Chapter VI: Spiriting Away--Where Is the Ballahoo? (2)

"Indeed!" said I; "then what boats could those be that boarded her a little while ago? Besides, I heard pistol shots, and a sound as of struggling."

"Oh," quoth mine host, "the captain is a gay chap, and has a great many friends here, who are generally on the look-out to board him in the offing. Besides, he is always burning lights, and blazing away."

"Very well," thought I, "it's all one to me."

I now noticed that the ship, having got into the sea-breeze, had bore up again, and was running down towards the two small vessels to leeward. As she ran off the wind, and got between us and the moon, her sails no longer reflected the light, but became dark and cloudlike; when she reached them, they all stood out to sea, and gradually disappeared in the misty distance like dusky specks. Not wishing to appear an alarmist, I made no farther remark.

As Mr Roseapple and I walked back into the room, the first thing that struck us was the master of the Ballahoo sound asleep on a sofa, and Mr Flamingo carefully strewing the great rough seaman with roses and jessamine leaves.

"Love amongst the roses," quoth he, as he joined his partner.

"I see that same stranger, who has been puzzling us all, has succeeded in making that poor fellow helplessly drunk," said Jacob Twig.

"Bad luck to him!" quoth I.

It appeared, that he had been much with him during the evening; and had been overheard making many minute enquiries regarding the tonnage of his vessel--the number of hands on board--and as to whether the Spaniards and their money had been landed or not; but as both were strangers, and the unknown had apparently a smattering of nautical knowledge, it seemed natural enough that they should draw up together, and no one seemed to think any thing of it.

It was now three o'clock in the morning, and high time to bid our worthy host adieu; so, after I had again apologized for my intrusion, Mr Twig, Flamingo, Captain Hause, and myself, withdrew, and took the road homewards to our quarters in the town.

Mr Jacob was leading the way as steady as a judge, for he seemed quite sober, so far as his locomotion was concerned; but Flamingo and I, who, I grieve to say it, were not quite the thing ourselves, had the greatest difficulty in lugging the skipper of the brig along with us; for, on the principle that the blind should lead the blind, Twig had coolly enough left him to our care, Bacchus had fairly conquered Neptune.

Whilst we were staggering along, under the influence of the rosy god and the weight of the skipper, who should spring past, in a fast run, apparently in red-hot haste, but the mysterious Mr Wilson!

"Hillo, my fine fellow," quoth Twig, "whither so swiftly? Slacken your pace, man, and be compani-o-n-a-ble."

I now perceived that Twig's legs were the discreetest of his members, and more to be relied on than his tongue; his potations having considerably interfered with his usually clear enunciation. The person hailed neither shortened sail nor answered him.

"Why, Mr Twig," shouted I, "if you don't heave to, we must cast off Mr Hause here. I believe he is in an apoplexy, he is so deadly heavy."

"Here, Mr Brail--here--bring him along," quoth Twig, returning from the front, and laying hold of the navigator wheelbarrow fashion, placing himself between his legs, while Flamingo and I had each a hold of an arm. As for the head, we left it to take care of itself, as it bumped on the hard path at every step, demolishing, no doubt, thousands of sand-flies at every lollop. We staggered down the zigzag road, until we came to an opening in the lime fence, through which we turned sharp off into the fields, led by Massa Twig. Here, wading through wet guinea-grass up to our hip-joints, which drenched us in a moment to the skin, we arrived at a small rocky knoll under an orange-tree, where we deposited the drunk man on his back, and then, with all the tipsy gravity in the world, sat ourselves down beside him.

We were now planted on a limestone pinnacle of the bluff, on which the house stood, from the fissures of which grew a most superb orange-tree that overshadowed us. Our perch commanded a view to seaward, as well as of the harbour, that slept under our feet in the moonlight. As soon as we came to an anchor, Flamingo ascended the tree, which was loaded with golden fruit, and sparkling with fireflies.

"Nothing like an orange with the dew on it," quoth he, stretching to reach a bunch, when he missed his footing, and shook down a whole volley of oranges, and a shower of heavy dew.

"Confound you, Felix," quoth Jacob Twig, who received a copious showerbath in his neck, as he stooped his head, busying himself in an unavailing attempt to strike fire with his pocket-flint and steel, in order to light his cigar, "what do you mean by that?"

"A volley of grapeshot from the felucca," stuttered the skipper, on whose face Flamingo had again dropped a whole hatful of fruit, sending down along with them another fall of diamonds.

