The Lonely Island: The Refuge of the Mutineers Part 36

After dinner was concluded, and thanks had been returned, Jack Brace leaned his back against one of the descending branches of the banyan-tree, and with a look of supreme satisfaction drew forth a short black pipe.

At sight of this the countenance of Adams flushed, and his eyes almost sparkled.

"There it is again," he murmured; "the old pipe once more! Let me look at it, Jack Brace; it's not the first by a long way that I've handled."

Jack handed over the pipe, a good deal amused at the manner of his host, who took the implement of fumigation and examined it carefully, handling it with tender care, as if it were a living and delicate creature. Then he smelt it, then put it in his mouth and gave it a gentle draw, while an expression of pathetic satisfaction pa.s.sed over his somewhat care-worn countenance.

"The old taste, not a bit changed," he murmured, shutting his eyes.

"Brings back the old s.h.i.+ps, and the old messmates, and the old times, and Old England."

"Come, old feller," said Jack Brace, "if it's so powerful, why not light it and have a real good pull, for old acquaintance sake?"

He drew from his pocket flint and tinder, matches being unknown in those days, and began to strike a light, when Adams took the pipe hastily from his mouth and handed it back.

"No, no," he said, with decision, "it's only the old a.s.sociations that it calls up, that's all. As for baccy, I've bin so long without it now, that I don't want it; and it would only be foolish in me to rouse up the old cravin'. There, you light it, Jack. I'll content myself wi' the smell of it."

"Well, John Adams, have your way. You are king here, you know; n.o.body to contradict you. So I'll smoke instead of you, if these young ladies won't object."

The young ladies referred to were so far from objecting, that they were burning with impatience to see a real smoker go to work, for the tobacco of the mutineers had been exhausted, and all the pipes broken or lost, before most of them were born.

"And let me tell you, John Adams," continued the sailor, when the pipe was fairly alight, "I've not smoked a pipe in such koorious circ.u.mstances since I lit one, an' had my right fore-finger shot off when I was stuffin' down the baccy, in the main-top o' the _Victory_ at the battle o' Trafalgar. But it was against all rules to smoke in action, an' served me right. Hows'ever, it got me my discharge, and that's how I come to be in a Yankee merchantman this good day."

At the mention of battle and being wounded in action, the old professional sympathies of John Adams were awakened.

"What battle might that have been?" he asked.

"Which?" said Jack.

"Traflegar," said the other.

Jack Brace took the pipe out of his mouth and looked at Adams, as though he had asked where Adam and Eve had been born. For some time he could not make up his mind how to reply.

"You don't mean to tell me," he said at length, "that you've never heard of the--battle--of--Trafalgar?"

"Never," answered Adams, with a faint smile.

"Nor of the great Lord Nelson?"

"Never heard his name till to-day. You forget, Jack, that I've not seen a mortal man from Old England, or any other part o' the civilised world, since the 28th day of April 1789, and that's full nineteen years ago."

"That's true, John; that's true," said the seaman, slowly, as if endeavouring to obtain some comprehension of what depths of ignorance the fact implied. "So, I suppose you've never heerd tell of--hold on; let me rake up my brain-pan a bit."

He tilted his straw hat, and scratched his head for a few minutes, puffing the while immense clouds of smoke, to the inexpressible delight of the open-mouthed youngsters around him.

"You--you've never heerd tell of Lord Howe, who licked the French off Ushant, somewheres about sixteen years gone by?"

"Never."

"Nor of the great victories gained in the '95 by Sir Edward Pellew, an'

Admiral Hotham, an' Admiral Cornwallis, an' Lord Bridgeport?"

"No, of coorse ye couldn't; nor yet of Admiral Duncan, who, in the '97, (I think it was), beat the Dutch fleet near Camperdown all to sticks.

Nor yet of that tremendous fight off Cape Saint Vincent in the same year, when Sir John Jervis, with nothin' more than fifteen sail o' the Mediterranean fleet, attacked the Spaniards wi' their twenty-seven s.h.i.+ps o' the line--line-o'-battle s.h.i.+ps, you'll observe, John Adams--an' took four of 'em, knocked half of the remainder into universal smash, an'

sunk all the rest?"

"That was splendid!" exclaimed Adams, his martial spirit rising, while the eyes of the young listeners around kept pace with their mouths in dilating.

