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Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer - Romance

J >> Joseph Conrad and F.M. Hueffer >> Romance




"Tomas, I wish this thing. I command it," she whispered imperiously. "We
shall help these English on the ship. We must; I command it. For these
are now my people."

I heard him mutter to himself, "h, dear shade of my Carlos. Her people.
Where are now mine?" But he shipped his oar, and sat waiting.

In the moment before the picaroons actually started, I became the prey
of the most intense anxiety. I knew we were to seaward of the cluster.
But of our position relatively to the boats, and to the English ship
they would make for, I was profoundly ignorant. The dinghy might be
lying right in the way. Before I could master the sort of disorder I was
thrown into by that thought--which, strange to say, had not occurred to
me till then--with a shrill whistle Manuel led off.

We are always incited to trust, our eyes rather than our ears; and such
is the conventional temper in which we receive the impression of our
senses that I had no idea they were so near us. The destruction of my
illusory feeling of distance was the most startling thing in the world.
Instantly, it seemed, with the second swing and plash of the oars, the
boats were right upon us. They went clear. It was like being grazed by a
fall of rocks. I seemed to feel the wind of the rush.

The rapid clatter of rowing, the excited hum of voices, the violent
commotion of the water, passed by us with an impetuosity that took my
breath away. They had started in a bunch. There must have been amongst
them at least one crew of negroes, because somebody was beating
a tambourine smartly, and the rowers chorused in a quick, panting
undertone, "_Ho, ho, talibambo.... Ho, ho, talibambo_." One of the
boats silhouetted herself for an instant, a row of heads swaying back
and forth, towered over astern by a full-length figure as straight as an
arrow. A retreating voice thundered, "Silence!" The sounds and the forms
faded together in the fog with amazing swiftness.

Seraphina, her cloak off, her head bare, stared forward after the
fleeting murmurs and shadows we were pursuing. Sometimes she warned us,
"More to the left "; or, "Faster!" We had to put forth our best, for
Manuel, as if in the very wantonness of confidence, had set a tremendous
pace.

I suppose he took his first direction by the light on the point. I
cannot tell what guided him after that feeble sheen had become buried in
the fog; but there was no check in the speed, no sign of hesitation.
We followed in the track of the sound, and, for the most part, kept in
sight of the elusive shadow of the sternmost boat. Often, in a denser
belt of fog, the sounds of rowing became muffled almost to extinction;
or we seemed to hear them all round and, startled, checked our speed.
Dark apparitions of boats would surge up on all sides in a most
inexplicable way; to the right; to the left; even coming from behind.
They appeared real, unmistakable, and, before we had time to dodge them,
vanished utterly. Then we had to spurt desperately after the grind of
the oars, caught, just in time, in an unexpected direction.

And then we lost them. We pulled frantically. Seraphina had been urging
us, "Faster! faster!" From time to time I would ask her, "Can you see
them?" "Not yet," she answered curtly. The perspiration poured down
my face. Castro's panting was like the wheezing of bellows at my back.
Suddenly, in a despairing tone, she said:

"Stop! I can neither see nor hear anything now."

We feathered our oars at once, and fell to listening with lowered heads.
The ripple of the boat's way expired slowly. A great white stillness
hung slumbrously over the sea.

It was inconceivable. We pulled once or twice with extreme energy for
a few minutes after imaginary whistles or shouts. Once I heard them
passing our bows. But it was useless; we stopped, and the moon, from
within the mistiness of an immense halo, looked dreamily upon our heads.

Castro grunted, "Here is an end of your plan, Senor Don Juan."

The peculiar and ghastly hopelessness of our position could not
be better illustrated than by this fresh difficulty. We had lost
touch--with a murderous gang that had every inducement not to spare our
lives. And positively it was a misfortune; an abandonment. I refused to
admit to myself its finality, as if it had reflected upon the devotion
of tried friends. I repeated to Castro that we should become aware of
them directly--probably even nearer than we wished. And, at any rate,
we were certain of a mighty loud noise when the attack on the ship
began. She, at least, could not be very far now. "Unless, indeed,"
I admitted with exasperation, "we are to suppose that your imbecile
_Lugarenos_ have missed their prey and got themselves as utterly lost as
we ourselves."

I was irritated--by his nodding plume; by his cold, perfunctory, as if
sleepy mutters, "Possibly, possibly, _puede ser_." He retorted: "Your
English generosity could wish your countrymen no better luck than that
my _Lugarenos_, as your worship pleases to call them, should miss their
way. They are hungry for loot--with much fasting. And it is hunger that
makes your wolf fly straight at the throat."