"Now, don't be so pluviose, Flamingo," again sung out Twig; "come down out of that tree, Felix, or I'll shy this stone at you, as I am a gentleman."

"An't I a very pretty peacock, Jacob?" quoth his troublesome friend. "But stop, I _will_ come down"--seeing Twig preparing to make his threat good--"so keep your temper, man, and haul Tarrybreeks nearer the root of the tree, that I may fall soft."

"I say, Flamingo," quoth Twig, "you don't mean to make a featherbed of the navigator's carcass, do you?"

Crash at this moment went the bough on which our friend had trusted himself, and down he came, tearing his way through the strong thorns of the tree, right upon us. However, his fall was so much broken by the other branches, that there was no great harm done, if we except the scratches that he himself received, and a rent or two in his clothes.

"Murder, how I am scratched and torn, to be sure--why, see, my clothes are all in tatters absolutely," with a long drawl.

"Serve you right, you troublesome animal," quoth Twig; "but sit down, and be quiet if you can. Look, have you no poetry in you, Felix? Is not that scene worth looking at?"

The black bank of clouds that had slid down the western sky, and had floated for some time above the horizon, now sank behind the hills, above whose dark outline the setting moon was lingering.

The pale clear luminary still cast a long stream of light on the quiet waters of the bay, which were crisping and twinkling in the land-breeze; and the wet roofs of the houses of the town beneath, whose dark masses threw their long shadows towards us, glanced in her departing beams like sheets of polished silver. The grass and bushes beside us were sparkling with dewdrops, and spangled with fireflies. The black silent hulls of the vessels at anchor floated motionless on the bosom of the calm waters; the Ballahoo being conspicuous from her low hull and tall spars. The lantern that had been hoisted to guide the skipper on his return still burned like a small red spark at the gaff end.

There were one or two lights sparkling and disappearing in the lattices of the houses on the bay, as if the inmates were already bestirring themselves, early as it was.

The moon was just disappearing, when a canoe, pulling four oars, with one solitary figure in the stern, dashed across her wake, and pushed out to sea.

We distinctly heard the hollow voices of the men, and the rumble of the rollocks, and the cheeping and splashing of the broad bladed paddles. I looked with all my eyes. "A doubloon, if you pull to please me," said a voice distinctly from the boat.

"That chap must be in a deuced hurry, whoever he may be," quoth Jacob Twig.

"It's more than you seem to be, my boy," rejoined Master Felix, "You seem to be inclined to sit here all night; so I'll e'en stump along to my lodgings, at Sally Frenche's, and leave you and the skipper _al fresco_ here, to rise when it pleases you. Come, Mr Brail, will you go, or shall I send you out a nightcap and a boat-cloak?"

"Oh we shall all go together," said I; "only let us take another look at that most beautiful sky."

The moon had now disappeared behind the distant mountains, leaving their dark outlines sharply cut out against the clear greenish light of the western sky. They looked like the shore to some mysteriously transparent, self-luminous, but deadly calm ocean. Several shreds of vapour floated in this mild radiance, like small icebergs in the north sea, during the long twilight night, while the sun is circling round just below the horizon; while to windward[2] the fast reddening sky, and the rise of the morning star, gave token of the near approach of day.

[2] Once for all. In the West Indies, from the sea-breeze, or trade-winds, always blowing from the east, objects or places are universally indicated, even during a temporary calm, as being situated _to windward_ or _to leeward_, according as they are to the _eastward_ or _westward_ of the speaker.

We got home, and tumbled into bed, and it was two o'clock in the afternoon before I rose to breakfast.

The sea-breeze was by this time blowing strong, almost half a gale of wind, making the shingles of the roof clatter like watchmen's rattles, and whistling through the house like a tornado.

I had just risen, and taken my razors out of my desk, which lay open on the dressing-table, when the wooden-blinds of the window fell down with a loud bang, from the dropping out of the pin that held them shut, and away went the letters and papers it contained, scattered by the reckless breeze east, west, north, and south; some flying up to the roof, others sticking against the walls far above my ken, as resolutely as if they had been pasted on by little Waddington the billsticker himself; while, by a sort of eddy wind, several were whisked away out of the door (that at the moment was opened by a negro boy with my coat in one hand, a beautiful pine-apple on a plate in the other, and a tin shaving-jug _full of boiling water on his head_), and disappeared amongst the branches of a large umbrageous kennip-tree, that overshadowed the back-yard, to be worked up in due time into bird's nests.

