One of the Six Hundred 8One of the Six Hundred (part 8)
18
Literature · Romance
One of the Six Hundred 8
One of the Six Hundred (part 8)
GrantEnglish
I had her treasured lock of hair and the miniature, on which I was never tired of gazing, especially when I could do so unseen in my swinging cot, for a crowded transport is the last place in the world for indulging in lover's dreams or reveries. It was a poor, feeble daguerreotype, yet there were times when, by force of imagination, the pictured face seemed to light up with Louisa's smile, and when the fine feminine features became filled by a blaze of light and life, so like the original that they became perfectly lovely.
Then I would think of Cora, too, and when I reflected over all her bearing towards me, the light which broke upon me at first became clearer.
Her tears when she first told Sir Nigel of her suspicion that I loved Louisa; her sudden changes of colour, from pallor to ruddy suffusion of the cheek; her hesitation in addressing me at times, her abruptness at others, or her silence; her vehemence in defending me against the accusations of Berkeley, and her joy at my victory; her occasional coldness to Louisa and her silent sorrow at my departure; all that had at any time puzzled me was explained now.
Cora loved me with a love beyond that of cousin, and I must often have stabbed her good little heart by my impertinent confidences regarding my passion for another.
Well, well, Cora's love and my regrets were alike vain now, for the swift clipper ship was running on a taut bowline by the skirts of Biscay's stormy bay, as she bore us on "to glory" and Gallipoli.
*CHAPTER XXV.*
A wet sheet and a flowing sea,
A wind that follows fast,
And fills the white and rustling sail,
And bends the gallant mast.
And bends the gallant mast, my boys.
While, like the eagle free,
Away the good ship flies, and leaves
Old England on the lee.
The cabin was spacious and comfortable. Binnacle, the skipper, was a short, thick-set little stump of a fellow, with a round, good-humoured face, which had become browned by exposure in every climate and on every sea under the sun. He was very anecdotical, perpetually joking and laughing, and had one peculiarity, that he never in conversation inter-larded his remarks with nautical phraseology, like the conventional or orthodox sailor of romance and the stage.
He had never sailed before with a horse on board, and now that he had actually one hundred of those useful quadrupeds under his hatches, he spent a great deal of his spare time among them, tickling their ears and noses--more, perhaps, than some of them quite relished, if one might judge of the manner in which they occasionally showed the whites of their eyes, and lashed out at the rear end of their stall-boxes.
On board we smoked, of course, played chess, loo (rouge-et-noir, a little), and daily watched with interest the steamers which passed us, full of troops, British or French, all on their way to the East. Some of us kept diaries and made memoranda for friends at home: but some grew tired of doing so, or reflected that they might not live to record that, on such a day, the white cliffs of old England were again in sight.
We had quite a bale of the "Railway Library" on board; but to reading we preferred telling stories, to kill time, or watching, telescope in hand, for bits of continental scenery, as we ran along the coast of Portugal, spanned the Gulf of Cadiz, and hauled up for the Straits of Gibraltar, after passing the rocky promontory of Cape St. Vincent, which we saw rising from the sea north-north-east of us, about ten miles distant, on the fifth day after we sailed from Spithead.
During the day we had not many leisure hours, as there is no situation in which troops more urgently require the personal superintendence of their officers than when on board ship.
All the lancers were supplied with white canvas frocks, to save their uniforms, and were divided into three watches, each of which in turn was on deck, with at least one officer. We had an officer of the day and guard, who posted sentinels, armed with the sword, at the breaks of the poop and forecastle, to maintain order, and, when the weather permitted, we had an hour of carbine and sword exercise, to the great edification of Captain Binnacle and his crew. Every morning the bedding was brought on deck and triced in nettings alongside; no smoking was permitted in the stables or between decks.
The cattle were of course our chief care, and Beverley was always particular about his mounts. Experience and theory had long convinced him that the sire dominated in the breed of chargers; thus he ever eschewed the produce of half-bred stallions and stud horses. We gave them mashes dashed with nitre, and mixed bran with their corn; daily we had their hoofs and fetlocks washed in clean salt water, their eyes and noses sponged, and when at times the windsails failed to act, and the hold became close, we washed the mangers with vinegar and water, and sponged the horses' nostrils with the same refreshing dilution.
Notwithstanding all our care, however, before we sighted Malta we lost three--one of which was my uncle's present, the black cover-hack with the white star on her counter. It became glandered.
Pitblado, who had seen the nag foaled, and had many a day taken it to graze in Falkland Park, and on the green slopes of the Mid Lomond, flatly refused to shoot it when I ordered him to do so, but gave his loaded carbine to Lanty O'Regan, who had fewer scruples on the subject.
When this episode occurred, Cape Espartel was bearing south-east of us, about twelve miles distant; and by our glasses we could distinctly see the features of that remarkable headland of Morocco, the north-western extremity of the mighty continent of Africa, with its range of basaltic columns, which nearly rival in magnificence those of Fingal's Cave at Staffa; and the noon of the following day, as we bore into the Mediterranean, saw the great peak of Gibraltar rising from the horizon like a couchant lion, with its tail turned to Spain.
When my poor nag, previous to its slaughter, was being slung up from the hold, Beverley was much impressed by the real grief of honest Pitblado for its loss; and told me an interesting Indian anecdote of a pet horse that belonged to the 8th Royal Irish Hussars.
Beverley seldom spoke of India, for it was a land that was not without sorrowful recollections to him; and we all knew that he wore at his neck a large gold locket, containing a braid of the hair of his intended bride--a lovely girl, who was shot in his arms, and when seated on his saddle, as he was spurring with his troop through the horrors and the carnage of the Khyber Pass--on that day when nearly our whole 44th Regiment perished--and poor Beverley, with her dead body, fell into the hands of the Afghans.
"When we last went out to India," said he, "that was when I was but a cornet of sixteen, and several years before you joined us, we relieved the 8th Royal Irish, who had been there long--I know not how many years, but time enough to gain on their colours Pristinae virtutis memores, with 'Leswaree,' and 'Hindostan'--honours which they shared with the old 25th Light Dragoons, for five-and-twenty years was then the common term of Indian expatriation.
A corps disbanded in 1818; and formerly the 29th Light Dragoons, were raised in 1795.
