Commodore Junk

The men cheered and the firing commenced, when, to the annoyance of the captain, the wind dropped entirely, a dead calm ensued; night was coming on rapidly, as it descends in the tropic lands, and he had either to try and silence the schooner at long range, or man the boats and take her by boarding, a plan from which he shrank, knowing, as he did, that it could only be successful at a terrible cost of life, and this he dreaded for the sake of his men.

The sloop crept a little nearer in one of the puffs of wind that came from time to time, and the firing went on, Humphrey and his officers being astounded at the ability with which the schooner’s guns were served and the accuracy of their aim.

“No wonder that they’ve carried all before them among the merchantmen,” muttered Humphrey, as a shot came crashing into them, and three men were carried below disabled by splinters.

As he spoke he looked anxiously round, to make sure that the schooner would not be able to pass them in the approaching darkness, and then, feeling more and more that men who could serve their guns so well would be terrible adversaries in a case of boarding, and determined to spare his men till the schooner was disabled, he kept up the artillery duel till the only guide for laying their guns was the flash of the enemy’s pieces when some shot was fired.

By this time the fire of the buccaneers had proved so effective that the sloop’s bulwarks were shattered and her decks were slippery with blood, while her captain was fuming with rage at the unfortunate aim of his men; for, though the schooner had evidently been hit again and again, she seemed to have escaped the vital injury that a shot would have produced in one of her spars.

All at once, just as the darkness had become complete, the firing of the schooner ceased; and to have continued that on board of the sloop would have been wasting shot.

“Man the launch and jolly-boat!” said the captain sharply, and their crews waited with intense excitement the orders to go and board the schooner, a faint groan of disappointment arising as the men heard the instructions given to the two lieutenants to patrol on either side of the sloop, and be ready to attack and board only if the buccaneer should attempt to steal off in the darkness and escape.

The night wore on, with every one on the qui vive. Two more boats were ready waiting to push off and help in the attack on whichever side the schooner should attempt to escape; while, in the event, of an attack, the other patrolling boat was to come back to the sloop.

But hour after hour passed and no rushing of water was heard, no dip of long sweep, or creak of the great oar in the rowlock was heard; neither was a light seen; and the silence observed by the schooner was so profound that Humphrey, as he paced the deck, felt certain at last that she must have escaped; and, now that it was too late, he bitterly repented not attempting to capture the dangerous foe by a bold attack.

“She’s gone,” he groaned, “and I’ve lost my chance!”

He paced the deck in bitter disappointment, as he felt that he had let a prize slip through his fingers; and, as he waited, the night glided slowly by, till, slowly and tardily, the first signs of day appeared, and with a cry of joy Humphrey Armstrong ordered the signal of recall to be run up, for there, just as she had been last seen when night fell, lay the long, dark schooner, but without a man visible on board.

In a few minutes the two boats were alongside, and Humphrey gazed longingly at the prize he felt ready to give half his life to reach.

What should he do? Attempt to board her now that his four boats lay armed and ready for the fray?

The temptation was too great, and the order was given: the four boats to attack at once, the men receiving the command with a tremendous cheer, and their oars took the water at once; while, compelled by his position to remain on board, the captain feverishly watched the progress of his boats in the growing light, and frowned and stamped the deck in his anger as he saw the crews were exhausting themselves in a race to see which should first reach the silent, forbidding looking schooner.

He shouted to them to keep together, but they were beyond the reach of his voice, and matters seemed hopeless from the way in which they struggled, when a combined attack was requisite for success.

Then all at once the launch remained steady, and the smaller boats went off to right and left. Another minute and all were advancing together, so as to board in four different parts of the ship at once.

Humphrey Armstrong’s eyes flashed, his lips parted, and his breast heaved as he watched his men dash on with a faintly heard cheer; but there was no response, not a moving figure could be seen on board the schooner, and it was plain that she had been deserted during the night.

“Curse him for an eel!” cried the captain, fiercely, as he felt that he was about to capture a vessel and leave her cunning commander to man another, and carry on his marauding as of old; but he had hardly uttered his angry denunciation when his four boats raced up to the schooner, and in a moment she seemed alive with men.

