Chapter 36

THE DEVIL TO PAY.

"And how then was the devil dressed? Oh! he was dressed in his Sunday's best; His jacket was red and his breeches were blue, And there was a hole where the tail came through."

"Hairy-faced Dick understands his trade, He stands by the breech of a short carronade, The linstock glows in his bony hand, Waiting that grim old skipper's command!"

"The last dinner I had in Jamaica, and a very jolly one it was, as you all know, was out at Escondido, where we kept it up so late that I only got on board the 'Scourge' at daylight, in time to get her under way with the land wind. Well, we were bound to windward, and for a week afterward we rolled about in a calm off Morant Bay, maybe twenty leagues off the island, and one morning we discovered a sail. She was a large merchant brig, heading any way, and bobbing about, as we were, in the calm. Toward noon, however, a light air sprang up, and we got within hail, and I went on board to say a word or two to the skipper, for we had news before leaving Kingston that that infamous pirate Brand, in his long-legged schooner 'Centipede,' had been seen off Guadaloupe; and, in fact, we had actually chased him off Matanzas three months before; so I was ordered to give the brig a warning, particularly as she had reported a suspicious craft in sight that same morning at sunrise. When I got on board of her I saw--"

Here Piron placed both hands to his face as he leaned his elbows on the table, and the commodore, checking himself, hurried on:

"Ah! well, we kept the brig in sight all day, and ran round her once or twice in the evening, but toward midnight the trade wind freshened, and, as the coast seemed clear, and we were anxious to make up for lost time in the calm, we gradually came up to our course, and went bowling away to windward.

"I remember going below at the time, and just as I was about to turn in, I heard a quarter-master sing out to Hardy there, who was junior lieutenant of the ship, and who had the middle watch, that he saw a light going up to the brig's gaff. In five seconds I was on the poop, where I met the captain.

"This is his only son, gentlemen, and a braver or more skillful seaman never trod a ship's deck," said the commodore, as he passed his hand affectionately over the boy's head, who was sitting beside him.

But he forgot, perhaps, to say that he, Cleveland, had stood by the father when he was struck dead by a cannon-shot, and that afterward he had the boy appointed a reefer, and, out of his own means, helped the widow to eke out her pittance of a pension. Yes, Cleveland forgot all that as he smoothed the youngster's soft hair, while, with the men around him, he drained his glass in silence to the memory of his departed friend and chief. Then resuming, he went on:

"In less than no time after the light was seen--for you must know, gentlemen, that it was an understood signal between us--the 'Scourge' was flying off with a stiff breeze abaft the beam, the crew at quarters, and the boats ready to be lowered from the davits. When we ranged up alongside the brig, and even before, we felt certain that our misgivings would prove true, and so they did; and merely slamming a shot over her, and dropping a couple of armed boats into the water, we luffed round her bows, and there we saw that cursed schooner--venomous snake as she was--just hoisting her sails, and creeping away to windward.

"We let her have two or three divisions of grape, and followed the dose up with round shot. I am sure we hit her, and that pretty hard, for we knocked away her fore-top-mast, and we saw the splinters fly in showers from her hull. However, she was well handled, and lying nearer the wind than the 'Scourge,' when day dawned she was clear out of range, and leaving us every minute. So we up helm and ran down again to the brig, to see what mischief had been done and to pick up our boats.

"Ah! yes, you all know what had taken place, so I won't go over the details; but the same afternoon, after seeing the brig pointed straight for Port Royal, and while we were once more on our course, we fell in with a water-logged boat, in which were half a dozen dead and dying men. One, a mongrel Indian from Yucatan, who was frightfully torn by two or three grape-shot, before he died on board--as did all the others--gave us, in his confused dialect, some account of the pirate he had served under, and the haunt he frequented. As near as we could learn, the haunt was situated somewhere on the south side of Cuba, on a rocky island having a safe and secure inlet; but as he did not know the latitude or longitude, we were left somewhat in the dark. The last words, however, the mangled wretch uttered, as the gasping breath was leaving his body, were, that the spot could be distinguished by a tall cocoa-nut-tree which grew from a craggy eminence in the middle of the island. We buried them all, pirates as they were, decently, and then we clapped on all sail on our course.

"Steward, another bottle of the old Southside that Mr. March sent me from Madeira! Here, Domino, take Mr. Mouse up gently, and lay him down on my cot in the after cabin. Dear little fellow, he is sound asleep; and mind you draw the curtains around him, lest he take cold from the draught of the stern windows!"

Rather a striking contrast this to the way Captain Brand, the pirate, treated the little Henri in the den there in the Doçe Léguas.

"Well, gentlemen, for some weeks after these occurrences we sailed about the islands, touching here and there, until at last we arrived at the Havana, took in stores and water, and then continued the cruise. The orders were to beat up the south side of Cuba, where we expected to fall in with the Musquito fleet and some English vessels, especially detailed to destroy two or three nests of pirates who had for some years swarmed in those seas and infested that coast. In the course of time we beat all around the south side of Cuba, and at last dropped anchor in St. Jago, where we learned from the English consular agent that five or six fellows, who had been wrecked on the Carvalo reef, were identified as having been part of a piratical crew who had plundered an English vessel with a free passport bound to Havana, and had been sent there in irons for trial.

