Jack Manly; His Adventures by Sea and Land

James Grant

Jack Manly; His Adventures by Sea and Land

Published by Good Press, 2022

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EAN 4066338086334

Table of Contents

CHAPTER I. WHY I WENT TO SEA.

CHAPTER II. ADVENTURE IN A CASK.

CHAPTER III. THE NARROWS OF ST. JOHN.

CHAPTER IV THE BRIG LEDA.

CHAPTER V. KIDD THE PIRATE.

CHAPTER VI. THE BLACK SCHOONER.

CHAPTER VII. THE CHASE.

CHAPTER VIII. OUR REVENGE SCHEMED.

CHAPTER IX. OUR REVENGE EXECUTED.

CHAPTER X. THE SEAL-FISHERS.

CHAPTER XI. COMBAT WITH A SEA-HORSE.

CHAPTER XII. ON AN ICEBERG.

CHAPTER XIII. ON THE ICEBERG—THE MASSACRE AT HIERRO.

CHAPTER XIV. ESCAPE FROM THE ICEBEBG.

CHAPTER XV UNDER WEIGH ONCE MORE.

CHAPTER XVI. BESET WITHOUT HOPE.

CHAPTER XVII. THE DEATH-SHIP.

CHAPTER XVIII. LEAVES FROM THE LOG.

CHAPTER XIX. THE GRAVES ON THE STARBOARD BOW.

CHAPTER XX. ADRIFT ON THE DEAD FLOE.

CHAPTER XXI. CAPE FAREWELL.

CHAPTER XXII. THE MUSK-OX.

CHAPTER XXIII. THE FOUR BEARS.

CHAPTER XXIV. WOLMAR FYNBÖE.

CHAPTER XXV. ADIEU TO THE REGION OF ICE.

CHAPTER XXVI. A SHARK.

CHAPTER XXVII. THE FATAL VOYAGE OF THE HEER VAN ESTELL.

CHAPTER XXVIII. THE FATAL VOYAGE—HOW THEY CAST LOTS.

CHAPTER XXIX. ADVENTURE WITH A WHALE.

CHAPTER XXX. LOSS OF THE LEDA.

CHAPTER XXXI. THE CRY.

CHAPTER XXXII. THE TWELFTH DAY.

CHAPTER XXXIII. WHAT FOLLOWED.

CHAPTER XXXIV. THE SAILOR'S POST-OFFICE.

CHAPTER XXXV. MS. LEGEND OF EL CABO DOS TORMENTOS.

CHAPTER XXXVI. LEGEND CONTINUED—THE CATASTROPHE.

CHAPTER XXXVII LEGEND CONCLUDED—THE SEQUEL.

CHAPTER XXXVIII. WE LAND IN AFRICA.

CHAPTER XXXIX. THE KING OF THE SNAKE RIVER

CHAPTER XL. THE GABON CLIFF.

CHAPTER XLI. HOW THE CAPTAIN PERISHED.

CHAPTER XLII. AMOO.

CHAPTER XLIII. THE RESCUE OF HIS CHILD.

CHAPTER XLIV. THE GRATITUDE OF HIS WIFE.

CHAPTER XLV. FLIGHT.

CHAPTER XLVI. FLIGHT CONTINUED.

CHAPTER XLVII. THE WOOD OF THE DEVIL.

CHAPTER XLVIII. RETAKEN.

CHAPTER XLIX. THE CARAVAN.

CHAPTER L. WE REACH THE CAPITAL.

CHAPTER LI. AN OLD FRIEND IN A NEW PLACE.

CHAPTER LII. HARTLY'S STORY.

CHAPTER LIII. THE FEMALE GUARDS.

CHAPTER LIV ATTEMPT TO ESCAPE AGAIN.

CHAPTER LV THE FORMOSA.

CHAPTER LVI. A PERILOUS JOURNEY.

CHAPTER LVII. PURSUIT AGAIN.

CHAPTER I.

WHY I WENT TO SEA.

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It was the evening of the sixteenth of March.

Exactly six months had elapsed since I left my father's snug villa at Peckham, with its walls shrouded by roses and honeysuckle; and now I found myself two thousand three hundred miles distant from it, in his agent's counting-room, in the dreary little town of St. John, in Newfoundland, writing in a huge ledger, and blowing my fingers from time to time, for snow more than ten feet deep covered all the desolate country, and the shipping in the harbour was imbedded in ice at least three feet in thickness; while the thermometer, at which I glanced pretty often, informed me that the mercury had sunk twelve degrees below the freezing point.