Almost before the English captain could realise the fact, great pieces of iron, probably the schooner’s ballast, were thrown over into the boats, two of which were crushed through like so much paper, and the men as they sank left struggling in the water.

All that could be done was to rescue the drowning men; and as the two remaining boats were being overladen, and then made a desperate attack so as not to go back in disgrace, a furious fire of small-arms was poured from every port hole and from the schooner’s deck, till, unable to penetrate the stout boarding-netting triced up all around the vessel, cut at, shot at, and thrust back into their boats with boarding-pikes, the sloop’s two boats fell off, and began to slowly retrace their course.

The moment the way was clear Humphrey, who was almost beside himself with disappointment, begun pounding away at the buccaneer with his heavy guns; but instead of exciting a response he found that sails were being unfurled, and that, instead of the schooner being shut in, the bottom of the bay formed a kind of strait, and she was not in a cul de sac.

“She’ll escape us after all!” groaned Humphrey, as he ordered sail to be made, and the sloop began to forge ahead, firing rapidly the while, as the schooner began to leave her behind.

She was sailing right in, and before the sloop could follow there were the two boats to be picked up.

This was done, the removal of the wounded being deferred till the buccaneer was captured, and all the time a furious fire was kept up without effect, for the schooner seemed to sail right inland, and disappeared round a headland, the last they saw of the heavily-rigged vessel being when she careened over at right angles to the sloop and her shot-torn sails passed slowly behind the rocky bluff.

“Only into shelter!” cried Humphrey Armstrong, excitedly; and giving rapid orders, fresh sail was made, and men placed in the chains with leads to keep up communications as to the soundings, but always to announce deep water, the land seeming to rise up sheer from an enormous depth in the channel-like gulf they entered.

“She’s gone right through, sir, and will get away on the other side.”

The sloop sailed on, with the water deep as ever, and before long she rounded the head, to find the narrow channel had opened out into a beautiful lake-like bay with the dense primeval forest running right down to its shores.

But the greatest beauty of the scene to Humphrey Armstrong was the sight of the schooner lying right across his course a quarter of a mile away, and ready to concentrate her fire and rake the sloop from stem to stern.

“Curse him! no wonder he has had so long a career!” said Humphrey, stamping with rage as he watched the execution of his orders, and a well-directed fire was once more made to answer that of the buccaneer. “With such a ship, crew, and place of retreat, he might have gone on for years.”

The firing grew hotter than ever, and the schooner became enveloped in a cloud of smoke which elicited a burst of cheers from the sloop.

“She’s afire! she’s afire!” roared the men.

Humphrey’s triumph was now at hand. The scourge of the western seas was at his mercy, and shrinking from attempting to board so desperate an adversary for the sake of his crew, he gave orders to lay the sloop right alongside of the schooner, where he could cast grappling-irons, and then pour his fire down upon her deck.

The orders were rapidly executed, and the sloop bore down right for the smoke-enveloped schooner with little fear of being raked now, for the pirates had ceased firing, and could be dimly-seen through the reek hurrying to and fro.

“Shall we give her one more salvo, sir?” asked the first officer, coming up to where Humphrey stood, trying to pierce the smoke with his glass.

“No, poor wretches! they’re getting fire enough. I hope she will not blow up, for I’d give anything to take her home unhurt.”

There was a perfect rush of flame and smoke now from the schooner, and once more Humphrey’s men cheered and shook hands together, even the wounded in the excitement of their triumph taking up the cry, when, just in the height of the excitement, and when the sloop was within a hundred yards of the enemy, the men in the chains among the rest gazing hard at the rising smoke, the war vessel careened over in answer to her helm in the evolution which was to lay her side by side with the burning schooner, and then there was a tremendous jerk which threw nearly every one off his feet.

Then, shivering from head to heel, the sloop slowly surged back us if to gather force like a wave, and in obedience to the pressure upon her sails, struck again, literally leaping this time upon the keen-edged barrier of rocks under whose invisible shelter the schooner lay; and then, as a yell of horror rose from the men, the unfortunate ship remained fixed, her masts, sail laden, went over the side with a hideous crashing noise, and all was confusion, ruin, and despair.

