CHAPTER II.

TURTLE ISLAND.

"He didn't like seeing the guns cast loose, and the powder and small arms brought on deck, this precious first mate of ours," said Joe Grummet one day to Derval, when they were up aloft; "cos why? he is a coward, and cowards are always cruel. He was once a captain, but his certificate is suspended--though I don't know for how long, but suspended it is--cos why? He caught a poor stowaway lad on board, half dead with confinement and want of food, and how do you think he treated him? He lashed a ring-bolt with spunyarn athwart his open jaws to prevent his shrieks being heard when he ropes-ended him, and trained a dog to bite him; he headed him up in a cask and rolled him round the deck; and this work went on for days. He made a timber hitch on a line, and hoisted him by the neck three feet from the deck at a time, till his eyes started from their sockets, and blood and froth oozed from his mouth, flogging him day after day, till one came, when the poor boy was found dead under the lee of the long-boat; and then his body, without service or prayer, was chucked overboard.* Now he sails as chief mate, but I wonder our owners took him aboard at all."

* A fact.

This anecdote served to increase Derval's disgust for Rudderhead, who seemed almost to divine that he was the subject of conversation, as he stood on the quarter-deck, with his eyes steadily regarding them in the foretop.

Amid fine weather, and accompanied by steady and pleasant breezes, the _Amethyst_ made the Island of Desolation, or Kerguelen's Land, the abode alone of petrels, albatrosses, gulls, and sea-swallows, on the rifted rocks of which, washed by incessant rains, nothing grows but saxifrage--a lonely and most melancholy place.

After passing it, the ship's log shows that she encountered a gale, and that the watch had to take in the main topgallant-sail and mainsail, with the fourth reef of the topsails; and set the mainstay-sail. In the evening she was under close-reefed topsails, a reefed foresail, and was shipping heavy seas.

Fine weather came again, and one fine forenoon, a week or so after, when Derval had the watch, the cry "Land ahead!" from the look-out men caused every glass to be levelled at a dark-blue streak, that rose like a cloud from the shining sea, upon the lee bow; and a reference to the chart showed that it was one of those sequestered and seldom visited isles in the South Sea, in latitude 60 south, and 110 west longitude, and is known as Turtle Island.

It was rocky, hilly, and seemed to rise fast from the sea, and to loom large, through a kind of white haze, exhaled from the latter by the heat of the sun; thus, by the bearings given, the reader will see that it was a considerable distance south of the regular line from Britain to Australia.

As Captain Talbot was anxious to procure some turtle, he gave orders to stand towards it, and about nightfall came to anchor in seven fathoms water, in a fine sandy bay where the waves rippled on the beach as quietly as those of an island lake, and where groves of trees grow close to the water's edge.

The volcanic rocks at the mouth of the bay were literally covered with sea-hens, gigantic albatrosses, and other feathered tribes; wild boars and wild goats could be seen by the glass ere the sun set, but luckily no sign of inhabitants, on which Talbot rather congratulated himself, as he knew well the isle possessed them, and that, like all other South Sea savages, they were vindictive, cruel, and hostile to all strangers.

By daybreak next morning two boats' crews, under Rudderhead and Derval, taking with them handspikes or capstan bars, pulled in shore to search for turtle. They beached the boats at a place where a number of large turtle were seen, well up on the shore, near some dense brushwood, out of which black cocks flew from time to time, and near which some great seals lay basking in the sun.

In high spirits the boats' crews sprang ashore, and intercepting the retreat of the turtle, some of which were of such a size as to be two or three hundred-weight, they proceeded with the handspikes to turn them on their backs and leave them thus till several were captured, and then tumbled into the boats.

Full of natural interest at treading on new soil, and looking on that which he had never seen before, Derval, penetrating through the brushwood, advanced some hundred yards upward and inshore, and heard with pleasure the tender rustling of the leaves in the morning sea-breeze, while inhaling the perfume of the aromatic plants and myrtle-trees. The brilliant green of the woods that crept up the sides of the hills, which in one place were so lofty that the haze shrouded their summits, were all novel and delightful, after the monotony of the sea and sky during a long voyage.

