CHAPTER XLVIII.

ALL ALIVE AGAIN.

"Among ourselves, in peace, 'tis true, We quarrel, make a rout; And having nothing else to do, We fairly scold it out; But once the enemy in view, Shake hands, we soon are friends; On the deck, Till a wreck, Each common cause defends."

Down in the steerage, where a bare cherry table stood, and upright lockers ranged around, with a lot of half-starved reefers devouring their dinner--not near so good or well served as the sailors' around their mess-cloths on the upper decks--with a few urchins utterly regardless of steerage grub, and a dollar or two in their little fists, all nicely dressed in blue jackets and white trowsers, waiting for the hands to be turned to and the boats manned, to go on shore for a lark.

Abaft in the wardroom, two or three of the swabs, the surgeon's mates, and the jaunty young marine lieutenant were getting into their bullion coats and fine toggery, and buckling on their armor to do sad havoc among the planters' families in the evening, away there in Upper Kingston. As for the first lieutenant, the purser, the fleet surgeon, the sailing-master, and the old major of marines, they had been ashore before, and didn't care to go again; growling jocosely among themselves on board the frigate, and glad to get rid of the juvenile gabble.

Presently, and before the hands were turned to from dinner, the cabin bell rang so violently that the orderly's brass scale-plate fixtures on his leather hat fairly rang too as he opened the sacred door.

"Tell the first lieutenant I want him."

The dismayed soldier forgot to lay his white worsted finger on his visor as he slammed to the door and marched out on the gun-deck.

"Mr. Hardy, unmoor ship! Hoist a jack at the fore and fire a gun for a pilot! Get the frigate under weigh, sir, and be quick about it!"

"Ay, ay, sir!"

As Hardy rapidly passed his old cronies, who were tramping along the deck as he mounted the after-ladder, he said, with a nod,

"By the Lord! I haven't seen the commodore in such a breeze since he blew that pirate out of water at Darien."

In a minute the "Monongahela's" bell struck two, and the boatswain and his mates, piping as if their hairy throats would split, roared out, "All hands!" and a moment later, "All hands unmoor ship!"

"What does that mean?" said a cook of a mess to Jim Dreen, the old quarter-master, who had just come down from his watch.

"Mean? why, you lazy, blind duff b'iler, it means that I've lost my blessed dinner."

"Hallo!" says Rat to Beaver, "what's that? Unmoor ship on my liberty day! I swear I'll resign!"

No you won't, reefers, but you'll trip aloft as fast as your little legs will carry you--Mouse in company--up to the fore, main, and mizzen tops, and squeak there as much as you like; but jump about and look sharp that nothing goes wrong, or Mr. Hardy will be down upon you like a main tack.

Bang from the bow port and the union jack at the fore!

"God bless my soul, fellows, this is the most infernal tyranny I ever heard of!" came from the wardroom; "all of us engaged to dine and dance in Kingston this evening, and--"

"It's 'All hands up anchor, gentlemen!'" and away they all went.

Down went the mess-kids, and down came the awnings, and up came the boats to their davits; in went the bars to both capstans, the nippers clapped on, and the muddy cables coming in to the tunes of fifes; while above the running gear was rove, the Sunday bunts to the sails cast off, and the five hundred sailors dancing about on the decks, spars, and rigging of that American double-banked frigate, as if they could always work her sails and battery to the admiration of their good commodore there, who was looking at them from the quarter-deck.

"Massa captan," said the shining ebony pilot, in his snowy suit, as he took off his fine white Panama hat, "dis is de ole pilot, sa, Peter Crabreef--name after dat black rock way dere outside. Suppose you tink ob beating dis big frigate troo de channel? Unpossible, wid dis breeze!"

"Peter Crabreef," said the old sailing-master, to whom these observations were addressed, "you had better not give such a hint to that gentleman there in the epaulets; for if you do, you'll never see Mrs. Crabreef again! You had better keep your wits about you, too, and plenty of water under the keel, for the commodore is fond of water!"

"Sartainly, massa ossifa! I is old Peter, and never yet touch a nail of man-of-war copper battam on de reefs!"

On board the pigmy black schooner near, half a dozen old salt veterans were squinting at the flag-ship and holding much deliberate speculation as to what all the row meant. Old Harry Greenfield, however, with Ben Brown, who were the gunner and boatswain of the little vessel, observed that, "In the ewent of our bein' wanted, ye see, Harry, it will be as well to have the deck tackle stretched along for heavin' in, and get the prop from under the main boom."

