Hard Cash Part 23

Her eyes filled. "My poor, warm-hearted, motherless boy," she said, "pray for my husband's safe return. For on that your happiness depends, and hers, and mine."

So now two more bright eyes looked longingly seaward for the _Agra_ homeward bound.

CHAPTER VII

NORTH lat.i.tude 23.5, longitude east 113; the time March of this same year; the wind southerly; the port Whampoa, in the Canton river. s.h.i.+ps at anchor reared their tall masts here and there, and the broad stream was enlivened and coloured by junks and boats of all sizes and vivid hues, propelled on the screw principle by a great scull at the stern, with projecting handles, for the crew to work; and at times a gorgeous mandarin boat, with two great glaring eyes set in the bows, came flying, rowed with forty paddles by an armed crew, whose s.h.i.+elds hung on the gunwale and flashed fire in the sunbeams: the mandarin, in conical and b.u.t.toned hat, sitting on the top of his cabin calmly smoking Paradise, _alias_ opium, while his gong boomed and his boat flew fourteen miles an hour, and all things scuttled out of his celestial way. And there, looking majestically down on all these water-ants, the huge _Agra,_ cynosure of so many loving eyes and loving hearts in England, lay at her moorings; homeward bound.

Her tea not being yet on board, the s.h.i.+p's hull floated high as a castle, and to the subtle, intellectual, doll-faced, bolus-eyed people that sculled to and fro busy as bees, though looking forked mushrooms, she sounded like a vast musical sh.e.l.l: for a l.u.s.ty harmony of many mellow voices vibrated in her great cavities, and made the air ring cheerily around her. The vocalists were the Cyclops, to judge by the tremendous thumps that kept clean time to their st.u.r.dy tune. Yet it was but human labour, so heavy and so knowing, that it had called in music to help. It was the third mate and his gang completing his floor to receive the coming tea-chests. Yesterday he had stowed his dunnage, many hundred bundles of light flexible canes from Sumatra and Malacca; on these he had laid tons of rough saltpetre, in 200 lb. gunny-bags: and was now mas.h.i.+ng it to music, bags and all. His gang of fifteen, naked to the waist, stood in line, with huge wooden beetles called commanders, and lifted them high and brought them down on the nitre in cadence with true nautical power and unison, singing as follows, with a ponderous b.u.mp on the first note in each bar.

[music notation]

And so up to fifteen, when the stave was concluded with a shrill "Spell, oh!" and the gang relieved, streaming with perspiration. When the saltpetre was well mashed, they rolled ton water-b.u.t.ts on it, till the floor was like a billiard table. A fleet of chop boats then began to arrive, so many per day, with the tea-chests. Mr. Grey proceeded to lay the first tier on his saltpetre floor, and then built the chests, tier upon tier, beginning at the sides, and leaving in the middle a lane somewhat narrower than a tea-chest Then he applied a screw jack to the chests on both sides, and so enlarged his central aperture, and forced the remaining tea-chests in; and behold the enormous cargo packed as tight as ever shopkeeper packed a box--nineteen thousand eight hundred and six chests, sixty half chests, fifty quarter chests.

While Mr. Grey was contemplating his work with singular satisfaction, a small boat from Canton came alongside, and Mr. Tickell, mids.h.i.+pman, ran up the side, skipped on the quarterdeck, saluted it first, and then the first mate; and gave him a line from the captain, desiring him to take the s.h.i.+p down to Second Bar--for her water--at the turn of the tide.

Two hours after receipt of this order the s.h.i.+p swung to the ebb.

Instantly Mr. Sharpe unmoored, and the _Agra_ began her famous voyage, with her head at right angles to her course; for the wind being foul, all Sharpe could do was to set his topsails, driver, and jib, and keep her in the tide way, and clear of the numerous craft, by backing or filling as the case required; which he did with considerable dexterity, making the sails steer the helm for the nonce: he crossed the Bar at sunset, and brought to with the best bower anchor in five fathoms and a half. Here they began to take in their water, and on the fifth day the six-oared gig was ordered up to Canton for the captain. The next afternoon he pa.s.sed the s.h.i.+p in her, going down the river to Lin-Tin, to board the Chinese admiral for his chop, or permission to leave China.