All the time Seraphina breathed no word. But when I raised my voice, she
put out a hushing hand to my arm. And, from her intent pose, from the
turn of her shadowy head, I knew that she was peering and listening
loyally.

Minutes passed--very few, I dare say--and brought no sound. The
restlessness of waiting made us dip our oars in a haphazard stroke,
without aim, without the means of judging whether we pulled to seaward,
inshore, north, or south, or only in a circle. Once we went excitedly
in chase of some splashing that must have been a leaping fish. I was
hanging my head over my idle oar when Seraphina touched me.

"I see!" she said, pointing over the bows.

Both Castro and I, peering horizontally over the water, did not see
anything. Not a shadow. Moreover, if they were so near, we ought to have
heard something.

"I believe it is land!" she murmured. "You are looking too low, Juan."

As soon as I looked up I saw it, too, dark and beetling, like the
overhang of a low cliff. Where on earth had we blundered to? For a
moment I was confounded. Fiery reflections from a light played faintly
above that shape. Then I recognized what I was looking at. We had found
the ship.

The fog was so shallow that up there the upper bulk of a heavy, square
stern, the very rails and stanchions crowning it like a balustrade,
jutted out in the misty sheen like the balcony of an invisible edifice,
for the lines of her run, the sides of her hull, were plunged in the
dense white layer below. And, throwing back my head, I traced even
her becalmed sails, pearly gray pinnacles of shadow uprising, tall and
motionless, towards the moon.

A redness wavered over her, as from a blaze on her deck. Could she be
on fire? And she was silent as a tomb. Could she be abandoned? I had
promised myself to dash alongside, but there was a weirdness in that
fragment of a dumb ship hanging out of a fog. We pulled only a stroke or
two nearer to the stern, and stopped. I remembered Castro's warning--the
blindness of flying lead; but it was the profound stillness that checked
me. It seemed to portend something inconceivable. I hailed, tentatively,
as if I had not expected to be answered, "Ship, ahoy!"

Neither was I answered by the instantaneous, "Hallo," of usual
watchfulness, though she was not abandoned. Indeed, my hail made a good
many men jump, to judge by the sounds and the words that came to me from
above. "What? What? A hail?" "Boat near?" "In English, sir."

"Dive for the captain, one of you," an authoritative voice directed.
"He's just run below for a minute. Don't frighten the missus. Call him
out quietly."

Talking, in confidential undertones, followed.

"See him?" "Can't, sir." "What's the dodge, I wonder." "Astern, I think,
sir." "D------n this fog, it lies as thick as pea-soup on the water."

I waited, and after a perplexed sort of pause, heard a stern "Keep off."




CHAPTER THREE

They did not suspect how close I was to them. And their temper struck
me at once as unsafe. They seemed very much on the alert, and, as I
imagined, disposed to precipitate action. I called out, deadening my
voice warily:

"I am an Englishman, escaping from the pirates here. We want your help."

To this no answer was made, but by that time the captain had come on
deck. The dinghy must have drifted in a little closer, for I made
out behind the shadowy rail one, two, three figures in a row, looming
bulkily above my head, as men appear enlarged in mist.

"'Englishman,' he says." "That's very likely," pronounced a new voice.
They held a hurried consultation up there, of which I caught only
detached sentences, and the general tone of concern. "It's perfectly
well known that there _is_ an Englishman here.... Aye, a runaway second
mate.... Killed a man in a Bristol ship.... What was his name, now?"

"Won't you answer me?" I called out.

"Aye, we will answer you as soon as we see you.... Keep your eyes
skinned fore and aft on deck there.... Ready, boys?"

"All ready, sir"; voices came from further off.

"Listen to me," I entreated.

Someone called out briskly, "This is a bad place for pretty tales of
Englishmen in distress. We know very well where we are."

"You are off Rio Medio," I began anxiously; "and I-------"

"Speaks the truth like a Briton, anyhow," commented a lazy drawl.

"I would send another man to the pump," a reflective voice suggested.
"To make sure of the force, Mr. Sebright, you know."

"Certainly, sir.... Another hand to the brakes, bo'sun."

"I have been held captive on shore," I said. "I escaped this evening,
three hours ago."

"And found this ship in the fog? You made a good shot at it, didn't
you?"

"It's no time for trifling, I swear to you," I continued. "They are out
looking for you, in force. I've heard them. I was with them when they
started."

"I believe you."

