Four days after leaving the reefs, we saw land ahead, and presently were running in amid the clusters of the Samballas Isles. On every side of us, these rich islands flung, as it were, their masses of foliage into the sea; bushes clothing the rocks where such existed, and at other points thick mangrove woods, the stems of the trees often covered with oysters, growing far into the water. These forests appeared to swarm with birds and beasts. We heard the loud screams of thousands of unknown fowls resounding from the woods; and often, as we skirted the shore, watching places where the trees did not grow thick, we descried troops of monkeys going chattering along, or herds of peccary and deer, breaking through the bushes. Sea-birds also abounded. Great clouds of plovers flew, wheeling and circling along the shore, and the white sandy beaches and the sea were dotted with turtles basking in the sun, or lazily sleeping on the top of the smooth water. The Samballas Islands are thinly inhabited by scattered tribes of Indians, who subsist by hunting and fishing, and are very willing to aid as guides or pilots to the English and French privateers who put in here; so that the first canoe which we saw made directly towards us, and the two Indians who guided it came on board very readily, and were treated with brandy and wine, much to their satisfaction. From them we learned that several privateers had been lately[Pg 192] in these islands, to careen and provision; and that the Spaniards from Porto Bello and Carthagena, had sent a fleet of armadilloes, as they are called, being small vessels of war, which had swept all the channels between the islands, and had captured one privateer, a tartan of four guns, commanded by Captain Coxon, having surprised her in a creek where she was careening. We questioned these Indians respecting the galleon which the Spanish prisoner at Jamaica had told us of. They know that many rich ships sailed annually from Carthagena to Old Spain, but could tell no particulars, conjecturing, however, that if any vessel with a freight of price were now fitting for sea, she would sail after the return of the armadilloes to Carthagena, judging that they would have, for the present, cleared the coast. This information, which jumped with our own ideas, made us very anxious to take in what provisions we stood in want of, and be off to the westward; and the same afternoon the friendly Indians piloted the schooner into a very snug bay, where we lay with trees all round us, except at one point where an opening in the woods conducted to a noble savannah, whither we often went to hunt. While we lay here, all hands were fully occupied. Upon the beach, near the schooner, we erected a place for preparing boucan, which we preferred to regularly salted meat: and of which Nicky Hamstring, who had a natural turn for cooking in all its branches, was appointed superintendent. Then the Mosquito men went daily in their canoe, and struck turtle and manatee. Hunting parties, whereof I generally made one, explored the woods and brought good store of peccary and deer down to the boucan. We shot also the tender young monkies, who often made my heart sore by their screaming and moaning when they felt the lead, and by the pitiful way in which, when they came by a broken bone, they would handle the useless limb, and grin and weep with the pain. Besides these, we made food of the guanas or yellow lizards, who live amid the branches, and love to bask in the sun upon the topmost boughs, and also of a species of red land-crab, which our[Pg 193] men call soldiers, from their colour, and which run nimbly about, generally at the roots of trees, hiding themselves quickly in holes, and burrowing like rabbits. The Indians who conducted our schooner into the bay, lived with others not far off, in smoky huts, which were surrounded by patches of cleared land, wherein they grew good store of yams and plantains, which they sold very willingly for hatchets, saws, and such like implements, with powder and lead. Meantime, while a great part of the crew were thus busy on shore, Captain Jem, with the hands who remained on board the schooner, was occupied in changing her appearance as much as possible; for we knew that the Spaniards have no lack of spies either in Jamaica or the other English islands, and we misdoubted that an account of the schooner had been sent to Cuba, and from thence to the Main. We, therefore, repainted the ship, making a great yellow streak from stem to stern, with false ports, and also made a shift to alter, to the eye at least, the trim of the ship, by placing false bulwarks towards the stern, which heightening her from the foremast all the way aft—the painted streak being made to correspond with the new bulwarks—caused the schooner to have a clumsy look, as though she were down by the head, in consequence of carrying an ill-stowed cargo. We also changed the set of the masts, by putting heavy strains upon the rigging; and lastly, we patched the sails, although they were new and good, with old canvas; conducting our operations with such good effect, that the crew swore to a man, that had they been away for a week, they would never have recognised the schooner for the ‘Will-o’-the-Wisp.’