All night the _Agra_ showed three lights at her mizen peak for him, and kept a sharp look out. But he did not come: he was having a very serious talk with the Chinese admiral; at daybreak, however, the gig was reported in sight: Sharpe told one of the mids.h.i.+pmen to call the boatswain and man the side. Soon the gig ran alongside; two of the s.h.i.+p's boys jumped like monkeys over the bulwarks, lighting, one on the main channels, the other on the mids.h.i.+p port, and put the side ropes a.s.siduously in the captain's hands; he bestowed a slight paternal smile on them, the first the imps had ever received from an officer, and went lightly up the sides. The moment his foot touched the deck, the boatswain gave a frightful shrill whistle; the men at the sides uncovered; the captain saluted the quarter-deck, and all the officers saluted him, which he returned, and stepping for a moment to the weather side of his deck, gave the loud command, "All hands heave anchor." He then directed Mr. Sharpe to get what sail he could on the s.h.i.+p, the wind being now westerly, and dived into his cabin.

The boatswain piped three shrill pipes, and "All hands up anchor," was thrice repeated forward, followed by private admonitions, "Rouse and bitt!" "Show a leg!" &c., and up tumbled the crew with homeward bound written on their tanned faces.

(Pipe.) "Up all hammocks."

In ten minutes the ninety and odd hammocks were all stowed neatly in the netting, and covered with a snowy hammock-cloth; and the hands were active, unbitting the cable, s.h.i.+pping the capstan bars, &c.

"All ready below, sir," cried a voice.

"Man the bars," returned Mr. Sharpe from the quarter-deck. "Play up, fifer. Heave away."

Out broke the merry fife, with a rhythmical tune, and tramp, tramp, tramp went a hundred and twenty feet round and round, and, with brawny chests pressed tight against the capstan bars, sixty fine fellows walked the s.h.i.+p up to her anchor, drowning the fife at intervals with their st.u.r.dy song, as pat to their feet as an echo:--

Heave with a will, ye jolly boys, Heave around: We're off from Chainee, jolly boys, Homeward bound.

"Short stay apeak, sir," roars the boatswain from forward.

"Uns.h.i.+p the bars. Way aloft. Loose sails. Let fall."

The s.h.i.+p being now over her anchor, and the top-sails set, the capstan bars were s.h.i.+pped again, the men all heaved with a will, the messenger grinned, the anchor was torn out of China with a mighty heave, and then ran up with a luff tackle and secured; the s.h.i.+p's head cast to port.

"Up with the jib--man the taupsle halliards--all hands make sail." Round she came slow and majestically; the sails filled, and the good s.h.i.+p bore away for England.

She made the Bogue forts in three or four tacks, and there she had to come to again for another chop, China being a place as hard to get into as Heaven, and to get out of as--Chancery. At three P.M. she was at Macao, and hove to four miles from the land to take in her pa.s.sengers.

A gun was fired from the forecastle. No boats came off. Sharpe began to fret; for the wind, though light, had now got to the N.W., and they were wasting it. After a while the captain came on deck, and ordered all the carronades to be scaled. The eight heavy reports bellowed the great s.h.i.+p's impatience across the water and out pulled two boats with the pa.s.sengers. While they were coming, Dodd sent and ordered the gunner to load the carronades with shot, and secure and ap.r.o.n them. The first boat brought Colonel Kenealy, Mr. Fullalove, and a prodigious negro, who all mounted by the side-ropes. But the whip was rigged for the next boat, and the Honourable Mrs. Beresford and poodle hoisted on board, item her white maid, item her black nurse, item her little boy and male Oriental in charge thereof, the strangest compound of dignity and servility, and of black and white, being clad in snowy cotton and j.a.panned to the nine.

