Chapter LVIII: Saved!

A large double-banked frigate was now shortening sail about a mile from the coast, and a boat left her side as the mainyards were backed, and the courses hauled up. Thus, I believed she was merely shortening sail, to permit a party of explorers to visit the island, and this surmise proved in the sequel to be a correct one.

On looking again, as she swung round, and the sunshine fell full upon her shivering maintopsail, I recognized a patch made in the sail where a ball from Fort Royal had pierced it, and by this mark knew her to be my old friend and habitation, the _Adder_.

The boat was soon midway between her and the beach; the bright blades of its sixteen oars were flashing like silver in the sunlight, as it sped along the rippling waves.

Such was the double emotion caused by the effect of my recent fierce excitement, and joy at the prospect of release from my miserable seclusion, that my limbs trembled with feebleness, and my eyes were so full of tears, that I could scarcely descend the cliffs to meet the crew, and was without voice to hail them, as they ran their boat into a little creek, laying in the oars in true man-o'-war fashion; and then a number of young officers, bent on a "lark" or ramble about the island, sprang ashore with boisterous glee and laughter, and all armed with ship-muskets or fowling-pieces.

At last I gathered strength to utter a shout that seemed to come from my inner heart, while descending a wooded bank to the beach, where the recently-landed group stood gazing at me with astonishment expressed in all their faces.

Though the tattered remains of my uniform, my uncombed hair and shaggy beard, were somewhat fantastic, my aspect was too wild, haggard, wasted, and forlorn, to excite laughter, while hurrying toward them.

"Now, in the name of old Davy, who, or what are you?" asked one, whom I knew to be the first-lieutenant of the _Adder_.

"One who has the pleasure of knowing you well enough, Mr. Percival," said I, stretching out my hands to him.

"This is a deuced queer rencontre! are you sailor or soldier, Carib or what?"

"Come, come, Percival; surely I am not so altered as to be taken for a Carib, though I have lived like one for many a day. Thanks be to Providence, you have come to my rescue! Cannot you remember me--Ellis of the Scots Fusiliers--Lieutenant Ellis, who sailed from Guadaloupe and Los Santos in the prize privateer _Etna_ on a special duty?"

"With Ned Stanley--remember you, my dear fellow, of course!" said he, grasping his hand, as his companions, now assured that I was neither a satyr, an Orson, a Casper Hauser, or likely to _eat them_, came round me; and the joy I felt on hearing their voices, and seeing their open, honest, and weatherbeaten English faces, was so great in my swelling heart, that it almost amounted to pain.

"How came this about--that we find you here and alone?" asked Percival.

"We encountered a hurricane----"

"Ah--whereabout?"

"Off the isle of Avis, or the tail of the Avis Bank--the ship foundered--capsized and went down."

"With all hands on board?"

"All, French passengers and every one."

"Never mind the French," said one, "but poor Ned Stanley----"

"He was swept off the maintopsail-yard, when the mast was lying horizontally in the water, and so was drowned with four others who clung to it."

"And you----" they inquired with one voice.

"After long drifting in the sea, and being driven hither and thither by waves and wind, I was washed ashore with a spare mizentopsail-yard, and have lived here like Robinson Crusoe ever since."

"A strange story!" said one.

"It is deuced fortunate for you," said Mr. Percival, "that during the last day or two, the gale was so stiff that we were driven thus far out of our intended course. Having sighted this island by our glasses, a few of us came off to have a lark with the Carib girls, if there were any, and a shot at the monkeys, or anything else that might turn up."

"Were you cruising?"

"Yes, in search of any French craft we might find; but there is not a tricolour pennant to be seen in these waters, so to-night we haul up for Guadaloupe again."

"What are the news from that quarter?"

"Bad enough," replied several shaking their heads.

"How--the yellow fever, I suppose, has broken out among the troops?"

"We have not wanted for that either," replied Percival, "but the French have retaken La Fleur d'Epée, and played the devil with your 43rd Regiment; however, you shall hear all about this after. Meantime, a meal such as befits a Christian, and a glass of good wine, will not be unacceptable I presume, so come off to the frigate at once. Gentlemen," he continued, addressing his party, "you can remain ashore, while I take Mr. Ellis off to the ship--but remember to assemble here the moment she fires a gun or displays her ensign."

He kindly assisted me into the boat, and now my emotion was such, that I almost sank down in the stern-sheets.

"In fenders--out oars," said he, assuming the tiller-rope; "and now give way, lads--give way with a will!"

But the injunction was scarcely required. In their anxiety to place me on board, the brave fellows bent to their oars with such vigour, that by every stroke the long, sharp boat was actually lifted clean out of the water, and we surged through it with the speed of a race-horse. Then, when again I found myself alongside the noble old frigate, and saw her triced-up ports, with their tier of artillery peering through them--her swelling "wooden wall," that towered like a bastion from the water--her well-squared yards and tapered masts, that towered away to the long whiplike pennant that streamed on the wind--I say, when seeing all this, and hearing the sounds of English voices, of a fiddle and scraps of a song or two from the idlers between decks--then, more than all, the soldierly aspect of the smart marine sentinel on the poop in his red coat and well pipe-clayed belts--I felt myself at _home_ indeed, but with the fear that all might prove another dream.

On computing dates, we found that I had been exactly _one month and eighteen days_ on the island.

Once away from it, my past existence there seemed really like a dream, which I could scarcely recall.