CHAPTER XLIX.

THE ROPE LAID UP.

"The captain is walking his quarter-deck With a troubled brow and a bended neck; One eye is down the hatchway cast, The other turns up to the truck on the mast."

"The breeze is blowing--huzza, huzza! The breeze is blowing--away, away! The breeze is blowing--a race, a race! The breeze is blowing--we near the chase."

Well, the positions of all hands were simply these. The icy-eyed man, without snuff-box, or ring on that mutilated flipper, with two under pockets in his shirt, and something in them, a pair of filthy old canvas trowsers, and no hanger by his side, where there had been so much hanging in the good old times, slipped overboard like a conger eel, and swam on shore at St. Jago de Cuba. Without a _real_ of wages--for he was to work his passage--and because he didn't feel inclined to work, the _capitano_ in command assisted his agile subordinate to kick him all the voyage.

Had, however, the mate presented that cold eel his knife for a moment before he jumped overboard and squirmed to the shore, that cuchillo would have found a redder sheath than the crimson sash which usually held it. Fortunately perhaps for the mate, he was not of a generous disposition, save with kicks and ropes'-ends, or else he might have regretted his philanthropy.

So soon as the icy-blue man had congealed, as it were, in the sun until he was quite dry and frozen again, he slunk away to the ditch of the old fort, where he thawed till nightfall, and then entered the town; hanging round the pulperias, smacking and cracking his parched lips for a measure of aguardiente, only two centavos a cup, and not caring for that fine, generous, pale, amber-colored old Port sent to him by the good Archbishop of Oporto! But, not having the copper centavos--though his own coppers stood so much in need of moisture--he continued to skulk on.

Presently, coming to the wide streets and to the outskirts of the town, he spied a large mule, ready caparisoned for the road, hitched to the door of a house, waiting for his owner to mount him. The icy green-eyed individual, disgusted for the time with blue salt water, and being, as we know, a capital cavalry-man--in dashing charges among the patriots, and caprioling also up the Blue Mountains to Escondido--thought he would take another gallop on the dry ground, just to keep his hand and little finger in; so he quietly cast off the mule's painter, and flung his canvas legs over the beast as if he belonged to him. And so he did; for he told the man at whose place he passed an hour or two that night, and who thought he knew the master to whom the mule had once belonged, that it had been presented to him by an old friend, whose name--as had the mule's--escaped him.

All this time the one-eyed man, with his banana woman, Pancha, were creeping along the water part of the land--with the Peak of Tarquina in sight--toward Cape Cruz, bound round that peninsula, and so on to the Doçe Léguas Cays; while the man on the mule navigated by the Sierras del Cobre of St. Jago, steering by bridle for Manzanillo, and then to take water again for the same secret destination.

The cargo that both expected to take in there was about ten thousand pounds sterling in mildewed coin of various realms and denominations; but it was there, and would pass current any where.

So they sailed and navigated. It was tedious work, though; and it took a week for the old launch with the torn sail to get into the Tiger's Trap--fine weather, and no sea--and there make fast to the rocks. At the same evening hour the mule with his passenger planted his fore feet, like a pair of kedges over his bows, in the fishing village near Manzanillo, and foundered bodily, going down with his freight slap-dash in the mud. The passenger, however, escaped, and skulled along by the shore, where he fell in with a poor fisherman who was about to shove off in his trim, wholesome bark for professional recreation on the Esperanza bank.

Glad was old Miguel Tortuga to have a strong man to assist him for the privilege of joining in a sip of aguardiente and catching a red snapper or two; so they jumped on board and spread the sail.

Had old Miguel, however, seen the sharklike eyes of his assistant in the sunlight, or dreamed what a snapper was about to catch _him_, he would not have gone fishing that night, and it would have saved him much tribulation at daylight the next morning, when he was picked off a small rock by a fisher acquaintance of his from Manzanillo.

But we have nothing to do with old Miguel; and need only say, to console him, that his stanch boat went safely through the blue gateway of the roaring ledge of white breakers, and late Sunday night lay calmly in the inlet abreast Captain Brand's former dwelling.