Mrs. Beresford was the wife of a member of council in India. She had been to Macao for her boy's health, intending to return to Calcutta: but meantime her husband was made a director, and went home: so she was going to join him. A tall, handsome lady, with too curved a nose.

Like most aquiline women, she was born to domineer a bit; and, for the last ten years, Orientals clinging at her knee and Europeans flattering at her ear had nursed this quality highs and spoiled her with all their might. A similar process had been applied to her boy Frederick from infancy; he was now nearly six. Arrogance and caprice shone so in both their sallow faces, and spoke so in every gesture, that as they came on board, Sharpe, a reader of pa.s.sengers, whispered the second mate: "Bayliss, we have s.h.i.+pped the devil."

"And a cargo of his imps," grunted Mr. Bayliss.

Mr. Fullalove was a Methodist parson--to the naked eye: grave, sober, lean, lank-haired. But some men are hidden fires. Fullalove was one of the extraordinary products of an extraordinary nation, the United States of America. He was an engineer for one thing, and an inventive and practical mechanician; held two patents of his own creating, which yielded him a good income both at home and in Great Britain. Such results are seldom achieved without deep study and seclusion; and, accordingly, Joshua Fullalove, when the inventive fit was on, would be buried deep as Archimedes for a twelvemonth, burning the midnight oil: then, his active element predominating, the pale student would dash into the forest or the prairie, with a rifle and an Indian, and come out bronzed, and more or less be-panthered or be-buffaloed; thence invariably to sea for a year or two. There, Anglo-Saxon to the backbone, his romance had ever an eye to business; he was always after foreign mechanical inventions--he was now importing a excellent one from j.a.pan--and ready to do lucrative feats of knowledge: thus he bought a Turkish s.h.i.+p at the bottom of the Dardanelles for twelve hundred dollars, raised her cargo (hardware), and sold it for six thousand dollars; then weighed the empty s.h.i.+p, pumped her, repaired he; and navigated her himself into Boston harbour, Ma.s.sachusetts. On the way he rescued, with his late drowned s.h.i.+p, a Swedish vessel, and received salvage. He once fished eighty elephants' tusks out of a craft foundered in the Firth of Forth, to the disgust of elder Anglo-Saxons looking on from the sh.o.r.e. These unusual pursuits were varied by a singular recreation: he played at elevating the African character to European levels. With this view he had bought Vespasian for eighteen hundred dollars; whereof anon. America is fertile in mixtures: what do we not owe her? Sherry cobbler, gin sling, c.o.c.ktail, mint julep, brandy smash, sudden death, eye openers. Well, one day she outdid herself, and mixed Fullalove: Quaker, Nimrod, Archimedes, Philanthropist, decorous Red Rover, and What Not.

The pa.s.senger boats cast loose.

"All hands make sail."

The boatswain piped, the light-heeled topsmen sped up the rathines and lay out the yards, while all on deck looked up as usual to see them work. Out bellied sail after sail aloft; the s.h.i.+p came curtseying round to the southward, spread her snowy pinions high and wide, and went like a bird over the wrinkled sea--homeward bound.

It was an exhilarating start, and all faces were bright--but one. The captain looked somewhat grave and thoughtful, and often scanned the horizon with his gla.s.s; he gave polite but very short answers to his friend Colonel Kenealy, who was firing nothings in his ear, and sent for the gunner.

While that personage, a crusty old Niler called Monk, is cleaning himself to go on the quarter-deck, peep we into captain Dodd's troubled mind, and into the circ.u.mstances which connect him with the heart of this story, despite the twelve thousand miles of water between him and the lovers at Barkington.