"The 8th had been at the storming of Kalunga, where their old and beloved colonel--then General Sir Robert Rollo Gillespie--was killed at their head, and fell with that splendid sword, inscribed 'The gift of the Royal Irish,' clenched in his hand. His horse was a remarkably noble animal, which had been foaled of an Irish mare at the Cape of Good Hope; but he had the beautiful Arabian head, the finely-arched neck, long oblique shoulders, ample quarters, well-bent legs, and long elastic pastern of his sire--a splendid Godolphin barb. Black Bob was indeed a beauty!
"After the affair at Kalunga he was put up for sale, with his saddle and housings still spotted with the blood of the gallant Gillespie, who was so greatly beloved by the brave Irish fellows of the 8th that they resolved to keep his horse as a memorial of him; but, unfortunately, the upset price was three hundred guineas.
"Two officers of the 25th Light Dragoons raised it speedily to a hundred more. But not to be baffled, the poor fellows subscribed among themselves, and actually raised five hundred guineas, for which the beautiful black horse, with his housings, was sold to them.
"Black Bob thus became their property, and always preceded the regiment on the march. He knew the trumpets of the 8th better than those of any other regiment. The men were wont to affirm that he had a taste for the Irish brogue, too, and that he pricked his ears always highest at 'Garryowen,' in regard that his mother was a mare from the Wicklow Hills.
"Bob was fed, caressed, petted, and stroked as no horse ever had been before; and always when in barracks, as the corps proceeded from station to station where he had been with his old rider, he took the accustomed position at the saluting base when the troops marched past, just as if old Rollo Gillespie was still in the saddle, watching the squadrons or companies defile in succession, and was not lying in his grave, far away beneath the ramparts of Kalunga, among the Himalaya mountains in Nepaul.
"Well, as I have said, at last we came to relieve the 8th, who were dismounted, and had their horses turned over to us. They were to go home, as we had come out, by sea. The funds of the hussars were low now; pay was spent and prize-money gone. They were in despair at the prospect of losing their pet horse; but no such passengers ever went round the Cape, so they had to part with Bob at last.
"A civilian at Cawnpore bought him, and the hussars gave him back more than half the price, on receiving a solemn promise that Bob was to have a good stable and snug paddock wherein he was to pass the remainder of his days in comfort; and this pledge the new proprietor kept faithfully. But Bob had only been three days in his new quarters, when he heard the trumpets of the 8th waking the echoes of the compound, as they marched, dismounted, before daybreak, to embark on the Ganges, for Calcutta.
"It was the old air of the regiment, 'Garryowen.' Then Bob became frantic. He bit and tore his manger to pieces; he lashed out with his hoofs and kicked the heel-posts and treviss boards to pieces. He destroyed his whole stall, and sunk among the straw, bleeding, cut, and half strangled in his stall collar.
"After a time, when day by day passed, and he saw no more the once familiar uniforms, and heard no more the voices or the trumpets of his old friends, he pined away, refused his corn, and even the most tempting mashes, totally declining all food. So he was turned into the paddock; but then he leaped the bamboo fence, and with all his remaining speed rushed direct to the barracks at Cawnpore.
"There he made straight for the cantonment of the European cavalry, and came whinneying up to the saluting post, where he had so often borne old Gillespie and seen the squadrons of the 8th defiling past, and there, on that very spot, the horse fell down and died!"
There was another pet of the 8th Hussars, which met with a different fate. The jet-black horse, on whose back their colonel, T. P. Vandeleur, was killed at the battle of Leswaree "long kept his place with the regiment, and afterwards became the property of Cornet Burrowes, who took great care of him until the corps left India, when he was shot, that he might not fall into unworthy hands."--Narrative of Leswaree. By Dr. Ore.
"I have often heard similar stories of dogs--but never such a yarn of a horse," said Captain Binnacle, who was greatly impressed by this anecdote, and smoked a long time thoughtfully and in silence after it.
"Fact though!" said Beverley, curtly, and rather haughtily, as he tipped the ashes off his cigar.
"That horse had the heart of a man. But I could spin you a yarn, colonel, of a man that had the heart of a beast--ay, of a wild wolf; and it all occurred under my own eye--for I had to shed human blood in the matter; though I doubt not God above will acquit me therefor, seeing as how my own conscience acquits me."
The impressive manner so suddenly adopted by our worthy little skipper attracted the attention of Beverley, Studhome, and M'Goldrick, and all the listening group.
Even Jocelyn--a gay fellow, who had more affaires de fantaisie than affaires de coeur, and who never permitted the impulses of that useful utensil, his heart, to go further than proved convenient or comfortable--felt himself interested by the gloomy and stern expression that came into the face of Captain Binnacle.
"Would you like to hear my yarn, gentlemen?" said the latter.
"With pleasure--certainly--by all means--if you please," said we, alternately, and all together, for Binnacle was evidently anxious to spin it.
He gave a glance aloft, and another at the sky. The evening was fine and clear. The mate had charge of the deck, the ship was running under her head-sails, courses, top-sails, and topgallant sails before a fine strong breeze, which, as she rolled from side to side, made our horses reel and oscillate in their padded stalls below. The watch of lancers were all smoking or chatting on the port side; the sail-makers, squatted under the break of the forecastle, were busy on a set of new studding-sails; the carpenters were at work repairing the headrails forward.
The result of Binnacle's glances was satisfactory; and, descending to the cabin, whither we all followed, he ordered glasses and decanters, with a case of four square bottles that held something stronger than decanters usually do. We all betook us to brandy-and-water, except Frank Jocelyn, who imbibed noyeau and lemonade, a decoction which Binnacle viewed with sublime contempt; but Frank wore his hair, divided in the middle, and invariably used w for r, so we excused him, as one might do a young lady.
After a few preliminary coughs and hems, Binnacle told us the following story, which is so horrible that it fully requires--let us hope deserves--an entire chapter to itself.
*CHAPTER XXVI.*
At length one whispered his companion, who
Whispered another, and thus it went round,
And then into a hoarser murmur grew,
An ominous, and wild, and desperate sound;
And when his comrade's thought each sufferer knew,
'Twas but his own, suppressed till now, he found,
And out they spoke of lots for flesh and blood,
And who should die to be his fellows' food.--BYRON.
