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Hunting the Skipper: The Cruise of the "Seafowl" Sloop, a fiction by George Manville Fenn |
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Chapter 23. Murray's Mission |
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_ CHAPTER TWENTY THREE. MURRAY'S MISSION "Hah! I did not mean this," cried the lieutenant; and his eyes lit upon Murray, who winced and felt guilty as he stood dirk in hand panting and waiting for his superior officer's reproof, which he felt must come. "Ah, Mr Murray," he continued, as he took off his hat and wiped his forehead, "you there? Any one hurt?" "I saw Tom May fall, sir," replied the lad, as the incident was brought to his mind by his officer's question. "Picked him up again, sir," came in a deep growl, "but two of our messmates has got it, I find." "That's bad," said the lieutenant. "Who are they?" There was no response, and the lieutenant turned sharply upon the midshipman. "Mr Murray," he said, "take two men, May and another, and try if you can find your way down to the boat. Do you think you can?" "Yes, sir." "Off with you, then, at the double. When you reach the boat, out oars, and with the two boat-keepers try and reach the sloop. Don't run more risks than you can help. If you are cut off by enemies on the banks, retreat back to me here and help me hold this place until the captain sends a force to my relief. You will report to Captain Kingsberry that I did everything possible to avoid an encounter. But there--you know. I trust to your discretion, my lad, in spite of your late mistake. There, take May and Titely. Now off." Just at that moment Roberts, who had been standing close at hand, stepped forward, to cry eagerly-- "Did you say I was to go with Murray, sir?" "What, you? Go with Murray?" cried the lieutenant. "No, sir. What! Do you want to leave me in the lurch?" Then, knowing from old experience the jealous motive which animated the lad who was left out of the commission, the officer clapped the midshipman on one shoulder warmly. "No, no, Roberts; I can't spare you. I want your help, my lad; and besides, you will be safer with me than with Murray." Roberts winced and turned a reproachful look upon his officer. "I wasn't trying to make myself safe, sir," he said bitterly. "I wanted to be in the thick of it all, sir, and not left out as usual." "Of course you did, my boy; and that's where you are going to be, I expect." By this time Murray and his two men were passing out of sight, followed by the midshipman's longing eyes; and directly after the lad had forgotten his disappointment in the orders he was busily trying to obey. For in the full belief that the overseer would return with his followers, the lieutenant set to work trying to put the house in a state of defence. This was no easy task, for with four times the number of men that were at his service the officer would have found it difficult to bar and barricade the lower windows of the plantation house and secure the doors back and front. Fortunately it was soon found that the occupant or builder of the house must have had some notion of the possibility of an attack being made upon the place, for the doors were strong, the lower windows were each furnished with stout shutters and bars, and these having been secured and the bottom of the staircase carefully barricaded, a better chance was offered for holding the house, that is, of defending the first floor from any attack that might be made from within or without. "There, Mr Roberts," cried the lieutenant, "I think that is all we can do for the present, and if our friend the overseer ventures to bring his men on we shall be able to give a good account of a few of them. Can you suggest anything more to strengthen the bottom of that staircase?" "I think we might drag some of those chests out of the rooms, sir, on to the landing, ready to pile in front of the stairs." "Good, my lad; it shall be done," cried the lieutenant; "but in addition let the lads fill up every bucket, can and jug we can find." "I did see to that, sir, and I am sure that we have more than the men can drink." "I was not thinking of drinking, my lad," said the lieutenant, "but of quenching the fire that may be started by our enemies." "You don't think that they will try to fire the place, sir?" said the lad. "Indeed, but I do, my lad. But at any rate we must be prepared for such an attack." Roberts puckered up his forehead and looked aghast at his officer, and then bidding four of the men follow him, he did his best to collect together on the landing of the well-appointed building a pretty fair supply of the element necessary for extinguishing the first out-breakings of fire which might be started by the expected foe. "Well done, Mr Roberts," said the lieutenant; "but we've rather upset this Mr--Mr--What's his name?" "Allen, sir." "Yes--Allen. Upset Mr Allen's house. It's a bit of a surprise to find an English gentleman.--Yes, gentleman, Mr Roberts: he is evidently quite a gentleman, although he is completely under that Yankee scoundrel's thumb. But what was I saying? Oh, it's rather a surprise to find an English gentleman living like this in an out-of-the-way West Indian island?" "That's what I thought, sir," replied Roberts. "Ah, well, you need not feel so again, for numbers of men of our best families have settled out like this in the plantations, built themselves good houses, and surrounded themselves with every comfort, and grown rich producing sugar, coffee, cotton and rum by means of a large staff of slaves. We have fallen upon one of these estates, but in this case the Yankee overseer seems to be the master, and the real master the slave." "It seems strange, sir, doesn't it?" said Roberts, who was standing by one of the first floor windows keeping a sharp look out for danger. "To a