Part 4

“Well, now, you surprise me, you do, indeed,” said Mr Dawkins, with somewhat ominous levity. “I wasn’t aware of it, I do assure you. Why, I must take a reef on the main-s’l, I see that. I been all wrong. I reckoned the owners was wishful to get their ship into port as soon as might be; that was my mistake, d’ye see. And I take it very kind of you, Mr Pomfrett, to p’int it out. And on my own quarterdeck, too, by the bones of the deep!”

“Mr Dawkins,” said Brandon, stiffly, “I must request you to take this matter seriously. You will be good enough to understand that I am here to see that the owners’ interests are properly served. I have no wish to summon a council; but unless I find my wishes complied with, I shall have no choice but to do so.”

“Very well, Mr Supercargo. Depose me, is it? Well, if it must be, it must, I reckon. On’y, who’s to sail the ship?”

“Navigate her, do you mean? I will!” And Captain Dawkins looked a little blank at the retort. “Come,” Brandon added, “don’t let us quarrel, Mr Dawkins.”

“Quarrel!” said Dawkins, cheerily. “Not a mite of it. And I tell you what, Mr Pomfrett, there’s very few agents, as I’ve ever seen, as would have the marrow to do what you done. Why, they’d be afraid! But you--you don’t give a penny piece for the captain, not you. Duty is duty, says you, and you ups on the quarterdeck like a Queen’s admiral. I admire you, sir, I do, indeed. And I’ll bear your words in mind, don’t you fear. I shan’t forget, I shan’t.”

“You see,” said Brandon, afterwards, to me. “I told you so. Tackle a man face to face, and he listens. I believe Dawkins is a good man enough, only uneducated and a bit reckless. I thought I’d tell him I could navigate the ship, because he presumes on his being the only man aboard who can. I don’t think,” said the owners’ agent, “I shall have much more trouble with Dawkins.”

I was not so sure. I had seen Mr Dawkins’s blue-red visage darken to plum-colour, and his little eyes contract to pin-points, while his teeth showed as he grinned--and I was not so sure. But I thought it a pity further to harass the conscientious agent with my doubts. And a few days of quiet sailing brought us in sight of the low green island of Barbadoes. We dropped anchor in Carlisle Bay, and Pomfrett went ashore to obtain, as the custom is, the Governor’s permission to purchase provisions, leaving me on board, occupied with business. He returned in the evening, having made all arrangements for the supplies to be had aboard upon the following day.

“May I never ship with a worser supercargo than yourself, Mr Pomfrett,” said Dawkins. “I never see a agent so smart with his duty, so help me! But it never does to drive a clipper bark too hard--why, you taught me that, so you did, Mr Pomfrett, now I come to think of it--and if you and Mr Winter would care to take a run ashore, these parts being new to you gentlemen, we would try to make out for a few hours without you.”

None who has not been to sea can comprehend the delight of getting ashore, though the voyage has been never so pleasant. The smell of the land, the firm earth underfoot, the sight of women-folk, and, above all, the taste of fresh food--these common sensations become extraordinary pleasures. We accepted the captain’s kindly offer with joy. Mr Dawkins gave us a letter of introduction addressed to one Mr Jevon Murch, who, said the captain, was a friend of his, and who lived on his plantation some few miles inland.

The moment we set foot on the quay we were surrounded by a mob of negroes, clamouring to be taken as guides.

“Take me, massa, take me,” shouted a huge buck negro, forcing his way through the crowd. “Me white man; don’t hab dese dirty black men, massa. Dirty black men, git ’way wid yer!”

The gentleman was as black as a boot; but I suppose he had a drop of white blood somewhere in his ancestry. We took him on that valuation. He brought us through the streets of white houses with green shutters, where noisy crews of black men were haling sugar-barrels as big as cottages down to the wharves, and out into the sugar-cane plantations. We walked along the narrow lanes, cut through the green groves, and on either side the slaves were hard at work in the fainting heat, the men extinguished beneath wide, shallow hats as big as a cart-wheel, with a little red button in the centre; the women clad in blue stuff, with gaudy handkerchiefs bound about their heads.