"There they go," cried I. "Why,--Sally, cousin Sally!"--she was bustling about her domestic matters--"see all my letters flying about the yard there; send some of the small fry to catch them."

I continued my shaving, until another puff whipped up the piece of paper I had been wiping my razor on, charged as it was with soap-suds, and there it ascended spirally in a tiny whirlwind, until it reached the roof, where, thinking it would stick to the rafters, after being tired of its gyrations, the room being unceiled, I shouted to Sally to bring me one of the vagrant papers to supply its place; but, as I peeped through the blinds to observe how she came on, I felt something settle down as gently as a snow-flake on the crown of my head. "Do try and secure my _love_-letters, cousin."

"Love-letter, dem?" quoth Sally, jumping up at the words, "La, Massa Benjamin, how you no say so before--love-letter--I tink dem was no more as shaving-paper."

"Shaving-paper? Oh no, all my shaving-paper is sticking to the crown of my head, Sally; see here," stooping down to show her the patch on my skull.

Sally was now all energy. "Shomp, Teemoty, Peeta, up de tree, you willains, and fetch me all dese piece of paper, dem--shomp;" and the fugitive pieces were soon secured.

When Sally, honest lady, entered with the papers, the soapy scalp still adhered to my caput. She first looked in my face, being a sort of quiz in her way, and then at it. "Dat is new fashion, Massa Benjamin. When gentlemen shave demself in England now-a-day, do dey wipe de razor on crone of dem head?"

"Assuredly they do," said I; "the universal custom, Sally, every man or woman, _willy nilly_, must wipe their razors, henceforth and for ever, on pieces of paper stuck on the crown of their heads. There is an act of Parliament for it."

"My gracious!"

"Ay, you may say that,"

And exit Sally Frenche to her household cares once more.

I had now time to give a little attention to the scenery of the yard, where Cousin Sally reigned supreme.

Three sides of the square (the house composing the fourth) were occupied by ranges of low wooden huts, containing kitchen and washing-houses, rooms for the domestic negroes, and a long open shed, fronting my window, for a stable. There was a draw-well in the centre, round which numberless fowls, turkeys, geese, ducks, guinea-birds, and pigeons, _flaffed_, and gobbled, and quacked; while several pigs were grunting and squeaking about the cookroom door, from whence a black hand, armed with an iron ladle, protruded every now and then, to give grumphy, when too intrusive, a good crack over the skull.

Below the large kennip-tree already mentioned, sat Sally Frenche, enthroned in state, in a low wicker chair, with a small table beside her, on which lay an instrument of punishment, ycleped a cowskin, a long twisted thong of leather, with a short lash of whipcord at the end of it. She was nothing loth, I saw, to apply this to the shoulders of her handmaidens when they appeared behind hand, or sluggish in their obedience; and even the free brownies of her household were not always exempt from a taste thereof.

Two nice showily-dressed negresses were speaking to her. They each balanced a large wooden bowl on their heads, full of handkerchiefs, gown-pieces, and beads, and appeared to be taking their instructions as to the prices they were to ask during the day's sale. They departed--when a black fellow, naked all to his trowsers, with a long clear knife in his hand, approached, and also took some orders that I could not hear, but apparently they had been the death-warrant of a poor little pig, which he immediately clapper-clawed; and, like a spider bolting with a fly, disappeared with it, squeaking like fury, into his den--the kitchen.

There were several little naked negro children running about Mrs Sally, but the objects of her immediate attention were a brown male child, of about eight years old, and two little mulatto girls, a year or two his seniors apparently. The children had their primers in their hands, and Sally held an open book in one of hers.

The girls appeared, with the aptness of their sex, to have said their lessons to her satisfaction, but the little cock-yellowhammer seemed a dull concern; and as I looked, she gave him a smart switch over his broadest end with her cowskin.

"Try again, you stupid _black_-head"--(his head was black enough certainly)--"now mind--what doz you do wid your eyes?"

"I sees wid dem."

"You is right for one time--what doz you do wid your yees?"--(ears.)

"I hears wid dem."

"Bery well--you sees you is not so stupid when you attends--you only lazy--so now--what doz you do wid your foots?"

"Walks wid dem."

"Bery well, indeed--now mind again--what doz you do wid your nose?"

