall, scathed, branchless palm-tree, where it flared for a moment in the breeze like the flame of a torch, and then as suddenly disappeared. 'Come, they are on the look-out for us, I see.' The hills continued to close on us as we advanced, and that so precipitously that we might have been crushed to pieces had half a dozen active fellows, without any risk to themselves, for the trees would have screened them, simply loosened some of the fragments of rock that impended over us, so threateningly, it seemed, as if a little finger could have sent them bounding and thundering down the mountain side; but this either was not the game of the people we were in search of, or Obed's spirit and energy had been crushed out of him by the heart-depressing belief that his hours were numbered; for no active obstruction was offered. We now suddenly rounded an abrupt corner of the creek, and there we were full in front of the schooners, who, with the felucca in advance, were lying in line of battle, with springs on their cables. The horrible black pennant was, in the present instance, now here to be seen; indeed, why such an impolitic step as ever to have shown it at all, was taken in the first attack, I never could understand, for the force was too small to have created any serious fear of being captured, (unless indeed it had been taken for an advanced guard, supported by a stronger,) while it must have appeared probable to Obadiah, that the loss of the two boats would, in all likelihood, lead to a more powerful attempt, when, if it were successful, the damning fact of having fought under such an infernal emblem must have insured a pirate's death on the gibbet to every soul who was taken, unless he had intended to have murdered all the witnesses of it. But since proof in my person and the pilot's existed, now, if ever, was the time for mortal resistance, and to have hoisted it, for they knew that they all fought with halters about their necks. They had all the Spanish flag lying except the Wave, which showed American colors, and the felucca, which had a white flag hoisted, from which last, whenever our gig appeared, a canoe shoved off, and pulled towards us. The officer, if such he might be called, also carried a white flag in his hand. He was a daring-looking fellow, and dashed up along side of me. The incomprehensible folly of trying at this time of day to cloak the real character of the vessels, puzzled me, and does so to this hour. I have never got a clew to it, unless it was that Obed's strong mind had given way before his, superstitious fears, and others had now assumed the right of both judging and acting for him in this his closing scene. He at once recognised me but seemed neither surprised nor disconcerted at seeing me, or the strength of the force which accompanied me. He asked me in Spanish if I commanded it; I told him I did not, that the captain of the schooner was the senior officer. Then will you be good enough, Mr. Cringle, to go on board with me, to interpret for me?"— Certainly.' In halfa minute we were both on the Gleam's deck, the crews of the boats that had her in tow lying on their oars. 'You are the commander of this force?' said the Spaniard. I am, said old Gasket, who had fagged

himself out in full puff after the manner of the ancients, as if he had been going to church, instead of to fight;' and who the hell are you?' 'I command one of these Spanish schooners, sir, which your boats so unwarrantably attacked a week ago, although you are at peace with Spain. But even had they been enemies they were in a friendly port, which should have protected them.'-All very good oysters,' quoth old Dick; and pray was it an honest trick of you or your friend, to cabbage my young friend, Lieutenant Cringle there, as if you had been slavers kidnapping the Bungoes in the Bight of Biafra, and then to fire on and murder my people when sent in to claim him? As to carrying off that young gentleman, it was no affair of ours; he was brought away by the master of that American schooner; but so far as regards firing on your people, I believe they fired first. But they are not murdered; on the contrary, they have been well used, and are now on board that felucca. I am come to surrender the whole fifteen to you.'-' The whole fifteen! and what have you made of the other twelve?''Gastados,' said the fellow with all the sangfroid in the world, gastados, (spent or expended) by their own folly.

[ocr errors]
[ocr errors]

Oh, they are expended, are they? then give us the fifteen.'-"Certainly, but you will in this case withdraw your force, of course ? '—' We shall see about that,-go and send us the men.' He jumped down into the canoe, and shoved off;-when he reached the felucca, he struck the white flag, and hoisted the Spanish in its stead, and by hauling on a spring, he brought her to cover the largest schooner so effectually that we could not fire a shot at her without going through the felucca. We could see all the men leave this latter vessel in two canoes, and go on board one of the other craft. There was now no time to be lost, so I dashed at the felucca in the gig, and broke open the hatches, where we found the captured seamen and their gallant leader, Lieutenant ***, in a sorry plight, expecting nothing but to be blown up, or instant death by shot or the knife. We released them, and sending to the Gleam for ammunition and small arms, led the way in the felucca, by Mr. Gasket's orders, to the attack, the corvette's launch supporting us; while the schoon er with the other craft were scraping up as fast as they could. We made straight for the largest schooner, which with her consorts now opened a heavy fire of grape and musketry, which we returned with interest. I can tell little of what took place till I found myself on the pirate's quarterdeck, after a desperate tussle, and having driven the crew overboard, with dead and wounded men thickly strewn about, and our fellows busy firing at their surviving antagonists, as they were trying to gain the shore by swimming.