While observing the brilliant tints and peculiar shadows given by the morning sun to some volcanic rocks rising from the nearest grove of trees, he became suddenly aware that they were swarming with black savages, whose weapons, whatever they were, glittered in the sun, and who from their eyrie were evidently watching the ship in the bay, if not the party in quest of turtle on the beach.

He had scarcely made this discovery, when he became aware that Reeve Rudderhead was by his side, with what intent he could not divine. Curiosity had no doubt prompted him to follow Derval, simply to see what was to be seen, and opportunity made him suddenly avail himself of the time to do the fell crime he subsequently committed.

Enemies though they were, who never spoke but on inevitable matters connected with ship duty, Derval could not refrain from drawing his ungracious messmate's attention to the watching savages and their hostile aspect, adding:

"Don't you think, sir, that we had better retire?"

They were already in motion and leaping down the rocks, with yells, brandishing their spears and clubs.

"Retire?" growled Rudderhead with an oath, "I think so, unless we mean to share the fate of Captain Cook; so here goes for one. As for you," he added, with one of his ferocious maledictions, "they may pick your bones, and welcome!" Then whirling the heavy hand-spike he carried, circularly in the air, he struck Derval a blow on the back of the head that felled him bleeding, stunned, and senseless, among the brushwood!

The moment he had accomplished this terrible and atrocious act, he went plunging down to the beach, shouting--

"The savages--the natives are upon us; into the boats with you for your lives, and shove off to the ship!"

Alarmed by this cry, and being unarmed, the party were forced to be content with what turtle they had got--some seven or eight--and leaping into their two boats, pushed off at once from the shore, and shipping their oars pulled away with a will, just as a naked horde of dark-skinned savages, perfectly nude, save in the matter of the bead ornaments that hung about their persons, shrieking, whooping, yelling, and dancing like mad things, came rushing with war-clubs, spears, powerful bows and arrows, close to the edge of the water, and even rushing into it up to their waists.

The boats' crews could see their dark, copper-coloured skins, their hair which was longer and straighter than the wool of the negro, their gleaming eyes and white glistening teeth. An arrow or two whistled past, but wide of the mark, and with laughing shouts of defiance the party brought their boats sheering alongside the ship, when the turtles had ropes hitched round them, and were quickly conveyed on board.

"Hoist in the boats," was now the order of Rudderhead, in his guilty haste anticipating the authority of the captain for doing so.

In the haste and confusion with which they had embarked, the crew of each boat probably thought--if they thought on the subject at all--that Derval was on board the other; nor was it till the boats were being actually hoisted in on each quarter, that he was missed, and Joe Grummet asked, with some asperity and much alarm:

"Where is the third mate--where is Mr. Hampton?"

Then the boats' crews looked inquiringly and blankly into each other's faces.

"Left on shore!" said Captain Talbot. "Good heaven! what a fate he must have met by this time!"

"We had not a moment to lose, sir, as you must have seen, if you had been watching us," said Rudderhead sullenly and with averted eyes; "his safety was his own look-out--not mine; and I think the third mate could take jolly good care of himself."

The Captain was silent; the beach was now covered by a dingy horde of savages, yelling and brandishing their weapons in defiance at the ship, and he could not for a moment doubt that Derval Hampton must have perished at their hands.

As for Mr. Reeve Rudderhead, he had not the smallest doubt about it either, believing that the little life he had left, if any, in Derval, would speedily be beaten out of him by the knob-sticks or war-clubs of the islanders.

All on board--save Reeve Rudderhead--sorrowed for Derval, and were loud in their praises and vehement in their regret (for, as an officer, he was active, vigilant, and, if distant, yet most kind), and none, perhaps, more than Captain Talbot, who valued him highly for his gentlemanly bearing, good appearance, skill, and conscientious interest in his duty; and in all this the Captain was joined by old Joe Grummet, who would miss the listener to many a yarn of the sea, and who sighed heavily, Like a head wind through a hawse-hole, slapped his thigh, viciously chewed his quid, and clenched his hard first many times, menacingly, while swearing "strange oaths," and objurgating the eyes, limbs, and blood of some individual unnamed, but who was shrewdly supposed to be the first mate.

Closely did the Captain and his officers question the boats' crews, but nothing could be elicited from them, save the facts that the first and third mates had gone a little way inland together, and the former would seem to have come back _alone_; but yet that Derval was not specially missed till the boats were hoisted in; so Grummet and Hal Bowline felt sure there must have been some treachery at work, and that the most artful savage on Turtle Island had been Reeve Rudderhead, and the brutal indifference of the latter greatly exasperated them.