"You must know, gentlemen, that five years ago, come December next, I was first mate of the Favourite, a brig of London, registered at Lloyd's as being two hundred tons burden, John Benson, master, with a crew consisting only of nine men and a boy. We had run, late in the year, to Newfoundland for a cargo of salted cod, and sailing later still, lost a topmast, and had to run up Conception Bay to refit at the town of Harbour Grace.
"Winter was close at hand now, so we lost no time in getting our gear ready; but the field ice came down swiftly from the north, and for the distance of two hundred miles from the mouth of the bay--that is, from Baccalieu and Cape St. Francis--away towards the Great Bank of Newfoundland, it covered all the sea, hard and fast, with hundreds of icebergs wedged amid it; so there was nothing for us now but patience and flannel, to strip the ship of her canvas and running rigging, to stow away everything till the spring, to muffle ourselves to the nose, and try to keep our blood from freezing by sitting close to wood-fires, and drinking red Jamaica rum mixed with snow-water, or that of the mineral springs on the hill of Lookout.
"A winter in Harbour Grace is not quite so lovely as one would be in London, as it is a poor little wooden town, with a few thousand miserable inhabitants, and a port that is difficult of entrance, though safe enough when one is fairly in. Well, everything passes away in time; so the winter passed, and the spring came; but, as usual in that imaginary season there, the snow fell heavier, till it was fathoms deep in the gulleys and flat places; the weather became more wintry than ever, and though the fierce black frost relaxes a little, it will still freeze half and half grog as hard as rock crystal.
"Some of our crew bemoaned this unlooked for detention bitterly, especially the captain, Tom Dacres, and one or two married men, whose wives, they feared, would deem them lost; but none were more impatient than the boy I have named. We called him Scotch Willy, for his name was William Ormiston, from the village of Gourock, on the Clyde. Well educated, with a smattering of Latin and other things, a passion for wild adventure, and chiefly for the sea--a passion fed by the perusal of Robinson Crusoe and other romances--made him run from home and ship for North America, where we picked him up; and often, in the watches of the night, poor Willy confided to me his remorse and repentance, and wept for his mother, whose heart he feared he had broken. Then he used to show me an advertisement cut from a Glasgow paper, that fell into his hands in New York:--
"Left his home, ten days ago, a boy fifteen years of age, named William Ormiston; dressed in a blue jacket and trowsers, with a Glengarry bonnet; has dark eyes and brown hair. Any information regarding him will be most thankfully received by his widowed and afflicted mother, at the Quayside, Gourock."
"'Such was the notice that caught my eye when I was more than two thousand miles away from her--with my heart as full of remorse as my pocket was empty,' Willy would say, in a voice broken by sobs; but he hoped yet to get home and cast himself into her arms.
"In his tribulation Willy always thought his mother would be praying for him, and that her prayers would be more efficacious than his own, and this conviction always consoled and strengthened him. He was a handsome boy, this Willy, with eyes so dark that he might have passed for a grandson of 'Black-eyed Susan,' only that she was an English girl, and our Willy was Scotch to the backbone--he was.
"In March we began to get ready for sea, as there is usually a partial breaking up of the ice about the middle of that month, so we resolved to get away if we could, and stand across for Cadiz, if once clear of that dreary and snow-covered land and the field ice. In Spain we were to exchange the salted cod for wine and fruit, and then return to London.
"A Russian whaler, which had been frozen in the same bight, but nearer the sea, was working out ahead of us some three miles or so, through the blue water and between the white floating floes, and we gave the greasy beggar a cheer as he passed out of the bay, made a good offing, and bore away, east by north, round Baccalieu Island.
"Conception Bay, I should tell you, gentlemen, is a large inlet of the Newfoundland coast, about fifty-three miles long, by some twenty or so broad; thus there is plenty of elbow-room for working out, even against a head-wind. Its coast is very bold and precipitous, especially about Point de Grates and Cape St. Francis. Harbour Grace and Carboniere on its shore were settlements of the old French times.
"As we followed in the Russian's wake, Bob Jenner, a fine, handsome young seaman, from Bristol, had the wheel, steering, with a steady hand, between the floes of broken ice that were drifting dangerously about the bay. We had the brig under easy sail; her fore and main courses, topsails, jib, and forestay-sail.
"Amid the quiet that prevailed on board, and the satisfaction we felt in having the blue water rippling alongside again, we were surprised by hearing a voice hailing us, as it were, from the sea.
"'A man in the water, sir; just abeam of us, to port,' shouted Scotch Willy, as he sprang into the main chains.
"And there, sure enough, in the sea, some twenty yards or so from us, we saw a man's head bobbing up and down like a fisherman's float, just as we neared the mouth of the inlet, where, beyond the headlands, that were covered with snow, and shining in the sea, we could see the waters of the Atlantic stretching far away.
"'Rope--a rope!--man overboard, Captain Benson; lay the maincourse to the wind!' were now the shouts.
"'Bear a hand--quick--diable!' cried the man in the water. 'Are you fellows fit for nothing, in heaven or hell, that you will let me drown before your eyes, d--n them?'
"Ere this remarkable speech reached us, the sheet was let fly to starboard, hauled into port, the brig lay to the wind, and the line was hove to this ill-bred personage in the water. He caught the bight of it with difficulty, for he was sorely benumbed, and actually sunk out of sight as he tied it under his armpits. However, up he came again, and we gently hauled him on board, where he fainted for a few minutes; but recovered when we poured some warm brandy-and-water down his throat, stripped off his wet clothes, and put him in a cosy spare hammock in the forecastle.
"By the time all this was done, we had cleared Conception Bay, and, with flocks of the Baccalieu birds screaming about us, were heading east by north, to keep clear of the floes, which the current was throwing in towards the land again, so rapidly, that many of them, like the links of an icy chain, were already drifting between us and the Russian, who was hoisting out his studding-sails on both sides, to make as good an offing as possible, before the sun set upon that frozen shore and tideless sea.
"By midday she was well-nigh hull down; but standing to the southward, having cleared the outer angle of the ice, while we were standing east and by north, to turn the end of a long mass, which we hoped to do ere night fell. In fact, the Russian had glided through some opening, which had closed again, for we could see only a line of ice, now stretching to the northern horizon, shutting us in towards the land.