To go back again for a week, the "Monongahela"--double-banked leviathan as she was--came plunging out to sea from Kingston, every man and boy, from Jack Smith on her forecastle to Bill Pump in the spirit-room, and from Richard Hardy to Tiny Mouse, knowing from the first plunge the frigate made what they all sailed for.

With her proud head toward the east, she went dashing on past the White Horse Rocks, and woe to the small angry waves which did not get out of her way, for she smashed them contemptuously in foaming masses from her majestic bows, sending them back in sparkling spray and bubbles to hiss their angry way to leeward in her wake. On she went, far off to sea, where the trade wind was strongest, disdaining gentle zephyrs near the land, with her great square yards swinging round at every watch while beating to windward--the tacks close down, yards as fine as they would lay, and the heavy sheets flat aft.

Every evening the surgeon, the purser, the chaplain, the major, and the old sailing-master were in the cabin, going over the chase of a certain pirate in a schooner "Centipede" away down on the Darien Coast, with Cape Garotte there under their lee, and the vultures and the sharks grinding the bones and tearing the flesh of the half of a man with the tusk gleaming out of his wiry mustache; and the padre, with his eyes staring wide open, and the crucifix, borne away by the carnivorous birds of prey.

All of those dreadful particulars, together with matters that had gone before--of a lost boy, a heart-broken mother, and a murdered mate, Mr. Binks, on board the brig "Martha Blunt"--the party at Escondido, the snuff-box, and Paul Darcantel--all about him, too, from the tragedy on the plantation, his despair, and reckless life afterward, when he served in slavers, where he did something to allay the sufferings of the poor wretches; and afterward how he was trepanned to the "Doçe Léguas," went a cruise with Mr. Bill Gibbs, whose leg he hacked off with a hand-saw, not knowing at the time about the locket; the little child he had saved; how that child had saved him from his torture on the trestle with his mouselike teeth; how he had wandered the wide world over searching and searching for the mother of that boy!

And there the boy was--the manly, brave young fellow now--whom officers and sailors had always loved, flying away with the dark doctor--no longer Darcantel, but Harry Piron--with his fond father and mother in the distance, and the sweet girl he adored with her blonde head resting in her mother's lap.

Ay, every soul in the ship knew all about it, and talked of it, and drank to the happiness of the young couple--all save Dick Hardy, who moved energetically about the frigate's decks, with his eyes every where, below and aloft, prompt, sharp, and quick, quite like Cleveland, there, beside him, when they were together in the old "Scourge" during the hurricane, and chased, to her destruction, the "Centipede."

"Sail ho!" sang out the man on the fore-top-sail yard.

"Where away?"

"Right ahead, sir. A brig on the starboard tack!"

Ay, the old "Martha Blunt" bouncing along under all sail, squaring off at the short-armed seas, and striking them doggedly, as she beat up for the Windward Passage between Hayti and Cuba.

But there was an old sea-bruiser of a different build, who wore the belt in the West Indies, and was after that sturdy old brig with teak ribs for a hearty set-to; and when she came up alongside, in the friendly sparring-match which ensued while both squared their main yards, and lay for an hour side by side, there was considerable conversation; so much talk, in fact--boats going to and fro, mingled with roars and shrieks, and clasping of hands on board the brig--never a sound on board the ship--that the blue pennant fluttered in such a way it was hard to tell whether it was Jacob, or Piron, or the sweet wife, or mademoiselle, or her lovely mother, who threw their arms around that pennant's truck.

Then yard-arm and yard-arm, the frigate with her canvas canopy of upper sails furled, and the brig in her best bib and tucker, they both filled away and moved side by side.

For a day or two they went on, talking and laughing to one another in these friendly shakes of the hand over blue water, until one day, the brig being to windward, she came upon an old water-logged launch, with a broken mast and a torn sail hanging over her side.

It fell calm, and Jacob Blunt ordered young Binks to get into the yawl and tow the boat alongside, and to be smart about it; for the breeze might make so soon as the fog rose, and the commodore was not the man to be kept waiting in a big frigate. Mr. Binks was smart about it, and presently he returned--though there was no hurry, for the calm lasted a long time--with his water-logged prize.