"What better could you expect of a fellow who was neither man nor boy, sojer nor sailor?" growled Rudderhead. "A lubber he was--always reading when he should have been knotting, splicing, and learning to box the compass."

Reading was not to the speaker's taste, though grog was, and he drank it at night to keep out the cold, by day to cure the heat, never sipping it, "but shipping it in bulk, at a mouthful," so Joe Grummet said.

But now, regrets for Derval apart, active work was cut out for the crew of the _Amethyst_.

Thick as bees the dark natives seemed to be swarming around the shores of the bay; the alarm and muster of them seemed to be general, and more than a score of pretty large canoes, full of armed warriors, paddling the water into foam, howling like madmen, and all in a frantic state of activity, shot out of mangrove creeks and other places where they would seem to have been concealed, and very soon the ship was nearly environed with them.

The small arms were all distributed by this time, the guns cast loose and shotted with grape, the ports triced up, and the watch on deck were ordered to prepare for sea. The courses were let fall, the topsails half-hoisted, and the ship was sheered to her anchor, _i.e._ steered towards it while weighing, so as to keep the wind and current ahead, and thus lessen the friction on the hawse-pipe.

If the intentions of these people were hostile, which Captain Talbot and his crew never doubted, they were not immediately aggressive, but continued to paddle round and round the ship, coming as near as they dared, as they had probably been fired upon by other vessels and knew the effect of cannon and musketry.

The windlass bars were all shipped, but there was a great and altogether unexpected delay in getting the anchor a-trip or even roused. The flukes seemed to hold on to something, and for a time the bars were vainly strained in the grasp of the seamen, but "the main piece," or beam of the windlass, remained immovable on its iron spindles, and the oaths and execrations of Mr. Rudderhead, who, in his anxiety, began to think of slipping the cable, were loud and bitter. The mouth of the bay was becoming well-nigh blocked up by canoes, and the minds of all on board the _Amethyst_ were full of those stories which ever and anon the public prints give, of the wholesale massacre of ships' crews by savages in the isles of the South Sea.

To intimidate them Captain Talbot ordered a 9-pounder, loaded with a blank cartridge, to be fired; but like blank firing on a mob at home, this precisely made matters worse, for even while the echoes of the gun pealed over the water, seeing no effect followed, the savages uttered screams of defiance and pulled closer, with the evident intention of boarding, and arrows began to whizz over the ship, or stick quivering into her sides and deck every instant.

At that instant the clanking of the windlass pawls was heard, a welcome sound; the anchor was roused, "up-torn, reluctant from its oozy bed," and was seen dripping a-cockbill at the cat-head. The topsails were fully hoisted and the courses sheeted home, but there was very little wind, so the ship's progress was slow, and the arrows were flying faster than ever. Captain Talbot had his cheek laid open by one, and three of the crew were more or less wounded, one by a barbed reed, which cost Dr. Strang the greatest trouble to extract, and perceiving that the strangers were taking to flight emboldened the pursuers who came so close that they were endeavouring to reach the side plates and chains.

"Depress the guns to port and starboard, fire wherever these devils are thickest, and blaze away the small-arm men," cried Captain Talbot, whose face was streaming with blood.

The savages, their canoes huddled close together, jostling and crashing side by side, were now nearly all within pistol-range: thus the effect of the double broadside, together with a sputtering fire from the breechloading rifles over the gunnel, had a terrific effect upon them. The simultaneous roar of the 9-pounders burst like thunder over the waters of the bay; for a brief space the vessel was shrouded in smoke, and amid it the crew could hear that the defiant war-yells had given place to those of terror, rage, and agony.

As the light smoke curled up through the rigging, or went ahead with the wind, and the guns were drawn in for reloading, a scene of terrible devastation became visible. Many of the canoes were dashed to pieces and floated in fragments on the water, clutched desperately by hands that had relinquished the bow, the spear, or the war-club. Other canoes were riddled and sinking with all on board. Scores of black heads were bobbing about like fishermen's floats, and all around the _Amethyst_ the clear blue water of the bay was streaked with blood.

