“Do you hear that?” at length said Aaron Bang, as a low moaning sound rose wailing into the night air. It approached and grew louder.
“The voice of the approaching tempest amongst the higher branches of the trees,” said the captain.
The rushing noise overhead increased, but still all was so calm where we sat that you could have heard a pin drop. Poo, thought I, it has passed over us after all—no fear now, when one reflects how completely sheltered we are. Suddenly, however, the lights in the room where the body lay were blown out, and the roof groaned and creaked as if it had been the bulkheads of a ship in a tempestuous sea.
“We shall have to cut and run from this anchorage presently, after all,” said I; “the house will never hold on till morning.”
The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when, as if a thunderbolt had struck it, one of the windows in the hall was driven in with a roar, as if the falls of Niagara had been pouring overhead, and the tempest having thus forced an entrance, the roof of that part of the house where we sat was blown up as if by gunpowder—ay, in the twinkling of an eye; and there we were with the bare walls, and the angry heavens overhead, and the rain descending in bucketfuls. Fortunately, two large joists or couples, being deeply imbedded in the substance of the walls, remained, when the rafters and ridgepole were torn away, or we must have been crushed in the ruins.
There was again a death-like lull, the wind fell to a small melancholy sough amongst the tree-tops, and once more, where we sat, there was not a breath stirring. So complete was the calm now, that after a light had been struck, and placed on the floor in the middle of the room, showing the surrounding group of shivering half-naked savages with fearful distinctness, the flame shot up straight as an arrow, clear and bright, although the distant roar of the storm still thundered afar off as it rushed over the mountain above us.
This unexpected stillness frightened the women even more than the fierceness of the gale, when at the loudest, had done.
“We must go forth,” said Señora Campana; “the elements are only gathering themselves for a more dreadful hurricane than what we have already experienced. We must go forth to the little chapel in the wood, or the next burst may, and will, bury us under the walls:” and she moved towards Maria’s room where, by this time, lights had again been placed. “We must move the body,” we could hear her say; “we must all proceed to the chapel; in a few minutes the storm will be raging again louder than ever.”
“And my wife is very right,” said Don Ricardo; “so Gaspar call the other people; have some mats, and quatres, and mattresses carried down to the chapel, and we shall all remove, for, with half of the roof gone, it is but tempting the Almighty to remain here longer.”
The word was passed and we were soon under weigh, four negroes leading the van, carrying the uncoffined body of the poor girl on a sofa; while two servants, with large splinters of a sort of resinous wood for flambeaux, walked by the side of it. Next followed the women of the family, covered up with all the cloaks and spare garments that could be collected; then came Don Picador Cangrejo, with Ricardo Campana, the skipper Aaron Bang, and myself—the procession being closed by the household negroes, with more lights, which all burned steadily and clear.
We descended through a magnificent natural avenue of lofty trees (whose brown moss-grown trunks and fantastic bough were strongly lit up by the blaze of the torches; while the fresh white splinter-marks, where the branches had been torn off by the storm, glanced bright and clear, and the rain-drops on the dark leaves sparkled like diamonds) towards the river, along whose brink the brimful red-foaming waters rushed past us close by the edge of the path, now ebbing suddenly a foot or so, and then surging up again beyond their former bounds, as if large stones or trunks of trees above were from time to time damming up the troubled waters and then giving way. After walking about four hundred yards we came to a small but massive chapel, fronting the river, the back part resting against a rocky bank, with two superb cypress-trees growing, one on each side of the door; we entered, Padre Carera leading the way. The whole area of the interior of the building did not exceed a parallelogram of twenty feet by twelve. At the eastern end, fronting the door, there was a small altar-piece of hardwood, richly ornamented with silver, and one or two bare wooden benches standing on the tiled floor—but the chief security we had that the building would withstand the storm, consisted in its having no window or aperture whatsoever, excepting two small ports, one on each side of the altar-piece, and the door, which was a massive frame of hardwood planking.
The body was deposited at the foot of the altar, and the ladies, having been wrapped up in cloaks and blankets, were safely lodged in quatres, while we, the gentlemen of the comfortless party, seated ourselves, disconsolately enough, on the wooden benches.
The door was made fast, after the servants had kindled a blazing wood-fire on the floor; and although the flickering light cast by the wax tapers in the six large silver candlesticks which were planted beside the bier, as it blended with the red glare of the fire, and fell strong on the pale uncovered features of the corpse, and on the anxious faces of the women, was often startling enough, yet being conscious of a certain degree of security from the thickness of the walls, we made up our minds to spend the night where we were as well as we could.
“I say, Tom Cringle,” said Aaron Bang, “all the females are snug there, you see; we have a blazing fire on the hearth, and here is some comfort for we men slaves;” whereupon he produced two bottles of brandy. Don Ricardo Campana, with whom Bang seemed now to be absolutely in league, or, in vulgar phrase, as thick as pickpockets, had brought a goblet of water, and a small silver drinking cup, with him, so we passed the creature round, and tried all we could to while away the tedious night. But, as if a sudden thought had struck Aaron, he here tucked the brandy bottle under his arm, and asking me to carry the vessel with the water, he advanced, cup in hand, towards the ladies—
“Now, Tom, interpret carefully.”
