They gave us an account of the way in which their ship had been taken.
We were not aware that they had been captured, and together we bemoaned our hard fate in thus being made prisoners at the commencement of a war which probably would be a long one. Having stretched ourselves, we looked out at the door of our shed. The prospect was very rural and very tropical, but, as just then we wanted some of the civilised comforts of life, a few substantial houses would have been more gratifying to our sight. However, at that moment a voice was heard indulging in a half-French, half-negro song, and a jolly fat blackamoor appeared, with a white ap.r.o.n on, a bowl under one arm and a towel over the other.
"Ah, there comes our perruquier. He"s a capital fellow. You"ll want his aid, some of you. Venez ici, Antoine!" sang out one of our friends.
Antoine, nothing loth, turned aside to us, for every new chin added to his wealth; and he very soon had us shaven and shorn as clean as the friar the old nursery song tells about, and all the time he was talking and laughing and singing in the most cheery way imaginable. Our friends then brought us some milk and bread for breakfast, and, hungry as we were, we were right glad to partake of it. This done, we sallied forth to inspect the town, as we had hitherto persisted in calling it. What was our disappointment and disgust to find that it was not superior to a village of very poor pretensions, and that there was scarcely a house fit, in any way, for us to occupy. There were, however, three shops, great rivals, each trying to ascertain what atrociously bad articles they could pa.s.s off on their customers, and how high the price they might venture to demand. Thoroughly disappointed, we returned to our shed to rest during the heat of the day. In the afternoon we again sallied out, and succeeded in securing a tumble-down looking house, with three rooms in it and several out-houses adjoining.
This miserable place, then, was to be our abode for weeks and months, perhaps for years! We were all of us but scantily supplied with clothes; we had but few books, and but a scarcity of writing materials, and no fowling-pieces, so that we could not even look forward to the prospect of obtaining some sport to enable us to pa.s.s the time, and to a.s.sist in furnishing our ill-supplied table. Altogether, our prospect was gloomy and disheartening in the extreme, nor could any of us discover a ray of light in the distance to cheer our spirits. Happily, sailors are not apt to moan and groan except when they are more comfortable than they have ever been before in their lives on sh.o.r.e, surrounded by their families and all the luxuries of civilisation; and then if they want their promotion, or can manage to dig up a grievance, they grumble with a vengeance. However, when real difficulties and dangers and troubles come, no men look up to them better; and so we resolved to be as happy as we could, but I must say that I never in my life had as much difficulty in making the best of it as I had on this disastrous occasion. Bitter, bitter indeed is the lot of a prisoner of war!
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
OUR QUARTERS AT OU TROU.--MY ASTHMATIC COMPANION.--ILLNESS AND DEATH OF CAPTAIN WILLIAMS.--THE MELANCHOLY BURIAL-GROUND.--TRY TO KILL TIME, BUT IT KILLS MOST OF MY COMPANIONS.--STARTLING NEWS.--LIFE IN THE VILLAGE.-- OUR CONDITION BECOMES WORSE.--DEATH OF MORE OF MY COMPANIONS.--ORDERS FOR OUR RELEASE ARRIVE.
Our mansion at Ou Trou consisted of three rooms, for which the liberal-minded copper-coloured owner insisted on our paying nineteen dollars a month. This was to serve as the habitation of twenty officers ranking as lieutenants. The midshipmen had another house appropriated to them of much the same character. Ours had out-houses connected with it, rather more extensive than the building itself, and as it was impossible for us all to stowaway in the house, especially in such a climate as that of Saint Domingo, we came to the resolution of drawing lots to determine who should occupy the outer buildings. An inspection of a comfortable barn in England will give no idea of these unattractive edifices. To increase their undesirableness as abodes for men, most of them were already occupied by mules or horses or cows or donkeys. When we gave signs of our intention to dispossess them, the owner a.s.serted that we had no power to do so; they were the first tenants, and had the right of occupation in their favour.
"Now, gentlemen, are you all ready?" exclaimed the senior officer present; "we must settle this important matter. Four persons in each room is as many as they can possibly contain, the remainder must abide by the lot which falls to them. Two in the stable where the old horse now lives, two in the cow-shed, two in the tumble-down barn, and two in the large stable, where the mules and donkeys have till lately held their revels."