Here were Christian serfs as well as heathen: white men brought from England and sold like any black stuff from the Guinea coast, sweating under the eye and the whip of the overseer.

“It’s a crime and a disgrace,” said Pomfrett, whose simple soul was quickly aroused to indignation. “How can they bear it? Why don’t they mutiny? Why don’t they kill the planter? Why don’t they kill themselves? And what sort of persons are these planters, to make slaves of white men?”

“The same sort of persons as the citizens at home, who make slaves of black men,” I said. “The same as your respected relative, Mrs A., for example.”

“Not at all--not in the least,” cried the ardent Pomfrett. “The blacks are born to it. They’re never so happy as when they’re slaves.”

“Cap’n Morgan, he was slave on plantation,” put in the negro, cheerfully. “Then he buccaneer. Afterwards he Governor Jamaica.”

“And afterwards he died in prison,” said Pomfrett.

“Po’ man,” said the black. “Massa Murch, he one of Morgan’s men,” he added.

We were naturally eager, upon this information, to see one who had sailed under that renowned admiral of the old buccaneers; who had taken part, very likely, in the sack of Panama, and seen the cities of Maracaibo and Gibraltar put to ransom in the teeth of the whole Spanish fleet.

“Morgan was a Bristol man, too,” says Pomfrett. “That’s a coincidence. But Murch must be an oldish man; it’s over thirty years since Morgan took to honest courses. I wonder how Dawkins came to know him.”

“Dawkins is a pirate,” I said. “I always told you so.”

“Dawkins,” retorted Brandon, stoutly, “is a good man.”

We were come by this time to the entrance of an avenue of cedars, whose lofty aisle of dark green foliage framed, in a diminishing perspective, a squat white house with a wide verandah, crouched beneath a little hill of tropical foliage. Our negro stopped; his errand, he said, was done,--that was Mr Murch’s house. He stood shifting from one leg to the other, his white eyeballs glancing on every side, holding out his dingy paw for his fee, in a terrible hurry to be gone. As the money touched his palm he was off like an arrow.

“He doesn’t seem to relish the neighbourhood,” Pomfrett observed, staring after the fleeing figure. “It seems quiet enough.”

It was quiet, indeed. The breeze hummed in the vast, feathery tree-tops, the grasshoppers chirped, and the droning of the flies was like the turning of a wheel; but these monotonous sounds made but an undercurrent in the deep stillness. Not a soul was in sight. The low, secret-looking house with the green shutters stood to all appearance wholly deserted, as we approached. The whole place was noiseless as a dream. I had a fancy, indeed, that I was walking in a dream, as we came to the neatly raked sand in front of the verandah, upon which our footsteps made no sound, and noted the shuttered windows, and spied in vain for any sign of habitation. But Pomfrett had no such fancies.

“I suppose these people sleep in the day-time. We’ll make ’em rouse and bitt,” said he, and rapped smartly on the door.

It was opened with unexpected promptness by an old, white-haired negro. We asked him if Mr Jevon Murch were within. Instead of answering, the black opened his mouth and, gaping at us horribly, pointed down that red cavern. Our eyes following his gesture, we saw that his tongue had been cut out. Pomfrett had the letter of introduction in his hand. Still fearfully staring, he offered it mechanically to this nightmare of a negro, who took it, nodded, flashed a grin upon us, and shut the door in our faces.

We looked at one another, not without dismay.

“Oh, dear me!” said Pomfrett, with great gravity. “What next, I wonder?”

The hot silence settled thick about us, as we waited on the threshold.