There was no human being in this prize; but when she came alongside, and a yard tackle was hooked on to let the water drain out of her, Jacob Blunt and the people on board gave a pleasant yell of astonishment.

It was not the soiled pack of Spanish cards, or the few bundles of saturated paper cigars floating about, which caused this excitement. No, it was several canvas bags lying there in the stern-sheets, strapped with strands of a woman's red petticoat to the empty water-cask beneath the thwarts; and not one of those canvas bags, or what was in them, injured in the least by salt water. Very carefully were those bags--and they were weighty--lifted on board the brig, over the rail where the pirates swarmed some long years ago, on to the quarter-deck; and then there was another joyous shout from Jacob Blunt, as when he had hailed the trade wind in that long past time.

"By all that's wonderful, here is my old bag of guineas, and some few Spanish milled dollars! Look at the mark, my darlings!"

Another weighty bag was set aside for Mrs. Timothy Binks, and the rest were devoted, with some large doubloon reservations for crew, to Martha Blunt and Jacob Blunt in their declining years.

Then, the weather being still calm and foggy, Jacob and his passengers went on board the double-banked frigate for church service, where they all prayed with much hope and thanksgiving for what had passed and what was to come; and then they went into the commodore's cabin, where they remained ever so long a time.

Let us go back this same week again--a very long seven days it has been for every body, particularly so for the icy-eyed man, who was extremely anxious, as he kicked and lashed his mule, and kept looking round the south side of Jamaica, from Portland Point to Pedro Bluff and San Negril, throwing a ray of cold frost there day and night, expecting that tall doctor to come striding along in that deep water, heading due north.

And at last the dark figure hove in sight, in the schooner "Rosalie"--the sweet little craft skimming exultingly over the seas, kissing them occasionally with both her dainty, glistening cheeks, reeling joyously over on her side, with her tidy dimity laced and spread in one flat sheet of white, while the slender arms bent like whalebone to the freshening breeze, and she left the dancing bubbles sparkling and flashing lovingly in her wake.

Two hundred miles to go, and the breeze fell from fresh to light, until at last, shrouded in a thick fog, one Sunday morning, when there was no air at all, only a flat calm, the sea as smooth as a glass mirror with the quicksilver clouded.

Then out sweeps, my lads! Ten of a side, and two of those bronzed old lads at each sweep! All except the two after ones, where Ben Brown and the tall doctor handled one apiece.

Thus, with sails down and bare arms, the light little "Rosalie" continued gliding rapidly over the mirrored surface--a little ashamed of herself, perhaps, at being seen in such a scanty rig--while her commander guided her graceful course, and Harry Greenfield peered about forward to see that no harm should arrest her dainty footsteps.

Presently was heard the toll of a bell. The sweeps paused, the hide gromets resting on the thole-pins, and the water raining from their broad blades.

"That must be a man-of-war off here on the quarter," exclaimed the young officer at the tiller, "ringing for church."

The old seamen at the sweeps unconsciously took off their hats, wiped the sweat from their brows, and listened.

"It can hardly be the 'Monongahela,'" said Ben, "though p'raps she took more of a breeze to wind'ard, off the island."

Still the schooner glided on noiselessly over the sea, until, a minute later, Harry Greenfield sang out,

"Port, sir! or we'll be plump into a vessel here ahead."

The helm was put down, and the "Rosalie" sheered off to starboard within a biscuit-toss of a large brig.

"By my grandmother's wig!" said Ben, "that's the old 'Martha Blunt!'"

"Henri," said Paul Darcantel, in French, in his deep voice, "the last request I shall ever make is to keep on. There is not a moment to lose!"

"Give way, men!" shouted the officer, in a decided tone, as the words came with a stifled gasp from his heaving breast, while the sigh that followed was drowned in the splash of the sweeps in the water as they again chafed in their gromets, and the foam flashed away from the blades astern.

