_ CHAPTER TWENTY TWO. THE OVERSEER
The American turned quickly at the officer's words, and looked at him curiously.
"Met?" he said, without the slightest sign of recognition. "Very like, sirr," he added, in a peculiar drawl; "where was it?"
"You do not seem to remember," said the lieutenant. "Let me refresh your memory: a few weeks back, off the coast of Africa."
The man half-closed his eyes and stared hard at the first lieutenant and then at the two middies in turn.
"Last year, yew mean, squire?" he said. "No: don't seem to know you again."
"Then I shall have to refresh your memory a little more. Mr Murray," continued the officer, "who do you say this man is?"
"The indiarubber planter, sir, who played us that trick."
The man turned sharply upon the lad.
"And who do you say he is, Mr Roberts?"
"The skipper of the lugger, sir, who guided us up the African river."
"There," said the lieutenant; "will that do for you?"
"I guess I don't know what you are talking about, mister," said the man sharply. "You said something about a trick. Is this some trick of yours?"
"Why, confound your impudence, sir!" cried the lieutenant hotly. "How dare you speak like this to a King's officer!"
"Don't get in a fuss, mister," said the Yankee coolly. "We don't deal in King's officers here, and don't want to. Here, Mr Allen, you're an Englishman; these people are more in your way. What do they want?"
"It is the lieutenant of a ship that has cast anchor here, Huggins," said the gentleman addressed agitatedly. "It is about the slaves."
"Eh? About the slaves? Our slaves--your slaves? Well, what about 'em?"
"Yes; about the slaves we have here. You understand?"
"Not me! Not a bit. He's been talking to you, has he?"
"Yes--yes."
"Well, then, you'd better finish the business. Tell him I don't want to trade any away. We've got no more than will get in the crops."
"Speak to him," said the other, who seemed to grow more nervous and agitated.
"Oh, very well. Look here, mister; you've come to the wrong shop. I don't understand what you mean by making believe to know me, but I don't know you, and I'm not going to trade in blacks with any British ship. Understand?"
"Understand, sir?" cried the lieutenant, who was growing scarlet with heat and wrath. "It seems to me that you do not understand. Pray, who are you?"
"Business man and overseer of this plantation for my friend here, Mr James Allen, who trusts me to carry on his affairs for him, being a sick man just getting over a fever. There, I don't want to be surly to an English officer, though I never found one civil to me. You've dropped anchor off here, and I suppose you want water. Well, if you do I'll put a gang of my slaves on to help your men fill their casks."
"I am exceedingly obliged to you, sir," said the lieutenant sarcastically.
"Wal, that's spoke better," said the American. "And if you want some fresh meat and vegetables you can have a boat-load or two if you like to pay for 'em with a chest or so of tea. You'd like a few bottles o' port wine, too, for your complaint, wouldn't you, Allen?" he continued, turning to the pale, nervous man at his side.
"Yes--yes," faltered the poor fellow.
"Really, you are too condescending," cried the lieutenant. "Mr Roberts--Mr Murray--did you ever hear the like of this? Here, May-- Titely--what do you say to this American gentleman?"
Tom May took off his straw hat and gave his curly hair a rake with his fingers, while Titely stared with all his might.
"It caps me, sir," said the latter, while Tom May looked at the American, then at the two middies in turn, and shook his head.
"Well, sir, why don't you speak?" cried his officer angrily.
"'Cause it's such a rum un, sir."
"Bah! Speak out, man, and don't hesitate. You remember seeing this man before?"
"Well, sir, I seem to ha' seen him afore, and then I don't seem, and get kind o' mixed up. Sometimes it looks like him and sometimes it don't look like him, sir. Beg your pardon, sir, but would you mind asking my messmate here--Titely?"
"Bah, man! The sun has made you giddy."
"Well, skipper, when you like I'm ready for an answer. Want the water and fresh vittles?"
"My dear Huggins," said the trembling owner of the place, "it would be far better if you explained to the King's officer--"
"You leave me and the King's officer alone, James Allen," said the American sturdily.
"But I'm sure--" whispered the planter.
"So'm I. You keep your tongue between your teeth, and I dessay we can settle matters. Look here, Mr Officer, I'm boss of all the business here, and you needn't take no notice of this gentleman. I telled you that Mr Allen has been in bed with fever, and it's left him, as you see, very shaky upon his legs. Your coming has upset him and made him a bit nervous. Here, I'll put in a word for him, poor chap. Jes' you ask your skipper to give him a small bottle o' quinine. You won't want paying for that, being charity."
The lieutenant turned his back upon the speaker angrily, and spoke to the feeble-looking planter.
"Look here, sir," he cried, "you are nominally owner of this plantation and the slaves upon it."
"Now, look here, mister," said the American angrily; "I spoke civil to you, and I offered to help you and your ship with what you wanted in the way of fresh meat and vegetables. What's the good of returning stones for stuff?"
"My good fellow, will you be silent," cried the lieutenant, "and let me deal with your master?"
"My master!" snarled the American. "I am my own master, sirr. I tell you I'm boss of all this here show, and if I like to turn nasty--"
"My dear Huggins--" interposed the planter.
"Shut your mouth, you old fool," growled the American, "and don't interfere."
