Buch lesen: «Athelstane Ford», Seite 4

“Well, and sure haven’t they provoked us enough by all their doings in America and the Indies, not to mention the battle of Fontenoy, which my own cousin Dennis helped them to win, more by token; though he got a bullet in his left arm before the fighting begun, and had to content himself with cheering while the others were at it.”

“That will do,” I said crossly, for I had heard of the battle of Fontenoy and his cousin Dennis before, and it was a sore point between us. Nor could I understand how a man who had the privilege of being born a British subject, though liable to the proper severities of the penal code against Papists, could traitorously desert his allegiance and take service with our natural enemies.

However, I learned nothing further of our destination till we reached the Nore, which we did about the end of the third day. Here we found the rest of the squadron awaiting us, and, the Talisman being the biggest ship in company, Admiral Watson immediately hauled down his pennant off the Victory, of fifty guns, and came aboard of us.

I was leaning over the chains with Sullivan when the barge came alongside, and could see a gentleman in the stern, sitting beside the Admiral, in a military uniform, and having a very resolute and commanding countenance.

“Who is that?” I asked.

“That? Why that’s Charlie Watson,” he replied, mistaking my meaning. “It’s myself that ought to know, for I sailed under him against the Spaniards in ’44, and a devil of a beating we gave them. Hooray!”

The cheer was taken up by the rest of the crew as they caught sight of this gallant seaman, who had been made Rear-Admiral of the Blue in his thirty-fifth year, and that without any influence at his back, but solely on account of his splendid services in the Spanish wars. Mr. Wilding, who had come up on deck to receive the Admiral, looked round very sourly when he heard the cheer, but was ashamed to openly rebuke us.

“Nay, but who is the other beside him,” I went on to ask, being strongly moved to interest by the sight of this gentleman. He appeared to be by some years junior to Mr. Watson, who was now somewhat over forty, but in spite of that, and of his treating the Admiral with much ceremony, there was that in the air of this officer which made an impression of authority, and which drew all eyes towards him as soon as they were arrived upon the quarterdeck.

Sullivan professed himself as ignorant as to the stranger’s identity as I was myself, nor was I near enough to hear what passed when Admiral Watson presented him to Mr. Wilding and the other officers. Nevertheless, I could see that they received him with extraordinary respect, even the captain seeming to brisk up and to put on a more manly carriage under this gentleman’s eye.

After giving one or two keen glances round the deck, which set us all on the alert, the officer walked quickly forward, and the whole party following him, they went below, immediately after which the signal for weighing anchor was made to the squadron, and the crew was set to work putting on all sail. In the midst of which business the report ran round the ship, and reached me I know not from what lips, that the passenger we had received on board was no other than the famous Mr. Robert Clive, who had just been created a lieutenant-colonel by the king, and whom we were carrying out to India to take up his government of Fort St. David in the Carnatic.

At this time, though Mr. Clive had not yet reached to that height of eminence which he afterwards attained, he was already known as one of the bravest Englishmen of his time, and I had heard from many quarters of his glorious exploits in the Indies. Although a civilian by profession, when the settlements of the East India Company in Madras were threatened with destruction by the French, he had exchanged his pen for a sword, and, with a mere handful of English and Sepoys, had captured and maintained the town of Arcot against a great army of the French and their allies, after which he had beaten them in many engagements, and in the end wrested the entire province of the Carnatic from their hands. Since then he had been in England, where he had stood for the Parliament, and, as it was thought, had given up all intentions of returning to Indostan. Now the news that we had him on board with us, and that he was on his way out, no doubt to drive the last remains of the French power from that quarter of the world, came on my ears like the summons of a trumpet, and went far to make me content with the accident that had thrown me in the way of the pressgang.

Mr. Griffiths, the lieutenant, who had continued to take some notice of me, for which I was not ungrateful, chanced to come by while I was full of these thoughts, and after confirming the news which I had heard, fell to talking with me about our cruise.

“You see I did you a good turn by bringing you off from that muddy fishing-hole,” he was pleased to observe presently. “Now you are likely to see some service, and, if luck serves, to bring home a good share of prize-money.”