certain extent, my lad," said the officer, "but I have made a shrewd guess at what has been going on, and it strikes me that our friend Mr Allen has been dabbling largely in the trade that we are here to suppress." "You think that, sir?" "Yes, my lad--and repented of it when too late, and found himself, after growing disgusted with it, unable to draw back on account of this man, who has committed him deeply." "Yes, I see, sir," cried Roberts eagerly. "That would account for the American's overbearing insolence to this Mr Allen and to you, sir. But surely he cannot be right about the island here being under the American Government?" "Certainly not, I think, Mr Roberts," said the lieutenant decisively; "but I do think this, that he might have kept up the assertion that he was correct and made complaints to the Americans and called our visit here a trespass. This would have caused an enormous amount of trouble to the captain, and so much official correspondence that we should have bitterly repented coming here in search of a newly-run cargo of slaves." "Do you think we shall find one here, sir?" asked Roberts. "I feel pretty certain, my lad, as certain as that we should not have dared to prosecute our search in face of the scoundrel's defiance and bravado. But now the tide has completely set in our favour." "In our favour, sir?" said Roberts wonderingly. "Why, of course, my lad. If our visit here had been aggression, all the rascal had to do was to call upon us, after his declaration, to withdraw; and that was what he meant to do, although the fellow's natural insolence induced him to do so in that bullying way." "And instead of keeping to what he had a right to do, sir," cried the middy eagerly, "he let his blackguardly followers attack us as they did." "That's right, Mr Roberts," said the lieutenant; "though I must give him the credit of saying that I am sure he never intended that attack. He has evidently such a loose rough lot of followers that they became out of control, and the result is that they have completely given their leader away and played into my hands." "Of course, sir. Nothing could excuse that attack." "Nothing, my lad. I am master here now, and I feel sure that we shall find more than I dared to expect. I believe now that this is a regular Western depot for slaves, and a find that will make up to Captain Kingsberry for all previous disappointments." "Glorious, sir!" cried Roberts. "But of course this Huggins can't be the man we saw in the lugger off the African river." "Of course not, my lad; but he quite deceived me for the time. He is almost exactly the same in appearance, in voice, manner and speech, and the only way in which I can account for it is that both men are engaged in the same hideously brutal trade, and that has in time made them similar in habit." "There seems something in that, sir," said Roberts thoughtfully. "Seems, Roberts? Is," said the lieutenant, smiling; "and you must add to it another point of resemblance: they are both Americans of the same degenerate type--little, thin, dark-haired, and speaking in the same tone of voice and in the same sneering contemptuous fashion. But of course if we had them both together we should see a strong difference. What are you looking at? See anything?" "I fancied I could make out something moving across that opening yonder, sir," said the lad, leaning a little out of the window. "I trust not," said the lieutenant, shading his eyes with his hand. "I was in hopes that we had given the fellows such a lesson that they would keep away for the present, at all events, for I want no fighting, no wounding the enemy, no injuries more than we have received upon our side. I want just to hold our own, Roberts, till our friend Mr Murray or Mr Munday brings us help." "Yes, sir, but there is some movement going on there just among the tall-growing coarse reeds." "Sugar-cane stems, Mr Roberts," said the lieutenant firmly. "Yes, you are right; there is movement there, and the scoundrels have not taken their lesson to heart. Well, I do not see what more we can do to prepare for them. They cannot get up to us without ladders or poles, and from our sheltered position we ought to set firing at defiance, while they allow us plenty of opportunities for giving them another lesson.--What is it, my lad?" The speaker turned to the big sailor who had just trotted up to the door. "Beg pardon, sir, but Lang reports enemy creeping through the sugar-cane a bit for'ard here to the left, and Duncombe says he can see 'bout a dozen on 'em out at the back looking as if they meant a rush." "Hah! That is fresh," said the lieutenant. "Mr Roberts here made out those amongst the canes. I'll come and look. You, Mr Roberts have the goodness to keep your eye on them and hold your fire until they show a determination to come on. Then you must fire; but fire low. We must cripple and not kill." "Yes, sir," said Roberts, and he sheltered himself behind one of the curtains of the well-furnished English-looking bedroom where he and the officer had been watching. And then, as the latter walked quickly out, followed by the sailor who had made his report, a terrible sense of loneliness fell upon the youth, accompanied by a shortness of breath, as his heart began to beat with a heavy dull throb that sounded loud and strange. He was gazing out at a scene of tropical beauty, the wild and the cultivated blending so that at another time he could have stood in the perfect silence dwelling upon the loveliness of the place. But now there was a feeling of awe that seemed to over-master everything, while the very fact that where he had plainly made out the movement of figures as they evidently sought concealment, all was now motionless, and not a leaf waved or was pressed aside, added to the weirdness of his position, and made him draw farther back in the