Crown and Anchor Part 29

"The jintleman we tuk off the wrack's rekivered his sinses, an' none ov us, sure, can under-constubble his furrin lingo barrin' yersilf, sor.

So, the docther wants ye fur to say what he's jabberin' about."

"All right," said I, bolting as quickly as I could a piece of "plum duff" which Dobbs had just brought me. "Tell the doctor I'm coming."

"By jingo, talk of the devil!" observed Larkyns, bursting into a laugh as Macan turned to go away. "Why, I was only just talking of that blessed Irish marine a minute ago, and here he has come on the scene in person, with his rum brogue."

"Hus.h.!.+" I said. "He'll hear you."

"No matter if he does," rejoined Larkyns. "I suppose he knows he has got the Cork brogue strong enough to hang a cat-block from. Besides, he won't mind what I say."

"Faix, that's thrue for yez, sor," muttered the corporal, who caught this remark as he was going out of the gunroom door, his ears being as sharp as those of a fox. "Begorrah, it's moighty little onyone ivver does mind what ye says at all, at all!"

With which doubtful compliment, capable of a double construction, Corporal Macan marched on in front of me, holding his head very erect and with a broad grin on his face, as if conscious of carrying off the honours of the war, towards Dr Nettleby's sanctum on the main deck.

Here, on entering, I noticed the Spaniard sitting up in one of the doctor's easy chairs.

He was near an open port, looking very different to what he was the last time I had seen him, a healthy colour being now in his face; although this was still very much drawn and careworn, but his black hair and beard were tidily arranged, much improving his personal appearance.

He raised his eyes as I came into the cabin, and smiled faintly, seeming to recognise me somehow or other, though he was certainly off his head on board the wreck and could not have remembered what took place there.

"He, senor muchaco--so, young gentleman," said he, on my approaching nearer to him. "Ta hablas Espanola--you speak my language then?"

"Si, senor--yes, sir," I replied. "Un poco--a very little!"

His face instantly brightened, and he poured out a flood of Spanish which I could hardly follow, he spoke so quickly; although, I could gather that he wanted to know where he was and how he had been rescued, inquiring as well what had become of the rest who were in the s.h.i.+p with him.

The doctor, to whom I tried to translate what he said, cautioned me to be very careful what I told him in reply; for, the man, he said, was still in a critical state and any sudden shock would r.e.t.a.r.d his recovery.

I was, therefore, very guarded in my answers to his questions, letting out all he wished to learn only little by little, as he drew it from me by his interrogations.

He expressed the most fervent grat.i.tude on my narrating how we had boarded his water-logged vessel and the difficulty Mr Jellaby had in releasing him from his dangerous position; and, he bowed his thanks to Doctor Nettleby, addressing him as "Senor Medico--Mr Doctor," for his kind care of him.

But, when I came to describe what the lieutenant and I had seen in the cabin, his manner changed at once; his eyes rolling with fury and his thin, nervous hands clenching in impotent rage and despair, and he tried to stand up, raising himself out of the chair.

"Ay la povera senora--oh, the poor lady!" he cried out, his eyes now filling and his mouth working with emotion, which he vainly tried to suppress as I told him of the poor dead lady and the little baby floating about on the floor, both of them murdered--"E la pequina nina-- and the little child, too!"

On my telling him next, in answer to another question, about the fine-looking fellow with the revolver in his hand, his feelings could no longer be suppressed.

"Mi hermano! Oh, my brother!" he exclaimed, bursting into tears.

"Muerto! muerto! dead, dead!"

Doctor Nettleby and I turned away, it being painful in the extreme to see a grown man such as he crying like a child; for his breast was heaving and his shoulders shaking with the sobs he endeavoured to conceal, and he hid his face in his hands as he leant back again in the chair.

After a bit, on his becoming more composed again, the doctor gave him a stimulant, which quieted his nerves.

Just then the captain came in, followed by Lieutenant Jellaby, to make inquiries, the doctor having reported his patient convalescent.

"El capitano--this is the Captain," said I, to attract his attention to the new arrivals as they advanced up to his chair. "El capitano del nostro buque--the captain of our s.h.i.+p!"

I also pointed out in like fas.h.i.+on Mr Jellaby, saying that he was the officer who had effected his rescue; and the Spaniard bowed silently to both.

Captain Farmer, however, did not need any introduction from me, for he spoke the other's language fluently, being a most accomplished linguist; so, he and the poor fellow were soon on the best of terms, the survivor from the wreck proceeding presently to tell the succinct history of the ill-fated vessel.

This we had all been longing to hear; and Captain Farmer now translated it word for word for the benefit of the doctor and Mr Jellaby, who, as I have already said, did not understand the original Spanish in which it was rendered.