This was a puzzler apparently--the poor little yellowhammer scratched his head, and eke his behind, and looked into the tree, and all manner of ways, when seeing Mammy Sally's fingers creeping along the table towards the cowskin,--he rapped out,

"I _picks_ him."

"_Picks_ him, sir!--_picks_ him!"--shouted Sally threatening him.

"No"--blubbered the poor boy--"no, mammy--no, I _blows_ him sometimes."

"You nassy snattary little willain--what is dat you say--you _smells_ wid him, sir--you _smells_ wid him." Another whack across his nether end, and a yell from yellowhammer.--"Now, sir, what you doz wid your mout?"

"_Nyam plawn_."[3]

[3] Creole for "_eat plantain_."

"Bery well--dat is not so far wrong--you does _nyam plawn_ wid him--but next time be more genteel, and say--you eats wid him. Now, sir--read your catechism, sir--begin--Mammy Juba--de toad of a boy--if him no hab de wrong side of de book turn up--ah ha--massa--you don't know de difference between de tap from de battam of de book yet?--Let me see if I can find out de difference between, for you own tap and battam."

Whack, whack, whack--and away ran the poor little fellow, followed by the two girls, so contagious was his fear; and off started the wrathful Sally after them, through the flock of living creatures; until she stumbled and fell over a stout porker; on which a turkey-cock, taking the intrusion in bad part, began stoutly to dig at Sally's face with his heels, and peck at her eyes with his beak, hobble-gobbling all the time most furiously; in which praiseworthy endeavour he was seconded by two ducks and a clucking-hen, one of whose chickens had come to an untimely end through poor Sally's _faux-pas_; while the original stumblingblock, the pig, kept poking and snoking at the fallen fair one, as if he had possessed a curiosity to know the colour of her garters. This gave little yellowhammer an opportunity of picking up the cowskin, that had dropped in the row, and of slyly dropping it into the draw-well, to the great improvement, no doubt, of the future flavour of the water.

At length Sally gathered herself up, and seeing that there was no chance of catching the urchins, who were peeping in at the back-door of the yard, that opened into the lane, she made a merit of necessity, and called out,

"So, go play now--go play,"--and away the scholars ran, and Cousin Sally returned to the house.

I was sitting at breakfast, and the gig I had ordered was already at the door, when the captain of the Ballahoo, who had been put to bed in the house, joined me. He looked rather sheepish, as if a dim recollection of the figure he had cut over night had been haunting him. Just as we had finished our meal, and I was about saying good-by to him, I found I had forgotten two boxes of cigars on board the Ballahoo; and as none of the servants of the house were at hand, I accepted his offer to go on board with him, in a canoe for them. So desiring the boy in charge of the gig to wait--that I would be back _instanter_--we sallied forth, and proceeded to the wharf, and embarked in the first shore-canoe we came to. There were three West-Indiamen taking in their cargoes close to the wharf, with their topmasts struck, and otherwise dismantled, and derricks up; and a large timbership, just arrived, whose sails were loosed to dry, was at anchor beyond them in the bay.

"Pull under the stern of that large ship with the sails loose; my brig is just beyond her," quoth Hause to the black canoe-man. "A fine burdensome craft that, sir."

"Very."

We were now rapidly approaching the large vessel--we shot past under her stern--when, lo!--_there was no brig to be seen_.

The captain, apparently bewildered, stared wildly about him--first this way, then that way, and in every direction---then at a buoy, to which we had now made fast.--He turned round to me, while with one hand he grasped the buoy-rope--"As sure as there is a Heaven above us, sir--this is our buoy, and the brig is gone."

"Gone," said I, smiling, "where can she be gone?"

"That's more than I know;"--then, after a pause, during which he became as blue as indigo, "where is the Ballahoo?" gasped the poor fellow in a fluttering tone to the canoe-men, as if terrified to learn their answer.

"Where is the Ballahoo you say, massa!!"--echoed Quashie in great surprise, that _he_, the master of her, should ask such a question.

"Yes--you black scoundrel,"--roared Hause, gathering breath, "_where_ is the Ballahoo?--this is her buoy, don't you see?"

"Where is de Ballahoo!!!"--again screamed the negroes, in a volley, in utter extremity of amazement at the enquiry being _seriously_ repeated.

"Yes, you ragamuffins," quoth I, Benjie Brail, excited in my turn--"Where _is_ the Ballahoo?"

_Omnes_.--"WHERE IS THE BALLAHOO?"