Gascoyne, the Sandal-Wood Trader, R. M. Ballantyne [best large ereader .txt] 📗
- Author: R. M. Ballantyne
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“How?” exclaimed Montague, quickly. “Do you fancy that your single arm, stout though it be, could avail to prevent this evil that you dread if I think proper to act according to established usage in time of war.”
“Nay, that were extreme vanity indeed,” returned the other, “but I would fain hope that the explanations which I can give of the danger of our peculiar trade, and the necessity we have for a strong crew, will induce Captain Montague to forego his undoubted privilege and right on this occasion.”
“I’m not sure of that,” replied Montague, “it will depend much on your explanations being satisfactory. How many men have you?”
“Twenty-two.”
“So many! that is much more than enough to work so small a vessel.”
“But not more than enough to defend my vessel from a swarm of bloody savages.”
“Perhaps not,” returned Montague, on whom the urbanity and candour of the captain of the Foam were beginning to have a softening influence. “You have no objection to let me see your papers, and examine your ship, I suppose.”
“None in the world,” replied Gascoyne, smiling, “and if I had, it would make little difference, I should imagine, to one who is so well able to insist on having his will obeyed.”—(He glanced at the boat full of armed men as he spoke.)—“Pray, come below with me.”
In the examination that ensued Captain Montague was exceedingly strict, although the strength of his first suspicions had been somewhat abated by the truthful tone and aspect of Gascoyne, and the apparent reasonableness of all he said; but he failed to detect anything in the papers, or in the general arrangements of the Foam, that could warrant his treating her otherwise than as an honest trader.
“So,” said he, on returning to the deck; “this is the counterpart of the noted pirate, is it? You must pardon my having suspected you, sir, of being this same Durward, sailing under false colours. Come, let me see the points of difference between you, else if we happen to meet on the high seas I may chance to make an unfortunate hole in your timbers.”
“The sides of my schooner are altogether black, as you see,” returned Gascoyne. “I have already explained that a narrow streak of red distinguishes the pirate, and this fair lady” (leading Montague to the bow) “guides the Foam over the waves with smiling countenance, while a scarlet griffin is the more appropriate figurehead of Durward’s vessel.”
As he spoke, the low boom of a far distant gun was heard. Montague started, and glanced inquiringly in the face of his companion, whose looks expressed a slight degree of surprise.
“What was that, think you?” said Montague, after a momentary pause.
“The commander of the Talisman ought, I think, to be the best judge of the sound of his own guns.”
“True,” returned the young officer, somewhat disconcerted; “but you forget that I am not familiar with the eruptions of those volcanic mountains of yours; and, at so great a distance from my ship, with such hills of rock and lava between us, I may well be excused feeling a little doubt as to the bark of my own bull-dogs. But that signal betokens something unusual. I must shorten my visit to you, I fear.”
“Pray do not mention it,” said Gascoyne, with a peculiar smile; “under the circumstances I am bound to excuse you.”
“But,” continued Montague, with emphasis, “I should be sorry indeed to part without some little memorial of my visit. Be so good as to order your men to come aft.”
“By all means,” said Gascoyne, giving the requisite order promptly, for, having sent all his best men on shore, he did not much mind the loss one or two of those that remained.
When they were mustered, the British commander inspected them carefully, and then he singled out surly Dick, and ordered him into the boat. A slight frown rested for a moment on Gascoyne’s countenance, as he observed the look of ill-concealed triumph with which the man obeyed the order. The expression of surly Dick, however, was instantly exchanged for one of dismay as his captain strode up to him, and looked in his face for one moment with a piercing glance, at the same time thrusting his left hand into the breast of his red shirt.
“Goodbye,” he said, suddenly, in a cheerful tone, extending his right hand and grasping that of the sailor. “Goodbye, lad; if you serve the king as well as you have served me, he’ll have reason to be proud of you.”
Gascoyne turned on his heel, and the man slunk into the boat with an aspect very unlike that of a bold British seaman.
“Here is another man I want,” said Montague, laying his hand on the shoulder of John Bumpus.
“I trust, sir, that you will not take that man,” said Gascoyne earnestly. “I cannot afford to lose him; I would rather you should take any three of the others.”
“Your liberality leads me to think that you could without much difficulty supply the place of the men I take—but three are too many. I shall be satisfied with this one. Go into the boat, my lad.”
Poor John Bumpus, whose heart had been captivated by the beauties of the island, obeyed the order with a rueful countenance; and Gascoyne bit his lip and turned aside to conceal his anger. In two minutes more the boat rowed away from the schooner’s side.