This last edifice was in tolerable repair, and, provided its four-legged inhabitants were turned out, we considered would make a very tolerable abode. One after the other of us drew lots. Lieutenant Manby of the Minerva found himself the occupier of the shed with the old horse, and I was beginning to hope that I might obtain a berth in the house, when, lo and behold! I found that I was destined to share my abode with him. He was, as everybody who knew him would agree, a first-rate excellent fellow, so with regard to my human companion I had reason to consider myself fortunate; but the old horse, with the thermometer often at a hundred, was a considerable drawback to any comfort we might hope to find in our abode. Our landlord probably suspected that we should turn him out, so the very first night that we retired to our new abode the fellow made his appearance and told us to remove him at our peril.
"But the horse may eat us!" urged Manby.
"More likely that you will eat the horse," answered the Frenchman, who was a bit of a naturalist. "He is graminivorous; you are carnivorous.
He can"t eat you, but you can him."
"He may bite, though!" I suggested.
"No, he has no teeth; he is too old for that," replied the Frenchman, laughing.
"Ah! but his odour; that isn"t pleasant to delicate olfactories," I observed humbly.
"Oh, that"s nothing when you are accustomed to it," replied the tyrant, grinning from ear to ear. "You are too particular. Just let him take his side of the building, and do you take the other, and you will be completely at your ease."
As it was useless arguing with so pertinacious a disputant we were compelled humbly to submit. The horse had one stall--we took possession of the other. To make ourselves as comfortable as circ.u.mstances would allow, we collected all the hay and straw and reeds, so as to form a thick layer of dry materials between our bodies and the damp ground--for damp it was, in spite of the heat of the climate. It was too late in the day for us to attempt more, and, weary in mind and body, we climbed up into our nests, and were soon asleep. I was awoke by the wheezing and coughing of the asthmatic old horse, and, looking up, I saw what appeared to me an extraordinary phenomenon. Suddenly the air around us was filled with bright sparkles of light. Now they flashed on one side, now on the other; now the whole s.p.a.ce above our heads was illuminated; then all was darkness; then the lights--thousands of them there appeared to be--burst forth once again, more brilliantly than ever. I could not help rousing up Manby, to ask him what he thought about the matter.
"The matter, Hurry!" he answered, yawning; "why, that our stable stands in a particularly damp situation, and that the place is full of fire-flies. You"ll hear frogs croaking before long, and see great big water-snakes crawling about, and reptiles of all sorts. The snakes, they tell me, are harmless; but it is not pleasant to awake and find one encircling one"s neck. However, we shall soon get accustomed to them, so people say, and that"s a comfort. I don"t know whether it is pleasanter to be asleep or awake. Just now, when you roused me up, I was dreaming that I was a horse, and that ugly copper-skinned landlord of ours was trying to put a saddle on my back to take a long ride, but I would not let him, and so he was thrashing me unmercifully. I dare say he would treat his beast much in the same way if left to himself."
"Do not let us be talking of our dreams. Our waking thoughts are sufficiently unpleasant," I observed.
After a time we managed to go to sleep again, but for some weeks scarcely a night pa.s.sed without our being disturbed by unusual noises or by the visits of snakes or reptiles of some sort. Once we were invaded by a whole army of land-crabs, which were pa.s.sing across the island, and it was some time before we could persuade them to turn aside from our door. Many paid the penalty of their temerity with their lives, and were cooked next morning for breakfast. By-the-bye, in the cooking department we were at first sadly deficient, but from the instruction we received from some of our French masters, we soon became great adepts in the art, and were independent of any help. One reason why we did not succeed at first was the scanty supply of food with which we were furnished. The Frenchmen, however, showed us where we might go out into the woods near the village, and gather vegetables and roots and nuts of all sorts for ourselves. After that we were never in want of the bare necessaries of life. We received an allowance from the French Government for our subsistence. The lieutenants received three shillings a day; the purser, master and surgeons only two; and the midshipmen but one shilling; on which, poor fellows, it was scarcely possible for them to exist. The captains were allowed more, I believe, and had a house found them some little way from Ou Trou, where they were able to live in somewhat less discomfort than we did. They used, however, their best exertions to lessen the inconveniences we were doomed to suffer; but the authorities paid but little attention to their representations. The residence hired by the midshipmen was even smaller and in a more dilapidated condition than ours, and from the smallness of their allowance, considering that their appet.i.tes were fully as good as ours, they were truly very badly off, poor fellows. We of the lieutenant"s rank accordingly consulted together, and agreed to have our mess in common for them and for ourselves. The midshipmen gratefully accepted our offer, and each of us threw his pay into a common stock and appointed two caterers to make the necessary arrangements and to contract with one of the copper-coloured French shopkeepers to supply us with breakfast and dinner and to do our washing. These arrangements being made, we flattered ourselves that all would go on swimmingly.