While busily engrossing quintals of salted fish, by the thousand, barrels of Hamburg meal and Irish pork, chests of bohea, bales of shingles, kegs of gunpowder, caplin nets, anchors and cables, and Indian corn from the United States, with all the heterogeneous mass of everything which usually fill the stores of a wealthy merchant in that terra nova, I thought of the noisy world of London, from which I had been banished, or, as tutors and guardians phrased it, "sent to learn something of my father's business—i.e., practically to begin life as he had begun it; and so I sighed impatiently over my monotonous task, while melting the congealed ink, from time to time, on the birchwood fire, and reverting to what March is in England, where we may watch the bursting of the new buds and early flowers; where the birds are heard in every sprouting hedge and tree, and as we inhale the fresh breeze of the morning, a new and unknown delight makes our pulses quicken and a glow of tenderness fill the heart—for then we see and feel, as some one says, what we have seen and felt only in childhood and spring."

Belay this scribbling business, Jack, said a hearty voice in my ear; come, ship on board my brig, and have a cruise with me in the North Sea. I shall have all my hands aboard to-morrow.

I looked up, threw away my pen, closed the gigantic ledger with a significant bang, and shook the hand of the speaker, who was my old friend and schoolfellow, Bob Hartly, whose face was as red as the keen frost of an American winter evening could make it, albeit he was buttoned to the throat in a thick, rough Flushing coat, and wore a cap with fur ear-covers tied under his chin—a monk-like hood much worn in these northern regions during the season of snow.

I don't think your cruise after seals and blubber will be a very lively affair, Bob, said I, rubbing my hands at the stove, on which he was knocking the ashes of his long Havannah.

"Lively! if it is not more lively than this quill-driving work, may I never see London Bridge again, or take,

'Instead of pistol or a dagger, a

Desperate leap down the falls of Niagara!'"

I am sick of this Cimmerian region! said I, stamping with vexation at his jocular mood, when contrasted to my own surly one.

Cimmerian—ugh! that phrase reminds me of school-times, and how we used to blunder through Homer together, for he drew all his images of Pluto and Pandemonium from the dismal country of the Cimmerii. By Jove! I could give you a stave yet from Virgil or Ovid, hand over hand, on the same subject; but that would be paying Her Majesty's colony a poor compliment.

Well, Bob, I am sick of this place, in which evil fate, or rather bad luck, has buried me alive—this frozen little town of wood and tar, without outlet by sea or land in winter, without amusement, and, at this time, seemingly without life.

It forms a contrast to London, certainly, said Hartly, assisting himself, uninvited, to the contents of a case-bottle of Hollands which stood near; but there is a mint of money to be made in it.

The first English folks who came here were reduced to such straits, we are told, that they killed and ate each other; and those who returned were such skeletons that their wives and mothers did not know them.

Hartly laughed loudly, and said—

But that was in the time of King Henry VIII., and people don't eat each other here now. But to resume what we were talking about——

Old Uriah Skrew, my father's agent, and I are on the worst terms; he keeps a constant watch over me. I go from my desk to bed, and from bed to my desk—so passes my existence.

Why not slip your cable and run, then?

Skrew being a partner in the firm, I continued, warming at the idea of my own rights and fancied wrongs, cares for nothing but making money from the riches of the sea, and thinks only of cargoes of fish to be bartered in Lent, at Cadiz, for fruit and wine, oil, seals, and blubber; and really in this cold season——

Ah, but summer is coming, interrupted Bob, drily.

Summer! How is the year divided here?

Into nine months of winter and three of bad weather.

A pleasant prospect! If I were once again at Peckham——

"Well, Jack, I have a grudge at old Uriah Skrew, for, like a swab, he played me a scurvy trick about a cargo I had consigned to your father and him, from Cadiz, last year—a trick by which I lost all my profit and tonnage.

Likely enough; this ledger is Uriah's bible—and his God——

Is gold! So I care not a jot if, for the mere sake of provoking him, I lend you a hand to give him the slip, for a few months at least. Ship with me to-morrow—as a volunteer, passenger, or whatever you please.

I shall, said I, throwing my pen resolutely into the fire.