Being at length in readiness for our cruise, we towed the ship out of the little bay, and commenced beating to windward through the islands, passing the isle called Las Sound, where the Buccaneers have a legend, that the heart of Sir Francis Drake lies buried in four caskets, of lead, of iron, of silver and of gold. I see no reason, however, for believing that his heart was not in his body[Pg 194] when that was committed to the deep in the bay of Porto Bello, amid the thunder of artillery, and the crash of the martial music, in which the great admiral so much delighted. As we worked up against strong westerly breezes, we met with several fleets of large canoes, laden with sugar, hogs, yams, and corn, running before the trades; but as we were now approaching Carthagena, we thought it most prudent to let these piraguas pass by unmolested, hoisting Spanish colours, and making as though we were a friendly trader. So in due time, we left the westernmost of the Samballas keys to the leeward, and stood off to the north-west, designing to make a long stretch out to sea, so as to prevent any intelligence of our whereabouts being conveyed along the main land to Carthagena.
Towards the afternoon of the day on which we cleared the Samballas, I having the charge of the deck, could not help noticing the miserable plight of one Simon Radley, a young sailor, who was a very quiet well-behaved fellow, and a favourite on board. When we left Jamaica, he had been very well dressed in seaman fashion; but now, he was clothed merely in rags, without a shirt, and his shoes were only bits of canvas swathed round his feet, and very coarsely sewn together. Besides all this, the poor fellow looked almost broken-hearted, and went about his work very sadly,
‘Simon Radley,’ quoth I ‘how came you in this plight? Have you lost all your clothes? Surely if you have, your comrades will lend you some, and you can make it up to them with the first of your prize-money.’
Well, at first the fellow would answer never a word. At length he muttered that he had been unlucky, very unlucky, but that it was nobody’s fault but his own, and that he would be better off soon. I insisted, however, on knowing what he had done with his clothes, upon which, after a great deal of stammering and hesitation, he plucked up his heart, and said broadly, that I had no business with his clothes, and that, if he chose to wear a clout, or paint himself and go half naked like the savages,[Pg 195] it was nothing to me, or to any one else, so long as he did his duty manfully. Just as he was speaking, up came the boatswain, John Clink.
‘Simon Radley,’ says the old fellow, ‘you speak like a fool. It concerns us all, to see our comrades so bestowed as that they shall have the best chance of keeping their health, and not turning sick upon our hands. Now, I know where your clothes are, well. I have had my eye on you for some days past. Your clothes are in George Bell’s chest, with a good quantity of the clothes of the other men as well.’
‘Hush, hush,’ says Radley, ‘there is honour in these things. If they are in George Bell’s chest, it is because they belong to him.’
‘But how?’ cries I. ‘Have you sold the clothes, Simon?’
‘Sold them—no,’ says Clink. ‘He has lost them, or been cheated of them, at dice, with that fellow Bell, who is a sneaking vagabond, and always skulking out of the way, whenever he is wanted.’
I remembered now that I had very often seen Bell playing dice with others of the crew, but had taken no particular notice, such games being very common among privateersmen.
‘And so you have had bad luck, Simon?’ rejoined I.
‘Bad luck,’ interrupted Clink: ‘yes, and most of those have bad luck who play with George Bell.’
