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_ I have no intention, my dears, of dwelling upon that part of my
adventures which must be as painful to you as to me, the very
recollection of which, after all these years, suffices to cause the blood
within me to run cold. In my youth men whose natures shrank not from
encounter with their enemies lacked not, I warrant you, a checkered
experience. Those of us who are wound the tightest go the farthest and
strike the hardest. Nor is it difficult for one, the last of whose life
is being recorded, to review the outspread roll of it, and trace the
unerring forces which have drawn for themselves.
Some, indeed, traverse this world weighing, before they partake, pleasure
and business alike. But I am not sure, my children, that they better
themselves; or that God, in His all-wise judgment, prefers them to such
as are guided by the divine impulse with which He has endowed them. Far
be it from me to advise rashness or imprudence, as such; nor do I believe
you will take me so. But I say unto you: do that which is right, and let
God, not man, be your interpreter.
My narrative awaits me.
I came to my wits with an immoderate feeling of faintness and sickness,
with no more remembrance of things past than has a man bereft of reason.
And for some time I swung between sense and oblivion before an
overpowering stench forced itself upon my nostrils, accompanied by a
creaking, straining sound and sweeping motion. I could see nothing for
the pitchy blackness. Then I recalled what had befallen me, and cried
aloud to God in my anguish, for I well knew I had been carried aboard
ship, and was at sea. I had oftentimes heard of the notorious press-gang
which supplied the need of the King's navy, and my first thought was that
I had fallen in their clutches. But I wondered that they had dared
attack a person of my consequence.
I had no pain. I lay in a bunk that felt gritty and greasy to the touch,
and my hair was matted behind by a clot of blood. I had been stripped of
my clothes, and put into some coarse and rough material, the colour and
condition of which I could not see for want of light. I began to cast
about me, to examine the size of the bunk, which I found to be narrow,
and plainly at some distance from the deck, for I laid hold upon one of
the rough beams above me. By its curvature I knew it to be a knee, and
thus I came to the caulked sides of the vessel, and for the first time
heard the rattling thud and swish of water on the far side of it. I had
no sooner made this discovery, which drew from me an involuntary groan,
when a ship's lanthorn was of a sudden thrust over me, and I perceived
behind it a head covered with shaggy hair and beard, and beetling brows.
Never had I been in such a terrifying presence.
"Damn my blood and bones, life signals at last! Another three bells
gone, my silks and laces, and we had given you to the sharks."
The man hung his lanthorn to a hook on the beam, and thrust a case-bottle
of rum toward me, at the same time biting off a great quid of tobacco.
For all my alarm I saw that his manner was not unkindly, and as I was
conscious of a consuming thirst I seized and tipped it eagerly.
"'Tis no fine Madeira, my blood," said he, "such as I fancy your palate
is acquainted with. Yet 'tis as fair a Jamaica as ever Griggs put ashore
i' the dark."
"Griggs!" I cried, the whole affair coming to me: Griggs, Upper
Marlboro', South River, Grafton and the rector plotting in the stalls,
and Mr. Silas Ridgeway the accomplice.
"Ay, Griggs," replied he; "ye may well repeat it, the -------, I'll lay a
puncheon he'll be hailing you shortly. Guinea Griggs, Gold-Coast Griggs,
Smuggler Griggs, Skull-and-Bones Griggs. Damn his soul and eyes, he hath
sent to damnation many a ship's company."
He drained what remained of the bottle, took down the lanthorn, and left
me sufficiently terrified to reflect upon my situation, which I found
desperate enough, my dears. I have no words to describe what I went
through in that vile, foul-smelling place. My tears flowed fast when I
thought of my grandfather and of the dear friends I had left behind, and
of Dorothy, whom I never hoped to see again. And then, perchance 'twas
the rum put heart into me, I vowed I would face the matter show this cut-
throat of a Griggs a bold front. Had he meant to murder me, I reflected,
he had done the business long since. Then I fell asleep.
I awoke, I know not how soon, to discover the same shaggy countenance,
and the lanthorn.
"Canst walk, Mechlin?" says he.
"I can try, at least," I answered.
He seemed pleased at this.