Your hand on it! I like this. Get your warmest toggery sent on board; you'll need it all, I can tell you! I can give you a long gun, and bag for powder and slugs; and then, with a bowie-knife in your belt, a seal-skin cap with long flaps, and a stout pea-jacket, you will make as smart a seal fisher as ever sailed through the Narrows! By this time to-morrow you may be forty miles from your ledger, running through the North Sea with a flowing sheet. By Jove, I know a jolly old Esquimau who lives at Cape Desolation under an old whaleboat. He will be delighted to make your acquaintance, and give you a feed of sea weed and blubber that will make your mouth water, though we eat it when the mercury is frozen in the bulb.

This cheerful prospect of Arctic hospitality might have persuaded me to remain where I was, but soured by the treatment I experienced from Mr. Skrew, who misrepresented my conduct and habits to my family at home, and tired of the monotony of his counting-room, I looked forward with eagerness to an anticipated escape.

How little could I foresee the consequences of my impatience, folly, and wayward desire for rambling! Ere a month was past, I had repented in bitterness my boyish repugnance for steady application and industrious habits.

My friend, Robert Hartly, who was eight years my senior, was master and owner of the Leda, a smart brig of two hundred and fifty tons register—a craft in which he had invested all his savings. Last year he had lost a wife and two children, whom he tenderly loved; he had come to St. John from Cadiz, missed a freight and been frozen-in, and now, with all a sailor's restlessness and dread of being idle, even for a month or two, he had resolved to sail for the spring seal fishery, as a change of scene, and a trip which he hoped would not prove unprofitable, as his vessel was one of a class far superior to those which usually venture into the region of ice, being well found, well manned, coppered to the bends, and, in short, the perfection of a British merchant brig.

By the bye, said he, talking of powder and slugs, we may need both, for other purposes than shooting seals.

How? I asked.

"I mean if we came athwart the Black Schooner which has been prowling and plundering about the coast for the last six weeks."

Are there more news of her?

No; but here is a placard given to all shipmasters yesterday, said he, unfolding a paper surmounted by the royal arms, and running in the name of His Excellency the Governor and Commander-in-Chief over the Island of Newfoundland and its Dependencies, offering 5001. to the crew of any ship that would capture "the vessel known as the Black Schooner, &c. She is a queer craft, continued Hartly, and said to be a slaver, bankrupt, and out of business; though Paul Reeves, my mate, maintains that she is the Adventure galley. which sailed from London in the time of King William III., and that her crew are the ghosts of Kidd and his pirates; but ghosts don't steal beef and drink brandy."

Hartly's father had been in the navy; thus he had received a good and thorough nautical education, but early in life had been left to work his way in the world; so he made the watery portion thereof his home and means of livelihood. He was a handsome, hardy, and cheerful young fellow, and the beau idéal of a thorough British seaman.

On the third finger of his left hand he wore a curious ring of base metal, graven with runes of strange figures. This was the gift of an old woman to whom he had rendered some service when in Iceland, and who had promised, that while he wore it, he could never be drowned; consequently Hartly was too much imbued with the superstition of his profession to part with it for a moment.

But how am I to elude old Skrew, and get on board, said I, after we had concluded all our arrangements, over a glass of hot brandy-punch, in Bob's lodgings in Water-street.

True—the brig lies frozen-in at the end of his wharf, the hatches are all locked, and the hands ashore.

If he sees me on board, there will be an end of our project, for I have no wish to quarrel with him in an unseemly manner; but merely to 'levant' quietly, leaving a letter to announce where I am gone, and when I may, perhaps, return.

All right—I have it! I'll send an empty cask to Skrew's store to-morrow. Paul Reeves, the mate, and Hammer, the carpenter, will head you up in it, and so you may be brought on board unknown to all save them—ay, under the very nose of old Uriah. Will that suit you?

Delightfully! said I, clapping my hands. The whole affair had the appearance of an adventure, and though there were a hundred ways by which I might have joined the brig, when the cutting-out of the sealing fleet took place next day, like a young schoolboy—for in some respects I was little more—I accepted the strange proposal of going on board in a cask, and retired to bed, to dream of adventures on the high seas; for being young, healthy, and active, I could always have pleasant dreams without studying the art of procuring them—an art on which Dr. Franklin wrote so learnedly in the last century.

CHAPTER II.

ADVENTURE IN A CASK.

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On the next day (17th of March), when the fleet of adventurers departs for the spring seal fishery, the little seaport town of St. John's presents an unusual aspect of bustle and gaiety. On that anniversary, at least one hundred vessels, having on board three thousand seamen, batmen, and gunners, sail to seek their fortune in the ice-fields; but on the day I am about to describe, the number of craft and their crews far exceeded this.

