Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 3, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 14 September 1893 — THE PERILS OF Certain English Prisoners [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

THE PERILS OF Certain English Prisoners

By Charles Dickens, (1857)

CHAPTER L—Contisdkd.

O WHEN CHRlStian George King, who was individually unpleasant to me besides, comes a trotting about the

sand chucking “Yup So-Jeer!” 1 had a thundering good mind to let fly at him with my right. I certainly should have done it, but that it would have exposed me to reprimand. “Yup, So-Jeer!” says he. “Bad job." “What do you mean?” says I. “Yup, So-Jeer!” says he. “Ship “Ship leaky?" says I. “Iss, says he, with a nod that looked as if it was jerked out of him by a most violent hiccough—which is the way with those savages. I cast my eyes at Charker, and we both heard the pumps going aboard the sloop, and saw the signal rirar up, “Come on board; hands wanted from the shore.” In no time some of the sloop’s liberty-men were already running down to the water's edge, and the party of seamen under orders against the Pirats, were putting off to the Columbus in two boats.

“O Christian George King sar berry sorry!” says that Sambo vagabond, then. “ChristUtif G-eoreeKing cry, English fashion!” His English fashion of crying was to screw his black knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog, and roll himself on his back in the sand. It was trying not to kick him, but I gave Charker the word, “Double-quick, Harry!” and we got down to the water’s edge, onA cmt. An hnfinl tlip filcwvrv Cvuvt vv vti Ut/wtTJ DUv By some means or other, she had sprung such a leak, that no pumping would keep her free; and what between the two fears that she would go down in the harbor, and that, even if she did not, all the supplies she had brought for the little colony would be destroyed by the sea-water as it rose in her, there was great confusion. In the midst of it Capt. Maryon was heard hailing from the beach. He had been carried down in his hammock, and looked very bad; but he insisted on being stood there on his feet; and I saw him, myself, come off in the •* boat, sitting upright in the sternsheets, as if nothing was wrong with him.

A quick sort of counsel was held, and Capt. Maryon soon decided that we must all fall to work to get the cargo out, and that when that was done, the guns and heavy matter must be got out, and that the sloop must be hauled ashore and careened, and the leak stopped. We were all mustered (the Pirate-Chase party volunteering), and told off into parties, with so many hours of spell and so many hours of relief, and we all wept at it with a will. Christian George King was entered one of the party in which I worked, at his own request, and he went at it with as good a will as any of the rest. He went at it with so much heartiness to say the truth, that he rose in my good opinion almost as fast as the water rose in the ship. Which was fast en nigh and faster. ~~ Mr. Commissioner Pordacre kept in a red-and-black japanned box, like a family lump sugar box, some document or other, which some Sambo chief or other had got drunkand spilt some ink over (as well as I could understand the matter), and by that means had given up lawful possession of the island. Through having hold of this box Mr. Pordage got his title of Commissioner. He was styled Consul, too, and spoke of himself as “Government."

He was a stiff-jointed high-nosed old gentleman, without an ounce of fat on him. of a very angry temper and a very yellow complexion. Mrs. Commissioner Pordage, making allowance for difference of sex, was much the same. Mr. Kitten, a small, youngish, bald, botanical and mineralogical gentleman, also connected with the mine—but everybody there was that, more or less —was sometimes called by Mr Commissioner Pordage his Vice-commissioner and sometimes his Deputy-consul. Or sometimes he spoke of Mr. Kitten merely as being “under Government." The beach was beginning to be a lively scene with preparations for careening the sloop, and with cargo, and spars, and rigging, and water casks dotted about it, and with temporary quarters for the men rising up there out of such sails and odds and ends as could be best set on one side to make them, when Mr. Commissioner Pordage comes down in a high fluster and asks for Capt. Maryon. The Captain, ill as he was, was slung in his' hammock betwixt trees that he m'urVf < v rect, and he raised his head And answered for himself. 'Capt. Maryon,” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage, “This is not official, this is not regular.” “Sir," Bays the Captain, “It hath been arranged with the clerk and supercargo, that you should be communicated with, and requested to render any little assistance that may lie in your power. I am quite certain that hath been duly done." “Capt. Maryon,” replies Mr. Commasioner Pordage, “there hath been no written correspondence. No documents have been passed, no memoranda has been made, no min » •"*■■■'" . 1 V” ' . •' '■ /