V

MR MURCH’S REPENTANCE

Presently the negro reappeared, motioned us within, and led us into a cool, gloomy room with a matted floor, sparely furnished with a table, a great carved settle, and a red earthenware water-jar, oozing a cold perspiration. The walls, of baked earth, or adobe, were two or three feet thick in the embrasure of the small window, which was fitted with an iron grille, curiously wrought. The square of the window framed a space of blinding sunshine, continually crossed and recrossed by darting, many-coloured flies. We had a few minutes in which to remark these things, before the heavy door opened, and there entered a tall old man, dressed in loose clothes of white linen. His complexion was of the colour of old mahogany, so that his eyes glinted light like steel, and his thick white hair and beard were as snow. With his strong projection of chin, line of forehead running sharply backward and upward, and upward slant of tufted eyebrow and long, narrow eye, there was at the first glance a certain viperine aspect about Mr Jevon Murch. The skin of his face was wrought into a net-work of fine lines, not only about the eyes, where the net was closest, but covering cheek and forehead.

“Mr Pomfrett,” said Mr Murch, bending his keen glance upon each of us in turn. He had a beautiful deep voice, like a bell.

Pomfrett signified that he was the person addressed.

“Ah! You are Brandon Pomfrett? And you, sir, are Henry Winter? Precisely. Well, gentlemen,” said Mr Murch, with stern deliberation, “I am sorry to see you here. But I have my duty to do, as you have yours.”

At this unexpected address, we stared in amazement.

“I surprise you,” said Mr Murch. “Or, rather, God surprises you. You shall never escape Him. He is ever in ambuscade. Did you think to avoid His arm by fleeing across the seas? Why, you witless boys, all the while ’twas His wind was blowing you to the place of repentance.”

We had no notion of what this extraordinary man might mean; but it seemed clear enough that the sooner we were out of his house the better.

“I fear,” said Brandon, politely, “there has been some mistake, sir. We have the honour to wish you good-day.” He made as if to go, but Mr Murch stood against the door, his hand upon the lock.

“As to a mistake, be sure, Mr Pomfrett, I will ascertain the rights of the business. Sir,” said Mr Murch, with great dignity, “I keep a clean ship here--no slaver. Meanwhile, sirs, I must ask you to accept my hospitality.” He slipped from the room, and we heard the bolt click. We were prisoners.

Of course, we tried to get out; and, of course, we failed. The door was of some dark, hard, foreign wood, inches thick; the window-bars were immovable. We discussed the situation. At first we were ready to conclude that Mr Jevon Murch was mad, since he was evidently sober; but the explanation seemed inadequate. Such were the hurry and disorder of our spirits, that it took us a long time to arrive at the conclusion which, to the reader, must appear fairly obvious. Mr Dawkins had sold us to his friend, Mr Murch, who would either keep us captive until the ship had sailed, or, what in those days was the more likely supposition, would enslave us to work on his plantation. Either way, the prospect did not smile. Either way, as the supercargo remarked, we were in a clove hitch. But, why should Mr Dawkins desire to be rid of the owners’ agent and, by consequence, his assistant? Here, again, we were long in debate before we came to a plausible theory. The owners’ representatives out of the way, Mr Dawkins would lift the plate and skip with the profits--this was our brilliant solution.

“Why, the man’s a common pirate,” cried Brandon. “However could we have engaged him? But it was the bottle did it; we had to, you see. It was all my fault, but it seemed such plain sailing at the time. I can never go back to England now, whatever this Murch does with us. We’re done--the game’s up. And I’ve dragged you into it, too, Harry,” says Brandon, with a very proper expression of remorse.