Certainly our provisions were better and more abundant than we had expected; but we fancied that we had fallen in with a liberal-minded man, who was anxious to treat us well. We had a dreary time of it, however. Day after day pa.s.sed away much in the same way. We had no shooting or fishing--no musical instruments--so that we had not even music to relieve the monotony of our existence. We had but few books also; some of us read them; but, generally speaking, under the relaxing influence of the climate, we felt very little inclined for any literary pursuit. A few games were invented which served to kill time, but killing time is not a pleasant or inspiriting occupation, especially when a man reflects that time is sure to kill him in the end. We walked about the neighbourhood of our dreary abode as far as we were allowed to go, but we soon got weary of the negro huts, and the palm-trees and the rice fields and the coffee plantations, and the cocoa-nuts and plantains and bananas, and the monkeys and opossums and rac.o.o.ns, and parrots and humming-birds. I dare say, if we had not been prisoners and compelled, as it were, to see the wonderful productions of animal and vegetable life, we should have been highly interested in them--at least, we ought to have been. One or two of our surgeons, who had a little turn for natural history, contrived to pa.s.s their time by collecting specimens, and examining into the nature and habits of the animals which abounded in the country; but naval officers, especially in those days, did not trouble their heads much about such matters, and were somewhat inclined to look down upon those who did. We talked of our prospects--they were gloomy enough; we tried sometimes to sing, but for that we had not much spirits; and so the days pa.s.sed away. It would have been surprising, even in a healthy climate, if disease had not attacked us under similar circ.u.mstances. For some time it stood aloof, but it came at last, and made ample amends for its delay by its violence. We had been about a month at Ou Trou, when one day we were all seated at dinner in a sort of courtyard, which being in shade served us as our mess-room and drawing-room, unless the weather was bad, when we had to retire into our hot, stifling little house. We were all in tolerably fair spirits that day. O"Driscoll had been telling some of his good stories, more than one song had been sung, and jokes were flying about, far more than was usually the case. There were a few absentees in consequence of sickness, and we heard also that Captain Williams, lately commanding the Active, was ill. Poor man! he severely felt the loss of his ship, though, having been compelled to yield to a vastly superior force, no blame was attached to him. His spirits, it was said, had never risen again since he was taken prisoner, and he was thus but ill able to combat with the baneful effects of the climate and the irksomeness of imprisonment. Just then, however, few of our party were thinking about anything but the present moment and the unusually good dinner we had been enjoying, when who should make his appearance near the head of the table but Monsieur Roquion our purveyor, with a smiling countenance and a long bill in his hand.
Our caterers inquired why he had come.
"For to present my litte _compte_ to you, gentilmen," he answered, for he indulged occasionally in a few words of English, especially when he wanted to say anything very disagreeable.
One of the caterers took the bill, and we saw them both looking over it together, and pulling wonderfully long faces.
"What is the matter?" asked Delisle. "Anything wrong with the account?
Let us know the worst. It cannot be very bad, I hope."
"Only our excellent friend here has brought us in a charge of a hundred dollars more than we expected to have to pay, or than we ought to pay,"
was the answer.
"Never mind; we"ll contest it, and the fellow will have to go without the money, I hope."
Monsieur Roquion understood the remark, for he grinned widely from ear to ear.
"Go and get us a proper account, Master Yellow-face," said our chief caterer. "This little bill of yours is too much by half."