"By midday our new hand was so far recovered as to be able to tell us that he was by name Urbain Gautier, a French Canadian, and that he had been a seaman on board the Russian whaler; that he had resented some ill-usage, been flogged, and thrown overboard. In proof of this summary procedure he showed us his back, which was covered with livid marks, evidently produced by the hearty application of a cat or knotted rope's end, but Scotch Willy lessened the general sympathy by informing me and Tom Dacres, in a whisper, that when the Canadian's knife fell from its sheath as we dragged him on board there was blood on its blade.
"Blood!
"This circumstance was whispered among the crew from ear to ear, and gave rise to many suspicions in no way favourable to our new acquisition, whom, however, they cared not to question, as he was a man singularly repulsive and brutal in aspect, and having a something in his expression of eye which made all on board shrink from him.
"Urbain Gautier was Herculean in stature and proportion, and most saturnine and satanic in visage. His eyes were too near each other, and too deeply set on each side of his long hooked nose, over which his two eye-brows met in a straight and black unbroken line. His mouth, with its thin lips and serrated fangs, suggested cruelty, and altogether there was a general and terrible aspect of evil about him. He spoke English, but when excited resorted to Canadian-French oaths and interjections.
"If 'twas he brought us ill-luck we got our first instalment of it that very night.
"The morning broke cold, grey, and cheerless, amid a storm of snow and wind, through which, to reduce the ship's speed, for we could see but little ahead, we drove under our fore-course and topsails all close-reefed now, and bitterly did we all regret the impatience which made us leave our snug moorings in Harbour Grace.
"Now and then the black scud would lift a little, but only to show the ice-fields drawing nearer and nearer, so, lest we should be crushed or enclosed amid them hopelessly, and then, it might be, starved to death when the last of our beef, biscuits, and water were gone, we steered in for the land, with the wild Arctic tempest--for such it was--increasing every moment.
"We tried sounding to leeward, but the lead always slipped from my benumbed hands, and in the end we lost the frozen line, as it parted in the iron block which was seized to the rigging by a tail-rope. Ere long we struck soundings with the hand lead, for the water was beginning to shoal!
"The brig's tops and the bellies of the close-reefed topsails became filled with snow, and now we began to look gloomily at each other, fearing rather than doubting the end.
"For most of that weary day we held on thus, running alternately west and north--sea-room was all we wanted till a safe harbourage opened; but ere long we knew it would be hopeless to look for either if the gale continued, and the briskest exercise could scarcely keep us from being frozen.
"We had been driven nor'-west I know not how many miles--for, perhaps, more than six-and-thirty--when a heavier sea than usual struck the brig on her starboard side, throwing her over on her beam ends to port, carrying away the bulwarks, tearing the long-boat from its chocks and lashings amidships, and making a clean sweep of everything on deck, buckets, loose spars, and handspikes; and with these went one of our men, who was never seen again.
"The brig righted, for she was a brave little craft, but with the loss of her topmasts and jib-boom, all of which, with yards and gearing, were broken off at the caps, and with hatchets and knives we worked amid the blinding and benumbing haze of drift and spray, snow, and the darkness of the coming night, to clear the wreck away--and away it all went astern with a crash, leaving the Favourite now under only her forecourse and staysail.
"I shall never forget that night, if I live for a thousand years.
"The pumps were frozen; the boxes a mass of ice; the brakes refused to work; but I knew there was more water in the hold than was healthy for us. We could get no tea, coffee, nor any warm food, for the cook's galley had been swept overboard, and the tots of grog, which I served out from time to time, conduced, I think, rather to stupefy than to comfort the poor fellows, who were beginning to lose all heart, and to huddle together for warmth in the forecastle.
"Lightning, green and ghastly, glared forth at times, revealing the weird aspect of the crippled and snow-covered brig; yet it had the effect of clearing the atmosphere and enabling us to see the stars; but still the wind blew fierce and biting over the vast ice-fields, and still the fated craft flew on--we scarcely knew whither--but as the event proved, between the headland of Buenovista and the enclosing ice.
"We had the utmost difficulty in keeping a lamp in the binnacle, and by its light, amid the storm, Urbain Gautier, the French-Canadian, who had the wheel, was steering; no other man on board but he could have handled it singly and kept the brig to her course, for he had the strength of three of us, and seemed alike impervious to cold and to suffering.
"I think I can see him now as he stood then, with his feet firmly planted on the quarterdeck grating, his hands on the spokes of the wheel, and the livid lightning seeming to play about him, as the brig flew on through the storm and the darkness, and with every varying flash his features changed in hue. Now they were green, and anon red or blue; now purple, and then ghastly white; ever and again, as the lightning flashed forth, this infernal face came out of the gloom with a diabolical grotesqueness, and a strange smile on it that appalled us all; and now another day began to break.
"'Mate, that fellow is more like a devil than a human being,' whispered Bob Jenner to me, echoing my own thoughts, as we clung together to the belaying pins abaft the mainmast.
"He spoke in a low whisper; but in an instant the eyes of Urbain were on him.
"'Ah!' said he, showing his serrated teeth, 'a maladroit speech, messmate.'
"'No messmate of yours,' growled Bob, unwisely.
"'Shipmate, then,' suggested the other, with a strange glance, between a grin and a scowl, for his black, glittering eyes wore one expression, and his cruel mouth another.
"'Well, mayhap, for so it must be,' said Bob, bluntly.
"'Ah,' said Urbain, with his horrible smile, as he held the wheel with one hand, and--even at that terrible time--felt for his sheath-knife with the other; 'ah! you think me a mauvais sujet, do you?"
"'I doesn't know what "mavy suggey" may be, and I doesn't care if I never does,' replied Bob, sturdily; 'but once I catches you ashore, mounseer, I'll teach you not to grip your knife when speaking to me.'
"'No quarrelling, lads,' said I, while my teeth chattered in the cold of that awful morning atmosphere. 'I only wish we were ashore.'
"'Then have your wish. Land ho!' sung out Urbain; and at that moment the grey wrack around us parted like a curtain; there was a dreadful crash, which tumbled us all right and left; the breakers which he had seen ahead were now boiling around us; and the brig lay bulged and broken-backed upon a reef, close to a lofty line of rocky coast, a helpless wreck, with the ice closing round her; and with a sound between an oath and a laugh, Urbain quitted the now useless wheel, which oscillated, as if in mockery, to and fro.
