The Pirate, and The Three Cutters Part 6

'I can't help it, sir--it's not my fault; and I'm sure it's not yours, sir,' added the boy demurely.

'Are you aware, Edward--Mr. Templemore, I mean--of the impropriety of disrespect to your superior officer?'

'I never laughed at Mr. Markitall but once, sir, that I can recollect, and that was when he tumbled over the messenger.'

'And why did you laugh at him then, sir?'

'I always do laugh when any one tumbles down,' replied the lad; 'I can't help it, sir.'

'Then, sir, I suppose you would laugh if you saw me rolling in the lee-scuppers?' said the captain.

'Oh!' replied the boy, no longer able to contain himself, 'I'm sure I should burst myself with laughing--I think I see you now, sir.'

'Do you, indeed! I'm very glad that you do not; though I'm afraid, young gentleman, you stand convicted by your own confession.'

'Yes, sir, for laughing, if that is any crime; but it's not in the Articles of War.'

'No, sir; but disrespect is. You laugh when you go to the mast-head.'

'But I obey the order, sir, immediately--do I not, Mr. Markitall?'

'Yes, sir, you obey the order; but, at the same time, your laughing proves that you do not mind the punishment.'

'No more I do, sir. I spend half my time at the mast-head, and I'm used to it now.'

'But, Mr. Templemore, ought you not to feel the disgrace of the punishment?' inquired the captain severely.

'Yes, sir, if I felt I deserved it I should. I should not laugh, sir, if _you_ sent me to the mast-head,' replied the boy, a.s.suming a serious countenance.

'You see, Mr. Markitall, that he can be grave,' observed the captain.

'I've tried all I can to make him so, sir,' replied the first lieutenant; 'but I wish to ask Mr. Templemore what he means to imply by saying, "when he deserves it." Does he mean to say that I have ever punished him unjustly?'

'Yes, sir,' replied the boy boldly; 'five times out of six I am mast-headed for nothing--and that's the reason why I do not mind it.'

'For nothing, sir! Do you call laughing nothing?'

'I pay every attention that I can to my duty, sir; I always obey your orders; I try all I can to make you pleased with me--but you are always punis.h.i.+ng me.'

'Yes, sir, for laughing, and, what is worse, making the s.h.i.+p's company laugh.'

'They "haul and hold" just the same, sir--I think they work all the better for being merry.'

'And pray, sir, what business have you to think?' replied the first lieutenant, now very angry. 'Captain Plumbton, as this young gentleman thinks proper to interfere with me and the discipline of the s.h.i.+p, I beg you will see what effect your punis.h.i.+ng may have upon him.'

'Mr. Templemore,' said the captain, 'you are, in the first place, too free in your speech, and, in the next place, too fond of laughing. There is, Mr. Templemore, a time for all things--a time to be merry, and a time to be serious. The quarter-deck is not the fit place for mirth.'

'I'm sure the gangway is not,' shrewdly interrupted the boy.

'No--you are right, nor the gangway; but you may laugh on the forecastle, and when below with your messmates.'

'No, sir, we may not; Mr. Markitall always sends out if he hears us laughing.'

'Because, Mr. Templemore, you're always laughing.'

'I believe I am, sir; and if it's wrong I'm sorry to displease you, but I mean no disrespect. I laugh in my sleep--I laugh when I awake--I laugh when the sun s.h.i.+nes--I always feel so happy; but though you do mast-head me, Mr. Markitall, I should not laugh, but be very sorry, if any misfortune happened to you.'

'I believe you would, boy--I do indeed, Mr. Markitall,' said the captain.

'Well, sir,' replied the first lieutenant, 'as Mr. Templemore appears to be aware of his error, I do not wish to press my complaint--I have only to request that he will never laugh again.'

'You hear, boy, what the first lieutenant says; it's very reasonable, and I beg I may hear no more complaints. Mr. Markitall, let me know when the foot of that foretopsail will be repaired--I should like to s.h.i.+ft it to-night.'

Mr. Markitall went down under the half-deck to make the inquiry.

'And, Edward,' said Captain Plumbton, as soon as the lieutenant was out of ear-shot, 'I have a good deal more to say to you upon this subject, but I have no time now. So come and dine with me--at my table, you know, I allow laughing in moderation.'

The boy touched his hat, and with a grateful, happy countenance, walked away.

We have introduced this little scene that the reader may form some idea of the character of Edward Templemore. He was indeed the soul of mirth, good-humour, and kindly feelings towards others; he even felt kindly towards the first lieutenant, who persecuted him for his risible propensities. We do not say that the boy was right in laughing at all times, or that the first lieutenant was wrong in attempting to check it.

As the captain said, there is a time for all things, and Edward's laugh was not always seasonable; but it was his nature, and he could not help it. He was joyous as the May morning; and thus he continued for years, laughing at everything--pleased with everybody--almost universally liked--and his bold, free, and happy spirit unchecked by vicissitude or hards.h.i.+p.

He served his time--was nearly turned back, when he was pa.s.sing his examination, for laughing, and then went laughing to sea again--was in command of a boat at the cutting-out of a French corvette, and when on board was so much amused by the little French captain skipping about with his rapier, which proved fatal to many, that at last he received a pink from the little gentleman himself, which laid him on deck. For this affair, and in consideration of his wound, he obtained his promotion to the rank of lieutenant--was appointed to a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p in the West Indies--laughed at the yellow fever--was appointed to the tender of that s.h.i.+p, a fine schooner, and was sent to cruise for prize-money for the admiral, and promotion for himself, if he could, by any fortunate encounter, be so lucky as to obtain it.