"You have courage a-plenty, and, by G--, you will have need of it all
with that of a Griggs!" He gave me his bottle again, and assisted me
down, and I found that my legs, save for the rocking of the ship, were
steady enough. I followed him out of the hole in which I had lain on to
a deck, which, in the half light, I saw covered with slush and filth. It
was small, and but dimly illuminated by a hatchway, up the which I pushed
after him, and then another. And so we came to the light of day, which
near blinded me: so that I was fain to clap my hand to mine eyes, and
stood for a space looking about me like a man dazed. The wind, tho'
blowing stiff, was mild, and league after league of the green sea danced
and foamed in the morning sunlight, and I perceived that I was on a large
schooner under full sail, the crew of which were littered about at
different occupations. Some gaming and some drinking, while on the
forecastle two men were settling a dispute at fisticuffs. And they gave
me no more notice, nor as much, than I had been a baboon thrust among
them. From this indifference to a captive I augured no good. Then my
conductor, whom I rightly judged to be the mate of this devil's crew,
took me roughly by the shoulder and bade me accompany him to the cabin.
As we drew near the topgallant poop there sounded in my ears a noise like
a tempest, which I soon became aware was a man swearing with a prodigious
vehemence in a fog-horn of a voice. "Sdeath and wounds! Where is that
dog-fish of a Cockle? Damn his entrails, and he is not come soon, I'll
mast-head him naked, by the seven holy spritsails!" And much more and
worse to the same tune until we passed the door and stood before him,
when he let out an oath like the death-cry of a monster.
He was a short, lean man with a leathery face and long, black ropy hair,
and beady black eyes that caught the light like a cat's. His looks,
indeed, would have scared a timid person into a fit; but I resolved I
would die rather than show the fear with which he inspired me. He was
dressed in an old navy uniform with dirty lace. His cabin was bare
enough, being scattered about with pistols and muskets and cutlasses,
with a ragged pallet in one corner, and he sat behind an oaken table
covered with greasy charts and spilled liquor and tobacco.
"So ho, you are risen from the dead, are you, my fine buck? Mr. What-do-
they-call-you?" cried the captain, with a word as foul as any he had yet
uttered. "By the Lord, you shall pay for running my bosun through!"
"And by the Lord, Captain What's-your-name," I cried back, for the rum I
had taken had heated me, "you and your fellow-rascals shall pay in blood
for this villanous injury!"
Griggs got to his feet and seized his hanger, his face like livid marble
seamed with blue. And from force of habit I made motion for my sword, to
make the shameful discovery that I was clothed from head to foot in
linsey-woolsey.
"G-d--- my soul," he roared, "if I don't slit you like a herring!
The devil burn me to a cinder if I don't give your guts to the sharks!
"And he made at me in such a fury that I would certainly have been cut to
pieces had I not grasped a cutlass and parried his blow, Cockle looking
on with his jaw dropped like a peak without haulyards. With a stroke of
my weapon I disarmed Captain Griggs, his sword flying through the cabin
window. For I made up my mind I would better die fighting than expire at
a hideous torture, which I doubted not he would inflict, and so I took up
a posture of defence, with one eye on the mate; despite the kind offices
of the latter below I knew not whether he were disposed to befriend me
before the captain. What was my astonishment, therefore, to behold
Griggs's truculent manner change.
"Avast, my man-o-war," he cried; "blood and wounds! I had more than an
eye when they brought thee aboard, else I would have killed thee like a
sucking-pig under the forecastle, as I have given oath to do. By the
Ghost, you are worth seven of that Roger Spratt whom you sent to hell in
his boots."
Wherewith Cockle, who for all his terrible appearance stood in a mighty
awe of his captain, set up a loud laugh, and vowed that Griggs knew a man
when he spared me, and was cursed for his pains.
"So you were contracted to murder me, Captain Griggs?" said I.
"Ay," he replied, a devilish gleam coming into his eye, "but I have now
got you and the money to boot. But harkye, I'll stand by my half of the
bargain, by G--. If ever you reach Maryland alive, they may hang me to
the yardarm of a ship-of-the-line."
And I live long enough, my dears, I hope some day to write for you the
account of all that befell me on this slaver, Black Moll, for so she was
called. 'Twould but delay my story now. Suffice it to say that we
sailed for a fortnight or so in the West India seas. From some
observations that fell from the mouth of Griggs I gathered that he was
searching for an island which evaded him; and each day added to his
vexation at not finding it. At times he was drunk for forty hours at a
stretch, when he would shut himself in his cabin and leave his ship to
the care of Cockle, who navigated with the sober portion of the crew.
And such a lousy, brawling lot of convicts I had never clapped eyes upon.