The groans and gurglings of the wounded and dying who floated about were somewhat heart-sickening.

"Cease firing the guns," cried the Captain, "but pick off any scoundrel within range of the small arms."

Thus from the waist and quarter on both sides a desultory fire was maintained; most deliberate were the aims taken at any black head that appeared, for the crew had been thoroughly alarmed and exasperated. Just as the ship got clear of the bight or little bay, and the wind began to freshen, a most singular act of retribution took place.

As the guns and ports were being made fast, Reeve Rudderhead chanced--for what reason or by what impulse he knew not--to look over the side, when he perceived just beneath him a savage crouching in the main chains dripping with blood from a wound in his throat, and while hopeless of mercy, fearing to trust himself to the water while the deadly rifles were in activity over his head. Finding himself discovered, quick as thought, with deadly and unerring hand, he launched a spear at the first mate's head, and leaping into the water was seen no more.

The lance, which had a small barbed head, went right through the two cheeks of Mr. Rudderhead, who uttered a howl of rage and anguish, as he rushed back fairly "spritsail-yarded," as the sailor's said, and with his mouth so full of blood that he was soon speechless and well-nigh choked, for a labial artery had been cut, and when Dr. Strang removed the lance, by first sawing off its head, the hæmorrhage was so great that the crew began to think--if they did not precisely hope--that the wounded man would "slip his cable."

The wounds were dressed, a good horn of grog was next given him, and he was tucked into his berth, where, doubtless, his reflections would be of a somewhat mingled character. His visage had received a double wound, which, though he had not much beauty to mar, would render him unpleasant to look upon for the remainder of his life. He had no compunction for his treacherous conduct to Derval, even in the least degree, and he was chiefly occupied in surmising whether he had killed him outright, or if the savages were--like most of the South Sea islanders--cannibals, what they might do if they found him dead or alive; and, lastly, whether Mrs. Hampton would "come down handsomely" on learning that she was--as her letter had it--rid of him; then he savagely cursed his present plight, and lay growling on his pillow, while the breeze freshened and sail was made on the ship, and ere night fell upon the sea Turtle Island was out of sight.

And now to record the retribution referred to!

The arrow-wounds of Captain Talbot and others progressed most favourably under Dr. Strang's skilful treatment; but whether it was that the blood of Rudderhead was in an unhealthy state, or that the spearhead had been poisoned, it was difficult to discover, as the hurts he had received, so far from healing, grew daily worse and worse. His agony increased till it drove him to madness; he could neither eat nor drink. His face swelled up and became discoloured until he was something frightful to look upon, and times there were when his groans, prayers, and imprecations rang through the whole ship, and chilled the very souls of the men in the watches of the night.

To Dr. Strang it was soon evident that he was dying; but he had much vitality in him, and died hard, in his latter hours raving of the scuttled ship or the stowaway, of Derval Hampton, and many other persons and events. The wind was blowing a heavy and increasing gale, and the _Amethyst_ was scudding under close-reefed topsails, in a perilous and chopping sea, when Rudderhead passed away, clutching the Captain's hands, as if he could retain him in this world, and passed from it, impenitent for the past, yet hopeless of the future; and the fiat of the doctor was that the ship could not be too soon rid of his remains.

At that crisis the brevity of even a funeral at sea was dispensed with, and he was thrown overboard to leeward, into the trough of an angry midnight sea, with four 9-pound shot at his heels--buried precisely as he had buried the poor stowaway boy, without a prayer, finding a grave "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."

As if his departure had been awaited for by the spirit of the storm, the latter lulled rapidly, and, when day broke, the cheerful cry of "Land ahead!" announced that the bold and rocky south-west cape of Tasmania was only ten miles distant, and bearing north-east, with the mountains, snow-capped ate that season, in the back-ground.

Next day saw the _Amethyst_ working through D'Encastreaux's Channel, sixteen miles eastward of it, to her safe anchorage off Hobart Town, from whence the mail took home the intelligence of Derval Hampton's fate on Turtle Island. The fight with the natives there formed a passing newspaper paragraph, and, so far as he was concerned, there was an end of it.