The conversation continuing, we gradually drew from Radley, that he had played with Bell for all the ready money which he possessed on leaving Jamaica, and lost it; that then he had played for a good set of mathematical instruments, and lost them; that then he had played for all his clothes, and lost them; and, although for some time his shipmates had supplied him, that he had lost in succession every article of clothing so given to him, in the same way; and that, finally, he had played for and lost his chances of prize-money during the whole cruize. All this the poor fellow told with great reluctance, seeming to consider such disclosures as a breach of honour; but[Pg 196] on John Clink saying that, in his belief, Bell had been a common sharper in London, and had bubbled poor Radley out of his property, Simon grew very indignant, and swore that, if it were so, he would have Bell’s blood. However, we pacified him, and made him understand that before making any charge, we must have better proof. George Bell at this time being below, and in his hammock, I called up a number of the crew in succession, all of whom said that they had played with Bell, and that they had never won anything; that if, now and then, a cast of the dice was in their favour, yet that they always rose the losers. Some of these men had had their suspicions of Bell’s play, but as they had never compared notes, they were not aware, until I questioned them, how very similar all their cases were. They knew, indeed, that Simon Radley had been stripped, but they were loath to accuse a shipmate of foul play.
‘Why, then,’ quoth John Clink, ‘that fellow, Bell, must own about half the property in the ship, if your tales be all true. This must be looked into.’
‘With whose dice do you play?’ says I: and they all answered, that generally it was with Bell’s for that several men who had brought dice on board had lost them, they knew not how, but Bell had several sets. This information increased our suspicions very much, and desiring all hands to keep the matter to themselves, and by no means to give a hint to Bell that he was suspected, I informed Captain Jem of the whole affair.
‘The snivelling, cur-hearted miscreant!’ quoth honest Captain Jem, his plump red cheeks glowing with indignation. ‘I never saw anything good in that fellow since he came on board. He is a pitiful skulk, and never stirs out of his hammock except when he is driven. It was he who counselled us to strike to the Spanish frigate, but if we find him out in his roguish tricks his back shall so smart for it, as shall cause him to think that his spine be stuffed full of pepper instead of marrow.’
So it was determined that Bell should be closely watched, and the dice which he was so fond of using, examined[Pg 197] at the first convenient opportunity. Nor had we long to wait for its occurrence. In a little more than an hour, the suspected culprit came on deck, not thinking any harm, and going to the cook-house returned with a portion of boucanned pork, off which he made a very good dinner, with the help of a clasp-knife, and then having washed down the meat with several hearty draughts of brandy, he accosted my old friend Le Picard, and asked him whether he would shake a wrist with him. Now Picard had been also below and asleep, when the investigation into Mr. Bell’s character had been going on, and the men having kept their own counsel, Le Picard had no idea of what was in the wind. So presently, they sat down and began to play upon the combings, or ledge of the hatchway, Bell having produced the dice and dice-boxes. I watched the suspected sharper very closely when the game was going on, and noted his general sly down-cast look, and the small way which he opened his eye-lids, always peering about him with suspicious blinking eyes. Then, again, I observed his hand, which, although dirty and tarry enough, was not the hand of a man who had been all his life accustomed to handle ropes and marlin-spikes. Meanwhile, quite a circle of spectators gathered round the players, a circumstance not usual, as the stakes were trifling, but which Le Picard took no notice of. Bell, on the other hand, looked often about him, and seemed puzzled at the interest which so many of the crew took in the matter. However, he said nothing, but played on, so far as I could see very fairly, and the luck went from one to the other, as is usual in the game. At last, Le Picard grew impatient.
‘Come,’ quoth he ‘Allons, mon camerade, jouons plus fortément. Let us play for a better stake.’
‘I am agreeable,’ replied the other, softly.
‘C’est bien, alors. Let it be a double doubloon; I have not many left.’
The Frenchman pulled out the piece of gold, and placed it on the ledge of the hatchway. Bell, after some searching, real or pretended, plucked another piece from his[Pg 198] pocket, holding, as I observed, the dice all the while in his hand.
Captain Jem, who stood by me, did not fail to observe this as well as I, and whispered to me that the fellow by this manœuvre might well have changed the ivory. I nodded.
‘A thunderstorm, or a single flash?’ says Bell, meaning, shall we decide the game by one cast, or in a great many.
‘Oh, one flash; short and sweet!’ quoth the French man. Both of them rattled the dice and flung them forth.