The Spaniard said that his name was Don Ferdinando Olivarez and that he had been the captain and part owner of the barque, which was bound from Cadiz to Havana with a cargo of the wines of Xeres. She had on board, besides, a large quant.i.ty of specie, which the Spanish Government were sending out for the payment of the troops in Cuba.

"Your s.h.i.+p was named _La Bella Catarina_, senor," said I, at this point, as he had not mentioned this fact, though I don't think Captain Farmer approved of my interruption, for he gave me a look which made me shut up at once, "was she not sir?"

"Yes, young gentleman," he replied. "She was so-called after my poor sister-in-law, the murdered lady whose body you saw in the cabin which proved her tomb--Ay que hermosa esta--oh, how beautiful she was! She was the wife of my only brother, Don Pedro Olivarez, who died in defending her. Thus his corpse you also beheld. Oh, my friends, he was the n.o.blest, best and bravest brother in the world. He had, alas, a joint share with me in that accursed vessel."

He was overcome with emotion again when he had got so far; and Dr Nettleby, fearing the narration was too much for him in his present weak state, wanted him to leave off his story until he felt better.

But after resting a minute or two and taking another sip of the cordial the doctor handed him, the Spaniard insisted on going on with the painful recital.

His brother, he said, had charge of the specie sent out in their s.h.i.+p; and, as his wife had been recommended change of air, he determined to take her with him on the voyage to Cuba, thinking the trip out and home would do her good, as well as the poor little baby, who had been only born two months to the very day on which they sailed from Cadiz.

All went well with them until they were near the Azores, or Western Islands, where the s.h.i.+p sprang a leak and met with such baffling winds that she was driven back to the eastward, close in to the Portuguese coast; when the crew, who were tired out with keeping to the pumps, managed to broach the cargo and madden themselves with the liquor they found below.

"What happened next?" asked Captain Farmer, on his pausing here to take breath and put the cordial to his lips. "I suppose they got drunk on the sherry, my friend?"

"Ah, yes, los maladettos--the cursed devils!" replied the Spanish captain, his eyes flas.h.i.+ng with anger. "If the brutes had only got drunk, neither my brother nor I would have minded it much, although they might have done so at our expense, it being our wine which they wasted, the brutes!"

He then went on to state that the men became so violent and insubordinate, that when his brother and himself battened down the hatches to prevent their broaching any more of the casks, they broke into open mutiny.

The mate was the ringleader of the conspiracy.

It was this rascal, he said, who informed the crew that they had specie aboard, which the mutineers now demanded should be given up to them and they be allowed to leave the s.h.i.+p in one of her boats, the mate telling them that the vessel was almost in sight of Vigo--a fact which he, the captain, had only disclosed to him in confidence that very day within an hour or so of the outbreak, so that the mutiny appeared to be a planned thing.

"Well," said Captain Farmer, "what did you do then?"

"We refused their insolent demand, of course," he answered, "in spite of the mate and another scoundrel drawing their knives and making for us.

My brother knocked down Gomez at once, and the sailor I kicked into the scuppers; the two of us then retreated to the cabin, where we kept them at bay for the whole of that night and all the following day, as we had with us all the firearms in the s.h.i.+p, and it was out of their power to dislodge us."

"And how was it then you did not succeed in getting the upper hand of them in the end, instead of the affair turning out as it did?"

In reply to this question from our captain, the Spaniard's emotion again overcame him.

"Ay, it was all my fault, and I of all men am the most miserable!" he cried. "Yo, I it was who caused the death of those I loved best!"

"Carramba, Senor Capitano," said Captain Farmer, trying to soothe him.

"You do yourself an injustice. I can't see where you were to blame!"

"Ah, but I do," he answered doggedly, as if he had made up his mind on the point and no argument would persuade him to the contrary. "I ought to have recollected that there was no water or provisions in the cabin, the steward, who had joined the mutineers, keeping these always in the fore part of the s.h.i.+p; and, there was the poor senora, who had her little baby to nurse, suffering from hunger and thirst, as we could see, my brother and I, although she never uttered a word of complaint!"

"Poor, brave lady," observed the captain. "She deserved a better fate!"

"Si, si, yes, yes," said the other, "She did not complain--no, never; but, how could we stand by and see her suffer? My brother Pedro, when it came on to nightfall on the close of the second day of our blockade in the cabin, said that he would adventure out in search of food and water, the mutineers then having drunk themselves to sleep. I, however, pointed out that he had a wife and child dependent on his life, while I had no claims on mine and insisted on my right to take the risk, the more especially from my being the master of the s.h.i.+p. Still, he would not give in; and, ultimately, we cast the dice to decide the matter and I won the cast."