Part 3

The next minute the "Morning Star" was racing towards the rocks. Roger could distinguish people standing on the shore. A sudden shock was felt, the ship, striking on a rock, quivered, stopped short for a brief instant, then heeled over, and was sucked into the depths below. Roger was swept away on the crest of a huge wave; but he felt an arm clutching him, and in the moment before he lost all knowledge of things, saw the Captain's pale, dauntless face close to his own. They were whirled on together by the torrent of heaving water, which closed over their heads.

After long ages, so it seemed to the boy, he woke again, coming back to life slowly. A Spanish woman was looking at him earnestly, and by her side stood Long Andrew. When Roger was sufficiently recovered to hear what had happened, he found that he and Andrew were the only ones who had been saved. Some of the fishermen had rushed into the surf, and dragged out himself and Captain Firebrace, who had been swept through the opening between the rocks, fast locked together. But the pirate Captain had been battered against the rock, and when they drew him out, he was dead.

It would take too long to relate Roger's adventures before he reached his home, which he eventually did. Long Andrew kept to himself the fact that the wrecked ship was the redoubtable "Morning Star," and when he took service again, it was in a more honest way. One thing Roger learned from him, namely that Firebrace was an assumed name, not the pirate captain's true one.

"He was Devonshire born, same as you and me," said Andrew, "and I believe he hailed from Paignton. Otherwise, my lad, likely you'd ha' been given a berth in Davy Jones's locker, 'stead of on the 'Morning Star.'"

Sheila Braine.

How a Drummer Boy Saved a Regiment by G. A. Henty

"ARE you tired, Tommy?" a soldier asked a little drummer boy who was seated on a rock watching a regiment that had just fallen out preparing to bivouac. It was a newly-arrived corps, and had come up from the coast by forced marches to join the army which, having won the battle of Vittoria, was now engaged at various points among the Pyrenees with the enemy, who were trying to bar their passage.

Tommy Pearson was the youngest member of the regiment, being but eleven years old. His father had been the drum-major of the corps, and Tommy was a general favourite, and at his father's death, three weeks before the regiment left England, the colonel was asked by a deputation from the men to allow Tommy to accompany them, promising that he should be no trouble on the march. Young though he was, the boy could handle the drumsticks as well as many of those years older than himself, and the colonel, after some hesitation, granted the request, saying to the major: "One can always find a place on one of the baggage-wagons for him; his weight will make no difference one way or the other to the team; he is a bright little chap, and we may consider him a legacy to the regiment from his father, whom we all liked and respected."

So Tommy, to his great elation, was permitted to go. For the last three years he had, although not on the strength of the regiment, marched in uniform like the other drummers, and many an exclamation of amusement or admiration had been uttered as the little chap walked stiff and upright in the front rank.

The promise the men had given had been carried out on the long march from the sea-coast. Tommy had each morning for some miles marched with the band, and when he had to give up, which he never did until absolutely unable to go farther, he was hoisted on to the top of a baggage-wagon, or, if these happened to be far in the rear, his drum would be taken by one of the buglers, and the boy himself would be carried by the soldiers in turn. During the latter part of the journey he had seldom been obliged to give in, but had manfully struggled on till the regiment reached the end.

"I am a bit tired," he said; "but that doesn't matter. It has been a long march and very much up hill, but it has been cooler than it was, and I could go a mile or two farther, though I don't say I wasn't glad to stop."

The regiment, which now formed part of a column consisting of a brigade of infantry, cavalry regiments, and a battery of artillery, had bivouacked on a plateau a quarter of a mile from the road, which here passed through a defile.

As soon as the men had fallen out, they scattered in search of dried bushes that would afford firewood. The baggage-wagons had not come up, and it would be an hour or two before the bullocks which followed them would arrive; but the men had the day before had three days' rations of cooked meat and bread served out to them, and were therefore independent of the train. Tommy, after a rest of half an hour; joined the other drummer boys, and, after eating his ration, wandered about among the soldiers, most of whom had some cheery remark to make to him.

"I expect, Tommy," one said, "it won't be long before we catch sight of the French, and then we shall have bullets whistling about our ears. You will have a better chance than the rest of us, seeing that you offer such a small mark."

"Tommy will be safe enough," said another; "I expect he will be told off to wait for the baggage and to help to give the wounded water."

"I shall be where the others are," the boy said sturdily; "now that I can do a day's march all right, I can go into a fight with the other fellows."

"The other fellows won't go into the fight, Tommy; in the first place they would be in the way, and in the second place all who are big enough will be stretcher-carriers; those who are too small for that will be stowed somewhere out of harm's way. What would you do if a French grenadier came at you?"

"I don't suppose I could do much," the boy said; "but if he was a brave man, he would not try to hit me."