"Captain Benson, who, worn out by toil, had been snatching a few minutes' repose under the hood of the companionway, now sprang on deck, to find the brig totally lost, and that for us there was no resource, if we would save our lives, but to abandon her and get on shore.
"Broken and bulged, she was too firmly wedged on the reef for us ever to have the slightest hope of getting her off, save to sink her in deep water. As yet she might hold together for some hours, if the fury of the storm abated, and there were evident signs of such being the case.
"As each successive blast grew less in fury, and as the force and sound of the sea went down, we heard the wild streaming of the Baccalieu birds; and now, ere the water, which was rising fast in hold and cabin, destroyed everything, we procured charts and telescopes, to discover on what part of that barren, bleak, and most desolate of all the American shores, our fate had cast us.
"On comparing the outline of the snow-clad coast with the diagrams on the chart, we found we were stranded somewhere between the Bloody Bay and the Bay of Fair and False, about one hundred and twenty miles to the north-westward of the point from whence we had sailed.
"Few or no settlers, even of the most hardy and desperate description, are to be found thereabout, as the inhabitants between that place and the Bay of Notre Dame, about one hundred and fifty in number, are poor wretches who fish for cod and salmon in what they call summer, and for seals and the walrus in winter, and usually retire for the latter purpose to St. John's, or bury themselves in the woods till the snow disappears, about the month of June.
"We had but a sorry prospect before us; every instant the brig was going more and more to pieces beneath our feet, and our glasses swept the far extent of the snow-clad coast in vain, for not a vestige of a human habitation, or any sign of a human being, could be seen. No living thing was there save the Baccalieu birds, which screamed and wheeled in flocks above the seething breakers.
"Captain Benson's resolutions were taken at once. He resolved to abandon the wreck, and make his way by land at once for Trinity, a little town on the western side of the great bay that divides Avalon from the mainland of the island, or for Buenoventura, another settlement twelve miles to the southward.
"By circumnavigating the numerous bights, bays, and other inlets that lay between us and Buenoventura--especially the long, narrow, and provoking reach of Clode Sound--provided we failed to cross it on the ice, we should have at least a hundred miles to travel over a desolate and snow-covered waste, without a pathway, and without other guide than a pocket-compass.
"We set about our preparations at once. Every man put on his warmest clothing, and Tom Dacres lent a cosy Petersham jacket to the Canadian, Gautier. We greased our boots well, that they might exclude the wet, and made us long leggings to wear over our trousers by tying pieces of tarpaulin from the ankle to the knee, and lashing them well round with spun-yarn.
"For many hours we had been without food, and now examination proved that, save a few biscuits in the cabin locker, all the bread on board had been destroyed by the salt water; yet Urbain Gautier was able to make a meal of it. We were forced to content ourselves with a half biscuit each, to be eaten at our first halting place on shore. Beef or other provision we had none, and not a drop of rum or any other liquid could be had, for the brig was going fast to pieces, as the breakers surged up under her weather-counter, and all the hull abaft the mainmast was settling rapidly down in the water.
"Luckily we got up six muskets and some dry ammunition through the skylight. I say luckily, as we would have to hunt our way to Buenoventura; and these, with two tin pannikins, wherewith to cook and melt the snow for water, and a box of lucifer matches for lighting fires when we squatted in the bush for the night, we made our way ashore in the quarter-boat, and landed a chilled, wan, haggard, and miserable little band, consisting of eleven persons in all, including the captain, Bob Jenner, Tom Dacres, Willy Ormiston, the boy, myself, and five others.
"We were not without some fears of the Red Indians, though few or none, I believe, are now to be found on the island. Thus our first proceeding was to load and cap our muskets carefully.
It was a tradition, when the author was there, that in 1810 an exploring party, under Lieutenant Buchan, R.N., was sent to cultivate friendship with the Red Indians, and left with them, as hostages, two marines. Returning to the Bay of Exploits (about seventy miles westward from Bloody Bay) next summer, he found the savages gone, and the headless remains of his two marines lying in the bush.
"Captain Benson proceeded in front, with a fowling-piece on his shoulder, steering the way, with the aid of his pocket compass and a fragment of a chart; and he, too, was custodian of our box of lucifer matches. Just as we reached the top of the cliffs, by a slippery and dangerous ascent, we heard a sound, which made us all pause and look back towards the wreck. The field ice had already closed in upon the reef; but the last vestiges of the brig had disappeared where the Baccalieu birds were whirling thickest and screaming loudest.
"From the cliff that overlooked the sea, which was covered to the horizon with a myriad hummocks of field ice, diversified here and there by a great iceberg, the view landward differed but little in aspect. The whole dreary expanse was covered with snow--snow that made the frozen lakes and bays so blend with the land, that save for the dark groves of stunted firs and dwarf brushwood that grew in the arid soil, it was difficult to know where one ended and the other began. The hills were low, monotonous, and unpleasantly resembled icebergs, without possessing the altitude, the sharp peaks, and abrupt outlines of the latter.
"In all that wintry waste the most awful silence prevailed, and not a sound was stirring in the clear blue air, for now the snow-storm had ceased, the wind had died away, and the sky was all of the purest, deepest, most intense, and unclouded blue. Amid it shone the dazzling sun, causing a reflection from the snow that served partly to blind or bewilder us; but now, after sharing our tobacco--all save Urbain--for a friendly whiff, we set resolutely forth upon our journey, in a direction at first due south-west from Bloody Bay, towards the upper angle of the long and winding shores of Newman's Sound.
"Three days we travelled laboriously, each helping his shipmates on, for our strength was failing fast, and sleeping in the scrubby bush at night was perilous work, for the cold was beyond all description intense; but we selected places where the snow was arched and massed over the low fir-trees, and there we crept in for shelter, running only the risk of being completely snowed up. Three days we travelled thus, without a path, over the white waste, where, in some places, the snow was frozen hard as flinty rock, and where, in others, we sank to our knees at every step; and during those three days, save the half biscuit per man which we had on quitting the wreck, no food passed our lips, and no other fluid than melted snow; and when the damp destroyed our tiny store of matches, we had no other means of allaying the agony of our thirst than by sucking a piece of ice or a handful of snow, and these were sure to produce bleeding lips and swollen tongues, as they burnt like fire.