CHAPTER VII

SLEEPER'S BAY

On the western coast of Africa there is a small bay, which has received more than one name from its occasional visitors. That by which it was designated by the adventurous Portuguese, who first dared to cleave the waves of the Southern Atlantic, has been forgotten with their lost maritime preeminence; the name allotted to it by the woolly-headed natives of the coast has never, perhaps, been ascertained; it is, however, marked down in some of the old English charts as Sleeper's Bay.

The mainland which, by its curvature, has formed this little dent, on a coast possessing, and certainly at present requiring, few harbours, displays, perhaps, the least inviting of all prospects; offering to the view nothing but a shelving beach of dazzling white sand, backed with a few small hummocks beat up by the occasional fury of the Atlantic gales--arid, bare, and without the slightest appearance of vegetable life. The inland prospect is shrouded over by a dense mirage, through which here and there are to be discovered the stems of a few distant palm-trees, so broken and disjoined by refraction that they present to the imagination anything but the idea of foliage or shade. The water in the bay is calm and smooth as the polished mirror; not the smallest ripple is to be heard on the beach, to break through the silence of nature; not a breath of air sweeps over its gla.s.sy surface, which is heated with the intense rays of a vertical noonday sun, pouring down a withering flood of light and heat; not a sea-bird is to be discovered wheeling on its flight, or balancing on its wings as it pierces the deep with its searching eye, ready to dart upon its prey. All is silence, solitude, and desolation, save that occasionally may be seen the fin of some huge shark, either sluggishly moving through the heated element, or stationary in the torpor of the mid-day heat. A sight so sterile, so stagnant, so little adapted to human life, cannot well be conceived, unless, by flying to extremes, we were to portray the chilling blast, the transfixing cold, and 'close-ribbed ice' at the frozen poles.

At the entrance of this bay, in about three fathoms water, heedless of the spring cable which hung down as a rope which had fallen overboard, there floated, motionless as death, a vessel whose proportions would have challenged the unanimous admiration of those who could appreciate the merits of her build, had she been anch.o.r.ed in the most frequented and busy harbour of the universe. So beautiful were her lines, that you might almost have imagined her a created being that the ocean had been ordered to receive, as if fas.h.i.+oned by the Divine Architect, to add to the beauty and variety of His works; for, from the huge leviathan to the smallest of the finny tribe--from the towering albatross to the boding petrel of the storm--where could be found, among the winged or finned frequenters of the ocean, a form more appropriate, more fitting, than this specimen of human skill, whose beautiful model and elegant tapering spars were now all that could be discovered to break the meeting lines of the firmament and horizon of the offing.

Alas! she was fas.h.i.+oned, at the will of avarice, for the aid of cruelty and injustice, and now was even more nefariously employed. She had been a slaver--she was now the far-famed, still more dreaded, pirate schooner, the _Avenger_.

Not a man-of-war which scoured the deep but had her instructions relative to this vessel, which had been so successful in her career of crime--not a trader in any portion of the navigable globe but whose crew shuddered at the mention of her name, and the remembrance of the atrocities which had been practised by her reckless crew. She had been everywhere--in the east, the west, the north, and the south, leaving a track behind her of rapine and of murder. There she lay in motionless beauty, her low sides were painted black, with one small, narrow riband of red--her raking masts were clean sc.r.a.ped--her topmasts, her cross-trees, caps, and even running-blocks, were painted in pure white.

Awnings were spread fore and aft to protect the crew from the powerful rays of the sun; her ropes were hauled taut; and in every point she wore the appearance of being under the control of seamans.h.i.+p and strict discipline. Through the clear smooth water her copper shone brightly; and as you looked over her taffrail down into the calm blue sea, you could plainly discover the sandy bottom beneath her, and the anchor which then lay under her counter. A small boat floated astern, the weight of the rope which attached her appearing, in the perfect calm, to draw her towards the schooner.

We must now go on board, and our first cause of surprise will be the deception relative to the tonnage of the schooner, when viewed from a distance. Instead of a small vessel of about ninety tons, we discover that she is upwards of two hundred; that her breadth of beam is enormous; and that those spars, which appeared so light and elegant, are of unexpected dimensions. Her decks are of narrow fir planks, without the least spring or rise; her ropes are of Manilla hemp, neatly secured to copper belaying-pins, and coiled down on the deck, whose whiteness is well contrasted with the bright green paint of her bulwarks: her capstern and binnacles are cased in fluted mahogany, and ornamented with bra.s.s; metal stanchions protect the skylights, and the bright muskets are arranged in front of the mainmast, while the boarding-pikes are lashed round the mainboom.

In the centre of the vessel, between the fore and main masts, there is a long bra.s.s 32-pounder fixed upon a carriage revolving in a circle, and so arranged that in bad weather it can be lowered down and _housed_; while on each side of her decks are mounted eight bra.s.s guns of smaller calibre and of exquisite workmans.h.i.+p. Her build proves the skill of the architect; her fitting-out, a judgment in which nought has been sacrificed to, although everything has been directed by, taste; and her neatness and arrangement, that, in the person of her commander, to the strictest discipline there is united the practical knowledge of a thorough seaman. How, indeed, otherwise could she have so long continued her lawless yet successful career? How could it have been possible to unite a crew of miscreants, who feared not G.o.d nor man, most of whom had perpetrated foul murders, or had been guilty of even blacker iniquities? It was because he who commanded the vessel was so superior as to find in her no rivalry. Superior in talent, in knowledge of his profession, in courage, and, moreover, in physical strength--which in him was almost herculean--unfortunately he was also superior to all in villainy, in cruelty, and contempt of all injunctions, moral and Divine.

What had been the early life of this person was but imperfectly known.