The Pilot and his Wife: Chapter 16

Chapter 16

The Stars and Stripes lay in the roads with the Union flag at her gaff.
She was a long, black, and, at the water-line, well-shaped vessel, with
a crew of thirty-two men; and Salv� was so taken with her appearance
that as they came alongside he silently congratulated himself on his
luck in getting a berth in her. They were so obliging, moreover, as to
give him a berth to himself in a separate cabin below. But, to his
intense indignation, no sooner had he entered it than the door was
latched on the outside, and when he tried to kick it open, it was
signified to him that during the short time they had still to be at Rio,
he was to remain in confinement, that they might be sure of him. The
heat was intolerable down there; and to add to that, there was incessant
crying and groaning going on in the hold beside him, as if it were full
of sick people. It was the vilest treatment he had ever been subjected
to.

The work of taking in the cargo went on uninterruptedly the whole night,
as if they were in a particular hurry to get out of the harbour, and
about noon the anchor was weighed while the contents of the last lighter
were being taken on board.

When Salv�, some hours after, was set at liberty, they were already out
in the open sea off the mouth of the channel. The captain, the three
mates, and several of the inferiors in command, when on deck, wore
gold-laced caps and a kind of uniform, as on a man-of-war, and the
officer of the watch was armed. The crew, on the other hand, were almost
to a man shabby, and they seemed to consist of men of every
nationality--English, Irish, Germans, and Americans, not to mention half
a dozen negroes and mulattoes. As no one took any notice of him, he went
about as he pleased for a while; and presently saw, with a disagreeable
sensation, no less than three corpses carelessly sewed up in sail-cloth
dropped over the side of the ship that was turned from the land, without
the slightest ceremony. The uncomfortable feeling which this incident
had aroused was anything but allayed when he heard presently from a
little pale cabin-boy with whom he had entered into conversation that it
had been successfully concealed from the harbour authorities that there
was yellow fever on board; that there were many more lying sick below;
and that one of those who had just been heaved overboard, had died the
day before in the very berth in which Salv� had slept that night.

In the evening he was called aft to the captain, who was standing with
the boatswain at his elbow. He was a spare, energetic-looking man, of
about forty years of age, with thick black whiskers, marked features,
and rather hollow cheeks, and with carefully dressed, glossy hair. He
was smoking a handsome pipe with a long stem inlaid with
mother-of-pearl, and took a sip from time to time from a cup of black
coffee that was standing on the skylight.

"What is your name?" he asked, nodding in reply to Salv�'s salute.

"Salv�."

"Salv�," repeated the captain, with an English pronunciation of the
name; "and Norwegian?"

"He looks too respectable for the pack he'll have to herd with," he
muttered to the boatswain.

"Able seaman?"

"Yes."

"You have had three guineas on account?" he went on, after a couple of
puffs to keep his pipe alight, as he looked into his ledger; "a month's
wages."

"No, sir," said Salv�, firmly, "I have had nothing on account,"--and he
proceeded then to relate the circumstances under which the supposed
payment had been made. "I have not been regularly engaged till this
moment, if I am so now; but up to this I have been treated like a dog,
and worse."

The captain took no notice of his last observation, and merely said
shortly and sternly--

"The three guineas are owing to him, boatswain Jenkins. His place will
be in the foretop. A steady hand will be wanted among all that rabble
there."

"Another time you'll perhaps play on your own account, and not on the
sailors'," he observed, turning to the boatswain; but Salv� caught the
remark.

With this the conference came to an end, the boatswain's expression
prophesying that when the opportunity offered Salv� should pay for his
triumph. He went about nursing his prominent chin, and twisting his
yellow whiskers, and found a victim for the present in a wretched
Mulatto, who was scouring for the cook. After first correcting him
sharply for nothing, he coolly felled him to the deck with a handspike,
and left him lying there unable to move.

Salv�'s blood boiled at the sight; but his indignation gave way
presently to astonishment when he saw the poor fellow get up and go on
indefatigably with his work, after first quietly wiping his own blood
off the saucepan. There was a limit to brutality, he thought, and in his
disgust he almost envied him the blow he had received.

He provided himself now from the purser with a suit of seaman's clothes
in lieu of the rather damaged cloth ones which he wore; and the
sailmaker gave him out hammock clothes, to be paid for out of his wages.
He proceeded then to hang his hammock from one of the beams between
decks; and while he was doing so observed another man in a canvas suit
like his own, similarly occupied, not far from him. He couldn't be
mistaken--it was Federigo.

The latter had, as Salv� afterwards heard, been taken by the police
during the affair in the tavern. He had seen how Salv� had been rescued
by the boatswain of the Stars and Stripes; and having managed to escape
from his captors on the way to the guard-house, he had sought a similar
refuge.