The moments required to turn a stately, sail-crowded ship into a state of chaos are very few, and to Humphrey Armstrong’s agony, as well aided by his officers, he was trying to do something to ameliorate their position, he saw how thoroughly he had been led into a cunningly-designed trap. The schooner had been artfully manoeuvred to place her behind the dangerous rocks, and, what was more, a glance at her now showed her sailing away from a couple of boats moored beyond them; and in each of which were barrels of burning pitch sending up volumes of blackened smoke.

“A trap! a trap!” he cried, grinding his teeth. “Let her be, my lads,” he roared. “Prepare for boarders!”

The men sprang to their pikes and swords, while a couple of guns were freed from the wreck of cordage, and sail which the shock had brought down.

These guns had hardly been trained to bear upon the schooner from the deck of the helpless sloop when a deadly fire was opened by the former – a fire of so furious a character that the confusion was increased, and in spite of the efforts of captain and officers, the men shrank from working at the guns.

What followed was one terrible scene of despairing men striving for their lives against a foe of overpowering strength. The fierce fire of the schooner, as she came nearer and nearer, was feebly responded to, and in a short time the deck streamed with blood, as the shot came crashing through the bulwarks, sending showers of splinters to do deadly work with the hail of grape. There was no thought of capture now; no need of bidding the men attack: following the example of their officers, and one and all doggedly determined to sell their lives dearly, the men dragged gun after gun round as those they worked were disabled, and sent a shot in reply as often as they could.

With uniform torn and bedabbled with blood, face blackened with powder, and the red light of battle in his eyes, Humphrey Armstrong saw plainly enough that his case was hopeless, and that, with all her pomp of war and pride of discipline and strength, his sloop was prostrate before the buccaneer’s snaky craft, and in his agony of spirit and rage he determined to wait till the pirates boarded, as he could see they would before long, and then blow up the magazine and send them to eternity in their triumph over the British ship.

But it was to destroy his men as well, and he felt that this should be the pirates’ work when all was over.

“No,” he muttered between his teeth, “it would be a coward’s act, and they shall die like men.”

The schooner’s sides were vomiting smoke and flame, and she was close alongside now. She had been so manoeuvred as to sail right round the end of the reef, whose position seemed to be exactly known, so that from firing upon the sloop’s bows, and raking from stem to stern, the firing had been continued as she passed along the larboard side round to the poop, which had been raked in turn, and here it was evident that the final attack was to be made.

It was not long in coming. Hardly had Humphrey seen the enemy’s intentions and gathered his men together, than the schooner’s side ground up against the shattered stern of the sloop. Heavy grappling-irons were thrown on board, and with a furious yelling a horde of blackened, savage-looking men poured on to the bloody splinter-strewn deck, and coming comparatively fresh upon the sloop’s exhausted crew, bore down all opposition. Men were driven below, cut down, stunned, and driven to ask for quarter; and so furious was the onslaught that the sloop’s crew were divided into two half helpless bodies, one of which threw down their arms, while the other, which included the captain and officers, backed slowly toward the bows, halting at every spot where they could make a stand, but forced to yield foot by foot, till their fate, it was plain to all, was to surrender or be driven through the shattered bulwarks into the sea.

It was a matter of minutes. The fight was desperate, but useless – Humphrey Armstrong and those around him seeming determined to sell their lives dearly, for no quarter was asked. They had given way step by step till there was nothing behind them but the shattered bulwarks, and then the sea, when, headed by their leader, the buccaneers made a desperate rush; there was the clashing of sword and pike; and, as sailor and officer fell, or were disarmed, Humphrey stepped in a half-congealed pool of blood, slipped, and went heavily backwards, the buccaneer’s lieutenant leaping forward to brain him with a heavy axe.

There was a rush, a fierce shout, Black Mazzard was thrust aside, and the Commodore sprang past him to plant his foot upon the fallen officer’s chest, while, the fight being over, the rest held their hands – the conquerors and conquered – to see what would be the captain’s fate.

“Now, Captain Armstrong,” cried the buccaneer leader, “beg for your wretched life, you cowardly dog!”

“Coward!” roared Humphrey, raising himself slightly on one hand, as with the other he swept the blood from his ensanguined face. “You cursed hound! you lie!”