By this time I had called to mind the sailing of the Fair Maid, and the destination of that passenger of hers, to see whom once more I would have given all the prize-money in the world.

“Are we like to make the Hooghley river, do you think, sir, when we get out to the Indies?” I ventured to ask.

“That’s as it may be,” he answered, friendly enough. “All I can tell you – for I believe this to be no secret – is that our first port in those seas is Bombay. And further, since we cannot attack the French till war breaks out, I may give you to know that our first business is to root out certain pirates that infest that coast, and who have their headquarters at the citadel of Gheriah, in the Morattoes’ country.”

I turned silent at this, remembering how I had heard the name of Gheriah pronounced between my cousin and Mr. Sims in the parlour of the “Three-decker”, and feeling a dreadful apprehension that I was to meet with the privateers (as they called themselves) in circumstances which I had little desired.

Eleven months later – for we were beset by contrary winds all round the continent of Africa, and put in at divers places on the way – we came to an anchor in the harbour of Bombay. And there, riding at a mooring under the very walls of the fort, the first vessel that I saw was the Fair Maid herself, looking as peaceful as if she had never fired a gun.

CHAPTER VI
IN THE POWER OF THE ENEMY

On our voyage outward one thing had occurred to me which, as it turned out afterwards, was to prove of very great consequence; this was my learning of the native Indian language.

Colonel Clive, who had never been at the pains to acquire it himself, had brought out in his train as secretary a Mr. Scrafton, who was well versed in the Indostanee, and who was obliging enough to offer to impart it to me, I having rendered him some services in the transcribing of his papers and accounts. Having much time on my hands on so long a voyage, I very thankfully accepted his proposal, though little then foreseeing the benefit I was to derive from it.

This connection between us brought me a good deal under the notice of Mr. Clive, who was several times pleased to address his conversation to me, and to inquire my name and what had brought me into that service.

When I told him I had run away from home he seemed not a little amused, though he affected to rebuke me.

“I perceive you are a young man of a reckless spirit,” he observed, but whether in irony or not I could not tell. “And pray what do you intend to do when we get to the Indies?”

“Why, sir,” I answered hardily, “as soon as war breaks out I mean to run away from the ship and enlist under your honour.”

“The devil you do!” he cried, a smile showing itself on his stern face. “Mr. Scrafton, do you hear my little purser here? I have a mind to report your speech to Mr. Sanders.”

But though he said this, I could see that he was not ill-pleased. And whether from that occasion or another, by the time our voyage was ended I was known all over the ship as Colonel Clive’s purser. And how proud the title made me I forbear to say, but I know that if Mr. Clive had ordered me to march into Delhi, and pluck the Great Mogul by the beard, I should have thought it a little thing to do.

The first thing I did after we had dropped our anchor was to beg for leave to go ashore, which Mr. Sanders granted with some difficulty. Mr. Griffiths was good enough to give me a place in the cutter, and as soon as we were landed I separated myself from the rest, and without staying to examine the curiosities of Bombay, which is a fine great city, built on an island, I procured a boatman to take me off privately to the Fair Maid.

The boatman I applied to was an Indian. He used me with wondrous civility, calling me Sahib, which is an oriental term of respect, and bowing before me to the very ground. When we were got into the boat, however, he proved but a poor oarsman, and indeed all the natives of that country seem but a feeble race, owing, no doubt, to their idolatrous religion, which forbids them to eat flesh.

We arrived at the stern of the Fair Maid without accident, but to my surprise I could see nobody on the deck. Bidding the Indian wait for me I scrambled on board without hailing, and proceeded to examine the cabin. I found this likewise to be deserted, and was beginning to think the vessel was empty when, on turning to come out, I found myself face to face with a dark man in a turban, bearing a naked scymetar in his hand, who had crept in behind me.

“Who are you?” I demanded, addressing him in Indostanee.

But he shook his head, for, as I was to find out, the Morattoes, to which nation he belonged, speak a different dialect of their own.

While I was considering what to do with him, since his behaviour was very threatening, I was greatly relieved by seeing an Englishman come in after him, who proved, indeed, to be no other than my old acquaintance, Trickster Tim.