"The truth was, that the Spanish colonial authorities had so long connived, winked at, or been indifferent to what was going on during the wars of the Continent, that they allowed these piratical hordes to exist and thrive at their very doors. The matter had already been brought to the notice of the administrador of the port, and all other ports as far along the coast as Cienfuegos, and in such a threatening manner, too, that the governor at St. Jago, fearful of having his town blown down, exerted himself in the arrest of the rascals I have alluded to, and likewise in procuring information by dispatching guarda costas along the south side of the island.

"Accordingly, the very morning we anchored I went ashore with the captain of the custom-house, where we met the deputy administrador and a little withered, one-eyed old rascal, who was in the colonial service, and who professed to know the haunt, or at least he said he thought he did, of that notorious villain Brand.

"I remember distinctly spreading a chart before him, and while he traced with the end of his cigarette a course for the captain to steer by, I stood near, watching him narrowly. But the fact was, that he had the very sharpest spark of an eye set, or rather standing out, beside his nose that any body ever saw in a human being's head; and instead of me watching him, he seemed to be looking straight through me, and divining my thoughts and suspicions. However, the spot he pointed out, and the way he described it, with a cocoa-nut-tree on top of a rock, and the passage through the reef, so nearly corresponded with the confused account the Yucatanese gave us before he died, that the captain was entirely convinced we were on the scent, though I myself was not more than half satisfied. The place indicated was near the Isle of Pines, three hundred miles off; but, to make the thing more plausible, that one-eyed old scoundrel was detailed to run along the Doçe Léguas Cays, see what information he could pick up there, and then follow down after us.

"That night, or early the next morning, we were off again, and ran down the coast, with a good offing to keep the wind, until we got to the ground, and passed in by Cape St. Francis, and doubled round into the Bight of Pines. There we fell in with a whole fleet of English and American cruisers and schooner craft, who informed us that they had searched every accessible spot where a man could walk dry-shod upon, from Guayabos to the Isle of Mangles; that they had destroyed several old and deserted piratical nests, and hung two or three ostensible fishermen by way of wholesome warning to their allies the pirates; but that was all; and from what they had learned, there did not seem to have been an established retreat in that maze of cays and reefs for four or five years.

"So you see we had our cruise for nothing, and then the captain agreed with me that we had both been most egregiously deceived by the Spanish commander of the guarda costa. Well, we hauled our wind once more, standing well out to sea, and after a tedious beat of some days we again edged in toward the coast, somewhere near the Boca Grande of the Twelve League Cays on the westernmost side. It was in the morning when we made the land, and, steering close in, we got a good slant off the shore, and kept the glasses going from the topmost cross-trees down all through the day. For my part, as Hardy may perhaps remember, I scarcely took the glass from my eye for eight hours, and from the mizzen-top I feel quite sure that there were not many objects, from the size of a blade of grass to a mangrove bush, that I did not examine, from the coral reefs up to the rocky heights, let alone the cocoa-nut-tree that we were in search of.

"Toward afternoon, however, the weather came up hazy, the wind began to fall off, and the barometer began to exhibit very queer spasms indeed, rising with a sort of jerk at first, and then dropping down the tenth of an inch at a clip, with the atmosphere becoming close and sultry, and the men gasping about the decks as if we were about to choke at the next breath. It was during the hurricane months, and the indications certainly should have led us as far as our legs could carry us to open water, instead of being caught embayed perhaps with half a thousand reefs around us on what might prove a lee-shore; but, nevertheless, the captain decided to hold on till sunset, and then make an offing. The breeze still held in the upper sails, and so we slipped on in smooth water till about five o'clock, when I heard a fellow sing out from the main royal yard,

"'On deck there! I can see a tall cocoa-nut-tree on an island here on the port bow!'

"Before the words were well out of his mouth I too caught the object, and I knew at the first glance that it was the spot we were looking for. At the same time the haze lighted up a bit, and we saw the ridge of rocks and every thing as the haunt of that pirate Brand had been described to us. So, my friends, we were all alive once more on board the 'Scourge,' and the captain resolved to dash in upon the scoundrel's nest before he could have time to leave it.

"The engine was rigged and water spirted over the sails from the trucks down, to make the canvas hold the wind, and in an hour after we were within two leagues of the island, and just as the sun fell below the horizon we caught sight of the mast-heads of a large vessel sticking up over some bluff rocks near the bold shore. Not five minutes later the hull of the craft came slowly out from the gap, under all sail, and we discovered her to be a long and rather lumbering-looking brigantine, painted lead-color, and bearing no resemblance to the schooner we had twice chased before. Simultaneously, however, with her coming out into full view, as she rounded in her head-yards and got a pull of the main-sheet, with the breeze abeam and heading to the eastward, we beheld a great volume of white smoke spout up over the rock near the cocoa-nut-tree, with a vivid sheet of flame at the base, and before the vast column turned, like the crown of a palm-tree, in its descent, we were greeted by a dull, heavy roar, the concussion of which fairly made the 'Scourge' tremble. Then, as the white smoke partially broke away, an avalanche of rocks and timbers was scattered far and near, and nothing visible but a veil of dust and masses of heavy smoke. Nearly at the same moment of this explosion wreaths of heavy black smoke arose from another spot nearer to the gap, lit up in the fading, hazy twilight with forked red fires, and soon after a great conflagration burst forth, swirling flakes of burning cinders all over the island, and casting a lurid glare upon the water around us."