Not a word was spoken by any one in the boat until a mile had separated it from the schooner. They had just turned a point which shut the vessel out of view, when surly Dick suddenly recovered his self-possession and his tongue, and, starting up in an excited manner, exclaimed to Montague—
“The schooner you have just left, sir, is a pirate. I tell the truth, though I should swing for it.”
The crew of the boat ceased rowing, and glanced at each other in surprise on hearing this.
“Ha! say you so,” exclaimed Montague, quickly.
“It’s a fact, sir; ask my comrade there, and he’ll tell you the same thing.”
“He’ll do nothin’ o’ the sort,” sharply returned honest Bumpus, who, having been only a short time previously engaged by Gascoyne, could perceive neither pleasure nor justice in the idea of being hanged for a pirate, and who attributed Dick’s speech to an ill-natured desire to get his late commander into trouble.
“Which of you am I to believe?” said Montague, hastily.
“W’ich ever you please,” observed Bumpus, with an air of indifference.
“It’s no business o’ mine,” said Dick, sulkily; “if you choose to let the blackguard escape, that’s your own look out.”
“Silence, you scoundrel,” cried Montague, who was as much nettled by a feeling of uncertainty how to act as by the impertinence of the man.
Before he could decide as to the course he ought to pursue, the report of one of the guns of his own vessel boomed loud and distinct in the distance. It was almost immediately followed by another.
“Ha! that settles the question; give way, my lads, give way.”
In another moment the boat was cleaving her way swiftly through the dark water in the direction of the Talisman.
The Sabbath morning which succeeded the events we have just narrated dawned on the settlement of Sandy Cove in unclouded splendour, and the deep repose of nature was still unbroken by the angry passions and the violent strife of man, although from the active preparations of the previous night it might have been expected that those who dwelt on the island would not have an opportunity of enjoying the rest of that day.
Everything in and about the settlement was eminently suggestive of peace. The cattle lay sleepily in the shade of the trees; the sea was still calm like glass. Men had ceased from their daily toil; and the only sounds that broke the quiet of the morning were the chattering of the parrots and other birds in the cocoanut groves; and the cries of seafowl, as they circled in the air, or dropt on the surface of the sea in quest of fish.
The British frigate lay at anchor in the same place which she had hitherto occupied, and the Foam still floated in the sequestered bay on the other side of the island. In neither vessel was there the slightest symptom of preparation; and to one who knew not the true state of matters, the idea of war being about to break forth was the last that would have occurred.
But this deceitful quiet was only the calm that precedes the storm. On every hand men were busily engaged in making preparation to break that Sabbath day in the most frightful manner, or were calmly, but resolutely, awaiting attack. On board the ship-of-war, indeed, there was little doing, for, her business being to fight, she was always in a state of readiness for action. Her signal guns, fired the previous night, had recalled Montague to tell him of the threatened attack by the savages. A few brief orders were given, and they were prepared for whatever might occur. In the village, too, the arrangements to repel attack having been made, white men and native converts alike rested with their arms placed in convenient proximity to their hands.
In a wild and densely-wooded part of the island, far removed from those portions which we have yet had occasion to describe, a band of fiendish-looking men were making arrangements for one of those unprovoked assaults which savages are so prone to make on those who settle near them.
They were all of them in a state of almost complete nudity, but the complicated tattooing on their dark skins gave them the appearance of being more clothed than they really were. Their arms consisted chiefly of enormous clubs of hardwood, spears, and bows; and, in order to facilitate their escape should they chance to be grasped in a hand-to-hand conflict, they had covered their bodies with oil, which glistened in the sunshine as they moved about their village.
Conspicuous among these truly savage warriors was the form of Keona, with his right arm bound up in a sort of sling. Pain and disappointed revenge had rendered this man’s face more than usually diabolical as he went about among his fellows, inciting them to revenge the insult and injury done to them through his person by the whites. There was some reluctance, however, on the part of a few of the chiefs to renew a war that had been terminated, or rather, been slumbering, only for a few months.
Keona’s influence, too, was not great among his kindred, and had it not been that one or two influential chiefs sided with him, his own efforts to relight the still smoking torch of war would have been unavailing.
As it was, the natives soon worked themselves up into a sufficiently excited state to engage in any desperate expedition. It was while all this was doing in the native camp, that Keona, having gone to the nearest mountain top to observe what was going on in the settlement, had fallen in with and been chased by some of those men belonging to the Foam, who had been sent on shore to escape being pressed into the service of the king of England.
The solitary exception to this general state of preparation for war was the household of Frederick Mason. Having taken such precautionary steps the night before as he deemed expedient, and having consulted with Ole Thorwald, the general commanding, who had posted scouts in all the mountain passes, and had seen the war-canoes drawn up in a row on the strand, the pastor retired to his study and
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