The sight of me gave him a great shock, and at first I believe he mistook me for a spirit from the other world, which perhaps was not strange, considering that he had last seen me on the other side of the globe, and lying very near to death’s door.

I spoke him friendly, nothing doubting that he would be pleased to welcome a fellow-countryman.

“Well, Tim, how d’ye do, and how are all aboard the Fair Maid?”

As soon as he had heard my voice his apprehensions vanished. He gazed at me for a minute, as if undecided what to do, and then, putting on a smile, stepped forward and shook me by the hand.

“And how did you get here?” he asked. “We thought we had left you in Yarmouth.”

Not thinking any concealment needful, I told him my story, which he listened to very attentively. At the end he spoke some words to the Morattoe, who went out of the cabin.

“Sit down and make yourself comfortable,” he said to me. “Our men are all gone ashore, but the captain will come off presently and be right glad to see you safe again.”

“I can’t stay long,” I told him, “because I have only got leave for a couple of hours.”

At this he smiled a little queerly, but pulled out a bottle of rum and some glasses, and prevailed on me to take a drink with him. We sat thus for some time, talking, and he told me that the ship had been out there for more than a month, having escaped some of the headwinds we had had to contend with.

“And what of Mrs. Rising?” I said at last, for I had been shy of putting this question to such a man. “I understand she took passage with you.”

He grinned at this, rather maliciously.

“I thought you’d come to that,” he said. “I didn’t suppose it was for love of your comrades that you had come on board so quickly. As for Mistress Marian, she’s ashore, and for her address I may refer you to the captain when he finds you here.”

“The captain is rather slow in coming,” I observed, getting on to my feet. “I think I must be going ashore.”

With that I walked out of the cabin, Trickster Tim following at my heels. When I got on to the deck, I stared about me in dismay. Not a sign could I see of my boatman.

“What’s become of that fellow who brought me out?” I cried, turning to my companion.

The scoundrel laughed in my face.

“I sent word to him not to wait for you,” he coolly replied, “as I thought maybe you’d rather stay with us.”

“Rascal!” I shouted, taking him roughly by the arm. “What is the meaning of this villainy?”

“There’s the captain; you’d better ask him,” he answered.

And turning round as the sound of oars smote on my ears, I perceived a boat coming alongside, and seated upright in the stern the very man of all others whom I had never thought or wished to see again. It was my cousin Rupert.

He caught sight of me at the same moment, and a fierce scowl passed across his brow.

“Whom have you got there, Tim?” he called out, standing up in the boat to get a view of me.

“Mr. Ford, sir, purser’s assistant of his Majesty’s ship Talisman.”

At that moment the boat came alongside and my cousin leaped on to the deck, followed by four or five of the crew. He surveyed me with a glance of bitter hatred, mingled with triumph.

“So, cousin, I did not kill you after all! Never mind, I am glad you have remembered your old articles and are come to join us once more. We have lacked a cabin-boy since your desertion, and if his Majesty can spare you, we shall be glad of your services.”

I was too confounded to reply, or to take much heed of this mocking harangue. I had as firmly believed Rupert to be dead as, it seems, he had believed me. The truth, as I gathered it by degrees afterwards, seemed to be this: At the moment of my casting him out of the boat in which we had fought, the other boat was returning to find out what had been the result of the battle. They had first picked up Rupert out of the water, when he was on the point of death, and had then found me senseless, and to all appearance mortally wounded, where I had fallen. They carried us both back with them, and finding Rupert revived, had concealed him on the Fair Maid till she should sail. The boatswain, out of a kindness for me, and knowing the other’s vindictive nature, had persuaded him that it was impossible for me to recover, and so they had left me.

As soon as I was able to collect myself I demanded to have speech with Mr. Sims, the captain.

“You will meet with Mr. Sims where you are going,” retorted Rupert. “In the meantime any business you have with the captain of this vessel may be transacted with me.”

“Then I insist that you put me ashore instantly,” I said, with resolution. “Would you kidnap me under the very guns of his Majesty’s fleet?”

“Not so fast,” returned Rupert, keeping his temper, as he could afford to do, having the upper hand. “You have forgot your indentures, by which you are bound apprentice to the good ship Fair Maid, sailing under his Majesty’s letters of marque and commission.”