"On the third morning, as we turned out, a seaman, whose name I forget, did not stir; we shook and called him, but there was no response; the poor fellow had passed away in his sleep, and so we left him there.
"Our fingers and noses were frequently frost-bitten; but when they were well rubbed in snow, animation returned. Those who had whiskers, found them more a nuisance than a source of warmth, as they generally became clogged by heavy masses of ice. Dread of snow-blindness, after the glare of the past winter, came on us, too; for each day the sun was bright and cloudless--a shining globe overhead; but a globe that gave no heat.
"We met no traces of Red, or of Micmac Indians, or of the wild cariboo deer; the black bear, the red fox, the broad-tailed musquash, the white hare, and other game of the country, were nowhere to be seen either, or else we were not trappers enough to know their lairs or trail.
"Snow-birds, and all other fowl seemed equally scarce: in fact, the severity of the weather had destroyed, or driven them elsewhere, and with our hollow and blood-shot eyes we scanned the white wastes in vain for a shot at anything.
"To add to our troubles, little Scotch Willy fairly broke down, unable to proceed; and as the boy could not be left to perish, we carried him by turns--all, save the great and muscular Urbain Gautier, who told us plainly that he would see the boy and the crew in a very warm climate indeed before he would add to his own sufferings by becoming a beast of burden.
"'A beast you will ever be, whether of burden or not,' said Captain Benson, as he took the first spell of carrying poor Willy, who like a child as he was, wept sorely for his mother now.
"'Tonnerre de Dieu!' growled the savage, grinding his teeth and cocking his musket; but as three of us did the same, he gave one of his queer grins, and resumed his journey; but kept more aloof from us, for which we were not sorry.
"By contrast to the icy horrors around us, memory tormented us with ideas and pictures of blazing fires and festive hearths; of happy homes, of warm dinners and jugs of hot punch; of steaming coffee and rich cream; of mulled wines; of chestnuts sputtering amid the embers; of carpeted rooms and close-drawn curtains, glowing redly in the warm blaze of a sea-coal fire; of warm feather-beds and cosy English blankets; of every distant comfort that we had not, and never more might see.
"On the fourth day there was no alleviation to our sufferings; no change in the weather, save a sharp fall of snow, against which we were sullenly and blindly staggering on, when a cry of despair escaped from the blistered lips of Captain Benson.
"The fly and needle of the pocket-compass had given way, and we had no longer a guide!
"Indeed, we knew not where, or in what direction, we might have been proceeding with this faulty index since we left the ship. Long ere the noon of the fourth day we should have turned the inner angle of Clode Sound; but now we saw only masses of slaty rocks on every hand, rising from the snow, with snow on their summits, save towards the west, where the vast and flat expanse of a frozen and snow-covered sheet of water spread in distance far away.
"We thought that it was the sea, but it proved eventually to be the great Unexplored Lake, which is more than fifty miles long, by about twenty miles broad.
"In this awful condition we found ourselves, while our little strength was now failing so fast that we could scarcely carry our hitherto useless muskets; and now another night was closing in.
"Urbain, who was near me, uttered a savage laugh.
"'What are you thinking of?' I asked with surprise.
"'Of what, eh?'
"'Yes.'
"'Tres bien! very good; I was thinking over which is likely to be the best part of a man.'
"'For what purpose?'
"'Cordieu! for eating,' said he, with a fiendish grimace.
"After this the imprecations of Urbain, chiefly against the captain, became loud, deep, and horrible; but luckily for us most of them were uttered in French. Ere long the savage fellow's mood seemed to change; he wept, and to our surprise offered to carry Willy, on one condition, that one of us carried his musket; and then once more, guided now by the direction in which the sun had set, we continued our pilgrimage towards the south.
"Urbain's vast strength seemed to have departed now; he was incapable of keeping up with us, and began to lag more and more behind, so that we had frequently to wait for him, as we were too feeble to call, and Willy, who feared him greatly, implored us not to leave them.
"On these occasions Urbain's old devilish temper became roused, and he broke forth into oaths, and even threats; so, ultimately, we left him to proceed at his own slow pace as we struggled towards a wood, dragging with us a seaman named Tom Dacres, who had been no longer able to abstain from swallowing snow, by which his mouth was almost immediately swollen, while he became speechless and all but paralysed.
"Yet on and on we toiled, dragging him by turns, our weary limbs sinking deep at every step. When I look back to those sufferings, I frequently think that I must have been partially insane; but it would seem that, like one in a dream, I went through all the formula of life like a sane person.
"On reaching the thicket, it proved to be one of old and half-decayed firs; then we proceeded to suck portions of the bark greedily. After this we became aware, for the first time, of the absence of Urbain Gautier and little Willy.
"They had disappeared in the twilight!"
Here Captain Binnacle interrupted his narrative by expressing a fear that he wearied us; but we begged of him to proceed, as we were anxious to know how those adventures ended by the shore of the Unexplored Lake.
*CHAPTER XXVII.*
A still small voice spoke unto me,
"Thou art so full of misery,
Were it not better not to be!"
Then to the still small voice I said,
"Let me not cast in endless shade
What is so wonderfully made." TENNYSON.
"Nestling close to a rock, from the side of which the snow formed an arch, we found some moss, which we ate with avidity, and then some sprigs of savine, which generally grows in the clefts of the rocks all over the island and the Labrador coast, yielding the berry from which the spruce beer is made. With tears of thankfulness we devoured them, and were surmising what had become of Urbain, when about nine o'clock by the captain's watch he appeared, but without Scotch Willy, who had, he said, died about an hour ago, and been buried by him among the snow.
"'Where?' asked the captain, in a low voice, for Dacres, and two others of our famine-stricken band, were in a dying condition.
"'Did you observe an old peeled trunk of a tree about a mile distant?'
"'Yes.'
"'Tres bien--I buried him there,' replied Urbain, whose voice sounded strong and full compared with what it was some hours ago. Captain Benson remarked this, and said--
"'You have hunted and found something to eat?'
"'Tonnerre de ciel! Beelzebub--no. I left my gun with you.'