As for me, I was treated indifferently well, though 'twas in truth
punishment enough to live in that filthy ship, to eat their shins of beef
and briny pork and wormy biscuit, to wear rough clothes that chafed my
skin. I shared Cockle's cabin, in every way as dirty a place as the den
I had left, but with the advantage of air, for which I fervently thanked
God.
I think the mate had some little friendship for me, though he was too
hardened by the life he had led to care a deal what became of me. He
encouraged me secretly to continue to beard Griggs as I had begun, saying
that it was my sole chance of a whole skin, and vowing that if he had had
the courage to pursue the same course his own back had not been checkered
like a grating. He told me stories of the captain's cruelty which I dare
not repeat for their very horror, and indeed I lacked not for instances
to substantiate what he said; men with their backs beaten to a pulp, and
others with ears cut off, and mouths slit, and toes missing. So that I
lived in hourly fear lest in some drunken fit Griggs might command me to
be tortured. But, fortunately, he held small converse with me, and when
sober busied himself in trying to find the island and in cursing the fate
by which it eluded him.
So I existed, and prayed daily for deliverance. I plied Cockle with
questions as to what they purposed doing with me, but he was wont to turn
sulky, and would answer me not a word. But once, when he was deeper in
his cups than common, he let me know that Griggs was to sell me to a
certain planter. You may well believe that this did not serve to liven
my spirits.
At length, one morning, Captain Griggs came out of his cabin and climbed
upon the poop, calling all hands aft to the quarterdeck. Whereupon he
proceeded to make them a speech that for vileness exceeded aught I have
ever heard before or since. He finished by reminding them that this was
the anniversary of the scuttling of the sloop Jane, which had made them
all rich a year before, off the Canaries; the day that he had sent three
and twenty men over the plank to hell. Wherefore he decreed a holiday,
as the weather was bright and the trades light, and would serve quadruple
portions of rum to every man jack aboard; and they set up a cheer that
started the Mother Careys astern.
I have no language to depict the bestiality of that day; and if I had I
would think it sin to write of it. The helm was lashed on the port tack,
the haulyards set taut, and all hands down to the lad who was the cook's
scullion proceeded to get drunk. I took the precaution to have a hanger
at my side and to slip one of Cockle's pistols within the band of my
breeches. I was in an exquisite' agony of indecision as to what manner
to act and how to defend myself from their drunken brutality, for I well
knew that if I refused to imbibe with them I should probably be murdered
for my abstemiousness; and, if I drank, the stuff was so near to alcohol
that I could not hope to keep my senses. While in this predicament I
received a polite invitation to partake in the captain's company, which I
did not see my way clear to refuse, and repaired to the cabin
accordingly.
There I found Griggs and Cockle seated, and a fair-sized barrel of rum
between them that the captain had just moved thither. By way of welcome
he shot at me a volley of curses and bade me to fill up, and through fear
of offending him I took down my first mug with a fair good grace. Then,
in his own particular language, he began the account of the capture of
the Jane, taking care in the pauses to see that my mug was full. But, as
luck would have it, he got no farther than the boarding by the Black
Moll's crew, when he fell to squabbling with Cockle as to who had been
the first man over the side; and while they were settling this difference
I grasped the opportunity to escape.
The maudlin scene that met my eyes on deck defies description; some were
fighting, others grinning with a hideous laughter, and still others
shouting tavern jokes unspeakable. And suddenly, whilst I was observing
these things from a niche behind the cabin door, I heard the captain cry
from within, "The ensign, the ensign!" Forgetting his dispute with
Cockle, he bumped past me and made his way with some trouble to the poop.
I climbed the ladder after him, and to my horror beheld him in a drunken
frenzy drag a black flag with a rudely painted skull and cross-bones from
the signal-chest, and with uncertain fingers toggle it to the ensign
haulyards and hoist to the peak, where it fluttered grimly in the light
wind like an evil augur on a fair day. At sight of it the wretches on
deck fell to shouting and huzzaing, Griggs standing leering up at it.
Then he gravely pulled off his hat and made it a bow, and turned upon me.
"Salute it, ye lubberly! Ye are no first-rate here," he thundered.
"Salute the flag!"
Unless fear had kept me sober, 'tis past my understanding why I was not
as drunk as he. Be that as it may, I was near as quarrelsome, and would
as soon have worshipped the golden calf as saluted that rag. I flung
back some reply, and he lugged out and came at me with a spring like a
wild beast; and his men below, seeing us fall out, made a rush for the
poop with knives and cutlasses drawn. Betwixt them all I should soon
have been in slivers had not the main shrouds offered themselves handy.