The day was clear and sunny, not a speck of cloud was in the sky, whose immensity of blue made the eye almost ache, while the intense brilliance of the snow, which covered the hills and the whole scenery, made them seem to vibrate in the sunshine, and caused a species of blindness, especially on entering any apartment, however large or well-lighted; for after being out of doors in that season and region for an hour or so, a house usually seems totally dark for a time.

For some days previous there had been that species of drizzle which is termed locally a silver thaw, thus, all the houses of the town, the roofs, walls, and chimneys; the trees, the shipping in the frozen harbour, every mast, yard, and inch of standing or running rigging, were thickly coated with clear ice, which sparkled like prisms in the sunshine, making them seem as if formed of transparent crystal. Then, there was a glittering in the frosty atmosphere, as if it was composed of minute particles, while the intensity of the cold made one feel as if a coarse file were being roughly applied to one's nose or cheekbones on facing the west, the point whence the wind came over the vast and snow-covered tracts of untrodden and unexplored country which stretch away for three hundred miles towards the Red Indian Lake and the Bay of Exploits.

The keepers of stores and shops—who in St. John are usually dressed like seamen, in round jackets and glazed hats—with all idlers, were pouring through every avenue and thoroughfare, and spreading over the harbour. All the ships displayed their colours, and the sound of music, as bands perambulated the ice, rang upon the clear and ambient air, mingled with the musical jingle of the sleigh bells, as the more wealthy folks, muffled and shawled to the nose, galloped their horses with arrow-like speed from side to side of the harbour.

The latter and the town (but especially the grog-shops) were crowded by the seal fishermen, who had come in from all parts of the coast, and bore bundles of clothing slung over their backs, each having his carefully selected club wherewith to smite the young seals on the head, and also to be used as a gaff or ice-hook. Many of these men were also armed with long sealing-guns, which are twice the size and weight of an ordinary musket, and resemble the huge, unwieldy gingals of the East Indians, having flintlocks of a clumsy fashion.

They are generally loaded with coarse-grained powder and pieces of lead, termed slugs, to shoot the old seals, who frequently prove refractory, and dangerous when defending their young.

Those fishers who are thus armed as gunners rank before the mere clubmen, and receive a small remuneration, or are remitted some of the berth money which is usually paid to the storekeeper or merchant who equips the vessel for the ice; the outfitting, says one who is well-informed on these matters, being always defrayed by the receipt of one-half the cargo of seals, the other half going to adventurers, with these and other deductions for extra supplies. But, as Captain Hartly fitted out his own vessel and shipped his own crew, gunners, and batmen at stipulated salaries, he expected to reap the whole profits of the expedition.

In addition to the project I had in view, I was particularly anxious to witness the gaiety of this the only and yearly colonial gala day—the shipping of the crews, (who always proceed in procession along the ice,) with the cutting-out and departure of the sealers; but old Mr. Uriah Skrew, with his clean-shaven face and small cunning eyes, was in the counting-room betimes, and piled work upon me thick and fast, to anticipate any application for a day's leave.

May I not go out for an hour, sir, and see what is going on in the harbour? I asked, gently.

No, sir, he replied, sharply; such nonsense only leads to idleness—idleness to dissipation, and dissipation to ruin! That is the sliding-scale, young man——

Oh! my good sir, you are too severe.

Severe! Mr. Jack Manly!——

Well, sir?

I have always been kind and indulgent to you.

Kind—hum.

Yes; more kind and indulgent than your father, my worthy partner, wishes—and more than he would be.

Query?

What do you mean by 'query'? he demanded in a bullying tone, for he intensely disliked me, fearing that I should soon be admitted into the firm.

Because I have my doubts on the subject, and your refusal to grant me leave to-day confirms my opinion of you, Mr. Skrew.

Very well; enough of this, not a word more, or by the first ship for Europe I will write what you'll wish had not been written. Not a word more.

I am mute as a fish.

Engross these papers—but, first, go to the store on the wharf, and tell the keeper to speak with me; and look sharp!

I put on my cap and left the counting-room, feeling assured that many a day would elapse ere I stood within it again, as I caught a glimpse of Paul Reeves, mate of the Leda, and two seamen, loitering outside; but near the window, wherein stood my desk, under the leaf of which I deposited a letter addressed to Mr. Skrew, informing him, in the parlance of Bob Hartly, that I had slipped my cable and gone to sea.

Captain Hartly's friend, sir? said the mate, touching his hat, and winking knowingly.

Yes.

