Adventures in Many Lands by - (summer reads txt) 📕

me, I made inquiries as to the name of the prisoner who had been marched past me a few minutes ago. My question provoked more mirth, but I eventually secured the information, which had the effect of adding my mirth to theirs, for I learned that the prisoner was—a pig with a tin tied to his leg.

This pig, I was informed, was the cause of the whole alarm. There was no attack—in fact, there was no enemy near enough to the town, as yet, to indulge in an assault. All was a practical joke—some one had let this pig loose with a biscuit-tin tied to his leg, and this had started the alarm. The porker had been run down and lassoed by the military on the outskirts of the town, so that it was all over now—excepting that the authorities were looking for the perpetrator, or the originator of the scare.

Realising now the extent of my folly, I, who hitherto had been laughing up my sleeve at the discomfiture and alarm of others, was in my turn genuinely alarmed, and all the way back to my hotel I was wondering as to what would be my best course of action—foreseeing, whichever way I turned for a solution, visions of heavy fines, probable imprisonment, and possible banishment from the country altogether.

On reaching the hotel I was hailed by many of those who had witnessed "the start," and consequently knew my connection with the affair. They soon posted me as to what had happened during my absence.

Ere the pig and myself had been gone five minutes, a picket of soldiers made a rush upon the hotel, went inside, and, closing every exit, informed the occupants that every one must consider himself under arrest until the real originator of the "scare" was discovered. The officer remarked that he knew for a fact that the matter began there, and although the pig had not yet been caught it had been recognised as "belonging to the proprietor's family."

Then, to the surprise of every one concerned, a certain Colonel Moyal, a native keenly opposed to the Government and a suspected revolutionist, stepped forward and declared that he had carried the whole thing through from beginning to end, so was prepared to take the consequences.

Needless to say, my champion was arrested and marched off to the Cabildo; and I was informed that the plucky fellow had done this to shield me, merely to keep me out of trouble because he had taken a fancy to me.

Not for this, however, would I let him remain in his unenviable position. It did not take me long to resolve that, to be honourable, I must myself bear the consequences of my own folly; and in a very short time afterward I was interviewing the Commandante. That official, in whose favour I had long since made it my business to firmly establish myself, informed me that it was then too late at night to take any evidence, or, in fact, to move at all in the matter; but that he would attend to me at eight o'clock next morning.

The following day at the appointed hour I waited on him, told him I was the real culprit, secured the colonel's release, paid a fine of a few dollars, and by nine o'clock was back again in my hotel; and when I sat down with the Colonel that night to a special cena to which I had invited him—intending in some measure to prove to him my gratitude for his generosity and esteem—I made a rather boyish speech in which I regretted tremendously the Colonel's having passed an exceedingly uncomfortable night in prison on my account, and my inability to release him the night before.

Moyal, to my intense surprise, replied that he had to thank me for the opportunity I had given him. "Of course," said he, "I should not like to see you in trouble, and would have done anything in my power to keep you out of it, but I must admit that my motive was not the generous one that has been attributed to me. It was a rather selfish motive, you see, between you and me. I am a moving spirit in this revolution which is brewing, and I have important business with the Government soldiers inside the Cabildo. In the ordinary course, since I am known as a revolutionist, I cannot possibly get into open or secret communication with them—so of course I had to get arrested, and you gave me that chance!"

I was about to ask him, boylike, whether he was successful in his mission, when he added, "The only pity is that you didn't let me stay there a bit longer—but you were not to know, so I appreciate your promptness."

However, I had reason to believe afterwards that he had not succeeded in his object, which, I have no doubt, was to "buy" all the soldados over to his side, for up to this day the political party to which the Colonel belonged is out of power, though it has repeatedly made efforts to get in.

XVII A DROWNING MESSMATE

It is as one of the most popular sea-novelists of all times that Captain Marryat is best known to his countrymen—oldsters and youngsters alike. The whole life of this gallant seaman, however, was made up of one long series of exciting adventures, both on land and sea, many of these experiences being made use of in after years to supply material for his sea-romances.

One of Marryat's most characteristic acts of self-devotion was his springing overboard into the waters of Malta Harbour in order to save the life of a middy messmate, Cobbett by name, who had accidentally fallen overboard. What made this action an especially noble one was the fact that Cobbett was one of the greatest bullies in the midshipmen's berth, and had specially singled out Marryat for cowardly and brutal treatment. Again, we must remember that sharks are often seen in Malta Harbour, and any one rash enough to enter its waters takes his life in his hands.