But regrets were unavailing, as I told him; this world is unsusceptible of refinements. It was to be supposed that Dawkins’s letter to Murch had described us as two young gallows-birds whose ingenuous faces our relatives were not anxious to behold again. Everyone is aware that the plantations used to relieve of their failures who knows how many excellent families? There was nothing strange in that. Dawkins had probably garlanded our necks for the sacrifice with the fragments of all the Ten Commandments; or, rather, it was to be supposed, Gamaliel’s fertile wit had done so for him, since Dawkins was no hand with a pen. Mr Murch, in all likelihood, was even now gone to see Captain Dawkins on our account; Dawkins would confirm his letter with damning detail; the bonds would be signed, and Mr Dawkins would pouch two hundred pieces of eight, or so. He would be at no loss to explain to the officers the continued absence of two dissolute young men; would make great pretence of delaying his departure; and would finally cut sail, swearing that he declined to lose another half-hour for the Angel Gabriel himself. We could see him at it. As for Mr Jevon Murch, he would return with Dawkins’s sign-manual for value received in his pocket, and--what then? We should be his property, as much as his ass, or his ox, or anything that was his. We should have lost everything in the world, and ourselves into the bargain. And yet, Mr Murch seemed possessed of piety, a strange quality in a friend of Mr Dawkins’s and one of Captain Morgan’s men.

“If there’s anything I hate,” says Brandon, with great energy, “’tis hypocrisy.”

I was beginning to explain to him how rare was this vice, so fluently imputed, so difficult to learn, when there came a knock at the door, a little barred wicket opened in the panel, and the face of the dumb negro appeared in the opening. He handed in a bottle of wine, a couple of cold roasted fowls, a branch of bananas, some good white bread, and various small delicacies. These I received and set out on the table, for Pomfrett refused to touch them.

“I will not break bread in the house of this canting scoundrel of a crimp and buccaneer,” said he, nobly, with a ravenous eye on the victuals, the like of which he had not smelt for weeks.

And all hungry and thirsty as I was, I had to persuade the virtuous supercargo that here were no hospitalities of an equal, but rations for prisoners, before I could begin.

“Do you really think so?” said Brandon.

I understood him. “My dear man,” said I, “do you take my feelings to be less delicate than your own?”

This was all he wanted; and, honour being satisfied, we made a heavenly meal. The negro kept in attendance and brought us cigarros, and we lay on the floor and smoked. We were not nearly so sad as we thought we were. I think, secretly, we began to conceive a sneaking kindness towards Mr Jevon Murch.

The twilight was gathering, when the bolts shot back, the door swung wide, and the great figure of Mr Murch appeared in the dark of the doorway.

“If you will have the kindness to come into my room, gentlemen, we will have a talk,” said he.

“Sir,” began Pomfrett, “what----”

But Murch had turned his back. Following him, we stepped into the passage, glancing left and right for a chance of escape. The passage opened at either end to the cool of the evening air; and in the doorways lounged two or three white men in great hats, holding long guns in the hollow of their arms, whom I took to be overseers. We followed Mr Murch into the room opposite our prison. He sat beside a tall scrutoire, a pair of lighted candles in silver candlesticks at his elbow.

“Now, gentlemen,” said he. “I have heard your captain’s account of you. I should be glad to hear your own.”

“By what right----” Brandon began.

“By right of purchase,” Mr Murch broke in. “You are as much mine”--he spread his broad hand upon the desk--“to keep, burn, or destroy, as this piece of furniture. Do you require documentary evidence? Here it is.”

He took a folded paper from his vest and laid it beside him. It was as we thought. We were indentured slaves for five years.

But Brandon declined to look at the document, declined to accept Mr Murch’s explanation, declined to have anything to do with him. He demanded, as a free British subject, to be liberated instantly, and so forth, with a fine indignation; to all of which Mr Murch hearkened with more patience than I should have expected him to manifest, on the whole. As he reclined in his chair, his great size and mass half in light and half in shadow, his narrow eyes, the upper lids drawn close, like the lids of a hawk’s eye, fixed upon the speaker’s simple countenance, the old buccaneer disengaged a strong expression of latent force; of sleeping fires that a touch might kindle into a highly disagreeable conflagration.

“I should tell you, Mr Pomfrett,” said he, in his sounding, deliberate tones, “that all this is nothing. Barbadoes is not England. Once for all, I am master here. There’s no admiral that sails the seas commands the obedience I command. Now, as to my request, again. Your story, gentlemen, is of no moment to me. You, Mr Pomfrett, may have misapplied your uncle’s money; you, Mr Winter, may have stolen a virtuous young woman from her parents”--here, then, were some of Mr Dawkins’s rather clumsy inventions--“it is nothing to me. It was rather for your own sakes that I made my request. I make it again.”