“Ahem—Madam and Sigñoras, this is a heavy night for all of us, but the chapel is damp—allow me to comfort you.”
“Muchisimos gracias,” was the gratifying answer, and Bang accordingly gave each of our fair friends a heart-warming taste of brandy-and-water. There was now a calm for a full hour, and the captain had stepped out to reconnoitre; on his return he reported that the swollen stream had very much subsided.
“Well, we shall get away, I hope, to-morrow morning, after all,” whispered Bang.
He had scarcely spoken when it began to pelt and rain again, as if a waterspout had burst overhead, but there was no wind.
“Come, that is the clearing up of it,” said Cloche.
At this precise moment the priest was sitting with folded arms beyond the body, on a stool or trestle, in the alcove or recess where it lay. Right overhead was one of the small round apertures in the gable of the chapel, which, opening on the bank, appeared to the eye a round black spot in the whitewashed wall. The bright wax-lights shed a strong lustre on the worthy clerigo’s figure, face, and fine bald head, which shone like silver, while the deeper light of the embers on the floor was reflected in ruby tints from the larger silver crucifix that hung at his waist. The rushing of the swollen river prevented me hearing distinctly, but it occurred to me once or twice that a strange gurgling sound proceeded from the aforesaid round aperture. The padre seemed to hear it also, for every now and then he looked up, and once he rose and peered anxiously through it; but, apparently unable to distinguish anything, he sat down again. However, my attention had been excited, and, half asleep as I was, I kept glimmering in the direction of the clerigo.
The captain’s deep snore had gradually lengthened out, so as to vouch for his forgetfulness, and Bang, Ricardo, Dr Pavo Real, and the ladies, had all subsided into the most perfect quietude, when I noticed, and I quaked and trembled like an aspen leaf as I did so, a long black paw thrust through, and down from the dark aperture immediately over Padre Carera’s head, which, whatev
er it was, it appeared to scratch sharply, and then giving the caput a smart cuff, vanished. The priest started, put up his hand, and rubbed his head, but seeing nothing, again leant back, and was about departing to the land of nod, like the others, once more. However, in a few minutes the same paw again protruded, and this time a peering black snout, with two glancing eyes, was thrust through the hole after it. The paw kept swinging about like a pendulum for a few seconds, and was then suddenly thrust into the padre’s open mouth as he lay back asleep, and again giving him another smart crack, vanished as before.
“Hobble, gobble,” gurgled the priest, nearly choked. “Ave Maria purissima, que bocado—what a mouthful!—What can that be?”
This was more than I knew, I must confess, and altogether I was consumedly puzzled, but, from a disinclination to alarm the women, I held my tongue. Padre Carera this time moved away to the other side from beneath the hole, but still within two feet of it; in fact, he could not get in this direction farther for the altar-piece, and being still half asleep, he lay back once more against the wall to finish his nap, taking the precaution, however, to clap on his long shovel hat, shaped like a small canoe crosswise, with the peaks standing out from each side of his head, in place of wearing it fore and aft, as usual. Well, thought I, a strange party certainly; but drowsiness was fast settling down on me also, when the same black paw was again thrust through the hole, and I distinctly heard a nuzzling, whining, short bark. I rubbed my eyes and sat up, but before I was quite awake, the head and neck of a large Newfoundland dog was shoved into the chapel through the round aperture, and making a long stretch, with the black paws thrust down and resting on the wall, supporting the creature, the animal suddenly snatched the padre’s hat off his head, and giving it an angry worry—as much as to say, “Confound it, I had hoped to have the head in it”—it dropped it on the floor, and with a loud yell, Sneezer, my own old dear Sneezer, leaped into the midst of us, floundering amongst the sleeping women, and kicking the firebrands about, making them hiss again with the water he shook from his shaggy coat, and frightening all hands like the—very devil.
“Sneezer, you villain, how came you here?” I exclaimed, in great amazement—”how came you here, sir?” The dog knew me at once, and when benches were reared against him, after the women had huddled into a corner, and everything was in sad confusion, he ran to me, and leaped on my neck, gasping and yelping; but finding that I was angry, and in no mood for toying, he planted himself on end so suddenly, in the middle of the floor, close by the fire, that all our hands were stayed, and no one could find in his heart to strike the poor dumb brute, he sat so quiet and motionless. “Sneezer, my boy, what have you to say—where have you come from?” He looked in the direction of the door, and then walked deliberately towards it, and tried to open it with his paws.
“Now,” said the captain, “that little scamp, who would insist on riding with me to St Jago, to see, as he said, if he might not be of use in fetching the surgeon from the ship in case I could not find Dr Bergara, has come back, although I desired him to stay on board. The puppy must have returned in his cursed troublesome zeal, for in no other way could your dog be here. Certainly, however, he did not know that I had fallen in with Dr Pavo Real;” and the good-natured fellow’s heart melted as he continued—”Returned! why, he may be drowned—Cringle, take care little Reefpoint be not drowned.”