Salv�'s indignation at his sister's baseness was still too fresh for
Federigo's reappearance to be in any way agreeable to him, although he
believed him to be innocent of any complicity in that business. At the
same time, the latter's conscience was apparently not entirely clear in
the matter, for there was a certain conscious sense of humiliation in
his expression, combined with something which made Salv� feel that he
must be upon his guard. Neither spoke to the other, and it might have
been supposed from their bearing towards one another that they had never
met before.

It very soon became clear to Salv� that he could not have hit upon a
more unfortunate ship. The crew was composed of the dregs of the New
Orleans and Charleston docks--men with every species of vice and
degradation stamped upon their countenances, and amongst whom every
second word was some infamous oath or blasphemy. Blows with handspikes
were of common occurrence, and brutality and violence generally were the
order of the day. There was no court of appeal, and the immunity which
any one individual might enjoy depended entirely upon how far he was
protected by the officers--who, however, in a general way, did not
interfere in the quarrels forward--or had formed a league with others.

The Americans and the Irish banded together, and being the most
numerous, practised a shameless system of tyranny against any who could
not defend themselves--a miserable sickly Spaniard, who had been forced
to work until he had actually dropped, having recently been more
especially the object of their attentions. Their supremacy, however, was
contested by a party of seven or eight tattered countrymen of the
latter, with one or two Portuguese, who were always ready with their
knives, and who formed a sort of opposition. To this party Federigo had
attached himself.

Salv� stood alone. The Americans and Irish had at first reckoned upon
having him with them, but had gradually turned against him. They had
taken offence at his apparent disinclination to associate with them more
than he could help. He seemed to think himself too good for them; and in
addition to that, the seaman-like qualities which he displayed made them
dislike him out of envy. But their hostility was perhaps mainly due to
the boatswain, who encouraged the idea among the rest of the crew that
he was favoured by the officers. Federigo came out now in an
unexpectedly friendly light; and Salv� perceived that it was only owing
to him that all the Portuguese were not against him also. The result was
that the two gradually approached such other again.

There were of course in such a collection of riff-raff, individual
bullies whose hands were against every man, but who to some extent kept
each other in check. The one most feared of these was a huge,
copper-coloured, scarred Irishman, who seemed periodically to be
possessed by a very demon of violence, and to be actually running over
with bad blood. He had been in irons for some time before the vessel
arrived at Rio, for having one day sworn on deck that he would murder
the captain. It was with this ruffian that Salv� had first to measure
himself, the boatswain being the immediate cause.

One day when the large bell forward had rung for dinner, the boatswain
gave an order which detained Salv� for some time after the others had
taken their places at the long table in the round-house, and when he
came in everything was eaten up, and he lost his dinner. The following
day exactly the same thing happened, and he had to content himself with
his breakfast and supper rations for the day. He perfectly understood
the meaning of it. In smartness and activity he was so far beyond
comparison superior to any of the other foretop hands, that the
boatswain had not been able to find any excuse for subjecting him to
punishment: he was going to try and hit him in another way. On his
lonely watch that night Salv� decided what he should do if the trick was
practised a third time upon him. It would be better to bring things to a
crisis at once than have his strength gradually exhausted by continued
insufficiency of food.

The same order being given at the same time next day, he carried it out
as speedily as he could, and hurried on then to the round-house, where
the others were already at their dinner, with a bowl of meat and soup to
every two men.

He sat down by the side of the Irishman, who he saw had a bowl to
himself.

"Put the bowl this way," he said, coolly.

The Irishman merely looked at him contemptuously. He was evidently
astonished at his audacity, but went on eating composedly.

Salv� felt that he must not be beaten.

"Life for life, Irishman," he cried, springing to his feet, and as the
other also rose, giving him a blow in the face that sent him backwards
on the bench against the wall.

A fierce conflict now ensued. The Irishman got up like a bleeding ox,
and catching up a marline-spike that was hanging from the beam, gave
Salv� a deep wound in the cheek, the scar of which he carried his whole
life through. They drew their knives then; and Salv�'s coolness and
activity soon gave him the superiority over his furious and unwieldy
opponent. His movements were like those of a steel spring; and pale and
smiling, he delivered every blow with such well-calculated effect, that
the affair ended with the Irishman, bleeding profusely and
half-unconscious, tumbling out of the narrow doorway to save himself.

There were not a few who were glad enough that the dreaded Irishman
should have been worsted, and it was to this feeling Salv� was indebted
for being allowed to fight it out alone with him. He stuck his knife now
into the table by the side of his dish, and, looking round him, asked,
"Is there any one else now who would like to keep me out of my meat?"