‘Trays,’ called out Le Picard.
‘Sixes,’ exclaimed Bell; ‘the money is mine,’ and he grasped the gold greedily.
‘I will hold you doubles or quits,’ cried Le Picard, in true gambling spirit.
‘Well, if you want your revenge, I suppose I must not say no,’ answered the other, in a quiet unobtrusive tone.
The dice were again thrown, and this time the Frenchman had quatres, and Bell, as before, sixes. Muttering a great oath, poor Picard fished up the stakes from the bottom of his pocket, and was handing them to the winner, when Captain Jem cried in a loud voice, ‘Stop.’
Both players looked up in surprise.
‘Bell,’ said the captain, sternly, ‘hand me over that dice.’
‘Why, captain,’ quoth the other, in a cringing tone, getting suddenly very pale, and looking quickly all about him; ‘why, captain, there has been no foul play, I hope? We are gentlemen adventurers on board this ship.’
And, with that, his hand stole slily towards his pocket, as if to deposit there his winnings. Observing this motion, however, I grasped his wrist and defeated his intention, the dice falling from his fingers. At the same time, Captain Jem caught him by the collar of his doublet, crying out—
‘Why, thou booby, thine own words condemn thee; who spoke of foul play but yourself? I only asked you for the dice, and you straightway think you are accused of cheating.’
[Pg 199]
At this Bell looked sheepish enough, but presently recovering himself, began to bully and curse, swearing that he was a gentleman and a man of honour, and requesting to know by what right his dice had been taken from him.
‘Come here, Simon Radley,’ says Captain Jem, and Simon stood forth, shaking his clenched fist at Bell.
‘Have you not lost every farthing you possessed, as well as your clothes and your chances for the cruise, to this man?’ says the boatswain.
Simon replied that it was so, and was entering into particulars, when Bell burst out with a great affectation of scorn and indignation—
‘A pretty fellow,’ quoth he, ‘to game with a gentleman, and then, when fortune is adverse, to go and prate of your losses, and charge your adversary with foul play! Go to, man! had I lost, I never would have accused you of cheating. But you throw no dice with me again.’
‘No, that you may depend upon,’ answered Radley.
‘Stay,’ cried Captain Jem, ‘we are going but rashly to work. Let all the men here who have diced with George Bell hold up their hands.’
Thereupon, more than two-thirds of the crew made the sign.
‘Good,’ replied the captain; ‘now, let those who have lost money, or aught else to him, hold up their hands.’
Nearly the same number of hands were immediately displayed. Bell grew yellow in the face, and glared about him with fierce spite.
‘Good again,’ continued the captain; ‘Mr. Bell, I must congratulate you; fortune has been very kind to you—very kind indeed. Now, let those who have won money or aught else of George Bell, hold up their hands.’
Two hands were raised, and their owners being interrogated, it appeared that they had gained, one of them, not more than a couple of groats, and the other merely a small rusty pistol, which had burst the first and only time[Pg 200] he had fired it, and against which he had staked, being incited by Bell, a good perspective glass.
‘So, then, gentlemen and comrades,’ pursued Captain Jem, ‘the case stands thus: here are a score of you have played with this man; and, although each man of that score ought to have had as good a chance of winning as Bell, yet the fellow has beaten you all, one after another; and the only winnings from him have been contemptible matters not worthy speaking of.’
The crew here uttered a loud murmur of acquiescence, and some of them began to threaten Bell with their fists. Still he tried to put a good face on the matter, although his tongue faltered as he spoke.
‘You are mistaken, gentlemen,’ he cried, ‘indeed you are; I will take my Bible oath that I played fair; nay, if you do not believe me, I am willing to give up all my winnings, and surely that ought to satisfy everybody. But I assure you, comrades, if I were to be hanged this minute, I would still say that you had no wrong from me. I am incapable of cheating, gentlemen! I do not understand how to cog dice, upon my soul; indeed, indeed I do not.’