And up them I sprung, the captain cutting at my legs as I left the sheer-
pole, and I stopped not until I reached the schooner's cross-trees, where
I drew my cutlass. They pranced around the mast and showered me with
oaths, for all the world like a lot of howling dogs which had treed a
cat.
I began to feel somewhat easier, and cried aloud that the first of them
who came up after me would go down again in two pieces. Despite my
warning a brace essayed to climb the ratlines, as pitiable an attempt as
ever I witnessed, and fell to the deck again. 'Twas a miracle that they
missed falling into the sea. And after a while, becoming convinced that
they could not get at me, and being too far gone to shoot with any
accuracy, they tumbled off the poop swearing to serve me in a hundred
horrible ways when they caught me, and fell again to drinking and
quarrelling amongst themselves. I was indeed in an unenviable plight,
by no means sure that I would not be slain out of hand when they became
sufficiently sober to capture me. As I marked the progress of their
damnable orgy I cast about for some plan to take advantage of their
condition. I observed that a stupor was already beginning to overcome a
few of them. Then suddenly an incident happened to drive all else from
my mind.
Nothing less, my dears, than a white speck of sail gleaming on the
southern horizon!
For an hour I watched it, now in a shiver of apprehension lest it pass us
by, now weeping in an ecstasy of joy over a possible deliverance. But it
grew steadily larger, and when about three miles on our port bow I saw
that the ship was a brigantine. Though she had long been in sight from
our deck, 'twas not until now that she was made out by a man on the
forecastle, who set up a cry that brought about him all who could reel
thither, Griggs staggering out of his cabin and to the nettings. The
sight sobered him somewhat, for he immediately shouted orders to cast
loose the guns, himself tearing the breeching from the nine-pounder next
him and taking out the tompion. About half the crew were in a liquorish
stupor from which the trump itself could scarce have aroused them; the
rest responded with savage oaths, swore that they would boil their
suppers in the blood of the brigantine's men and give their corpses to
the sea. They fell to work on the port battery in so ludicrous a manner
that I was fain to laugh despite the gravity of the situation. But when
they came to rig the powderhoist and a couple of them descended into the
magazine with pipes lighted, I was in imminent expectation of being blown
as high as a kite.
So absorbed had I been in these preparations that I neglected to watch
the brigantine, which I discovered to be standing on and off in a very
undecided manner, as though hesitating to attack. My spirits fell again
at this, for with all my inexperience I knew her to be a better sailer
than the Black Moll. Her master, as Griggs remarked, "was no d--d
slouching lubber, and knew a yardarm from a rattan cane."
Finally, about six bells of the watch, the stranger wore ship and bore
down across our bows, hoisting English colours, at sight of which I could
scarce forbear a cheer. At this instant, Captain Griggs woke to the fact
that his helm was still lashed, and bestowing a hearty kick on his
prostrate quartermaster stuck fast to the pitchy seams of the deck, took
the wheel himself, and easing off before the wind to bring the vessels
broadside to broadside, commanded that the guns be shooed to the muzzle,
an order that was barely executed before the brigantine came within close
range. Aboard her was all order and readiness; the men at her guns fuse
in hand, an erect and pompous figure of a man, in a cocked hat, on the
break of her poop. He raised his hand, two puffs of white smoke darted
out, and I heard first the shrieking of shot, the broadside came
crashing round us, one tearing through the mainsail below me, another
mangling two men in the waist of our schooner, and Griggs gave the order
to touch off. But two of his guns answered, one of which had been so
gorged with shot that it burst in a hundred pieces and sent the fellow
with the swab to perdition, and such a hell of blood and confusion as
resulted is indescribable. I saw Griggs in a wild fit of rage force the
helm down, the schooner flying into the wind. And by this time, the
brigantine having got round and presented her port battery, raked us at a
bare hundred yards, and I was the first to guess by the tilting forward
of the mast that our hull was hit between wind and water, and was fast
settling by the bow.
The schooner was sinking like a gallipot.
That day, with the sea flashing blue and white in the sun, I saw men go
to death with a curse upon their lips and a fever in their eyes, with
murder and defiance of God's holy will in their hearts. Overtaken in
bestiality, like the judgment of Nineveh, five and twenty disappeared
from beneath me, and I had scarce the time to throw off my cutlass before
I, too, was engulfed. So expired the Black Moll. _
Read next: VOLUME 4: CHAPTER XIX. A Man of Destiny
Read previous: VOLUME 3: CHAPTER XVII. South River
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