“Under a forged commission,” I retorted hotly. “I refuse to be bound by indentures to a pirate!”

This outburst was, no doubt, what my cousin had been waiting for, to set the opinion of the crew against me. He now turned to his followers, very stern.

“Take this youth down to the forecastle and put him in irons. If he repeats his scandalous aspersions, I will bring him to trial as a deserter and mutineer.”

I had no means of resistance, and his orders were carried out, the scoundrel who had tricked me into waiting for Rupert’s return, taking especial pleasure to see that my irons were made secure. I scorned to question the dirty rascals further as to how my cousin came to be in command, but I guessed there had been some foul work on board since the vessel had left Yarmouth; and the next morning I learnt the whole story.

Old Muzzy, my firm friend, had been ashore all that night, very drunk, but soon after dawn he came off to the ship, and hearing of my plight, at once betook himself to where I was imprisoned. He embraced me very heartily, and as soon as I had satisfied him as to my recovery and subsequent adventures, he disclosed to me the situation of the Fair Maid.

“You see it’s like this, my boy. Mr. Sims is a good seaman, no one can’t say he’s not, but he’s too much of a lawyer to handle a craft like this. Now that cousin of yours, though he be a bloodthirsty, revengeful beast, as you should know by this time, yet he’s no lawyer. Captain Sims, there, he was all for letters of marque and such, but then, once a peace breaks out, where’s your letters of marque? They ain’t no more use than so much ballast. Now when we came out here, the lieutenant he says, ‘Let’s go into Gheriah, and join the pirates there’ – though according to him they aren’t what you may call pirates, being under a king of their own, who has as much right to give them commissions as King George himself. But Captain Sims he wouldn’t hear of it, the more so as there was a British squadron under Commodore Porter had been out from Bombay in the spring, and knocked some of their forts about their ears for them. But, you see, unless we joined them, we had nothing to do till such time as the war began again, unless we chose to take the risk of standing up and down the coast, as you may say, on our own hook. So the crew they sided with the lieutenant, that’s your cousin, and the end of it was there was a sort of a mutiny, and Captain Sims he was carried ashore at Gheriah and given up to the pirates, leastways to their king, and the lieutenant took his place.”

“Then the long and short of it is that this is a pirate ship,” was all I could say.

“Well, we are, and, in a manner of speaking, we aren’t. When we want to come into Bombay here we sail under King George’s flag, and when we’re in company with the pirates we fly theirs. Any way, we’ve taken two Dutch ships and an English one since we got out here, and that’s put money in our pockets, which is more than Captain Sims would have done with his lawyering.”

“And I suppose I am to be carried to Gheriah and given up to the pirates, like Mr. Sims,” I said bitterly.

But this the boatswain swore with many oaths he would not permit. Nevertheless I could see that he was strongly attached to my cousin’s interest, and not disposed to venture anything openly against him. Indeed, he tried very hard to persuade me to come into their plans, offering to reconcile me with Rupert if I would consent to do this. To these proposals, however, I would by no means consent, being more experienced by this time than when I had joined them at Yarmouth, and having a pretty shrewd notion of how Mr. Clive would regard my former comrades if they should fall into his hands. Finally, I besought the boatswain for news of Marian.

He drew a grave face at this name.

“Athelstane, lad, I would rather you’d ask me any other question than that. Plague take the girl, she was the cause of all the mischief between you and the lieutenant! Forget her, lad, forget her, she’s not worth your troubling after.”

But he might as well have pressed me to forget who I was, and the situation into which my eagerness to hear of Marian had brought me.

Finding me resolute to know about her, he told me this much: —

“She came aboard while the Fair Maid was in the river, to nurse your cousin as he lay ill of his wounds. But I believe he had been tempting her before that to come out to the Indies with him, and she held back for him to go to church with her first, and this he didn’t care enough for her to do. Anyhow, it ended in his getting round her to trust herself with him, and he swore he would carry her straight to Calcutta and hand her over to her people there. When we got out here, and she found he had no such purpose, but meant to keep her in the fortress as long as it suited his pleasure, there was a terrible business betwixt them. But you know what the lieutenant is, and that it ain’t a few tears from a woman that’ll turn him from anything he has a mind to do. So he just set her ashore by force, and there she is, as much a prisoner as Mr. Sims himself.”