full expectation that the next moment the vivid green of the surroundings would be cut by a flash of light and then turn dim as it was deadened by the rising smoke of a shot. "I wish I wasn't such a coward," he muttered. "I do try hard to stand it all, and get on beautifully when the firing and spear-throwing are going on, but now, when the enemy may be going to throw a spear or fire a shot at one, it does seem so hard to bear. No worse for me than for other fellows," he muttered bitterly, "but I am myself and they are other fellows. Ugh! I suppose it's a very beautiful place, but it seems very horrible, and it makes a fellow wish that if he is to be wounded it would come off at once so that one could get it over. There's some one creeping along there now," he muttered. "I'll shout a warning to Mr Anderson. No, whoever it is doesn't seem to be coming on, and it looks so stupid to shout for help when there's no need." For all was perfectly motionless amongst the vivid green leaves, save where from time to time there was a flash of light--red light--topaz light--and that changing to a vivid green that looked as if it were blazing in the burning sun, and he grasped the fact that he was gazing at some lovely humming bird that darted here and there and then poised itself, apparently motionless, till he made out that there was a faint haze visible which must be caused by the rapid vibration of the tiny creature's wings. "Yes," he said to himself, "it's as beautiful as can be--that is, it would be if everything wasn't so silent and still and one didn't know that people were ready at any moment to take aim at one with rifle or musket. He said that they used rifles--the wretch! It's a nasty sensation, when you don't want to shoot any one, to feel that they want to shoot you." "Oh, what a while Mr Anderson is!" muttered the lad again. "He might make haste back to a fellow. He can't be obliged to stop away watching, and he ought to visit his posts regularly so as to give each of us a bit of company." Roberts gazed from his sheltering curtain as far as his eyes could sweep to left and round to right, going over and over again the arc of the circle formed by his vision where he had plainly seen movement going on and people creeping amidst the rich growth of the huge saccharine grass; but all was motionless and still, and the silence seemed to grow more and more awful as he watched. "Oh," he groaned to himself, "why didn't I make a dash for it and follow old Murray without saying a word? It wouldn't have been half so bad as this, and even if it had been a more risky task--no, it couldn't have been more risky than this--I could have borne it better. Wonder where he is, and whether he would have felt as bad as I do now if he had had my job. Ugh! It's horribly still, and if old Anderson doesn't come soon I shall make some excuse and go to him." "Yes," he continued, "Franky would have felt just as bad as I do. He must have done. No one could help it. No man could stand this terrible silence and the sensation that a shot was coming at him. No man could bear it--no man. Oh, I say, doesn't it seem bumptious for one to think of himself as a man? Well, why shouldn't I be? It's man's work, at all events. Oh, I can't stand it. I must make some excuse. I'll ask Mr Anderson to come and see if he doesn't think there is some one crawling along there to the right. No, I won't--I can't--I must master it. It's sheer cowardice! And if it is," he added, after a few moments' pause, "it's Nature's fault for making a fellow like this. I don't want to be a coward; I want to be as brave as brave--well, as brave as Murray is. I wouldn't care if I was just as full of pluck as he is. Anyhow I won't be a sham and go and pretend that some one is coming. I could never look him in the eyes again for fancying that he was reading me through and through. And he would--I'm sure he would." "Oh!" ejaculated the lad excitedly, for just then one of the floor-boards gave out a sharp crack. "Hallo!" said the familiar voice of the lieutenant. "Did I startle you, Roberts?" "Something of the kind, sir," said the lad, breathing hard. "I didn't hear you come." "No, I suppose not. Seen anything?" "No, sir. All is as still as if there wasn't a soul for miles, and I felt at times as if I must come and ask you if you could hear anything." "Ah, this silence is very trying, Roberts, my lad," said the lieutenant. "The men are all suffering from it and feeling as if they would give anything to be watching together." "They feel like that, sir?" cried the lad eagerly. "Yes, of course they do, sir. So do I: the utter stillness of the place, and the expectation of a shot coming at any moment, is most trying to a man. Here, how long do you think Mr Murray has been gone?" "Can't say, sir. It feels to me like hours; but it can't be." "I don't know, my lad. It certainly does, as you say, feel like hours. But he ought to be back by now, with at least a dozen men. Let's see, twelve men with Mr Munday and Mr Murray and his two will make sixteen. Sixteen picked men; and they will bring plenty of ammunition. Well, I should like the reinforcement before friend Huggins makes his attack. I don't care then how many he brings with him. I wonder, though, whether he will use any of his slaves to help him." "He said they won't fight, sir," said Roberts. "But he may force them to fight, my lad. Ah! Look out! Here they come with a rush. There's no mistake about this." And the officer ran to the door to shout a warning to the watchers at the other windows, for not only away in front were the giant green grass-like leaves of the Indian corn in full motion, but the rustle and crush of feet reached the listeners' ears, while _click, click_, from within, the cocking of the men's muskets was heard. _ |
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