Sneezer lowered his black snout, and for a moment poked it into the white ashes of the fire, and then raising it and stretching his neck upward to its full length, he gave a short bark, and then a long loud howl.
“My life upon it, the poor boy is gone,” said I.
“But what can we do?” said Don Ricardo; “it is as dark as pitch.”
And we again set ourselves to have a small rally at the brandy-and-water, as a resolver of our doubts, whether we should sit still till daybreak, or sally forth now, and run the chance of being drowned, with but small hope of doing any good; and the old priest having left the other end of the chapel, where the ladies were once more reposing, now came to join our council of war, and to have his share of the agua ardiente.
The noise of the rain increased, and there was still a little puff of wind now and then, so that the padre, taking an alfombra, or small mat used to kneel on, and placing it on the step where the folding-doors opened inwards, took a cloak on his shoulders, and sat himself down with his back against the leaves, to keep them closed, as the lock or bolt was broken, and was in the act of swigging off his cupful of comfort, when a strong gust drove the door open, as if the devil himself had kicked it, capsized the padre, blew out the lights once more, and scattered the brands of the fire all about us. Transom and I started up, the women shrieked; but before we could get the door to again, in rode little Reefpoint on a mule, with the doctor of the Firebrand behind him, bound, or lashed, as we call it, to him by a strong thong. The black servants and the females took them for incarnate fiends, I fancy, for the yells and shrieks they set up were tremendous.
“Yo, ho!” sang out little Reefy; “don’t be frightened, ladies—Lord love ye, I am half drowned, and the doctor here is altogether so—quite entirely drowned, I assure you. I say, medico, an’t it true?” And the little Irish rogue slewed his head round, and gave the exhausted doctor a most comical look.
“Not quite,” quoth the doctor, “but deuced near it. I say, captain, would you have known us? why, we are dyed chocolate colour, you see, in that river, flowing not with milk and honey, but with something miraculously like pea-soup—water, I cannot call it.”
“But, Heaven help us, why did you try the ford, man?” said Bang.
“You may say that, sir,” responded wee Reefy; “but our mule was knocked up, and it was so dark and tempestuous that we should have perished by the road if we had tried back for St Jago; so seeing a light here—the only indication of a living thing—and the stream looking narrow and comparatively quiet—confound it, it was all the deeper though—we shoved across.”
“But, bless me, if you had been thrown in the stream lashed together as you are, you would have been drowned to a certainty,” said the captain.
“Oh,” said little Reefy, “the doctor was not on the mule in crossing—no, no, captain, I knew better—I had him in tow, sir; but after we crossed he was so faint and chill, that I had to lash myself to him to keep him from sliding over the animal’s counter, and walk he could not.”
“But, Master Reefpoint, why came you back? did I not desire you to remain on board of the Firebrand, sir?”
The midshipman looked nonplussed. “Why, captain, I forgot to take my clothes with me, and—and—in truth, sir, I thought our surgeon would be of more use than any outlandish gallipot that you could carry back.”
The good intentions of the lad saved him further reproof, although I could not help smiling at his coming back for his clothes, when his whole wardrobe on starting was confined to the two false collars and a tooth-brush.
“But where is the young lady?” said the doctor.
“Beyond your help, my dear doctor,” said the skipper; “she is dead—all that remains of her you see within that small railing there.”
“Ah, indeed!” quoth the medico, “poor girl—poor girl—deep decline— wasted, terribly wasted,” said he, as he returned from the railing of the altar-piece, where he had been to look down upon the body; and then, as if there never had been such a being as poor Maria Olivera in existence, he continued, “Pray, Mr Bang, what may you have in that bottle?”
“Brandy, to be sure, doctor,” said Bang.
“A thimbleful, then, if you please.”
“By all means.” And the planting attorney handed the black bottle to the surgeon, who applied it to his lips without more circumlocution.”
“Lord love us!—poisoned—Oh, gemini!”
“Why, doctor,” said Transom, “what has come over you? Poisoned, captain— only taste.”
The bottle contained soy. It was some time before we could get the poor man qui
eted; and when at length he was stretched along a bench, and the fire stirred up, and new wood added to it, the fresh air of early morning began to be scented. At this time we missed Padre Carera, and, in truth, we all fell fast asleep; but in about an hour or so afterwards I was awoke by some one stepping across me. The same cause had stirred Transom. It was Aaron Bang, who had been to look out at the door.
“I say, Cringle, look here—the padre and the servants are digging a grave close to the chapel—are they going to bury the poor girl so suddenly?”
I stepped to the door; the wind had entirely fallen, but it rained very fast. The small chapel door looked out on the still swollen but subsiding river, and beyond that on the mountain which rose abruptly from the opposite bank. On the side of the hill facing us was situated a negro village of about thirty huts, where lights were already twinkling, as if the inmates were preparing to go forth to their work. Far above them, on the ridge, there was a clear cold streak towards the east, against which the outline of the mountain, and the large trees which grew on it, were sharply cut out; but overhead the firmament was as yet dark and threatening. The morning star had just risen, and was sparkling bright and clear through the branches of a magnificent tree that shot out from the highest part of the hill; it seemed to have attracted the captain’s attention as well as mine.