It had always been his pride to lay by money for his wife and children, and, under advice of an Indian friend, he had, during the last few years, placed considerable sums, at intervals, in a great Calcutta house, which gave eight per cent for deposits: swelled by fresh capital and such high interest, the h.o.a.rd grew fast. When his old s.h.i.+p, sore battered off the Cape, was condemned by the company's agents at Canton, he sailed to Calcutta, intending to return thence to England as a pa.s.senger. But while he was at Calcutta, the greatest firm there suspended payment carrying astonishment and dismay into a hundred families. At such moments the press and the fireside ring for a little while with the common-sense cry,* "Good interest means bad security." As for Dodd, who till then had revered all these great houses with nautical or childlike confidence, a blind terror took the place of blind trust in him; he felt guilty towards his children for risking their money (he had got to believe it was theirs, not his), and vowed, if he could only get hold of it once more, he would never trust a penny of it out of his own hands again, except, perhaps, to the Bank of England. But should he ever get it? It was a large sum. He went to Messrs. Anderson & Anderson, and drew for his fourteen thousand pounds. To his dismay, but hardly to his surprise, the clerks looked at one another, and sent the cheque into some inner department. Dodd was kept waiting. His heart sank with him: there was a hitch.

*The Duke of Wellington (the iron one) is the author of this saying.

Meantime came a Government officer, and paid in an enormous sum in notes and mercantile bills, princ.i.p.ally the latter.

Presently Dodd was invited into the manager's room.

"Leaving the country, Captain Dodd?"

"Yes, sir."

"You had better take some of your money in bills at sight on London."

"I would rather have notes, sir," faltered Dodd.

"Oh, bills by Oliveira upon Baring are just as good, even without our endors.e.m.e.nt. However, you can have half and half. Calcutta does but little in English bank-notes, you know."

They gave him his money. The bills were all manifestly good. But he recognised one of them as having just been paid in by the civilian. He found himself somehow safe in the street clutching the cash, with one half of his great paternal heart on fire, and the other half freezing.

He had rescued his children's fortune, but he had seen destruction graze it. The natural chill at being sc.r.a.ped by peril soon pa.s.sed, the triumphant glow remained. The next sentiment was precaution: he filled with it to the brim; he went and bought a great broad pocket-book with a key to it; though he was on dry land. He covered it with oiled silk against the water; and sewed the whole thing to his flannel waistcoat, and felt for it with his hand a hundred times a day: the fruit of his own toil, his children's h.o.a.rd, the rescued treasure he was to have the joy of bringing home safe to the dear partner of all his joys.

Unexpectedly he was ordered out to Canton to sail the _Agra_ to the Cape. Then a novel and strange feeling came over him like a cloud; that feeling was, a sense of personal danger: not that the many perils of the deep were new to him: he had faced them this five-and-twenty years: but till now they were little present to his imagination: they used to come, be encountered, be gone: but now, though absent, they darkened the way.

It was the pocket-book. The material treasure, the hard cash, which had lately set him in a glow, seemed now to load his chest and hang heavy round the neck of his heart. Sailors are more or less superst.i.tious, and men are creatures of habit, even in their courage. Now David had never gone to sea with a lot of money on him before. As he was a stout-hearted man, these vague forebodings would, perhaps, have cleared away with the bustle, when the _Agra_ set her studding sails off Macao, but for a piece of positive intelligence he had picked up at Lin-Tin. The Chinese admiral had warned him of a pirate, a daring pirate, who had been lately cruising in these waters: first heard of south the line, but had since taken a Russian s.h.i.+p at the very mouth of the Canton river, murdered the crew in sight of land, and sold the women for slaves, or worse. Dodd asked for particulars: was he a Ladroner, a Malay, a Bornese? In what lat.i.tude was he to be looked for? The admiral on this examined his memoranda: by these it appeared little was known as yet about the miscreant, except that he never cruised long on one ground; the crew was a mixed one: the captain was believed to be a Portuguese, and to have a consort commanded by his brother: but this was doubtful; at all events, the pair had never been seen at work together.

The gunner arrived and saluted the quarter-deck; the captain on this saluted him, and beckoned him to the weather side. On this the other officers kept religiously to leeward.

"Mr. Monk," said Dodd, "you will clean and prepare all the small arms directly."

"Ay, ay, sir," said the old Niler, with a gleam of satisfaction.

"How many of your deck-guns are serviceable?"