‘That fellow’s tongue would hang him if there were but one rope in the world,’ says the boatswain; ‘he was the first to talk of foul play, and now he is the first to talk of cogged dice!’
‘We will soon settle that matter,’ says the captain, ‘and that by splitting open the ivory.’
‘Oh, certainly, certainly, I agree to that,’ says Bell; ‘here are my dice, sir,’ and he whipped out several cubes from his pocket.
‘No, no,’ interrupted I, ‘never mind these; we will try the dice with which you won the two doubloons e’en now.’ And one of the men having fetched a hammer, I placed the morsel of ivory upon the ledge of the hatchway. Upon seeing this, Bell went down plump upon his knees, and raised a dismal howl.
‘Ah, you can be penitent enough now, chicken-heart!’ says Captain Jem; whilst I, having splintered the dice with a blow, we discovered a small bent piece of lead, very[Pg 201] neatly inserted in one of the specks of the deuce side of the cube, not, however, drilled perpendicularly into the ivory, but artificially deposited in a sort of burrowing hole, running along just under the surface of that side of the square. It was evident, that to prepare a dice in this fashion required a hand very skilful and well accustomed to the work. The men crowded round to see it, uttering furious menaces against the convicted sharper, who never moved from his knees, but continued to supplicate most piteously for mercy.
‘Mercy!’ exclaimed Captain Jem; ‘mercy, forsooth. Thou art one of the first privateersmen I ever heard of cheating his comrades, and thou shalt smart for it, or I no longer command this schooner.’
‘Do not flog me—for mercy’s sake, do not flog me!’ the fellow bawled; ‘I cannot bear flogging—it will kill me—it will be murder if you flog me. I was flogged once, and the doctor said it all but killed me;’ and so, crying and howling, the pitiful creature cast him down upon the deck, and bemoaned himself in the most abject misery of spirit.
‘Flogged before,’ said the boatswain. ‘Ay, I warrant thee. Aboard what ship?’
‘Aboard no ship at all,’ roared the culprit. ‘On shore. Oh dear!—oh, dear!’
‘On shore,’ answered the boatswain. ‘At the cart’s tail I presume?’
‘Yes, yes,’ cried Bell; ‘but I give you my word of honour, sir—my sacred word of honour, that I was not guilty then. It was another man.’
‘Not guilty then,’ says Nicky Hamstring. ‘No; no more than you are now, I dare affirm.’
The miserable devil gave no answer, but made as though he would catch the legs of the men about him, and cling to them. In all my life I never saw such a pitiful hound.
‘Keel-haul the fellow,’ says one of the men, ‘and see whether the brine won’t wash the roguery out of him.’ And the others joined in the cry: ‘Yes, yes, keel-haul him.’
[Pg 202]
At this the culprit sat up upon the deck and looked earnestly in the faces of the men through his tears. I do not think he understood what keel-hauling meant.
‘Anything,’ says he, whining like a hungry cat; ‘anything sooner than flogging.’
‘Very good,’ says Captain Jem. ‘Be it so. Truly, on second thoughts, it would be degrading hemp to put it to any other use about such a scoundrel, except hanging him.’
Meantime, half a dozen of the men, in great glee at the anticipated ducking, went about the preparations without loss of time.
The punishment of keel-hauling, I premise, that we borrowed from the Dutch. Its name describes its nature. The prisoner is fastened to a rope led under the vessel’s keel, and hauled beneath her bottom, as often as his guilt seems to require. It is evident that this is a punishment the severity of which depends greatly upon the size of the ship, and the frequency with which the process is repeated. To be hauled under the keel of a great ship of war is a very different thing from being hauled under the keel of a small sloop; but in order to give the punishment its requisite severity on board small craft, the culprit is often hauled all along the keel, being let over the bows, and taken up at the stern; a process by which he is sure to be at least half drowned and half scraped to death by the rough barnacles and jagged shell fish which generally encase a ship’s bottom. In the present case it was determined, however, that Bell should undergo the easier mode of punishment, and be hauled from bulwark to bulwark, but the dose was to be administered twice, giving him a breathing-time between. Accordingly, by the help of a sounding lead, first a thin line and afterwards a stout cord were conducted under the ship’s keel, Mr. Bell watching the process with great anxiety.