Every line upon his swarthy face, every hair of his strong white beard, every vibration of his deep voice cried “Beware!” We complied. We told Mr Jevon Murch all that had befallen, from the meeting in Gamaliel’s tavern to our landing in this accursed island. Pomfrett ended by a fervent adjuration, imploring Mr Murch, if he could not give or sell his liberty, at least to let him go down to the ship, on his parole, and challenge Captain Dawkins to mortal combat.

Mr Murch, who had listened without a word, good or bad, treated the proposition very airily.

“My lad,” said he, “don’t you know Dawkins better than that? He does not fight except for gain. Moreover, he sails to-night--has already cut sail, in all likelihood.”

I thought Brandon would have sprung at his throat, and then I thought he would break into weeping. He glanced at the iron face of his master, and then he stood looking down, with a bitten lip. Before he had time to give way to his feelings, Murch struck a silver gong, and a brown servant appeared, by whom preceded, and followed by Mr Murch, we were conducted into a sleeping-chamber. Murch commended to us the food and wine set out on a side-table, bade us good-night, and left us, bolting the door after him.

These emergencies of life are worse in either anticipation or retrospect than in experience. We thought little, and said little, ate and drank, and slept soundly, chiefly conscious of the pleasure of being ashore, in a clean house, with fresh food. That we were sold into slavery was certainly a disaster; we were aware of it, in the abstract; but, at present, we felt it not. As for Mr Murch, he puzzled us.

But, somehow or other, during the night-watches the shadow of servitude descended upon us. We awoke at first to a vague consciousness of a nameless taint, then to a clear perception of that infamy. In the good hour of the dawn, when the world is all still, and the air scented with the smoke of wood-fires, we stood sullen at the window, gazing at the clear glory of the sky with the eyes of chained dogs. It was so Mr Murch found us, when he came briskly in, at the heels of a thundering knock, cat-footed, for all his bulk, and massively alert.

“Gentlemen, what cheer? I have brought you a little present,” quoth he, tapping a folded paper with his thick fingers. “Do me the favour to glance at this document.”

Pomfrett received the paper, and together we ran our eyes over it. It was the same I had perused the night before, signed with Dawkins’s great sprawling signature, and purporting to be the indenture delivering us to Mr Jevon Murch for a term of five years. The sum paid was one hundred and fifteen pieces of eight for Brandon Pomfrett, aged twenty-two; one hundred for Henry Winter, aged twenty-five; both being “notorious profligate evil-livers.” The schoolmaster, it appeared, was the cheaper article--why?

“You have us in a trap--we knew that last night,” said Brandon, returning the paper. “But let me tell you, that’s a shameful document,” he added, hardily.

Mr Murch, with those narrow-lidded eyes of his on Brandon, slowly tore the paper across and across. We stared at the pieces as they dropped, and up at the bronze countenance with its inscrutable hieroglyphic of fine lines.

“What do you mean by that?” asked Pomfrett, stupidly.

“I desire your company, gentlemen, at breakfast--and my servants do not sit at table with me,” said Mr Murch. “I beg you will so favour me.” With his customary abrupt action, he turned about and padded from the room. What should we do but follow? Mr Murch led us out into the verandah. A lady wearing a black lace mantilla, as the Spanish ladies use, came to him and kissed him.

We were presented in due form to Mistress Morgan Leroux. What shall I say of her? She had the blackest eyes I ever beheld (but no eyes are truly black), beneath level brows, and a mouth the colour of bruised poppies. In the shadow of her hood and her dark hair she glowed like a rose, a refreshing vision to eyes tired with the eternal waste of sea. Mistress Morgan looked curiously at these two gentlemen, who were slaves (the taint was upon us still) no later than this morning, and it was their glance that dropped.

Mr Murch ate enough for three, and talked in a proportion.