There was no answer.

"While I am about it," he continued, without noticing the blood that was
running down his face and over his hands, "I'll settle this matter once
for all. I have two days' rations owing to me. Very well. For the next
two days I shall keep one dish to myself. I shall see then what the
Irishman or any one else thinks of it."

The Irishman was confined to his hammock the whole week with
wound-fever, and Salv� had for the first time won the respect of the
crew. He felt at the same time that he had commenced a desperate
struggle, and that if he was to enjoy any sort of security in this
company of ruffians whom he had now set at defiance, he must take the
game into his own hands, and make himself at least as much feared as the
Irishman had been. Accordingly, instead of waiting to be challenged, he
deliberately became the aggressor, and set himself to dispense justice
as he pleased.

The one who, next to the Irishman, was most dreaded, was a
broad-shouldered mulatto, who carried on a petty system of pillage
against any one that was not supported, unluckily for him, by any party;
and Salv� himself had been obliged one evening to put up with having his
hammock taken down, and the mulatto's hung in its place. He had seen him
in several fights, and had observed his peculiar tactics; the result of
his observations being the conviction that the man had not the strength
which he was anxious to make the others think he had. In pursuance of
this policy, he had picked a quarrel with him on the head of that matter
of the hammock, and with a similarly decisive result. The mulatto
rejoiced in the name of Januarius, and Salv� accordingly requested him
to remember that there was something still owing to him for the eleven
other months of the year. He was a cur by nature, and never seemed to
have the slightest desire to renew the struggle afterwards, which was
not the case with the Irishman, with whom Salv� perceived, directly the
man came on deck again, that a fresh trial of strength was inevitable.

An opportunity was not long in offering, and Salv� seized it at once, so
that the challenge might come from him. The Irishman had taken a fancy
to the boots of the wretched Spaniard who was ill, and was now wearing
them.

"Irishman," said Salv�, as the other passed him, when they were lounging
about after dinner, "that is an awkward pair of boots you have on there.
If you take my advice you'll return them to their owner, or--I shall
have to pull them off you."

The Irishman glared at him, but turned pale at the last threat; and
Salv�'s eye seemed to light up at the prospect of carrying it out. The
former made the mistake of preparing to defend himself instead of taking
the aggressive, and in a moment was knocked down and stunned for an
instant by a couple of unexpected blows from Salv�, who flew at him like
a tiger-cat. The crew gathered round. The Irishman seized a heavy iron
pump-handle as a weapon, and Salv� a handspike; and Salv� kept his word.
He pulled the boots off as the other lay senseless on the deck, and took
them down to the Spaniard.

In point of physical strength, Salv� was far from being the equal of
many of these men, who, he knew very well, were now only looking out for
an occasion to get the better of him. His only chance was to take the
initiative on all occasions, and to seem the most reckless and the most
careless of life, and the most eager to fight of them all. He therefore
flew at his man without hesitation on the slightest provocation, and
whenever he threatened took care to keep his word.

The constant strain upon his energy became at last like a fever in his
blood, and the life he was leading began to show itself in his face. He
had come to be reckoned on board as one of those stubborn, unruly
spirits that are common enough among the dregs of humanity to be met
with in ships' holds in that quarter of the globe, and who usually end
their career at the yard-arm, or by a bullet from the captain's
revolver. In this very ship, before they came into Rio, at the time the
Irishman had been put in irons, the captain had, without any hesitation,
shot down from the yard one of the crew, whom he supposed to be the
ringleader of the mutineers. He looked upon Salv� now with increasing
distrust, wondering how he could ever have been so mistaken in a man as
he had been in him. "But put a man to herd with rabble, and it's hard
for him not to become one of them," he said; and, deteriorated though he
was, Salv� was still the smartest sailor he had on board.

The boatswain kept out of his way now as much as possible, for he had
heard that Salv� had sworn to tear his entrails out if he gave him any
fresh cause for offence. The latter knew very well, though, that he was
meditating something against him, and was not surprised therefore at
being called aft one day to stand a formal trial before the captain for
the expression which he had used with regard to the boatswain, and which
he did not affect to deny, "as the boatswain," he said, "had wished to
take his life."

"I mean to leave the ship," he said, "the moment we come to Valparaiso.
I am only engaged so far. But, indeed, I care little what becomes of
me," he ended, gloomily.

The captain probably had his own notions with regard to the boatswain,
as Salv� escaped the severe punishment he had expected, and was only
condemned to solitary confinement for fourteen days on bread-and-water.

"That will take you down a bit, my lad," said the captain.