The buccaneer shrank back as if from some blow; his foot was withdrawn from the wounded officer’s chest, he lowered the point of his sword, and stood gazing at his prostrate enemy wildly.

“The captain shirks the job, lads,” cried a coarse voice. “Here, let me come.”

It was Black Mazzard who spoke, and, drunken with rum and the spirit of the furious fight, he pressed forward, axe in hand.

Humphrey raised himself a little higher, with his white teeth bared in fierce defiance as he prepared to meet the deathblow he saw about to fall.

But at that moment the buccaneer caught his lieutenant’s uplifted arm.

“Enough!” he cried, fiercely; “no more blood. He is no coward. Bart – Dinny, take this gentleman ashore.”

Humphrey Armstrong did not hear the words, for his defiant act exhausted his failing strength, and he fell back insensible to all that happened for many hours to come.

Chapter Twenty Three

Captain Humphrey comes to

Captain Humphrey lay upon his back staring at his conscience. He was weak from loss of blood, weaker from fever; and he would have fared better if he had had proper medical treatment instead of the rough but kindly doctoring and nursing of Bart the surgeon, and Dinny the hospital nurse.

This was after three weeks’ doubtful journey, wherein Dinny said “the obstinate divil had tried all he knew to die.” And it was so ungrateful, Dinny said, after the captain had saved his life, and that of all the prisoners who had not also been obstinate and died.

Humphrey’s conscience was a great stone god full twelve feet high – an object that looked like a mummy-case set on end, as far as shape was concerned, but carved all over in the most wonderful way, the grotesque and weird bas-reliefs almost destroying the face, hands, and feet of the figure, flowing over them as they were, so that at first sight he looked upon a great mass of sculpture, out of which by degrees the features appeared.

The old artist who designed the idol had strange ideas of decorative effect. He had cut in the hard stone a fine contemplative face; but over it he had placed a gigantic headdress, whereon were stony plumes of feathers, wreaths, and strange symbols, while pendent in every possible direction about the body were writhing creatures and snakes, with variations of the human form, engaged in strange struggles, and amongst them human heads turned into bosses or decorations of the giant robe.

Humphrey Armstrong came partly to himself to see the cold, implacable face of this idol staring down at him from the gloom, ten feet from where he lay; and it seemed to him, by slow degrees, that this was his conscience sternly and silently upbraiding him for the loss of his ship and the lives of his men, destroyed by his want of skill as a commander.

Day after day, through his semi-delirium, did that great idol torture him, and seem, with its reproachful eyes, to burn into his brain.

Days passed, and by degrees he began to be aware that he was lying on a bed of comfortable rugs and skins, stretched in a curious room, whose walls were covered with hieroglyphics – thick, clumsy-looking hieroglyphics – not like those of Egypt, but carved with a skill peculiar to another race. Here and there were medallions of heads of gods or rulers of the land. Flowers of a peculiar conventional type formed part of the decorations or surrounded panels, in which were panthers, alligators, or human figures. In the centre of the wall to his right was a recess in which, clearly cut and hardly touched by time, were the figures of a king seated upon a leopard-supported throne – seated cross-legged, as in the East, and in a wondrous costume – while another figure presented to him what seemed to be the spoil of a number of dead and living figures who were trampled under foot.

The room was evidently a palace chamber, or a portion of a temple of great antiquity; and by degrees Humphrey realised that the ceiling was not arched or supported by beams, but by the great stones of which it was composed being piled one above the other, like a flight of steps, from the walls on either side till they met in the middle.

The floor was of stone, and there was a large opening on his left, facing the recess where the carving of the king ornamented the wall; and this opening, once a window, looked out upon the forest, whose dull, green, subdued twilight stole into the place.

It was a weird look-out – upon tree-trunks strangled by serpent-like creepers, which seemed to be contending with them for the life-giving light which filtered down from above through clouds of verdure; while other trees and other serpent-like creepers seemed in friendly co-operation to have joined hands against the walls of the building, which they were striving to destroy. Huge roots were thrust between the joints of stones and shifted them out of place. One liana waved a trailing stem through the window-opening as if in triumph, and to call attention to the feat of another creeper which had twisted itself completely round a great block, lifted it from one side, and held it suspended like a vegetable feat of strength.