"Right you are, Tommy: no soldier would care to massacre an innocent: it is only a chance shot you need be afraid of. There is one thing: if by accident you did get near the enemy, you would only have to stand behind a good-sized man to be perfectly safe."

The boy laughed. "Well, we shall see, Jones. I don't know what a fight is like yet or how I shall feel; but I don't suppose that I shall be more frightened than anyone else."

After their long march and the prospect of another the next day, the troops were glad to wrap themselves in their cloaks and lie down as soon as darkness came on, especially as but little brushwood had been found and the fires were already burning low. After the heat of the plains they felt the cool mountain air, and grumbled that the baggage with the tents had not come up. Tommy, although he had chosen a place in the shelter of the rock, found the cold bitter, and as soon as it was dawn got up and stamped his feet to set the blood in circulation.

"Very likely we may not have a long march to-day," he said; "and anyhow, I would rather be tired than be as cold as I am at present." In about half an hour the camp was beginning to stir.

"I will go for a little walk," he said; "they will be an hour or two before they fall in. I may as well take my drum with me: then I shall be ready when the bugle sounds."

It was broad daylight now, and, putting the strap of the drum behind his shoulder, he started. Other soldiers were already moving about outside the ground they occupied in search of firewood, and the sentries paid no to him. The plateau extended for some little distance, and then terminated at the foot of a sharp ascent of rocky ground. The boy climbed up to a small ledge and then sat down to look around. From the point where he seated himself he was only five or six hundred yards from the camp, and, although he could not see it, he knew that he should hear the first sound of the bugle. Looking down into the defile he saw that it ran steeply up, and noticed that it forked a little in advance of him, and that another road joined the one in the defile.

In a few minutes he saw a general officer closely followed by two light dragoon officers and accompanied by a peasant ride along a plateau similar to that occupied by the regiment, and facing him on the other side of the defile. Some fifty yards in their rear were two mounted orderlies. The general stopped when nearly opposite Tommy, and the peasant was evidently explaining to him the nature of the road, the difficulties to be met with, and the direction in which it bore after crossing the crest of the hills. The boy instinctively slipped off the ledge on which he was sitting and seated himself behind a rock, and thence watched the proceedings of the party, who were some three hundred yards from him. The wall of the defile was there very steep indeed, almost perpendicular, and from the spot where the general had halted, a few yards from its edge, he could not see the road immediately beneath him.

Suddenly the boy saw a troop of cavalry emerge from the other road. Thinking that the cavalry had sent out scouting parties, he paid but little attention to them. Behind them came a battery of artillery, with infantry marching in single file on either side of them. Suddenly an idea occurred to him and he leapt to his feet. Surely these were not English soldiers! they might be the Spaniards! He watched them until the cavalry were nearly abreast of him; then, as a battalion of infantry followed the guns, he saw a flag that he recognised: it was the enemy. His own regiment had led the way, and the other three regiments of the brigade were encamped some three miles away. He started to run back; then an idea struck him and he seized his drumsticks and beat the alarm. As he hurried along, glancing across the ravine, he saw one of the officers with the general leap from his horse and, going to the edge, look down into the ravine. Then the general galloped forward until he came to the edge of the gorge through which the French were marching. He and his companions dismounted and went forward a few steps, evidently to obtain some idea of the strength of the enemy.

Tommy could now see the camp: bugles were sounding the assembly, and the men hastily ran in. The alarm had been given, and, slinging his drum behind him, he ran forward. As he did so, he saw the colonel ride out to the edge of the plateau, which was three hundred yards from the spot where the troops were falling in. A single glance sufficed, and he galloped back, shouting as he did so, and, without waiting for the men to form up, led them back. Those who arrived first at the edge of the descent had at once opened fire upon the troop of French cavalry; the rest as they arrived were hastily formed up, and the two flank companies dashed down the steep descent and flung themselves upon the battery, while the rest, lining the whole edge of the ravine, opened a murderous fire upon the French infantry.

These replied, but in some confusion, for they had no idea that the British had already ascended the pass, and had anticipated taking up a position near its mouth to prevent them doing so. The attack on the guns was completely successful, and the cavalry, of whom many had been killed from the first fire, had turned their horses and galloped back, carrying the thin line of infantry before them and spreading confusion among the artillery. These knowing that the infantry brigade would bar their retreat and would speedily come up to their assistance, fought stoutly, but were unable to withstand the impetuous assault of the British infantry. The struggling horses and the guns completely blocked the ravine, and the infantry, falling fast under the fire from above, were unable to make their way through them. They were wholly unaware of the strength of their enemy, and, although their officers succeeded in restoring something like order and leading parties up the steep ascent, they were unable to withstand the fire to which they were exposed, and in a short time the trumpets sounded the retreat. Just as they did so, the general, who had ridden back to point where he could gain the road and ascend the other side, rode up.