All right, sir! here is the cask, step in, and Tom Hammer, our carpenter, and his mate, will head you up in it comfortably in less than a minute.

No one is near? said I, anxiously glancing round the courtyard.

Not a soul, sir: in you go, on with the head, Tom, and be quick, for the ice channel is cutting fast to the fairway; the jib and foretopsail are loose, and the lashings all but cast off.

The counting-room of Messrs. Manly and Skrew stood within a courtyard, which was entered by a gateway from Water-street; and from this court—which was formed by four large wooden stores, all pitched, tarred, and now coated with snow and ice—a path led down to the wharf, at the end of which, as at the end of all the others that jutted into the harbour, a mercantile flag was displayed from a mast. In this court were piles of old barrels, hampers, boxes, an anchor, a spare topmast or so, half buried under the usual white mantle, on which a flock of poor little snowbirds were hopping and twittering drearily.

Do you feel snug, sir? inquired Paul Reeves, through the bunghole.

"Yes; but please to lose no time in getting me through the crowd on the wharf, and on board the Leda" I replied, in a somewhat imploring tone of voice; for the cask, though a roomy one, was the reverse of comfortable, and already I longed to stretch myself.

"The Leda lies just outside the Bristol clipper."

"She that was overhauled and plundered, and had three of her crew shot by the Black Schooner?"

Yes, sir, replied Reeves, as the two seamen hoisted up the cask; and I soon became aware by the clamour around me that I was being conveyed down to the wharf, where Mr. Skrew, in a full suit of Petersham and sables, was walking to and fro till his sledge arrived.

Hallo, what have you fellows got in the cask? he demanded as I was borne past him.

Some of the captain's stores, sir, replied Reeves.

His grandmother's best featherbed, added the carpenter.

Very good, said Uriah, as I was deposited almost on his gouty toes.

Men often stumbled against my cask, and swore at it or pushed it aside. Once a fellow seated himself on it, and kicked with his heels till I was nearly deranged, and the impulse to scare him by a shout became almost irrepressible. For a time, I dreaded that it might be tumbled off the wharf into the sludge and broken ice alongside!

Ere long the wharf was cleared; I heard the clanking of the gates, as the keeper, by order of Mr. Skrew, locked them, doubtless to exclude me therefrom on this great gala day; and then followed the jangling of bells, as he stepped into his sledge, and departed upon the ice. Thus I was left to my own reflections on the solitary wharf.

Before this, a great commotion had taken place at the extremity thereof, as the Bristol clipper by some mismanagement ran foul of the Leda, and the usual volleys of threats, oaths, and orders incident to such collisions in harbour were exchanged from the decks and rigging of both vessels, while, by using boat-hooks aloft and fenders below, the crew strove to keep the rigging clear and the hulls apart.

Amid this unexpected hurly-burly, I was forgotten in my cask!

The wharf stood near the western extremity of the town, which lies along the basin of the harbour. The sounds in my vicinity seemed all to die away, as the crowd along the shore and upon the ice followed the ships, which in succession were warped along their ice-channels into the fairway, and each was greeted by a tremendous cheer as the sails fell, their head canvas filled, and they broke into blue water; but hours seemed to elapse, without a person coming near the horrible cask in which I was imprisoned, and the agonies I endured are beyond description!

The sense of oppression and of being cramped amounted to intense bodily torture; thus a perspiration alternately burning hot and icy cold burst over me. The interior of this now detested prison seemed hot as a furnace; yet there was in my soul a deadly fear of perishing by cold, as I should assuredly do, if left all night on the locked wharf, in such a climate, with the thermometer at twelve degrees below the freezing point!

How fruitlessly I repented me of the silly project of thus escaping, and alternately longed to be back again in Skrew's snug counting-room, or on board the departing brig—of being anywhere, instead of being thus cabin'd, cribb'd, confin'd, and forgotten. A terror of being conveyed on board, and left, perhaps, in the hold—left undiscovered till dead of suffocation, gave me wild energy; madly I strove to kick or beat out the head of the cask; but my legs were powerless, as if suffering from paralysis, for my aching knees were wedged under my chin, and I might as well have attempted to escape from a block of adamant.

Faintness and delirium were fast coming over me! I screamed like a madman; but my hoarse voice was lost in the hollow of the cask. Though a perspiration bathed all my aching limbs, my tongue clove to my palate, and soon became hot and dry. Starry lights seemed to flash and dance before me in the darkness; my brain reeled; then I gasped, as sense and