"They seem to have missed the ship."

"So you came to have a friendly chat meantime. That's kind. Beastly
weather, aint it?"

"I want to come aboard," I shouted. "You must be crazy not to believe
me."

"But we do believe every single word you say," bantered the Sebright
voice with serenity.

Suddenly another struck in, "Nichols, I call to mind, sir."

"Of course, of course. This is the man."

"My name's not Nichols," I protested.

"Now, now. You mustn't begin to lie," remonstrated Sebright. Somebody
laughed discreetly.

"You are mistaken, on my honour," I said. "Nichols left Rio Medio some
time ago."

"About three hours, eh?" came the drawl of insufferable folly in these
precious minutes.

It was clear that Manuel had gone astray, but I feared not for long.
They would spread out in search. And now I had found this hopeless ship,
it seemed impossible that anybody else could miss her.

"You may be boarded any moment by more than a dozen boats. I warn you
solemnly. Will you let me come?"

A low whistle was heard on board. They were impressed, "Why should he
tell us this?" an undertone inquired.

"Why the devil shouldn't he? It's no great news, is it? Some scoundrelly
trick. This man's up to any dodge. Why, the '_Jane_' was taken in broad
day by two boats that pretended they were going to sell vegetables."

"Look out, or by heavens you'll be taken by surprise. There's a lot of
them," I said as impressively as I could.

"Look out, look out. There's a lot of them," someone yelled in a sort of
panic.

"Oh, that's your game," Sebright's voice said to me. "Frighten us, eh?
Never you mind what this skunk says, men. Stand fast. We shall take a
lot of killing." He was answered by a sort of pugnacious uproar, a clash
of cutlasses and laughter, as if at some joke.

"That's right, boys; mind and send them away with clean faces, you
gunners. Jack, you keep a good lookout for that poor distressed
Englishman. What's that? a noise in the fog? Stand by. Now then,
cook!..."

"All ready to dish up, sir," a voice answered him.

It was like a sort of madness. Were they thinking of eating? Even at
that the English talk made my heart expand--the homeliness of it. I
seemed to know all their voices, as if I had talked to each man before.
It brought back memories, like the voices of friends.

But there was the strange irrelevancy, levity, the enmity--the
irrational, baffling nature of the anguishing conversation, as if with
the unapproachable men we meet in nightmares.

We in the dinghy, as well as those on board, were listening anxiously. A
profound silence reigned for a time.

"I don't care for myself," I tried once more, speaking distinctly. "But
a lady in the boat here is in great danger, too. Won't you do something
for a woman?"

I perceived, from the sort of stir on board, that this caused some
sensation.

"Or is the whole ship's company afraid to let one little boat come
alongside?" I added, after waiting for an answer.

A throat was cleared on board mildly, "Hem... you see, we don't know who
you are."

"I've told you who I am. The lady is Spanish."

"Just so. But there are Englishmen and Englishmen in these days. Some of
them keep very bad company ashore, and others afloat. I couldn't think
of taking you on board, unless I know something more of you."

I seemed to detect an intention of malice in the mild voice. The more
so that I overheard a rapid interchange of mutterings up there. "See him
yet?" "Not a thing, sir." "Wait, I say."

Nothing could overcome the fixed idea of these men, who seemed to enjoy
so much the cleverness of their suspicions. It was the most dangerous of
tempers to deal with. It made them as untrustworthy as so many lunatics.
They were capable of anything, of decoying us alongside, and stoving
the bottom out of the boat, and drowning us before they discovered their
mistake, if they ever did. Even as it was, there was danger; and yet I
was extremely loath to give her up. It was impossible to give her up.
But what were we to do? What to say? How to act?

"Castro, this is horrible," I said blankly. That he was beginning to
chafe, to fret, and shuffle his feet only added to my dismay. He might
begin at any moment to swear in Spanish, and that was sure to bring a
shower of lead, blind, fired blindly. "We have nothing to expect from
the people of that ship. We cannot even get on board."

"Not without Manuel's help, it seems," he said bitterly. "Strange, is
it not, Senor? Your countrymen--your excellent and virtuous countrymen.
Generous and courageous and perspicacious."

Seraphina said suddenly, "They have reason. It is well for them to be
suspicious of us in this place." She had a tone of calm reproof, and of
faith.

"They shall be of more use when they are dead," Castro muttered. "The
senor's other dead countrymen served us well."

"I shall give you great, very great sums of money," Seraphina suddenly
cried towards the ship. "I am the Senorita Seraphina Riego."