Even as they spoke, a few bits of square bunting went up in balls to the mizzen of the frigate, and, blowing out clear, said, as plain as flags could speak, "Prepare to weigh anchor!"

At the same moment the "Rosalie's" gig came bounding like a bubble over the water with the tall gentleman beside the young commander in the stern-sheets. There was a great, nervous, bony hand now holding his, but with as an affectionate pressure as the soft dimpled fingers he himself had held the night before. Gig not steered at all wild now, but going as straight as a bullet to the schooner.

The stirring sounds of the fifes as the sailors danced round with the bars in the capstans, with a beating step to keep time to the lively music, were still heard on board the frigate, and then came from the forecastle,

"The anchor's under foot, sir!"

"Pawl the capstan! Aloft, sail-loosers! Trice up! Lay out! Loose away!" Almost at the instant came down the squeaks from aloft of, "All ready with the fore! the main! the mizzen!" "Let fall--sheet home! hoist away the top-sails!"

Again were heard the quick notes of the fifes on both decks, and in less than five minutes more the anchors were catted, and the "Monongahela," under a cloud of canvas, began to move.

But where was the "Rosalie," late "Perdita," all this time? Why, there she goes, with never a tack, through the narrow strait, lying over under the press of her white dimity like a witch on a black broomstick, as she shoots out to sea.

And who is that tall man, on that narrow deck, clapping on to sheet and tackle, though there was no need of assistance, or skill, or seamanship to be displayed on board that craft, except by way of love of the thing? And why does he, during a pause when there was nothing more that could possibly be done, stand by the weather rail, shaking a great huge old seaman by both hands till he almost jarred the schooner to her keel?--Ben Brown, the helmsman, whom you have heard of on board the "Martha Blunt," who, by some accidental word he dropped near to the tall gentleman, caused that hand-grasping collision.

It was not another five minutes before the other thirty-nine old sea-dogs knew all about every body, and where they were bound, and so on. They did not care a brass button for the thousand silver dollars they were to have from the tall gentleman--not they! They wanted merely to lay their eyes along that Long Tom amidships, and to have a cutlass flashing over their shoulders--so fashion! Pistols and pikes! Fudge!

But where was the "Martha Blunt?" Oh, that old teak brig was bouncing along past Morant Point, with a good slant from the southward, pretty much where she was some seventeen years before, with a few more passengers in her deck cabin, reading their Bibles, and praying for those who go down to the sea in ships on that Sabbath day--one looking with her sad eyes out of the stern windows, and another doing the same, and both thinking of the same boy who had been dashed out of one of those windows; and though both of them knew the other's thoughts, yet they did not dream they were thinking of the same person at the time.

And where was the Spanish brigantine, with the exacting _capitano_--who was a slaver in dull times--and his pleasant mate, who would think no more of sticking a knife into you than he did of kicking that skulking, icy-eyed sailor on board--detesting as he did the entire Saxon race ever since Cadiz was bombarded--and feeding him on rotten jerked beef? There were no prayers, only curses, on board that brigantine as she dropped anchor in St. Jago that fine Sunday morning.

And where was our ancient one-eyed mariner, formerly in command of the colonial guarda costa felucca, the "Panchita," named after his fat banana of a sposa? Oh, the Don--simply Ignaçio now--had had a quiet confab with the deputy administrador all about some treasure which he knew was concealed, and where--for he had seen with his bright eye the light of a torch in a cleft of a crag--and he would go shares with that official if he would give him a little assistance.

"_Oh, cierto!_" Why not? And there was an old launch, with a torn lateen sail, which Columbus might have been proud to command; and, in this fine weather, he might sail back to Port Palos in her.

Oh yes! But, to keep all secret, he would merely take old Pancha, his wife, for crew. And so, with a few bundles of paper cigars, and some dried fish and water--the only property they possessed, save his eye and a pack of cards, and those valuables rescued with difficulty--they sailed the night before the blessed Sunday. _He_ never came back, though. No blame attributable to the eye--that was as bright and wary an old burning spark of suspicious fire as ever; but then old Pancha held the cards, and this time she won. Very singular it was, _cierto_. If Ignaçio had not gone back again for another bag which was not there, why, the _sota_ of a knave being the next card--Ah! we won't anticipate.

But we are all alive yet, except those murdered women, whose white coral head-stones still stand up there in the cactus, and poor Binks, and those slashing blades of the poisonous, many-legged "Centipede," who were eaten by the sharks--all alive the rest of us, and wide awake!