But there was another splash. A white object sprang with a bound over the brig's quarter, dipping below the surface of the calm sea, and when it came up, two great flippers, with a large black head between them, struck out like the paws of an alligator, breasting the water with a speed that soon brought him within a few fathoms of the schooner's low counter. Then, seizing hold of the slack of the main sheet, which was thrown to him, he came up, hand over hand, as if he could tear the stern frame out of the schooner. A vigorous grasp caught him by one paw, and, with the other laid on the taffrail, he leaped on deck as if his feet had pressed a springboard instead of the yielding water.

Again, as in the olden time, he held his little Henri aloft in his giant arms; but this time it was Banou who was dripping from a souse, and not his little master.

"Give way, my souls! Another thousand dollars if we get up to the Key before dark!" said the deep, low tones of the tall doctor.

"Good Lord!" roared a voice from on board the brig, now shut up again all alone in the fog--"if that old nigger has not gone and jumped overboard, my name's not Binks!"

"All right, Mr. Binks; Banou is safe! Send a boat on board the 'Monongahela,' and report that the schooner 'Rosalie' has passed ahead," went back in a clear note.

It was some considerable time before Binks could believe that he had not been hailed by David Jones himself, for he had seen nothing, being at the time in the lower cabin reading his Bible, and writing his name, "Binnacle Binks, Master of brig 'Martha Blunt,'" on the fly-leaf; and he was only disturbed in this praiseworthy occupation by a heavy body plunging overboard, and by one of the drowsy crew, who had, with his comrades, been sleeping near, reporting that circumstance with his eyes half shut.

Then young Binks took considerable more time to get a boat lowered, and send her, with the cabin-boy, to the large frigate close on his beam, whose bell had just struck seven.

The boat, too, with four sleepy hands to pull her, took considerable time to find the ship, and then the whistles were piping to dinner, and all the good people from the brig, with the flag-officers, had retired to the commodore's cabin for luncheon.

When Jacob Blunt heard the news, regardless of sherry and cold tongue, he himself got in his boat, leaving his passengers in an excited frame of mind, but rather comfortable on the whole, and returned to the teak bosom of his "Martha."

There he took young Binks firmly by the shoulder, and walked him aft to the rail where his father--long since dead and murdered--had been used to sit and sing sailor ditties.

Then he impressively told him that "this 'ere sort of thing wouldn't do! even if he was a readin' the Bible, which was all very good on occasion, sich as clear weather out on the broad Atlantic; but in fog times, when schooners was creepin' about in among the Antilles, and partick'larly off Jamaiky or the south side of Cuby, mates and men should be wide awake and lookin' every wheres. And harkee, Binnacle! when you commands this 'ere old brig, or maybe a bran-new 'Martha Blunt,' and me and my old woman lying below together in narrow cabins, you must bear in mind these my words! Well, my boy, don't rub that 'ere sleeve over your eyes no more, and it will be all right."

Young Binks promised "that from that 'ere minnit he would never sit on no rails, or sip no grog, or even read his old mother's Bible when he wos on watch, but always be as keerful as if there wos no lady passengers or children on board, or bags of shiners in the lower cabin stateroom--that he would! And his blessed old second father might take his davy he, young Binks, would never be caught foul again."

Meanwhile the girlish schooner tripped away far out of sight, and when the fog lifted and the breeze came to blow it to leeward she was once more tidily dressed in snowy white, and splashing the water from her black eyes, as the last rays of the setting sun showed her the Tiger's Trap in the distance.

"Henri, my boy, put your arms around me again as you did when I lay in torture on the trestle on that island. Have no fears for me; we shall meet again. There! now listen to me. Here is a packet which I wish you to carry to Porto Rico with this letter. The old judge is alive, I think, to whom this letter is addressed, and it may perhaps soothe his declining years. I wish to take your little gig, with Banou and Ben Brown--no more force--and if, as I believe, that villain has returned to his former haunt, I will fulfill my oath to its very letter. Meanwhile, so soon as we have shoved off, while the breeze still holds, run down to the frigate--she is not three leagues off--and you will be in your yearning parent's arms, and those of the girl you love, before they sleep. There! I know you will think of me. Farewell!"