When Greville Hampton--that sorely-changed man, whose god had become gold--heard of his eldest son's miserable fate, "some natural tears he shed," as memory went back to the little golden-haired boy that was wont to nestle at Mary's knee, in the little cottage which was as much a thing of the past as herself. Master Rookleigh Hampton heard of it with perfect philosophy, as became, he thought, a lad of his years; and Mrs. Hampton, as in duty bound, put on, for as brief a period as decency required, a most becoming suit of mourning. But there was one who, when he read of the event while glancing over the newspaper, really sorrowed for Derval--Lord Oakhampton, who, when he looked at his happy little daughter in her budding beauty, and thought of what might have been, and how nearly he lost her, could not but regret the untimely fate of the brave young sailor to whom he owed her life and safety, and said much to her on the subject that made the gentle girl feel deeply.

Four more years passed on, and the name and existence of Derval Hampton became almost forgotten in his father's house, or was, perhaps, remembered chiefly by his nurse, old Patty Fripp.

By that time Rookleigh, strangely precocious, had become--in his sixteenth year--almost a man ere boyhood was past, and during that part of his career, he showed indeed how "the child is the father of the man." Greedy, avaricious, like Mr. Ralph Nickleby (in _his_ youth) he was wont to lend to his companions and schoolfellows halfpence to be repaid by pence, and so forth; and his disposition was further largely leavened with cruelty, which seemed born in him, and bade defiance to all remonstrance. Servants, horses, dogs, and even insects felt its virulence, and when Mr. Asperges Laud spoke reprehensively on the subject, his mother would merely urge that "he was just like other boys," and that all boys are cruel. And already in his sixteenth year, by the influence of companions, though selfish and avaricious to a degree, he, through the medium of billiards, cards, and a betting-book, was utterly wasting the time during which he was waiting for the rent-roll which his mother assured him must one day be his. He was tall, well-made and well-featured, for both his parents were handsome, but the expression of his face, particularly of his shifty green eyes--for they were less golden-hazel in tint than those of his mother--proved unpleasant to all who knew him, and indicated a great latent spirit of evil and malevolence.

In the succession of his tutors, in the society with which he mingled, and in all his surroundings, Rookleigh Hampton had a thousand advantages that the unfortunate Derval had never known, yet with them all he did not eventually make a particular figure amid the circle in which he moved.

Though lavish enough in his expenditure upon himself, and even on those who flattered him, ministered unto him, and made life lively and pleasant by pandering to his weaknesses, the leading features of his character were gross selfishness and avarice or acquisitiveness, all of which he seemed to have inherited from his mother, or through the force of his father's latter thoughts, and were thus, to the manner, born in him.

As when poor Derval sailed on his fatal voyage, Greville Hampton might be found daily in his luxurious library, settling mortgages, signing contracts, adjusting ground-rents, buying up land and old manor-houses to remodel or remove for new ones--up to the eyes among deeds and papers, with old Mr. Stephen De Murrer, the family solicitor, a denizen of Gray's Inn, who about this time began to exert himself anew in the peerage claim of his lucrative employer, and eventually visited Lord Oakhampton, at his house in Tyburnia, on the subject.

Proud and haughty by nature, though a scrupulously well-bred and most aristocratic-like man, his lordship could be very cold and repellent to those he disliked; thus his reception of the stout and deliberate old lawyer, when the latter was ushered into the stately drawing-room overlooking the park, was neither soothing nor encouraging.

"You are a bold fellow, Mr.--oh--Mr.----"

"De Murrer," said the lawyer, bowing.

"Yes--a bold fellow, sir, to come to me personally on this subject, of which I admit having heard before--a claim to my hereditary peerage by this whilom spendthrift--obscure beggar, and latterly successful speculative builder! Absurd, sir! The matter has no face upon it--won't hold water," continued Lord Oakhampton, scornfully; "and anyway, I beg to refer you to my solicitors at Gray's Inn."

"If, my Lord--if the assumption that your great ancestor was summoned by mistake to the House of Peers, in the reign of Queen Anne, is proved--and it is also proved that the real heir was then in existence--the heir from whom my client is descended--what then, my Lord?"

Mortification, exasperation, and pride made the haughty heart of Lord Oakhampton thrill painfully, and he listened to this, and much more that the little lawyer had to advance, as one in a dream. The flies buzzed about the flowers in a magnificent jardiniere; a French clock ticked monotonously on the mantelpiece; and the busy life of London outside, went on as a ceaseless stream; but he felt as if all this evil were about to happen, not to himself, but to someone else, in the confusion and irritation of his mind.