"There is a woman--that's a woman's voice, I'll swear," I heard them
exclaim on board, and I cried again:

"Yes, yes. There is a woman."

"I dare say. But where do you come in? You are a distressed Englishman,
aren't you?" a voice came back.

"You shall let us come up on your ship," Seraphina said. "I shall come
myself, alone--Seraphina Riego."

"Eh, what?" the voice asked.

I felt a little wind on the back of my head. There was desperate hurry.

"We are escaping to get married," I called out. They were beginning to
shout orders on the ship. "Oh, you've come to the wrong shop. A church
is what you want for _that_ trouble," the voice called back brutally,
through the other cries of orders to square the yards.

I shouted again, but my voice must have been drowned in the creaking
of blocks and yards. They were alert enough for every chance of getting
away--for every flaw of wind. Already the ship was less distinct, as if
my eyes had grown dim. By the time a voice on board her cried, "Belay,"
faintly, she had gone from my sight. Then the puff of wind passed away,
too, and left us more alone than ever, with only the small disk of the
moon poised vertically above the mists.

"Listen," said Tomas Castro, after what seemed an eternity of
crestfallen silence.

He need not have spoken; there could be no doubt that Manuel had lost
himself, and my belief is that the ship had sailed right into the midst
of the flotilla. There was an unmistakable character of surprise in the
distant tumult that arose suddenly, and as suddenly ceased for a space
of a breath or two. "Now, Castro," I shouted. "Ha! _bueno!_"

We gave way with a vigour that seemed to lift the dinghy out of the
water. The uproar gathered volume and fierceness.

From the first it was a hand-to-hand contest, engaged in suddenly, as if
the assailants had at once managed to board in a body, and, as it were,
in one unanimous spring. No shots had been fired. Too far to hear the
blows, and seeing nothing as yet of the ship, we seemed to be hastening
towards a deadly struggle of voices, of shadows with leathern throats;
every cry heard in battle was there--rage, encouragement, fury, hate,
and pain. And those of pain were amazingly distinct. They were yells;
they were howls. And suddenly, as we approached the ship, but before we
could make out any sign of her, we came upon a boat. We had to swerve
to clear her. She seemed to have dropped out of the fight in utter
disarray; she lay with no oars out, and full of men who writhed and
tumbled over each other, shrieking as if they had been flayed. Above the
writhing figures in the middle of the boat, a tall man, upright in the
stern-sheets, raved awful imprecations and shook his fists above his
head.

The blunt dinghy foamed past that vision within an oar's length, no
more, making straight for the clamour of the fight. The last puff of
wind must have thinned the fog in the ship's track; for, standing up,
face forward to pull stroke, I saw her come out, stern-on to us, from
truck to water-line, mistily tall and motionless, but resounding with
the most fierce and desperate noises. A cluster of empty boats clung low
to her port side, raft-like and vague on the water.

We heard now, mingled with the fury and hate of shouts reverberating
from the placid sails, mighty thuds and crashes, as though it had been a
combat with clubs and battle-axes.

Evidently, in the surprise and haste of the unexpected coming together,
they had been obliged to board all on the same side. As I headed for the
other a big boat, full of men, with many oars, shot across our bows,
and vanished round the ship's counter in the twinkling of an eye. The
defenders, engaged on the port side, were going to be taken in the rear.
We were then so close to the counter that the cries of "Death, death,"
rang over our heads. A voice on the poop said furiously in English,
"Stand fast, men." Next moment, we, too, rounded the quarter only twenty
feet behind the big boat, but with a slightly wider sweep.

I said, "Have the pistols ready, Seraphina." And she answered quite
steadily:

"They are ready, Juan."

I could not have believed that any handiwork of man afloat could have
got so much way through the water. To this very day I am not rid of
the absurd impression that, at that particular moment, the dinghy was
travelling with us as fast as a cannon-ball. No sooner round than we
were upon them. We were upon them so fast that I had barely the time
to fling away my oar, and close my grip on the butt of the pistols
Seraphina pressed into my hand from behind. Castro, too, had dropped
his oar, and, turning as swift as a cat, crouched in the bows. I saw his
good arm darting out towards their boat.

They had cast a grapnel cleverly, and, swung abreast of the main chains,
were grimly busied in boarding the undefended side in silence. One had
already his leg over the ship's rail, and below him three more were
clambering resolutely, one above the other. The rest of them, standing
up in a body with their faces to the ship, were so oblivious of
everything in their purpose, that they staggered all together to the
shock of the dinghy, heavily, as if the earth had reeled under them.