For nature was asserting herself on every hand, the growth of the forest penetrating the chamber like an invading army of leaves and stems, and mingling with the works of man to their steady overthrow; while, facing it all, stern, implacable, and calmly watching the progress of destruction going on, stood the stone idol, the work of a race passed from the face of the earth, and waiting, as it had waited for hundreds of years, till the potent forest growth should lay it low!

For a time it was all a nightmare-like confusion to Humphrey; but with returning strength came order in his intellect, and he questioned Bart, who brought him food, and from time to time added carpets and various little luxuries of cabin furniture, which seemed strangely incongruous in that place.

“Who told you to bring those things here?” he said one day.

“Commodore Junk.”

“Why? Am I a prisoner?”

“Yes.”

“Am I to be shot?”

“Don’t know.”

“Where am I?”

“Here.”

“But what place is this?”

“Don’t know.”

“But – ”

“Want any more wine or fruit?”

“No; I want my liberty.”

“Belongs to the captain.”

“Tell the captain I wish to see him.”

Bart said no more, but took his departure.

The prisoner was more fortunate with Dinny, who could be communicative.

“That’s it, captain, darlin’,” he said one day. “Don’t ye fale like a little boy again, and that I’m your mother washing your poor face!”

“Don’t fool, my good fellow, but talk to me.”

“Talk to you, is it?”

“Yes; you can talk to me.”

“Talk to ye – can I talk to ye! Hark at him, mate!” he cried, appealing to the great idol. “Why, I’m a divil at it.”

“Well, then, tell me how I came here.”

“Faix, didn’t I carry ye on my back?”

“Yes, but after the fight?”

“Afther the foight – oh! is it afther the foight ye mane? Sure, and it was the skipper’s ordhers, and I carried ye here, and Bart – you know the tother one – he brought in the bed and the rugs and things to make ye dacent. It’s a bit damp, and the threes have a bad habit of putting in their noses like the pigs at home; but it’s an illigant bed-room for a gintleman afther all.”

“It was the captain’s orders, you say?”

“Sure, an’ it was.”

“And where are we?”

“Why, here we are.”

“Yes, yes; but what place is this?”

“Sure, an’ it’s the skipper’s palace.”

“Commodore Junk’s?”

“Yis.”

“And what place is it – where are we?”

“Faix, and they say that sick payple is hard to deal wid. It’s what I’m telling you sure. It’s the skipper’s palace, and here it is.”

“My good fellow, you told me all that; but I want to know whereabouts it is.”

“Oh-h! Whereabouts it is, you mane!”

“Yes, yes.”

“Why, right away in the woods.”

“Far from the shore!”

“Ah, would ye!” cried Dinny, with a grin full of cunning. “Ye’d be getting all the information out of me, and then as soon as ye get well be running away.”

“Yes,” said Humphrey, “If I can.”

“Well, that’s honest,” cried Dinny. “And it’s meself would do it if I got a chance.”

“No,” said Humphrey, sadly; “I could not do that and leave my men.”

“Faix, and they’d leave ye if they got a chance, sor.”

“How are they all!”

“Oh, they’re getting right enough,” said Dinny. “Ye’ve been the worst of ’em all yerself, and if ye don’t make haste ye’ll be last.”

“But tell me, my lad, why am I kept in prison!”

“Tell ye why you’re kept in prison?”

“Yes.”

“An’ ye want to know! Well, divil a wan of us can tell, unless it’s the skipper’s took a fancy to ye bekase ye’re such a divil to fight, and he wants ye to jyne the rigiment.”

“Regiment! Why, you’ve been a soldier!”

“And is it me a sodjer! Why, ye’ll be wanting to make out next that I was a desarther when was only a prishner of war.” Humphrey sighed.

“Sure, and ye’re wanting something, sor. What’ll I get ye! The skipper said ye were to have iverything you wanted.”

“Then give me my liberty, my man, and let me go back to England – and disgrace.”

“Sure, and I wouldn’t go back to England to get that, sor. I’d sooner shtop here. The skipper’s always telling Bart to look afther ye well.”