Although the schooner we carried was the Commodore, and commanded by Obadiah in person, yet the pirates, that is the Spanish part of them, by no means showed the fight I expected. While we were approaching, no fire could be hotter, and their yells and cheers were tremendous; but the instant we laid her alongside with the felucca, and swept her decks with a discharge of grape from the carronade, under cover of which we boarded on the quarter, while the launch's people scrambled up at the bows, their hearts failed them, a regular panic overtook them, and they jumped overboard, without waiting for a taste either of cutlass or boarding pike. The captain himself, however, with about ten Americans, stood at bay round the long gun which, notwithstanding their great inferiority in point of numbers to our party, they manfully fired three several times at us, after we had carried her aft; but

we were so close that the grape came past us like a round shot, and only killed one hand at each discharge, whereas at thirty yards fartheroff it might have made a pretty tableau' of the whole party, by having had room to spread. I hailed Obed twice to surrender, as our people, staggered by the extreme hardihood of the small group, hung back for an instant; but he either did not hear me, or would not, for the only reply he seemed inclined to make was by slewing round the gun so as to bring me on with it, and the next moment a general rush was made, when the whole party was cut down, with three exceptions, one of whom was Obed himself, who getting on the gun, made a desperate bound over the men's heads, and jumped overboard. He struck out gallantly, the shot pattering round him like the first of a thunder shower, but he dived apparently unhurt, and I lost sight of him.

The other vessels having also been carried, the firing was all on our side by this time, and I, along with the other officers, was exerting myself to stop the butchery. Cease firing, men ; for shame, you see they no longer resist'- And my voice was obeyed by all except the fifteen we had released, who were absolutely mad with fury-perfect fiends; such uncontrollable fierceness I had never witnessed, indeed, I had nearly cut one of them down before I could make them knock off firing. 'Don't fire, sir,' cried I to one. 'Ay, ay, sir; but that scoundrel made me wash his shirts,' and he let drive at a poor devil, who was squattering and swimming away towards the shore, and shot him through the head. By heavens, I will run you through, if you fire at that man!' shouted I to another, a marine, who was taking aim at no less a personage than friend Obed, who had risen to breath, and was swimming after the others, but the very last man of all. 'No, by G— ! he made me wash his trowsers, sir.' He fired—the pirate stretched out his arms, turned slowly on his back, with his face towards me. I thought he gave me a sort of 'Et tu, Brute' look, but I dare say it was faucy-his feet began to sink, and he gradually disappeared,-a few bubbles of froth and blood marking the spot where he went down. He had been shot dead. I will not attempt to describe my feelings at this moment,-they burned themselves in on my heart at the time, and the impression is indelible. Whether I had or had not acted, in one sense, unjustly, by thrusting myself, so conspicuously forward in the attempt to capture him after what had passed between us, forced itself upon my judgment. I had certain ly promised that I would, in no way that I could help, be instrumental in his destruction or seizure, provided he landed me at St. Jago, or put me on board a friendly vessel. He did neither, so his part of the compact might be considered broken; but then it was out of his power to have fulfilled it; besides, he not only threatened my life subsequently, but actually wounded me; still, however, on great provocation. But what is writ, is writ.' He has gone to his account, pirate as he was, murderer if you will; yet I had, and still have, a tear for his memory, and many a time have I prayed on my bare knees that his blue agonised dying look might be erased from my memory ;-but this can never be. What he had been I never learned; but it is my deliberate opinion, that with a clear stage and opportunity, he would have forced himself out from the surface of society for good or for evil. The unfortunates who survived him but to expiate their crimes on the gibbet at Port Royal, said he had joined them from a New York privateer, but they knew nothing farther of him beyond the fact, that by his skill and desperate courage, within a month he had by common acclaim been elected captain of the whole

band. There was a story current on board the corvette, of a small trading craft, with a person answering his description, having been captured in the Chesapeak, by one of the squadron, and sent to Halifax for adjudication; the master, as in most cases of the kind, being left on board, which from that hour had never been heard of, neither vessel, nor prize, crew nor captain, until two Americans were taken out of a slaver off the Cape de Verds, by the Firebrand, about a year afterwards, after a most brave and determined attempt to escape, both of whom were, however, allowed to enter, but subsequently deserted off Sandy Hook, by swimming ashore, in consequence of a pressed hand hinting that Obed had been the master of the vessel above mentioned.

All resistance having ceased, the few of the pirates who escaped having scampered into the woods, where it would have been vain to follow them, we secured our prisoners, and at the close of a bloody day, for fatal had it been to friend and foe, the prizes were got under weigh, and before nightfall we were all at sea, sailing in a fleet under convoy of the corvette and Gleam.

LE LIVRE DES CENT-ET-UN.

WE announce with great pleasure, the appearance of the sixth volume of this very interesting work. M. Ladvocat, theparisian publisher, has been enabled, through the assistance of several distinguished friends of literature, to arrange his affairs so far, that there will be no interruption in the appearance of the coming volumes.