utes have been, made, no entries and counter-entries appear in the official muniments. This is indecent. I call upon yon, sir, to desist, until all is regular, or Gpivernment will take this up.” “Sir," says Capt. Maryon, chafing a little, as he looked out of the hammock, “between the chances of Government taking this up, and my ship taking herself down, I much prefer to trust myself to the former." “You do, sir?” cries Mr. Commissioner Pordage. “I do, sir,” says Capt. Maryon, lying down again. “Then, Mr. Kitten, " says the Commissioner, “send up instantly for my Diplomatic coat.” He was dressed ip a linen suit at that moment; but Mr. Kitten started off himself and brought down the Diplomatic coat, which was a blue cloth one, gold-laced, and with a crown on the button. “Now, Mr. Kitten,” said Pordage, “I instruct you, as Vice-commission, and Deputy-council of this place, to demand of Capt. Maryon, of the sloop ‘Christopher Columbus,’ whether he drives me to the act of putting this coat on?” “Mr. Pordage,” says Capt. Maryon, looking out of his hammock again, “as I can hear what you say I can answer it without troubling the gentleman. I should be sorry

that you should be at the pains of putting on too hot a coat on my account; but, otherwise, you may put it on hind side before, or inside out, or with your legs in the sleeves, or your head in the skirts, for any objection that I have to offer to your thoroughly pleasing yourself.” ‘•Very good, Capt. Maryon,” says Pordage, in a tremendous passion. “Very good, sir; be the consequences on your own head! Mr. Kitten, as it has come to this, help me on with it.” When he had given that order he walked off in the coat, and all our names were taken, and I was afterwards told that Mr. Kitten wrote from his dictation more than a bushel of large paper on the subject, which cost more, before it was done with, than ever could be calculated, and which only r got _ dbhe with, after all, by being lost. Our work went on merrily, nevertheless, and the “Christopher Columbus,,’ hauled up, lay helpless on her side like a great fish out of water. While she was in that state, there was a feast, ora ball, or an entertainment, or more properly all three together, given us in honor of the ship, and the ship’s company and the other visitors. At that assembly, I believe, I saw all the inhabitants then upon the Island, without any exception. I took no particular notice of more than a few, but I found it very agreeable in that little corner of the world to see the children who jvere all ages, and mostly very pretty—as they mostly are. There was one handsome elderly ladj', with very dark eyes and gray hair, that I inquired about. I was told that her name was Mrs. Venning; and her married daughter, a fair, slight thing, was pointed out to me by the name of Fannie Fisher. Quite a child she looked, with a little copy of herself holding to her dress; and her husbandy just come back from the mine. exceeding proud of her. They were a good looking set of people on the whole, but I didn't like them. I was out of sorts; in conversation with Charker I found fault with all of them. I said of Mrs. Vening, she was proud; of Mrs. Fisher, she was a delicate little baby fool. What did 1 think of this one? Why. be was a. fine gentleman. What did I say to -4hat one? Why, she was a fine lady 7 What could you expect them to be, I asked Charker, nursed in that climate, with the tropical night shining for them, musical instruments playing to them, great trees heading over them, soft lamps lighting them,fireflies sparkling among them, bright flowers and birds brought into existence to please their eyes, delicious drinks to be had for the pouring out, delicious fruits to be got for the picking, and every one dancing and murmuring happily in the scented air, with the sea breaking low on the reef for. a pleasant chorus. “Fine gentlemen and fine ladies, Harry?” I says to Charker. “Yes, I think so! Dolls! dplls! Not the sort of stuff for wear, that comes of poor private soldiering in the Royal Marines!”

However, I could not gainsay that they were very hospitable people, and that they treated us uncommonly well. Every raau of us was at the entertainment, and Mrs. Belltott had more partners than she could dance .with, though she danced all night, too. As to Jack (whether of the Christopher Columbus or of the Pirate pursuit party, it made no difference), he danced with his brother Jack, danced with himself, danced with the moon, the stars, the trees, the prospect, anything. I didn't greatly take to the chief officer of that party, with his bright eves, brown face and easy I didn’t muqh like his way when he first happened to come where W 6 were, Miss Maryon on his arm. “Oh, Capt. Carton," she says, “here are two friends of mine.” He says, “Indeed! These two marines?" —meaning Charker and self. “Yes,” says she, “I showed these two friends of mine when they first came all ti?e wonders of Silver-Store." He gave us a laughing look, and. he says, “You are in luck, men. I would'be disrated and go before the mast tomorrow, to fee shown the way upward again by such a guide. You are in luck, men." When we had saluted, and he and the young lady had waltzed away, I said. “You