The boatswain, however, made up for the leniency of his superior by a
little ingenuity of his own; and every day, when Salv� was enjoying his
meagre fare in his place of confinement, the mulatto, whom he had
triumphed over, by the boatswain's orders, took his dinner of hot meat
and ate it outside the door, close to the hole through which the light
was admitted, that the savoury smell might make its way in and tantalise
him.

At first, Salv� rather enjoyed the repose which his confinement afforded
him; but as his hunger increased he grew irritable, and at dinner-time
one day he approached his face to the opening.

"Mulatto!" he began; and the other looked up and grinned with his white
teeth, pleased to see some sign at last that his attentions had not been
thrown away--"that's good food you have there."

"Excellent," replied the other, mischievously, and with an inward
chuckle.

"It makes me picture to myself your future," Salv� continued, placidly,
"how it will be with you when I come out again. You will be like that
lobscouse, my friend. Had that never occurred to you?"

The mulatto went on eating, but grew absent. His nature, as before
observed, was not a courageous one, and it was obvious that his food at
last began to stick in his throat.

"It is much the same as if you were sitting there and feeding on
yourself," said Salv�, after a longer pause, during which he had watched
the other's lengthening countenance. "That's just what it will be, my
dear friend, unless--"

"Unless--?" repeated the mulatto, pricking up his ears.

"Unless you take good care to pass your dinner in here to me every day
from this time. There are only five days more, and I have fasted for
nine, while you have been feeding away, so you are getting off cheaply
enough. If the boatswain sees you passing in food to me, you'll be
punished, so you will have to be cautious, and hold up the plate
yourself before the opening, that he may think you are eating right in
my face."

These were humiliating terms; and the mulatto made no immediate reply.
He merely sat with his woolly head bent down in a thoughtful attitude.
But the next day he stationed his broad person with the plate in his
hand up in front of the opening, and Salv� mercilessly took every morsel
there was on it.

It was a matter of the last importance to him not to be reduced in
strength, as he knew his life was in his own hands; and that he was
anything but taken down, and was as ready as ever for a fight, he
showed, when he came out, in a sanguinary encounter which he engaged in
gratuitously for Federigo with one of the Americans, and in which it
would otherwise undoubtedly have gone hard with the Brazilian.

It was not out of any respect for him that Salv� took his part. He
looked upon him as false, treacherous, and entirely unprincipled; there
was nothing he did or said that did not seem pervaded with these
characteristics. But he helped him on the strength of that comradeship
which among these reprobates has its inviolable laws; and further than
that, there was something akin to a personal friendship existing between
them. Federigo was decidedly interesting. He could talk more or less on
almost every subject, and he was full of theories which he propounded
during their watches together, and to which Salv� eagerly listened.
There was, he said, among other remarks, and in a superior manner, no
such thing as religion, no such being as God. Such ideas were only for
dunderheads, who, moreover, in every country had their own particular
form of belief for the clever people and the priests to turn to their
own purposes. In reference to that, he told many stories of the
impositions practised by the priests in Brazil; and had many agreeable
anecdotes, too, about the beliefs of the wretched little race whose Sun
land they were passing at the time. He pronounced, in a word, for the
right of the strongest, and for piastres, women, and freedom as the
great objects of existence. What other god than Salv�, he once asked
ironically, had prevented the Irishman from taking the life of the
miserable Spaniard down there in the hold? or what god other than Fear
prevented the boatswain from felling Salv� himself to the deck with a
handspike? Although Salv� despised the speaker, his arguments made no
slight impression upon him. What god, he asked himself, would save him,
if he did not take care of himself among all these ruffians who
surrounded him? and had there been any such controlling Power in the
world, he thought with bitterness, a great deal in his life would have
been very different. Conversations of this kind always made him feel
thoroughly bad.

"What do you suppose," he suddenly asked, one evening as they were
talking together on their watch, "your sister meant to do with me,
Federigo, if I had not escaped?"

Up to this they had avoided touching upon this tender subject, and
Federigo answered, evasively--

"I'm sure I don't know. She takes wild notions sometimes."

"Yes--but what do you think? I know you had no hand in the matter."

"H'm! I had rather not say," replied Federigo, obviously relieved, but
with a peculiar smile, as if his fancy was ranging not without enjoyment
through the region of possibilities. "She scalded a monkey once, that
had bitten her, slowly to death with boiling-water. But her ingenuity
was endless."

Salv� felt a shudder run through him, and something in his face told the
other that he had better not indulge his fancy any further; and he
hastened, therefore, to add half in joke and half by way of
consolation--

"Poor Antonio Varez will pay for her having been obliged to marry him,
never fear. Yes, she is rich and happy," he concluded with a sigh, as if
he envied her; and the subject dropped.

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