Thank God the gunroom of a British man-of-war of the present day is managed in an entirely different manner from what it was in Marryat's day. Says that gallant officer: "There was no species of tyranny, injustice, and persecution to which youngsters were not compelled to submit from those who were their superiors in bodily strength."

The entire management and organisation of the Royal Navy at that period was rotten to the core, and it speaks volumes for the devotion, skill, and bravery of the gallant officers of the fleet that they so magnificently upheld the glory and honour of the flag in every quarter of the globe in spite of the shortcomings of the Admiralty Board.

As an instance of this general mismanagement of naval affairs, Marryat, who had been sent to join the Impérieuse frigate as a young middy, thus writes in his private log—

"The Impérieuse sailed; the admiral of the port was one who would be obeyed, but would not listen always to reason or common-sense. The signal for sailing was enforced by gun after gun; the anchor was hove up, and, with all her stores on deck, her guns not even mounted, in a state of confusion unparalleled from her being obliged to hoist in faster than it was possible she could stow away, she was driven out of harbour to encounter a heavy gale. A few hours more would have enabled her to proceed to sea with security, but they were denied; the consequences were appalling, and might have been fatal.

"In the general confusion, some iron too near the binnacles had attracted the needle of the compasses; the ship was steered out of her course. At midnight, in a heavy gale at the close of the month of November, so dark that you could not distinguish any object, however close, the Impérieuse dashed upon the rocks between Ushant and the Main. The cry of terror which ran through the lower deck; the grating of the keel as she was forced in; the violence of the shocks which convulsed the frame of the vessel; the hurrying up of the ship's company without their clothes; and then the enormous waves which again bore her up and carried her clean over the reef, will never be effaced from my memory.

"Our escape was miraculous. With the exception of her false keel having been torn off, the ship had suffered little injury; but she had beat over a reef, and was riding by her anchors, surrounded by rocks, some of them as high out of water as her lower-yards, and close to her. How nearly were the lives of a fine ship's company, and of Lord Cochrane and his officers, sacrificed in this instance to the despotism of an admiral who would be obeyed!

"The cruises of the Impérieuse were periods of continual excitement, from the hour in which she hove up her anchor till she dropped it again in port; the day that passed without a shot being fired in anger was with us a blank day; the boats were hardly secured on the booms than they were cast loose and out again; the yard and stay tackles were for ever hoisting up and lowering down.

"The expedition with which parties were formed for service; the rapidity of the frigate's movements, night and day; the hasty sleep, snatched at all hours; the waking up at the report of the guns, which seemed the only key-note to the hearts of those on board; the beautiful precision of our fire, obtained by constant practice; the coolness and courage of our captain inoculating the whole of the ship's company; the suddenness of our attacks, the gathering after the combat, the killed lamented, the wounded almost envied; the powder so burnt into our faces that years could not remove it; the proved character of every man and officer on board; the implicit trust and the adoration we felt for our commander; the ludicrous situations which would occur even in the extremest danger and create mirth when death was staring you in the face; the hairbreadth escapes, and the indifference to life shown by all—when memory sweeps along those years of excitement even now, my pulse beats more quickly with the reminiscence."

A middy's life was no child's play in those days, was it?

But it is time that I told you the story of how Marryat saved the life of his messmate Cobbett, in the Mediterranean.

The Impérieuse was lying at anchor in Malta Harbour at the time the incident happened. It was about the hour of sunset, and the officer on duty had turned the men of the second dog watch up to hoist the boats to the davits. The men ran away smartly with the falls, and soon had the cutters clear of the water and swung high in the air.

At this moment, Cobbett, who was off duty, went into the main-chains with some lines and bait in order to fish. In endeavouring to get on one of the ratlines of the lower-rigging his foot unfortunately slipped, and he fell headlong overboard into the waters of the Grand Harbour. Several persons witnessed the accident, and the prodigious splash the middy's body made in striking the water immediately made known to every one else that a struggle for life had commenced.

Cobbett could not swim a stroke, and was much hampered by his heavy clothes and boots. At the first plunge he was carried far beneath the surface, but quickly rose again, puffing and blowing like a grampus, and making desperate efforts to keep himself afloat.

The officer of the watch promptly called away the lifeboat's crew, and these men quickly scrambled into one of the quarter-boats, which by this time had