Soon no sound even of pistol was heard. It was a hand-to-hand fight _on_ deck, for the _Niobe_ had been boarded: hand to hand, and breast to breast; cutla.s.s and sword "gainst Somali dagger and Arab spear. There were the shrieks of pain, the cries of exultation, and horrible oaths as well, I blush to say, mingling with the groans of the dying in this dreadful _melee_.
How peacefully the moon shone--how quiet and lovely and still the forest looked all around! How great the contrast "twixt man and nature!
But, see! the fight is finished. The enemy are borne backwards into the sea. Our fellows hack them down as they fly, for they are wild with the excitement of the strife.
But high on the p.o.o.p a young soldier is engaged in a deadly strife with the Arab chief himself. All his skill would hardly save Zareppa. For several minutes the duel seemed to rage. Then with a wild rash the Arab dashed forward on the soldier, his sword pa.s.sed through his body and--my father fell dead.
"English dogs!" shouted Zareppa, standing for a moment on the bulwarks with bleeding sword upheld. "Dogs of English, Zareppa"s day will come!
Beware!"
He would have vaulted into the sea, but up from behind the very place where he stood rose a dark naked figure. A dagger gleamed one instant in its hand, and next was plunged into the back of the chief, who gave a fearful shriek.
"Ha! ha! aha!" yelled this strange figure, "Zareppa"s day _hab_ come.
Plenty quick. Ha!"
The Arab chief fell face forward on the deck.
It was the negro Sweeba, who had brought the news of the intended attack.
From his own side of the river he had heard the firing and the wild shouts that told of the raging combat, and had speedily launched his rude canoe, intent on revenge for the murder of his poor wife and babes.
CHAPTER THREE.
"Hope, with her prizes and victories won, Shines in the blue of my morning sun, Conquering hope with golden ray, Blessing my landscape far away."
Tupper.
Not a single prisoner was taken.
Those who were not fatally wounded had sprung overboard.
The rest of the night pa.s.sed in quietness, but when day broke, the sun shone on a sad and ghastly scene. There still lay about broken cutla.s.ses, spears, torn pieces of cloth, and all the _debris_ of fight, and blood, blood everywhere.
On one side of the deck, with upturned faces, lay in ghastly array the dead of the enemy, on the other our own poor fellows had been put, and carefully covered with flags.
All hands were summoned to prayers, to bury the dead and clear up decks.
When, after service, the commander and his officers--alas! among those who lay beneath the Union Jack were one or two officers--went round to view the bodies, to their astonishment, they found that Zareppa had gone.
He had only shammed death, then, in order to escape!
Incidents of the very saddest character are soon forgotten in the service. It is as well it should be so. But a battle is no sooner fought than the decks are carefully washed, the damages all made good, and even rents and holes in the ship"s side, that might well redound to her honour, are not only carefully repaired but painted over. And whenever a vessel has had sails torn in a gale of wind, sailors are put to mend them on the following day.
For modesty always goes hand-in-hand with true valour.
In a fortnight after the fight in the river the brave _Niobe_ was once more at sea, and looking all over as smart a craft as ever sailed.
Just as I wrote these lines my good friend, Captain Roberts, looked over my shoulder.
"Ay, lad," he said, "and she _was_ a smart craft too. They don"t make such ships now, and they couldn"t find the men to man "em if they did.
I tell you, Nie, it was a sight that used to make Frenchmen stare to see the old _Niobe_ taking down top-gallant masts."
"Well, my dear old sea-dad," I replied, "of course you are fond of the good old times. It is only natural you should be."
"But they _were_ times. Why, nowadays they could no more do the things we did than they could pitch a ball o" spun yarn "twixt here and Jericho. I"m right, lad, I tell you, and I should know."
"Oh!" I replied, "for the matter of that, I was living in those brave old days as well as yourself."
"Yes, so you were," cried the old captain, laughing. "You were borne on the books o" the old _Niobe_ as well as myself, and a queer little chap you were when first we met. Heigho! time flies: it"s more"n forty years ago, Nie."
"Wait half a minute," I said, for I knew the old man was going to spin me a yarn that I was never tired of hearing--the story of my own early years. Why was it that I liked to hear him tell the tale over and over again, you may ask. For this reason--he never told it twice quite the same: always the same in the main incidents, doubtless, but with something new each time.
"Wait half a minute."
"Ay, ay, lad!"
I brought out the little table and set it down under his favourite tree on the lawn, and placed thereon his favourite pipe and his pouch.
The old sailor smiled, and drew his great straw chair up and sat down, and I threw myself on the gra.s.s and prepared to listen.
The captain had his two elbows on the table; he was teasing the tobacco, and when he began to speak he was evidently following out some train of thought, and addressing the tobacco, not me.
"As saucy a wee rascal he turned out as ever put a foot on board a ship," said Captain Roberts.
"Whom are you talking about, old friend?" I asked.
"I"m talking about baby Nie," replied the captain, still addressing the tobacco. "I wonder, now, what would have become of him, though, if it hadn"t been for old Bo"swain Roberts. Why, he would have died. Died?
Ay, but I wouldn"t see poor Sergeant Radnor"s baby thrown to the sharks, not for all the world. Fed him first on hen"s milk [the name given by sailors to egg beaten up in water]. Didn"t do well on that. "Cap"n,"
says I to the skipper one day, "soon"s we go to Zanzibar we must get a nanny-goat for the young papoose, else he"ll lose the number of his mess, and the doctor will have to mark him D.D." [discharged dead.]
"Very well, Roberts," says the skipper, "that"s just as you like."
"Now our purser was a mean old fellow. "Nanny-goat!" he cries, when I went to ask him for the money. "What next, I wonder? the service is going to the deuce. No, Her Majesty pays for no nanny-goats, I do a.s.sure ye."
"I just touches my hat and marches off to our dear old doctor. I knew he had a kindly heart. "Nanny-goat," cries he, "why, of course the darling baby"ll have a nanny-goat. We"ll keep it out of the sick-mess fund, and mark it down medical comforts." [Note 1.] "Excuse me, sir,"
said I, catching hold of the doctor"s hand--it was as rough as my own--"but you"re a brick."
"And that, "Nie," is how you came for the first five years o" your life to be called nothing else but young "medical comforts.""
"Five years!" I said, "that is a long spell for a ship to be on one station."
"Ay, lad, you"re right. But ships were ships in those days.
"Young "medical comforts"," he continued, "as they called you, in less than four years was a deal smarter than any monkey on board. Not that he could climb quite so high, maybe, but he was more tricky, and that is saying a lot. And it was among the monkeys that "medical comforts"
would mostly be, too.