CHAPTER X.

PEDRO'S WOUND.

All the few who could work on board the _Hermione_--seven in number--to wit, Captain Phillips, and his second mate, Mr. Foster, Morley Ashton, Tom Bartelot, and his mate, Morrison, Doctor Heriot, and Noah Gawthrop, now became foremast-men, and had to work hard in putting the long-neglected ship in some order. Thus, they became riggers, painters, ship-carpenters, and everything else in turn.

Morley and the doctor were invaluable in the use of the hammer and saw, and in plaiting sinnet of rope or spunyarn, and in assisting to get better jury spars rigged, spare sails bent, and new chafing clapped on back and forestays, or wherever necessary.

The pumps were first attended to, and all the debris flung into the cabin by the mutineers was cleared out, the shot replaced round the coamings of the hatchway, the hatchway itself reclosed, and battened down; the buckets were hung again at the break of the quarter-deck, ropes were coiled over the belaying-pins, spare spars were lashed alongside, and everything was tidied fore and aft, and made as shipshape as the small number of workers and their circumstances would permit; even the scuttle-butt was lashed again to its ring-bolts on deck, and the captain's spyglass and gutta-percha trumpet placed on their brass cleats in the companion-way.

All the rubbish accumulated during the disorderly reign of the mutineers was thrown overboard; the head-pump was rigged, and the deck, after being deluged with water, was cleanly swabbed up. All this unwonted work caused an unusual quantity of pale ale to be consumed, together with more than one case of Mr. Basset's still Cliquot and sparging Moselle, which had escaped the investigations of Pedro and his compatriots.

Noah was installed as cook, and Heriot had to take his "trick" at the wheel with the rest--in fact, no one could be excused anything. All worked with hearty good-will, and not without anxiety, knowing that if a gale blew, or a sudden squall came on, they would have to reduce the sails in succession, and not at once, as the emergency of the occasion might require.

By mid-day Rose Basset, with a shawl pinned over her braided hair, and old Nance Folgate, in a straw bonnet of wonderful fashion and size, sat smiling and wondering at all this, under the awning on the quarter-deck.

Even Ethel, pale, anxious, and tremulous, ventured to leave the bedside of her father, who was progressing favourably, and once more inhaled, for a few minutes, the sea-breeze. She found it delightful after the close atmosphere of the cabin for so many days; but she was rather startled to see Morley out on the arm of the mainyard, astride above the deep, with his shirt-sleeves rolled up, and a hank of spun-yarn between his teeth, as he was busy, in a most workmanlike way, about the weather-earing of the mainsail. After a time, however, she ceased to feel either wonder or alarm at Morley's feats of seamanship.

Again the life of the vessel, though so slenderly manned, seemed to be resumed; once more the log-line was hove from time to time; daily the meridian was taken, half-hourly the bell was clanged, and the log-book was kept regularly. If less than half-handed, the large ship was now considerably under-rigged; yet the duty of watch and watch by night and day became pretty severe.

All the weapons in the cabin, together with those taken from the marooned crew, were cleaned by Noah, and put in order, with ammunition made up for them, as the savages along the seaboard of the coast of Madagascar were not to be trifled with by the crew of a half-manned ship; and the warning the officer of the corvette gave, concerning the three piratical boats, was remembered with some anxiety from time to time as an alarming and dangerous contingency.

Mr. Foster entered in the log a full narrative of all the late events, for the information of the owners, and of the civil authorities of the first British port--Port Louis all devoutly hoped it would be--at which they might arrive.

He inserted a list of the crew who were set adrift, with all the cogent reasons therefor, and these statements were duly attested by the signatures of all on board. Thereto even Rose's pretty hand appended her signature, and Nance Folgate added "her X mark."

In addition to his new duties as seaman, Leslie Heriot had his two patients, and often Ethel, to attend upon, as her health had suffered considerably by the successive terrors her mind had undergone of late.

Mr. Basset progressed, as we have said, favourably; but so slowly that it was impossible to say when he might be able to leave his bed, so terrible was the shock his system had sustained; but Pedro Barradas lived longer than the doctor had foretold, and more than once had cooling drinks and possets given him from Ethel's own hands. Such men as Pedro take a long time to die, and Ethel, gentle and forgiving, had no fear of him now.

Dr. Heriot, on the night the ship was recaptured, moved alike by that compassion in which his noble profession is seldom deficient, and by the poor wretch's repeated entreaties that he would dress his wound--_por amor del Madre de Dios! por amor del Maria Santissima!_--examined him carefully, and found it necessary to amputate his right arm above the elbow.

With great _sang froid_, Noah, who received the limb, carried it on deck, and tossed it overboard to leeward.

Heriot then gave Pedro a soothing draught, to procure him sleep, and at length he slept, but with the seal of death upon his features, for mortification had set in. When awake, he endured an excess of remorse, and fear of his approaching end, which nearly drove him mad.

"_A padre--a padre, por amor del Santo de los Santos!_" was his constant and piercing cry, that, according to the religion which he had professed in youth, he might not die unconfessed and unabsolved; and his cries of despair at times reached the ears of Mr. Basset, in the after portion of the ship.

Ere this, an observation had been taken by both Captain Phillips and Tom Bartelot, who was an equally good navigator; and, on comparing their notes and working, they found that Pedro had steered so well by the stars at night in the course he had intended to pursue, that the ship was far up the Mozambique Channel, and was then about south latitude 21.8 deg., which made all those who knew anything of the locality deem it almost miraculous that the vessel, which had been so ill watched, had not been cast away in the night on the Europa Rocks, or some other of those treacherous reefs and little islands that stud all the channel, but more especially along the western coast of Madagascar--the Great Britain of Africa, as it has been named.

To put the ship about, and to beat to windward, against the south-west monsoon, for nearly 400 miles, until he could double Cape St. Mary, the most southern point of that long island, and then haul up for St. Louis, in the Mauritius, was the plan at once decided upon by Captain Phillips; and the evening of the second day saw the crippled _Hermione_, running close-hauled, under all the fore-and-aft canvas he could set upon her, making a long tack towards the coast of Africa, while a tropical sun, that crimsoned sea and sky, sunk amidst clouds of flame in the north-western corner of the horizon.

In one of these long tacks, they saw the Europa Rocks, which looked like a long, low island, with clouds of sea-birds wheeling over it in mid-air, like gnats against the amber-tinted morning sky; but, happily, as yet, they saw nothing of the three red proas, which they heard the officer of the _Clyde_ mention, in conjunction with these rocky islets which lie in the centre of the channel.

Noah, when cleaning out the forecastle bunks--in more than one of which were traces of blood--found some withered daisies. These he brought to Heriot, who gave them, with some complimentary remark, to Ethel, and an exclamation of surprise escaped him when he saw her kiss them, and, while her eyes filled with tears, place them tenderly between the leaves of her Bible; for they were those gathered by her on that dear grave in Acton churchyard, and torn from her breast on that night of terror by the fierce hand of Pedro Barradas--that man, so long a source of terror and aversion, now helpless and gentle as a child in their hands.