"Splendid? Pooh!" said Jack Brace, delivering puffs between sentences that resembled the shots of miniature seventy-fours, "that was nothin'

to what followed. Nelson was in that fight, he was, an' Nelson began to shove out his horns a bit soon after that, _I_ tell you. Well, well,"

continued the British tar with a resigned look, "to think of meetin' a man out of Bedlam who hasn't heerd of Nelson and the Nile, w'ich, of coorse, ye haven't. It's worth while comin' all this way to see you."

Adams smiled and said, "Let's hear all about it."

"All about it, John? Why, it would take me all night to tell you all about it," (there was an audible gasp of delight among the listeners), "and I haven't time for that; but you must know that Lord Nelson, bein'

Sir Horatio Nelson at that time, chased the French fleet, under Admiral Brueys, into Aboukir Bay, (that's on the coast of Egypt), sailed in after 'em, anch.o.r.ed alongside of 'em, opened on 'em wi' both broadsides at once, an' blew them all to bits."

"You don't say that, Jack Brace!"

"Yes, I do, John Adams; an' nine French line-o'-battle s.h.i.+ps was took, two was burnt, two escaped, and the biggest o' the lot, the great three-decker, the _Orient_, was blowed up, an' sent to the bottom. It was a thorough-goin' piece o' business that, _I_ tell you, an' Nelson meant it to be, for w'en he gave the signal to go into close action, he shouted, `Victory or Westminster Abbey.'"

"What did he mean by that?" asked Adams.

"Why, don't you see, Westminster Abbey is the old church in London where they bury the great n.o.bs o' the nation in; there's none but _great_ n.o.bs there, you know--sn.o.bs not allowed on no account whatever. So he meant, of coorse, victory or death, d'ye see? After which he'd be put into Westminster Abbey. An' death it was to many a good man that day. Why, if you take even the _Orient_ alone, w'en she was blowed up, Admiral Brueys himself an' a thousand men went up along with her, an' never came down again, so far as _we_ know."

"It must have bin b.l.o.o.d.y work," said Adams.

"I believe you, my boy," continued the sailor, "it _was_ b.l.o.o.d.y work.

There was some of our chaps that was always for reasonin' about things, an' would never take anything on trust, 'xcept their own inventions, who used to argufy that it was an awful waste o' human life, to say nothin'

o' treasure, (as they called it), all for _nothin'_. I used to wonder sometimes why them _reasoners_ jined the sarvice at all, but to be sure most of 'em had been pressed. To my thinkin', war wouldn't be worth a bra.s.s farthin' if there wasn't a deal o' blood and thunder about it; an', of coorse, if we're goin' to have that sort o' thing we must pay for it. Then, we didn't do it for _nothin'_. Is it nothin' to have the honour an' glory of lickin' the Mounseers an' bein' able to sing `Britannia rules the waves?'"

John Adams, who was not fond of argument, and did not agree with some of Jack's reasoning, said, "P'r'aps;" and then, drawing closer to his new friend with deepening interest, said, "Well, Jack, what more has happened?"

"What more? Why, I'll have to start a fresh pipe before I can answer that."

Having started a fresh pipe he proceeded, and the group settled down again to devour his words, and watch and smell the smoke.

"Well, then, there was--but you know I ain't a diction'ry, or a cyclopodia, or a gazinteer--let me see. After the battle o' the Nile there came the Irish Rebellion."

"Did that do 'em much good, Jack?"

"O yes, John; it united 'em immediately after to Old England, so that we're now Great Britain an' Ireland. Then Sir Ralph Abercromby, he gave the French an awful lickin' on land in Egypt at Aboukir, where Nelson had wopped 'em on the sea, and, last of all came the glorious battle of Trafalgar. But it wasn't all glory, for we lost Lord Nelson there. He was killed."

"That was a bad business," said Adams, with a look of sympathy. "And you was in that battle, was you?"

"In it! I should just think so," replied Jack Brace, looking contemplatively at his mutilated finger. "Why, I was in Lord Nelson's own s.h.i.+p, the _Victory_. Come, I'll give you an outline of it. This is how it began."

The ex-man-of-war's-man puffed vigorously for a few seconds, to get the pipe well alight, he remarked, and collect his thoughts.