I don"t know if the worthy understood what was said, but he refused to take back the account, and, after grinning at us a little longer, took his departure.
We finished our dinner without much concern about Monsieur Roquion and his bill; but we had unfortunately come to the end of our stock of wine and tea, and a few other luxuries, and where to obtain them except from Monsieur Roquion was a puzzle. The next morning we determined to try, so we went to his shop to order what we wanted; but he instantly met us with a hint that "_Le pet.i.t compte_ must first be settled."
We appealed to the commandant--a personage of whom I have not hitherto spoken, because I had nothing to say in his favour, but very much to the contrary. He replied that the demand was a just one. We suspected that he was to come in for his share of the spoil. We at length got angry, and said that we were cheated and would not pay. Thereat he grinned broadly, and informed us that it was his duty to see justice done to Monsieur Roquion, and that he should stop a portion of our allowances till the debt was paid. We protested loudly against this decision; but he only grinned the more, and with a bland smile informed us that might made right, and that we might take what course we liked.
We could do nothing but submit; and the next pay-day we found that he had determined to stop half our allowance. So we found ourselves reduced to eighteen-pence a day, while the poor midshipmen had only sixpence--a sum on which they could barely exist. We did our best to help them out of our own pittance; but to all of us it was like falling from affluence to penury. Misfortunes, it is said, never come alone.
Certainly at that time we experienced plenty of them. We were all sitting together discussing what was best under our circ.u.mstances to be done, when Delisle, who had gone to see Captain Williams, came back with the report that he was much worse, and wished to see his son, who was a midshipman, and had been living with the others. Delisle went for the boy; and as he pa.s.sed by, on his return, I saw that he looked especially sad. That evening notice was brought us that Captain Williams was dead, and his poor young midshipman son was left an orphan; and a prisoner in that far-off pestiferous land. Delisle brought the boy back with him, and with all the kindness of his heart endeavoured to console him.
In that climate decomposition follows death so rapidly that, almost before the human form is cold, it is necessary to commit it to the grave. We agreed, therefore, that early next morning we would all go and pay the last respects to the late unfortunate captain of the Active.
Accordingly, s.n.a.t.c.hing a hasty breakfast of dry bread and milk--for that was all the food the present low state of our finances would allow us to indulge in--we sallied forth, taking poor little Williams with us, whom we intended should act as chief mourner. When we arrived at the house, and went into the room where Delisle had last seen the body, it was no longer there. We searched about, but nowhere could we see it.
In another room we found Captain Stott, late of the Minerva. His health, like that of his brother captain, had given way, and he looked very ill and wretched.
We told him that we had come to a.s.sist in burying poor Captain Williams.
"You have come, then, too late, gentlemen," he answered with a deep sigh. "Two ill-conditioned negroes came this morning with a guard of three or four soldiers, and informed me that they had come to remove the body. I protested vehemently, and, had I possessed force, would have prevented them, but it was in vain. The wretches, with taunts and sneers at our being heretics and unworthy of Christian burial, carried away the body of my friend and brother-officer, and, I conclude, have thrown him into the ground in some out-of-the-way place."
Captain Stott was too ill, or he would have followed the barbarians in spite of the soldiers. Two or three other people tried to do so, but were driven back with angry threats, and at last gave up the attempt.
We were very indignant when we heard this, and resolved at once to go and try and find out where the wretches had buried the captain. We ascertained the direction they had taken and pursued them. We should soon have been at fault in that trackless part of the country, but we fell in with a little negro boy to whom I had been kind on more than one occasion, and he told us that he had followed the men at a distance, and undertook to show us the spot where our countryman had been buried. It was not far-off, and when we reached it our indignation became greater than ever. The authorities had evidently studied how they could most insult and annoy us.