Castro knew what he was doing. I saw his only hand hop along the
gunwale, dragging our cockle-shell forward very swiftly. The tottering
Spaniards turned their heads, and for a moment we looked at each other
in silence.

I was too excited to shout; the surprise seemed to have deprived them
of their senses, and they all had the same grin of teeth closed upon
the naked blades of their knives, the same stupid stare fastened upon my
eyes. I pulled the trigger in the nearest face, and the terrific din of
the fight going on above us was overpowered by the report of the pistol,
as if by a clap of thunder. The man's gaping mouth dropped the knife,
and he stood stiffly long enough for the thought, "I've missed him," to
flash through my mind before he tumbled clean out of the boat without
touching anything, like a wooden dummy tipped by the heels. His headlong
fall sent the water flying high over the stern of the dinghy. With the
second barrel I took a long shot at the man sitting amazed, astride of
the rail above. I saw him double up suddenly, and fall inboard sideways,
but the fellow following him made a convulsive effort, and leapt out of
sight on to the deck of the ship. I dropped the discharged weapon, and
fired the first barrel of the other at the upper of the two men clinging
halfway up the ship's side. To that one shot they both vanished as if
by enchantment, the fellow I had hit knocking off his friend below. The
crash of their fall was followed by a great yell.

These had been all nearly point-blank shots, and, anyhow, I had had a
good deal of pistol practice. Macdonald had a little gallery at Horton
Pen. The _Lugarenos_, huddled together in the boat, were only able to
moan with terror. They made soft, pitiful, complaining noises. Two or
three took headers overboard, like so many frogs, and then one began to
squeak exactly like a rat.

By that time, Castro, with his fixed blade, had cut their grapnel rope
close to the ring. As the ship kept forging ahead all the time, the
boat of the pirate bumped away lightly from between the vessel and our
dinghy, and we remained alongside, holding to the end of the severed
line. I sent my fourth shot after them and got in exchange a scream and
a howl of "Mercy! mercy! we surrender!" She swung clear of the quarter,
all hushed, and faded into the mist and moonlight, with the head and
arms of a motionless man hanging grotesquely over the bows.

Leaving Seraphina with Castro, and sticking the remaining pair of
pistols in my belt, I swarmed up the rope. The moon, the lights of
several lanthorns, the glare from the open doors, mingled violently in
the steamy fog between the high bulwarks of the ship. But the character
of the contest was changing, even as I paused on the rail to get my
bearings. The fellow who had leapt on board to escape my shot had bolted
across the deck to his friends on the other side, yelling:

"Fly, fly! The heretics are coming, shooting from the sea. All is lost.
Fly, oh fly!"

He had jumped straight overboard, but the infection of his panic was
already visible. The cries of "_Muerte, muerte!_ Death, death!" had
ceased, and the Englishmen were cheering ferociously. In a moment, under
my eyes, the seamen, who had been holding their own with difficulty in
a shower of defensive blows, began to dart forward, striking out with
their fists, catching with their hands. I jumped upon the main hatch,
and found myself in the skirt ef the final rush.

A tall _Lugareno_ had possessed himself of one of the ship's capstan
bars, and, less craven than the others, was flourishing it on high,
aiming at the head of a sailor engaged in throttling a negro whom he
held at the full length of his immense arms. I fired, and the _Lugareno_
tumbled down with all the appearance of having knocked himself over with
the bar he had that moment uplifted. It rested across his neck as he lay
stretched at my feet.

I was not able to effect anything more after this, because the sailor,
after rushing his limp antagonist overboard with terrific force, turned
raging for more, caught sight of me--an evident stranger--and flew at
my throat. He was English, but as he squeezed my windpipe so hard that
I couldn't utter a word I brought the butt of my pistol upon his thick
skull without the slightest compunction, for, indeed, I had to deal with
a powerful man, well able to strangle me with his bare hands, and very
determined to achieve the feat. He grunted under the blow, reeled away
a few steps, then, charging back at once, gripped me round the body, and
tried to lift me off my feet. We fell together into a warm puddle.

I had no idea spilt blood kept its warmth so much. And the quantity
of it was appalling; the deck seemed to swim with gore, and we simply
weltered in it. We rolled rapidly along the reeking scuppers, amongst
the feet of a lot of men who were hopping about us in the greatest
excitement, the hearty thuds of blows, aimed with all sorts of weapons,
just missing my head. The pistol was kicked out of my hand.

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