"I congratulate you, colonel," he said; "you have given them a smart check. As far as I can judge, there must be close on five thousand men, and if they had taken that strong position lower down, where a bridge crosses a torrent, we should have had hard work to dislodge them, and should certainly have suffered heavily in doing so. They can have had no idea that we had pushed up the pass; if they had persevered, they would have put you off altogether. I was in ignorance that the side road came in here: these Spanish maps are altogether untrustworthy, and the guide that I have with me answered my questions about the road ahead, but said nothing of the one coming down into it. It was well indeed that you posted that drummer in advance, though of course a sentry would have done as well. I see your men have taken all the guns of that battery."

"Yes, sir, it has been a very fortunate affair; but I certainly can take no credit to myself for the drummer being up that hill. Of course I had sentries round the camp and one placed so as to command a view of the road ahead and to warn us of any troops coming down the crest; but from its position he could not see down into the defile below. I knew nothing of that side road, or of course I should have placed a sentry to watch that also. During the night I had an outpost out on the road, but they marched in at daylight and either did not observe the other road or, at any rate, they made no report of its existence when they came in. How the drummer came to be out there is a mystery to me, and I was astonished at hearing the alarm beaten; there is no doubt that it saved the regiment, for, as you say, had the enemy passed the spot where we turned off to march up here we should have been completely cut off, though they would not have captured us without a sharp fight, for I should have known that the rest of the brigade would have come up to our assistance as soon as they heard the sound of firing." He turned to one of his officers: "Ask Sergeant Wilkins to come here."

The sergeant who was in charge of the drummers came up in two or three minutes.

"Sergeant, did you send a drummer out this morning?"

"No, sir; I should not have thought of doing such a thing without an order."

"Then who was it that beat the alarm?"

"That I cannot say, sir; they had not paraded this morning, so I do not know who was missing and I was amazed when I heard the alarm. I thought at first that it must be one of the lads who had taken his drum and had gone out to practise, though I could hardly imagine how any one of them could have ventured to do so and to risk causing an alarm."

"Weil, parade them here."

In a few minutes they paraded before the colonel.

"Which of you was it that gave the alarm?" the latter asked.

Tommy stepped forward and saluted. "Please, sir, I did."

The colonel and the general both smiled. "But how came you to be out there?" the former asked.

"I was so cold, sir, that I could not sleep, so I got up and walked about till the soldiers began to go out to look for firewood, and I thought that I would go out too."

"But, in that case, why did you take your drum?"

"I took it, sir, so that if I heard the bugle sound I could run straight back and take my place with the others. I was sitting down when I saw the French come running into the road. I did not know that they were French at first; I saw that they were not our men, but I thought they might be Spaniards till I saw a French flag among the infantry, and then I thought the quickest way was to beat the alarm."

"You did very well," the general said kindly; "if it hadn't been for you a whole regiment would have been captured, to say nothing of myself. Why, colonel, how is it that such a brat as this should be in the regiment?"

The colonel gave him the reasons for which he had brought the boy. "The men are all fond of him," he said, "and he has certainly kept his promise that he should be no trouble. At first he could not keep up with the marches, and was either perched on a baggage-wagon when he could go no farther, or if the baggage was all in the rear of the brigade they would take him on their backs; but for the last week he has managed to keep up well."

"He must be a sharp little beggar," the general said; "it is not every boy of his age that would have thought of beating the alarm, and every minute was of importance. Well, lad, you have begun well," he said, "and should turn out a smart soldier some day. Of course I shall report the matter to Lord Wellington. He is a man who does not forget things, and I have no doubt that if your colonel is able when you are old enough to recommend you for a commission, what you have done to-day will go a long way towards your obtaining it."

It may well be imagined that after this Tommy's popularity in the regiment greatly increased, and there was much grief when he was wounded at the battle of Toulouse. He recovered, however, and drummed his hardest when the regiment advanced for a final attack upon the Old Guard on the field of Waterloo. Six years later he obtained a commission, and commanded the regiment in which he had once been a drummer boy at the hard-fought battles of the campaign which terminated with the conquest of the Punjaub in 1845-6.

Never Trust a Stream

THE thunder had roared up in the hills where the old engine-houses stood ruined and bare against the sky, and the lightning twice over flickered out of the black clouds and seemed to play round the grey granite stones, before down came the rain like a thick mist and blotted everything out.

And all the time down in the lowland toward the sea it was a brilliant summer's day—"perfect weather," Sydney Lee's father said, "for July."