In a piece of waste ground where offal and rubbish was cast, and where the bodies of the few malefactors who were ever brought to justice, as well as those of dogs and other animals, were deposited, they had ordered our poor friend to be interred. He had been placed there, fastened up in a piece of canvas, without a coffin and without ceremony of any sort. We stood with mournful countenances and with hearts full of bitterness and indignation over the foul spot, discussing among ourselves whether we ought not to dig up the body and carry it to the churchyard of Ou Trou, there to bury it among others who at all events had called themselves Christians. Our intentions must have been suspected, for in a few minutes a guard of soldiers made their appearance, and, threatening us with their pikes or halberds, made us desist. We then determined to go at once to the commandant. He received us with a look of haughty contempt. He remarked that our countryman was a heretic--that the priests considered that he had died out of the pale of their true Church like a dog, and that like a dog he must be buried.
"Does the holy religion of Christ teach you thus to treat your enemies?"
exclaimed Delisle, indignantly. "We are Christians, as you call yourselves, and have, as such, a right to Christian burial."
"I know nothing about that matter," answered the commandant. "The priests say that you are not, that you are cut off from the only true Church, and are thus condemned to everlasting punishment. This being the case--and I am bound to believe it--what matters it where your bodies are placed?"
Such was the tenor of the reply we received from an officer holding a commission under the government of a nation which prided itself on being the most enlightened and civilised in the world.
Though in France the outward signs of religion were still adhered to, the _savants_ and _literati_ were already paving the way by their false philosophy for that terrific outbreak of popular fury which deluged their country in blood, and well-nigh rooted out all that was n.o.ble and good and worthy in the land. At this time in Saint Domingo, and probably in the other French dependencies, there was an ostentatious show of religion which was sadly belied by the manners and customs of the people. At all events, a person bearing his Britannic Majesty"s commission was ent.i.tled, as a prisoner of war according to the law of nations, to all the respect due to his rank as an officer and a gentleman.
We returned to our home, wondering who next among us would be carried off to be put into that revolting receptacle of the dead. We had now seriously to turn it in our minds how we should be able to exist. A bright idea struck me--I would become a gardener. There was a considerable portion of ground attached to our mansion. I had had some little experience before in my life; others also knew something about the art, and so we hoped that our united stock of knowledge would produce us a good supply of vegetables. We had unfortunately but little money to purchase tools, or seeds or plants, but we did not disdain to turn beggars. We borrowed what tools we could, and manufactured spades and hoes and rakes out of wood. They were not very neat, but they answered our purpose. Seeds cost but very little; many were given us, others we bought. The poor unsophisticated, ignorant blacks were very kind-hearted, and gave us all they could spare. Thus our garden became our greatest source of amus.e.m.e.nt, and at the same time a most profitable employment.
Often for days together we had no other food but that which our garden produced. We had yam, ca.s.sava, choco, ochro, tomatoes, Indian kale, Lima beans, potatoes, peas, beans, calalue, beet-root, artichokes, cuc.u.mbers, carrots, parsnips, radishes, celery and salads of all sorts; nor must I forget the magnificent cabbage-trees some two hundred feet high--not that we planted them, by-the-bye--or the fruits, the cocoa-nut, plantain, banana, the alligator pear, the cashew, papaw, custard apples, and others too numerous to mention; the recollection of which even now makes my mouth water, as it did sometimes then, when we saw but could not obtain them. If it had not been for our garden I believe that we should one and all of us have succ.u.mbed to that fell climate. In vain we endeavoured to learn how the war was going on. No news was ever allowed to reach us but what was of the most disheartening nature, and Monsieur Roquion always contrived to bring it with a grin on his countenance which we knew meant mischief, though we could not make up our minds to believe him or not. One day he came in with a smile on his countenance, and shrugging his shoulders--
"Very sorry for you, as we do not here benefit by your loss," he remarked, endeavouring to put on a look of perfect sincerity. "You have, undoubtedly, heard the sad news. Your brave Admiral Keppel has been defeated in the channel. Most of his ships have been sunk or taken, and he himself has been captured and is a prisoner in France."
Days and days pa.s.sed away and we heard no more, and though we used every exertion to discover the truth, no one we met could contradict it. Next we heard that the successful French fleet had pursued Admiral Byron on his voyage to America, had brought him to action and completely dispersed and destroyed his fleet. We daily talked the matter over among ourselves. We could scarcely believe that the sun of England had set so low, and yet what right had we to doubt the truth of what we heard? We had ourselves been captured by the enemy, and might not others have been equally unfortunate?