‘What—what are you going to do with me?’ at length he cried, beginning to comprehend the nature of his punishment. ‘You do not mean to drag me under the ship?’
‘You have hit it my hearty,’ says the boatswain; ‘hit it to a tee. Yes; we will give you an opportunity of inspecting[Pg 203] the run of the schooner, and if you fail to observe all its beauties the first time, don’t break your heart, you will have another chance immediately after.’
At this the cowardly animal began to howl and blubber again.
‘You will drown me, you will; it’s murder. There were sharks about the ship all yesterday. I will never come up alive! Have mercy on me! I have a wife and family in England. I would rather be flogged than put overboard. I would rather be flogged, indeed I would.’
At this moment Captain Jem came up.
‘Rather be flogged, would he? A minute ago he sang another tune. Why, you discontented thief,’ roared the captain, ‘you would not be pleased even although we were to hang you. Come, men, bear a hand, and have him overboard in a trice.’
Immediately, half a dozen stout fellows flung themselves upon the miserable culprit. He roared, swore, and prayed, all in a breath, kicked out with his legs and arms, and sought to bite and scratch like a wild cat. But he was speedily mastered, his arms pinioned securely, his ankles tied together, and the rope which ran under the keel made fast under his armpits. He was then lifted and carried to the larboard bulwarks, half a dozen men holding the end of the rope, which passed beneath the keel and came up on the starboard side, while two or three hands had charge of the continuation of the line, so as to steady his descent in the first dive, and to pull him back by in the second.
All this time the vagabond never ceased to abuse and swear at us, seeing that cries for mercy availed not. Captain Jem gave the word—
‘Heave and pull,’ and instantly Mr. Bell went with a splash into the sea, struggling for a moment on the surface, and then, as the men on the starboard side hauled the rope, disappearing in the water.
‘Rattle him round,’ says the captain. ‘He must not drown for all he is such a villain.’ The men ran across the deck with the rope; there was a surge and a jerk,[Pg 204] when the poor devil struck the projecting keel, but he was instantly dragged beneath it, and the next moment he made his appearance on the larboard side, struggling, panting and coughing up the water, his face all blue and bleeding from having been scraped along the bottom, and his clothes torn by the jagged shells of the barnacles.
‘O, Lord!’ he gasped; ‘murder—it is—murder;’ and then the coughing well-nigh choked him.
‘Down with him again,’ cried the captain. The end of the rope which had been before used as a guy was promptly manned, and Bell again disappeared beneath the water, was again rudely jerked against the keel, and then hauled up the side of the ship, and cast upon deck all bleeding and insensible, with his hands blue and cramped, and his limbs quite limp and motionless. By Captain Jem’s direction he was held up by the legs, when presently he vomited up a great quantity of sea water, and then began to stir and moan, with great fits of coughing. His hands and legs were then released, and he managed to sit up on deck, leaning against the mast, and looking as if he had just wakened out of a dream.
‘Let this be a warning to you, Mr. Bell,’ said the captain, ‘how you play dice in future. I presume you will only stay in this ship until you have a chance of going on board another. None of your own property, however you came by it, will be taken away, but all that you cheated your comrades of must be restored.’
Accordingly, Bell’s chests were opened, a general distribution took place, and that evening Simon Radley appeared in his former attire. As for the sharper himself, we afterwards learned that he had been a well-known rogue in London, and after having been twice flogged at the cart’s tail, had been tried for ring-dropping, and transported to the plantations of Virginia, from which he managed to escape, and after divers adventures in the West Indies—whereof the greater part were more complimentary to his ingenuity than to his honesty—he had shipped on board our schooner at Jamaica, as the reader has seen.
[Pg 205]