Linny, Syd's sister, brightened up, for she had looked solemn and disappointed. Syd was at home for the midsummer holidays, and brother and sister were making the best of them. In fact, there was a project on that day, planned by Syd. It had something to do with the little punt lying in the stream which turned the waterwheel which in turning worked the stamps used for crushing the tin ore brought up out of the deep mine by the men working under Syd's father, who was the manager to the mining company, and lived in one of the prettiest houses that a Cornish valley could show.

But that project had something to do as well with little trout which hid under the stones in the clear water, and under wildflowers on the bank, and possibly with a late nest of a certain dipper which Syd had seen flitting about, like a great black-and-white cock-tailed wren gifted with the power of walking about and swimming under water to catch beetles and other insects, and looking all the time as if its black jacket was dotted with pearls, which rolled off and proved to be air-bubbles, as soon as it came to land.

But there were endless things to see in the swift little stream that ran by Huel Vro, and Linny saw them so much better when she had Syd with her to pole the punt along, and catch jack, or wade for the various treasures they found.

So they were off on the expedition when the storm came on, made a tremendous fuss in the hills miles distant, and then began to die away.

"What a glum face!" cried the manager. "I believe there are tears ready to come."

"No, no, Papa, I won't cry," said Linny; "but it is so disappointing, and Syd's holidays are so short."

"All the sweeter while they last, Lin," said the manager. "There, cheer up; the storm is passing along the hills. Be off with you. Not a drop of rain will fall this side."

"Oh!" cried Linny joyously, and she made a spring at her father to reward him for his good news, while he helped her by jumping her up breast-high.

"Going to take the little punt, Syd?"

"Yes, father."

"Very well, but keep out of the dam."

"Oh, yes, father; of course."

"That's right. Then you cannot get into mischief."

The young folks dashed off past where the waterwheel was going and the stamps turning, while where the ore was being washed below the stream ran red and thick, but upward beyond the house it was clear as crystal.

The punt, which was like a washing-tub grown out of knowledge, lay in a shallow tied to a post, and Syd ran into the carpenter's shop, where the man who did the repairs to the mine machines good-humouredly took out his saw from the tool-basket, cut a short board in two, and gave it to the boy for seats. These two were carried down to the punt and placed across fore and aft, after Syd had waded in to draw the punt ashore. Linny jumped in and took her place forward, Syd lifted the short pole which lay in the bottom, and then began to thrust the boat along through the shallow water, in and out among the pieces of granite which half filled the bed of the stream, and, after getting aground at least a dozen times, Syd managed to get up to the most beautiful part of the tiny river, where the fishing and flower-gathering began.

Syd had the former all to himself, for, as he said, it was not girl's work to wade about, sometimes knee-deep, and get your arms wet feeling under ledges and among stones for tiny trout.

"You get your flowers," he said, and to help his sister he thrust the boat head in here and there close under the rocky banks which ran straight up and often hung over in the shady places where the most beautiful flowers grew.

And so an hour of real delight passed away, with the clear water sparkling in the sunshine here, and turning dark there, where the ferns hung over the great stones which looked as if they had been built up like walls by giant hands.

"Oh, I am glad the storm did not come our way," said Linny, standing up to balance herself on her seat so as to reach up and pick at a cluster of purple loosestrife. "Oh!" she cried, springing down to crouch directly, for she nearly went overboard. Then, seeing her brother's mocking face where he stood with the water just gliding by the knees of his knickerbockers, "what a shame, Syd! you joggled the boat."

"I didn't," he said.

"You did, sir!"

"I didn't—only poked this end down a little."

"Well, it was a shame. You might have made me tumble in—splash."

"Never mind; I'd have spread you out on the hot stones there in the sun to dry. There, hold tight; I'm going to push the punt up higher. There isn't a trout here."

Linny gave her long yellow hair a shake, sending her straw hat into the bottom of the boat and her curls hanging loose all over her shoulders, as she took her place carefully so as to trim the boat, while Syd stepped in, took the pole once more, and sent the punt upstream a couple of hundred yards, before he laid down the little pole and began to look round for a likely place for a trout, while his sister's eyes wandered amongst the floral riches of the lofty fern-hung bank for the choicest flowers.

"I say, Lin," said Syd: "what's that?"

"That?"

"Yes: that grumbling noise."

"Thunder dying away in the hills," said the girl. "Push the boat to the other side. I want some of those orchids—out there in the sun."

But the boy did not speak; he sat down and began to look up toward the hills.

"I don't see any clouds over there," he said thoughtfully, "and yet that noise goes on. Here, Lin," he cried suddenly, and in an excited tone, "I'm going to push the boat in here. You jump out and climb up the bank."

"No," said the girl, "not yet. I want some of those orchids. Push the boat over there first."

"You do as I tell you," cried the boy firmly, and his brown face began to turn white. He stopped down to seize the pole, but he was too late, and dropped upon the seat in the stern again.