The great interest which has been taken in the fortunes of M. Ladvocat, not only by literary men by profession, but, by titled individuals and enlightened statesmen, who have come forward with gratuitous contributions, certainly is a proof of an unusual and distinguished merit in the worthy publisher. We behold side by side La Fayette and the Duke of Fitz James-Dupin and Martignac-Fontau and Genoude-Jony (the well-known hermit of the Chaussée d'Autin,) and David (the celebrated Actor,)-Wollis and Berryer fils;-whilst a melancholy and touching interest is thrown into the work by the contributions of the Count de Peyronnet, one of the unhappy ministers of Charles X., dated from his gloomy cell in the Castle of Ham. Cooper, too, our philanthropic Cooper, is to add a gem to this brilliant and coruscant collection of foreign talent.-We shall commence with

THE PARISIAN AT SEA.

'Matthew Guichard was the son of Jean Guichard, locksmith, in the Rue SaintBenoit. He was about seventeen, of the middle height; slim, nervous, and pale. He had small, twinkling grey eyes; and thin, silky brown hair. His countenance indicated a singular mixture of cunning and simplicity; and his livid and wan complexion had that unhealthy and shrivelled appearance so common among the children of the poor and working classes in Paris.

'In his moral constitution,-if, indeed, he had a moral constitution,-Matthew

was insolent, lascivious, lazy, and gluttonous: he was, moreover, a scoffer and a bully. He was neither infidel, nor believer, nor sceptic; but of a stoical indifference in matters of religion ;-never invoking the name of God but in a manner so detestable, that he had much better not have invoked it at all. But, in truth, we must not bear too hard upon him on this account; for the very first words which his father, formerly an artillery-man, taught him to utter, were the most frightful oaths. These lessons formed the recreation of the old soldier, when, after a hard day's work, he was seated near his extinguished forge. He would then place young Matthew upon his knee, and listen with delight to the renegado oaths lisped forth by the child. Sometimes his wife would talk of prayers, and of the Holy Virgin, and the infant Saviour; but Jean Guichard would reply, Peace, woman! I don't choose that my boy should be either a maccaroni parson or a

Jesuit.'

'Now, in this respect, Matthew did not disappoint the expectation of his father: he was no maccaroni parson, and certainly not a Jesuit.

When he was ten years old, he would kick his mother-insult old men-steal old nails from the shop to raise the wind-do no work-receive sound thrashings from his father-and spend whole days from home. At twelve, he had already commenced his career of gallantry-had broken lamps-beaten the watch-and was an admitted member of the society of maurais sujets.

'As he advanced in years, so his offences increased; and the torrent of his misdeeds became so strong, that it threatened to sweep away the reputation, the honor, and the savings of Jean Guichard, his father, who had in vain opposed to it in the form of a dyke, sundry elm and oak cudgels broken upon the back of his son Matthew, but without improving the habits of the youth. Fortunately, Jean Guichard remembered an old proverb, common with the Parisians, which represents a ship as a sort of moral cess-pool, into which all the filth and rubbish of society is thrown. Thus, when a youth of condition commits one of those egregious follies, which never occur but at the dawn of manhood, there is a meeting of the family, and a grave resolution passed, that the young Don Juan must be shipped off to the West Indies, to encounter the hard rubs of life, until he be polished down into. discretion.

'So also, when a young villain, the terror of the neighborhood, puts no longer any restraint upon his enormities, after being threatened, in succession, with the commissary, a prison, and the gallies, the climax is wound up by saying, 'He must be sent to sea.'

Now it happened that, one morning, Jean Guichard entered his son's bed-room, who, I know not by what chance, had slept at home. On opening his eyes, Matthew shuddered, for he perceived that his father had no cudgel.

"He is certainly going to strangle me,” thought the lad.

""Listen to me, Matthew," said old Guichard, coolly: "thou art now fifteen years old, and the most consummate scoundrel I know; blows have no effect upon you, and you will die upon the gallows. I have been a soldier, but am an honest man; and things cannot therefore go on as they do. You must come with me to Havre.'

"When?"

"Immediately: dress yourself."

'Matthew said not another word; but so soon as his clothes were on, cast a sly glance at the door; then, making a sudden bolt, was in a moment upon the stairs. But his father had watched his motions, and Matthew, already exulting in the anticipation of his escape, felt the muscular grip of his father's huge hands.

"Softly, lad-not so fast," said Jean, and preceding Matthew into the shop, ordered his wife to call a cab, into which the father and son mounted,-a big tear starting in the eyes of the latter, when he saw his mother, in an agony of grief, throw herself upon her knees near the forge.

From the cab, Matthew passed into the diligence, accompanied by his father, who left him not an instant. The next morning they arrived at Havre.

In every commercial sea-port town in France, there are certain tavern-keepers who supply unemployed seamen with board and lodgings upon credit. As soon as the latter are hired, they pay their tavern bill out of their advance of wages;

« 前へ次へ »