I was overcome with the horror of this news, though I suppose it was what I should have expected from my cousin’s character.

“Good heavens!” I cried out in my distraction. “Do you mean that she is in the hands of the pirates at Gheriah?”

“That’s about what it comes to. And the sooner you give up all thoughts of her the better for you, says I.”

Before I could frame any answer – and, indeed, I know not what answer I could have made – there was a great noise and trampling upon deck, and a man came down to tell us that the vessel was about to weigh anchor, and that the boatswain was wanted to attend to the service of the ship. Whereupon he left me, in the company of bitterer thoughts than a man can have more than once in his life.

I pass over the dreary time spent by me in that dismal confinement during our voyage. Old Muzzy visited me pretty often, and once Rupert himself came down and made offers towards a reconcilement.

“Say that you will join us honestly, and I will take off the irons, and rate you as one of the crew. And when occasion serves, I will cause you to be made lieutenant under me,” he promised, “for after all you are my own kinsman, and blood is thicker than water.”

Whether he was sincere in this, or was compelled to it by my friend the boatswain, I do not know. But I had only one reply to give him.

“And Marian, what of her?” I said indignantly.

A dark look came on his brow.

“Leave that business alone,” he said. “It were better for you, I warn you fairly. That woman is mine, and I will not suffer the Almighty Himself to come between us.”

At this blasphemous avowal I turned my back on him, and would entertain no further proposals. However, I knew from the boatswain that Rupert was first for throwing me overboard; and when Muzzy, who had much authority with the crew, would not consent to that, he was for putting me into the castle at Gheriah, along with the late captain. But this my sturdy champion also opposed, and the end of it was that I was left in my present quarters when the Fair Maid arrived in the pirates’ harbour, and brought them the news that a British squadron was on its way to besiege the place.

This intelligence Rupert had acquired before leaving Bombay, and it was this which had caused him to set sail with so much haste. Becoming very busied in preparations for the defence, I luckily slipped somewhat out of his mind, and the boatswain took advantage of this to soften the rigour of my imprisonment, allowing me to take the air on deck, and even going so far as to release me from my irons.

I was thus enabled to gain some idea of the place I had been brought to. When I first came up from below, after so long a time passed in obscurity, the daylight proved too much for my eyes, and I was obliged to close them, and accustom myself to the glare by degrees. As soon as I was able to look about me, however, I perceived that the Fair Maid was lying in a very spacious river, not far from the mouth, and over against a sort of rocky islet or peninsula, joined to the left bank of the river by a strip of sand. On the rock there was built a very strong castle, having a double wall and towers to protect it, but the cannons of rather poor calibre. Alongside of us lay the fleet of the pirates, composed of strange-looking vessels, having for the most part two masts, one very much in the stern, and rigged with a huge sail, the peak of which came much above the top of the mast. The prows of these vessels stretched a great way forward out of the water having the appearance of a bird’s beak. The larger of these vessels, of which there were about ten, are called grabs, and the smaller, of which I counted upwards of sixty, gallivats. These latter are managed with oars as well as sails, and when there is no wind they are employed to tow the grabs behind them, so that in light weather it is easy for them to overtake the ship of which they are in pursuit. They were all armed with cannon, the grabs carrying as many as twenty or thirty 12-pounders, and the gallivats swivel-guns of 6 or 9 pounds.

We had lain in this position for more than a month, and I was beginning to be afraid that Admiral Watson had altered his intention of coming to reduce the pirates’ stronghold, when one evening, as I sat on the deck, just at the time that the wind changed and began to blow in from the sea, I discerned a great commotion on shore in the fortress, and turning my eyes towards the river’s mouth I beheld a most welcome sight, namely, a fleet of no less than fourteen ships, arranged in two lines, with the Talisman at their head, sailing proudly in, with the British flag flying at their peaks, and their tops all full of men, their guns run out through their portholes, and their decks cleared for action.

As silently and as orderly as if they were in mid-ocean without a foe in sight, they came sweeping up the river, doubled the rocky point, and anchored one after the other, within two hundred yards of the north wall of the fort.