"We shall suppose this peculiar claim made good and clear in law, Mr.--Mr.----"

"De Murrer," suggested the lawyer, blandly.

"What would be the result?"

"Can you ask me?" said Mr. De Murrer; "most calamitous to your Lordship, I assure you."

"In what way, sir?"

"What way?"

"Don't repeat my words, sir!"

"With the title would go lands and estate, plate, pictures--everything, even to your household effects!"

Lord Oakhampton grew pale--very pale, yet less at the thought of himself than of his daughter, for the world was all before her yet. Rallying a little, he said:--

"You cannot think, Mr. De Murrer, that I will yield without a struggle--and a desperate one too!"

"Unquestionably not, my Lord; only----"

"Only what?" he asked, impatiently.

"With the solid and simple proofs we----"

"Proofs that must be submitted to the legal acumen and most searching analysis of my law advisers!"

"Indubitably, my Lord; yet the dates are, fortunately for us, not remote ones."

"Indeed!"

"Your Lordship's great-grandfather Derval, to whom a great mass of the estate came by marriage with the Mohuns, was called to the Upper House in the year of the Union with Scotland, 1707, and sat in the first British House of Lords, as the direct heir of Derval, Lord Oakhampton, who was forfeited under Edward IV., but was restored by Henry VII. for his service against the King of Scotland; yet your great-grandsire was so summoned in ignorance that his eldest brother, who had quarrelled with his family, was not dead, but was married, and settled in Bermuda, where he became ancestor, in the third degree, of Greville Hampton, now of Finglecombe."

"Intolerable dry-as-dust stuff this!" exclaimed Lord Oakhampton, his pride and passion rising again. "Do you imagine that I am an entire committee of privileges, to listen to all this twaddle, and that the title that has come to me, through a long line of stainless ancestors, is to be disturbed by the outrageous pretensions of an obscure colonist's grandson. Moreover, sir, do you think that I am also unaware how men of your trade make it their business to rake up such claims if they can, and assume to guide the destinies of the rich and noble, as the means of bringing money to their own coffers?"

To this somewhat injurious speech, the little lawyer only shrugged his shoulders, and smiled deprecatingly, as he replied:

"I can easily understand, and well pardon, your Lordship's natural irritation at the prospect all this action-at-law involves; the loss of rank and position--wealth and political influence; your daughter, at her very entry into life and society, reduced, like yourself, to the condition of a commoner; the newspaper comments--the nine days' wonder of London; the sneers of the once servile, and the mockery of the malevolent, and of all who take a cruel delight in strange reverses of fortune; but I would beg of you to think over the matter to be contended; for the mere announcement that not only was your title about to be contested, but your property litigated, would bring any creditors you have, like a swarm of hornets on you."

Mr. De Murrer now took his hat and departed, certain that this Parthian shot was the heaviest and sharpest he had fired; and sooth to say, my Lord Oakhampton felt and knew it to be so!

His alarm, however, and infinite anxiety, rather died away when delays ensued consequent to the disappearance or alleged death of Derval, and still more by the sudden demise of Greville Hampton, who was found lifeless at his desk one afternoon, when at his usual task of calculating and speculating.

The bulk of all his fortune he left by will to Rookleigh, while Mrs. Hampton was handsomely provided for during her life. The sum of £500 per annum was set apart for Derval, in case he was ever heard of; if not within a given time, it reverted to Rookleigh.

So Greville Hampton was dead, and Rookleigh stood at the head of his grave as chief mourner; but he was not laid by Mary's side in the pretty little churchyard where for ages, yea since Saxon times, "the rude forefathers of the hamlet sleep." No, no; Mrs. Hampton took care of that; so he was deposited in the new and pretentious mausoleum of Cornish granite, in the fashionable cemetery of "the new and rising watering-place of Finglecombe," where a special spot was reserved for herself.

In the matter of the peerage claim, Mrs. Hampton would have left nothing undone, of course, to urge Mr. De Murrer in advancing the interests of her well-beloved son Rookleigh; but just about the time of her husband's death, something occurred which led to a change in her mind, or to indifference on the subject, and this "something" proved to be tidings of--Derval!