"True; did poor little Willy die easily?" I asked.
"'I wish we may all die so easily,' replied Urbain, with an impatient oath, as he crept close to me for warmth, causing me, I know not why, to shudder.
"I scarcely slept that night, though our snow cell was not destitute of heat; but vague suspicions and solid terrors kept me wakeful. Willy's sudden death appalled me; and something in the bearing and aspect of Urbain filled me with dreadful conjectures, which, in the morning, I communicated only to Bob Jenner.
"At dawn we found Tom Dacres dead, and two others dying; to leave the latter would have been inhuman; the poor fellows were quite collected, shook hands with us all round, shared their tobacco among us equally, and while we all smoked for warmth, the captain repeated the Lord's Prayer. After which, Jenner and I took our guns and went forth to explore. With tacit but silent consent, we went straight to the old bare skeleton tree. The snow around it was frozen hard, and was pure, spotless, and untrodden, as when it fell some days before; so Urbain had told a falsehood, and little Willy was not buried there. For a little sustenance we now sucked the rags with which we oiled our guns, and looked about us, tracing back our trail of the preceding evening a little way.
"Suddenly we came upon the footmarks of Urbain, which diverged at an acute angle from our several tracks, and those we followed for about three hundred yards, to where a great rock rose abruptly from the snow, which was all disturbed and discoloured about its base--discoloured, and by--blood.
"Bob Jenner and I looked blankly at each other, and cold as our own blood was, it seemed to grow colder still. There, in that awful solitude of vast and snowy prairies, dwarf forests, unexplored lakes, and untrodden land, a terrible tragedy had too surely been acted. He had killed the boy--but why? Removing the snow with the butts of our guns, a white man's hand appeared, an arm, and then we drew forth the dead body of little Willy Ormiston. It had a strange and unnaturally emaciated aspect. A livid bruise was on the right temple, and there was a wound, a singular perforation under the right ear. These were all we could discover at first; but there was much blood upon the snow around, and on the poor boy's tattered clothing. Then a groan escaped us both, when we found that his left sleeve had been ripped up, and that a great piece of the arm was wanting, from the elbow to the shoulder, having been sliced off literally and close to the bone.
"'A strange mutilation!' said I, while my teeth chattered with dismay, and I evaded putting my thoughts in words. 'If wolves----'
"'Wolves never did this,' replied Jenner in a husky voice; 'but a knife has been used.'
"'You mean--you mean----'
"'Look ye, shipmate, at that round wound in the neck.'
"'Well?'
"'After stunning him by a blow, Urbain Gautier has punctured the boy's throat, and sucked his blood, like a weazel or a vampire, or some such thing, and ended actually by cutting a slice from his arm!'
"The whole details of this act of horror seemed but too complete, and gradually we were compelled to accept the fact, the more so when I recalled his strange remark of the preceding evening. We became sick and giddy; the white landscape swam round and round us, and while covering up the remains with snow we fell repeatedly with excess of weakness, and then returned to the little thicket--returned slowly, to find that our band was lessened by three, for in addition to Tom Dacres, two other poor fellows had just breathed their last. Urbain's fierce black eyes questioned us in stern silence as we approached.
"'Did you find the boy?' asked Captain Benson, who had been singeing the hair off a fur cap of Dacres, and cutting it into strips for us to chew, which we did thankfully.
"'Yes, he is dead. Let us think no more of it at present,' said I.
"Black fury gathered in Urbain's sombre visage as we came close to him, and he growled out--'I buried him at the foot of the old tree, shipmate; so, diable! say what you like, or that which is safer, think what you like.'
"I was too weak to resent this, or to confront him, and so turned away. The captain divided some of the dead men's clothes among us, but these Urbain declined to share, or in the strips of scorched fur, for his strength seemed to have been completely renovated during the night; and after covering our poor companions with snow, we again set forth wearily towards the south-east, and, weak though, we were, we cast many a backward glance to the thicket where our three dead shipmates lay side by side. About noon a covey of white winter grouse were near us; we all fired at once. Whether it was that we were bad shots, that our hands were weak, that our eyes miscalculated the distance, or our aim wavered, I know not, but every bird escaped, and with moans of despair we reloaded. Then, to add to our troubles, it was found that only three of us, to wit, the captain, Urbain, and myself, had dry powder left. On and on yet to the south-east, through the blinding and trackless waste of snow!
"In a place where a grey scalp of rock was almost bare of drifted snow we found the skeleton of a cariboo deer. It was pure white, and coated with crystal frost. Wolfishly we eyed it, as if we would have sucked the dry bones that several winters, perhaps, had bleached, for not a vestige even of skin remained on them. Those whose ammunition failed them, now cast away their guns and powder-horns as useless incumbrances. We were all reduced to shadows, and two had to support their bending forms on walking-sticks. Even our jolly captain was becoming quite feeble, and the despondency of settled despair was creeping over us all.
"Urbain alone seemed hale, and stepped steadily, when others fell ever and anon in utter weakness. There were times when I surveyed his vast bulk, which loomed greater to my diseased eyesight, and I thought we had the foul fiend himself journeying with us in the form of a man.
"What if all should perish--all but he and me? On we toiled towards another thicket, where we proposed to search for roots or moss, on which to make a meal, and to light a fire, for evening was approaching; and now it was that Urbain seated himself on a piece of rock, swearing that he would proceed no farther then, but would rejoin us in the thicket. Captain Benson was too weak, or cared too little about him, to remonstrate, so we passed on in silence to our halting place, where, most providentially, we found some juniper bushes, which the snow had preserved, and some soft fir bark, which we devoured greedily. Refreshed by this, we lighted a fire by means of some gunpowder and a percussion cap, and heaped the branches on it. A bird or two twittered past; I fired mechanically--almost without aim--and was lucky enough to knock over a large-sized pigeon-eagle, which was speedily divided and devoured, half broiled, ere we thought that the feathers only had been left for Urbain, of whose guilt Bob and I had informed our shipmates, that all might be on their guard, and our narrative added to their sufferings, for now we all feared to sleep, and had to cast lots for a watcher.
"About dawn he returned, and when we all set forth again, though we had been renovated by the heat of our fire and by the savage meal we had made, he seemed, as usual, the freshest among us, and on this day we observed, in whispers to each other, that he wore round his neck a red-spotted handkerchief which we had left tied over the face of Tom Dacres!