are a pretty fellow, too, to talk of luck. You may go to the devil!” Mr, Commissioner Pordage and Mr 3. Comipissioner showed among the company on that occasion like the*King and Queen of a much Greater Britain than Great Britain:. Only two other circumstances in that jovial night made much separate impression on me. One was this: A man in our draft of marines,named Tom Packer, a wild, unsteady young fellow, but the son of a respectable shipwright in Portsmouth Yard,and a good scholar who had been well brought up, comes to me after a spell of dancing, and takes me aside by the elbow, and says, swearing aqgrily: “GUI Davis, I hope I may not be the death of Sergt. Drooce one day!” Now, I knew Drooce had always borne particularly hard on this rnan, and I knew this man to be of a very hot temper; so I said: ' “Tut, nonsense, don’t talk so to me! If there’s a man in the corps who scorns the name of an assassin, that man and Tom Packer are one.” Tom wipes his head, being in a mortal sweat, and says he: “I hope so, but I can’t answer for myself when he lords it over me, as he has just now done, before a woman. I tell you what it is, Gill! Mark my words. It will go hard with Sergt. Drooce if ever we are in an engagement together, and he has to look to me to save him. Let him say a prayer then, if he knows one, for its all over with him, and he is on his deathbed. Mark my words!” I did mark his words, and very soon afterwards, too, as will shortly be taken down. * The other circumstance that I noticed at that ball was the gayety and attachment of Christian George King. The innocent spirits that Sambo Pilot was in, and the impossibil-

ity he found himself under of showing all the little colony, but especially the ladies and children, how fond he was of them, how dovoted to them, and how faithful to them for life and death, for present, future and everlasting, made a great impression on me. If ever a man, samboor no Sambo, w r as"Tfus'Eful and trusted, to what may be called quite an infantine and sweetly beautiful extent, surely, 1 thought that morning when I did at last lav down to rest, it was that Sambo Pilot, Christian George King. This may account for my dreaming of him. He stuck in my sleep, cornerwise, and I couldn’t get him out. He was always flitting about me, dancing round me, and peeping in over my hammock, though I woke and dozed off again fifty times. At last, when I opened my eyes, there he really was, looking in at the open side of the little dark hut, which was made of leaves, and had Charker’s hammock slung in it as well as mine. “So-Jeer!” says he in a sort of a low croak. “Yup!” “Hallo!” says I, starting up. “What? You are there, are your” “ “Iss,” says he. “Christian George King got news.” “What news has he got?” “Pirates out!” I was on my feet in a second. So was Charker. We were both awfire that Capt Carton, in command of the boats, constantly watched the mainland for a secret signal, though, of course, it was not known to such as us what the signal was. Christian George King had vanished before we touched the ground. But the word was already passing from hut to hut to turn out quietly, and we knew that the nimble barbarian had got hold of the truth, or something near it. In a space among the trees behind the eneampment for us visitors, naval and military, was a snugly screened spot, where we kept the stores that were used and did our cooking. The word was passed to assemble here. It was very quickly given, and ntys given (so far as we were concerned) by Sergt. Drooce, who was as good in a soldier point of view as he was bad in a tyrannical one. We were ordered to drop into this space quietly behind the one by one. As we assembled hope* the seamenjassembled, too. Within ten minutes, as I should estimate, we were all here, except the usual guard upon the beach. The beach (we could see it through the wood) looked as it always had done in the

• ————— hottest time of the day. The guard was in the shadow of the sloop’s hull | and nothing was moving but the sea, ' and that moved very faintly. The i work had always been knocked off at that hour until the sun grew less 'fierce and the sea breeze rose; so that it being Friday with us made no difference, just, then, in the look of the place. But I may mention it was a holiday, and the first we had bad” since our hard work began. Last night’s ball had been given on the leaks being repaired and the careening being done. The worst of the work was over, and to-morrow we were to begin to get the sloop afloat again. We marines were now drawn up here, under arms. The chase party were drawn up separate. The men of the Columbus were drawn up separate. The officers stepped out into the midst of the three parties and spoke so all might hear. Capt. Carton was the officer in command, and he held a spyglass in his hand. His coxwain stood by him witlranother spy-glass, and a slate on which he seemed to be taking down signals. “Now, men,” says Capt. Carton, “I have to let you know, for your satisfaction: Firstly, that there are ten pirate boats, strongly manned and armed, lying hidden up .a creek yonder on the coast, under the overhanging branches of the dense trees. Secondly, that they will certainly come out this night when the moon rises on a pillagiug and murdering expedition, of which some part of the main land is the object. Thirdly —don’t cheer, men—that we will give chhse, and, if we can get at them, rid the world of them, please God!” Nobody spoke that I heard, and nobody moved that I saw. Yet there was a kind of ring, as if every man ; answered and approved with the best blood that .was inside of him.

“Sir,” says Capt. Maryon, “I beg to volunteer, on this service, with my boats. My people volunteer, to the ship’s boys.” (to be continued.)

His English fashion of crying was to screw his knuckles into his eyes, howl like a dog and roll on his back in the sand.