"He must have gone back to the thicket where the three dead men lay, but for what purpose?
"About noon on this day we found ourselves on the summit of a mountainous ridge of bare rock; it was without snow, which, however, lay drifted deep around. It commanded an extensive view so far as from the borders of the great Unexplored Lake on our right, to the head of Smith's Sound on our left.
"There was no sign of a human habitation to be seen, and our eyes swept in vain the horizon, where the white snow and blue sky met, for a smoke-wreath indicating where a squatter's cabin stood.
"'Malediction!' said Urbain, hoarsely, 'if this continues I shall have something to eat, bon gre malgre!--if it should be the flesh of a man. You seem shocked mate,' said he to me, as I shrank back.
"'I am shocked,' said, I, quietly.
"'Well--diable! don't be so,' he replied, mockingly, 'because it is wonderful truly what you may bring your mind to, if you put your courage to the test, and place yourself en visage with your fate like a man.'
"'Or a devil--eh, Urbain Gautier?' said Captain Benson; 'but no more of this, or----'
"'Don't threaten me, mon petit capitaine--my nice little man,' interrupted the giant, with a horrible grimace, 'or----' and pausing, he laid his hand significantly on his knife.
"Urbain now became surly, insolent, and ferocious; but knowing his singular strength, which failed less than ours, and knowing the secret, the loathsome and terrible means by which he maintained it--aware also that he had plenty of ammunition--we dissembled alike our fears, our suspicions, and our abhorrence of him.
"After we had toiled on for two hours in silence, he suddenly stopped us all by an oath.
"'Nombril de Belzebub!' he exclaimed to Captain Benson, 'what is the use of looking for food or game in these infernal wastes, into which your stupidity has led us? Let us cast lots, and find out who shall be shot for the food of the rest!'
"'Silence, wretch,' said Captain Benson.
"'To that it will come at last,' said Urbain, grinning.
"'Perhaps it has come to it already,' said Bob Jenner, unwisely.
"'Ah, sacre! You think I murdered that boy, do you? And you think so, too?' he added to me.
"'I have not said so,' I replied, evasively.
"'You had better not, or by ----, if you thought me capable of committing such an act, or if you said it----' and so on he rambled incoherently, threatening and bullying; but all the while most surely confirming our just suspicions.
"'Let us cut him adrift; leave him behind; if we can do so, to-night,' whispered Jenner to me.
"Low though the whisper was, it caught the huge ears of Urbain, even while muffled by the lappets of a sealskin cap.
"'Leave me behind, will you? Well, you may do so; but, diable! I shall not be left without food.'
"About an hour after this we met with a terrible but significant catastrophe. While we were all proceeding in Indian file behind the captain, Urbain stumbled on a piece of slippery ice; he fell, and in doing so, his musket exploded, lodging its contents right in the back of the head of my poor messmate, Bob Jenner, who fell back, and expired without a groan.
"We were appalled by the suddenness of this calamity; all, save Urbain, who rubbed his knees, muttered an oath, and reloaded with all the rapidity of alarm; while each of us read in his neighbour's face the conviction that there was more of design than accident in what had taken place, though it had all the appearance of a casualty.
"Dissembling still, and having but little time for grief, we covered poor Bob's remains with snow, and resumed our melancholy march.
"We were but six now, and five of those were famished scarecrows.
"A mile farther on, we found the ruins of a deserted log hut, which we hailed with extravagant joy, as our first approach to civilization, and the abode of human beings. There we resolved to pass the night, which was approaching, and there we kindled a fire, and with blocks of snow filled up the doorway, while the smoke escaped by an aperture in the roof.
"Oh, how genial was the warmth we felt; and though we had only a few fragments of moist bark to chew, we would have felt almost happy, but for the recent catastrophe, and for our dread of Urbain Gautier, who as soon as twilight fell said he would go in search of a shot, and taking his gun went away.
"We breathed more freely when he left us; but we shuddered with intense loathing when we knew that he was returning to the place where our dead companion--too surely murdered by his hand--lay uncoffined in the snow.
"We felt that we were no longer safe with him, and all were conscious that he should die, as a judicial retribution.
"Lots were cast for the dangerous office of executioner, and the fate fell on me.
"Instead of alarm or compunction, I felt as one who had a terrible duty to perform. I became conscious that justice to the dead and to the living, if not my own personal safety, demanded the fulfilment of the terrible task which had become mine, and with the most perfect coolness and deliberation I overhauled my gun, examined the charge, carefully capped it anew, and sleeplessly awaited him I was to destroy--this wretch--this ghoul or vampire, on his return from his horrid repast amid the snow--a repast which his own treachery and cruelty had provided; and as I waited thus the face of poor Willy Ormiston, and the cheery voice of poor Bob Jenner, as I had often heard it, when he sang at the wheel, or when sharing the night-watch, came powerfully and distinctly to memory.
"I threw more dry branches on the fire, and bidding my shipmates sleep, addressed myself to the task of watching, and half dozing, with my weapon beside me.
"I felt sure that Urbain hated me; that he knew I suspected him, and would too probably be his next victim, especially if my shot missed him, as he might then legally slay me, and would do so by a single blow.
"Already I felt my flesh creep at the idea of its furnishing a collop for him, perhaps to-morrow night, when he stole back from the next halting place.
"I shall never forget the weary moments of that exciting night. I have somewhere read that 'it is one of the strange instincts of half slumber to be often more alive to the influence of subdued and stealthy sounds than of louder noises. The slightest whisperings, the low murmurings of a human voice, the creaking of a chair, the cautious drawing back of a curtain, will jar upon and rouse the faculties that have been insensible to the rushing flow of a cataract, or the dull booming of the sea.'
"I must have been asleep, however, when a sound startled me, and I could hear footsteps treading softly over the crisp and frozen snow. Rousing myself, I started to the aperture which passed for a doorway, and which, as I have stated, we had partially blocked up by snow; and through it, about fifty paces distant, I saw the tall dark form of Urbain towering between me and the ghastly white waste beyond. He loomed like a giant in the bright but waning moon, that was sinking behind the hills that are as yet unnamed, while a blood-red streak to the westward showed where the morning was about to break.