"Why, you insulting scoundrel!" roared the lieutenant. "Here, Mr Allen--that is your name, I believe?--you had better leave this matter in my hands, and I will settle it."
The American stood listening with his eyes half closed and a peculiarly ugly look upon his countenance, while the planter made a deprecating sign with his hands.
"I see very plainly, sir," continued the lieutenant, "that this insolent Yankee is presuming upon your weak state of health and assuming a power that he cannot maintain. You have been placing yourself in a position in which it would be better to--"
"Now see here, stranger," burst in the American, "I'm a man who can stand a deal, but you can go too far. You come swaggering here with a boat-load of your men and think that you're going to frighten me, sirr-- but you're just about wrong, for if I like to call up my men they'd bundle you and your lot back into your boat--for I suppose you have got one."
"Look here, sir," said the lieutenant, as he caught the flashing eyes of the two middies and the fidgety movements of his men, "I am loth to treat an American with harshness, but take this as a warning; if you insult your master and me again I'll have you put in irons."
"What!" cried the man, with a contemptuous laugh. "You'd better!"
The lieutenant started slightly, and that movement seemed to tighten up the nerves of his men.
"Can't you understand, sirr, that if I like to hold back you'll get no provisions or water here?"
"Confound your supplies, sir! And look here, if I must deal with you let me tell you that I have good reason to believe that under the pretence of acting as a planter here, you are carrying on a regular trade in slaves with the vile chiefs of the West Coast of Africa."
"I don't care what you believe, mister," said the American defiantly. "I am working this plantation and producing sugar, coffee and cotton-- honest goods, mister, and straightforward merchandise. Who are you, I should like to know, as comes bullying and insulting me about the tools I use for my projuce!"
"You soon shall know, sir," said the lieutenant, and he just glanced at the pale, trembling man, who had sunk into a cane chair, in which he lay back to begin wiping his streaming brow--"I am an officer of his Britannic Majesty's sloop of war _Seafowl_, sent to clear the seas of the miscreants who, worse than murderers, are trading in the wretched prisoners of war who are sold to them by the African chiefs."
"Don't get up too much of it, Mr Officer," said the American, deliberately taking out a very large black cigar from his breast pocket and thrusting it between his lips, before dropping into another cane chair and clapping his hands; "this here ain't a theayter, and you ain't acting. That there's very pretty about his Britannic Majesty's sloop of war. Look here, sirr; bother his Britannic Majesty!"
At these last words a thrill of rage seemed to run through the line of sailors, and they stood waiting for an order which did not come, for the lieutenant only smiled at the American's insolent bravado and waited before interfering with him to hear what more he had to say.
"It sounds very lively and high faluting about your sweeping the high seas of miscreants, as you call 'em, and all that other stuff as you keep on hunting up with African chiefs and such like; but what's that got to do with an invalid English gentleman as invests his money in sugar, coffee and cotton, and what has it to do with his trusted Aymurrican experienced planter as looks after his black farm hands, eh?"
"Only this, sir," said the lieutenant, "that if he or they are proved to be mixed up with this horrible nefarious trade they will be answerable to one of the British courts of law, their mart will be destroyed, and their vessels engaged in the trade will become prizes to his Majesty's cruiser."
"Say, mister," said the American coolly--and then to a shivering black who had come out of the house bearing a coarse yellow wax candle which he tried to shelter between his hands, evidently in dread lest it should become extinct,--"Take care, you black cuss, or you'll have it out!"
Murray heard the poor fellow utter a sigh of relief, but he did not even wince, only stood motionless as his tyrant took the wax taper, held it to his cigar till it burned well, and then extinguished it by placing the little wick against the black man's bare arm, before pitching the wax to the man, who caught it and hurried away.
"Say, mister," said the overseer again, "don't you think you fire off a little too much of your Britannic Majesty and your King George fireworks?"
"Go on, sir," said the lieutenant, biting his lip. "Yes, that's what I'm going to do," continued the man coolly. "What's all this here got to do with a free-born Aymurrican citizen?"
"Only this, sir, that your so-called American citizen will have no protection from a great country for such a nefarious transaction."
"There you go again, mister! That's I don't know how many times you've let off that there prize word of yours, neefarious. There, don't bluff, sir; to use your old country word, them as plays at bowls must expeck rubbers. No, no, no, don't you begin ordering your fellows to meddle with me, because I'm rather nasty when I'm interfered with, 'sides which I've got some one inside the house to take care of me if it was wanted, as you can see for yourself--twenty of 'em, boys who can use a rifle; and that's what your chaps can't do."
In spite of himself the lieutenant started and raised his eyes, to become aware of the fact that some dozen or fourteen rifle barrels were protruding from the windows of the long low house, while others were being thrust from another building away to the right--a shed-like place that had been unnoticed before, through its covering of densely growing creepers.
"Don't do that, youngsters," said the American, with a sneering laugh; "they wouldn't hurt anybody if you pulled 'em out, and some of my fellows indoors might take it as what you call a signal to draw their knives."
"Trapped!" muttered the lieutenant to himself; but he did not wince, only stood thinking out to himself what would be his best course to pursue, and his musings were interrupted by the American, who lay back sending forth great puffs of smoke without a quiver visible in his face.
"Looks nasty, don't it, Mr Officer?" said the man, in his long, slow drawl. "But don't you be skeart; they won't fire without I give the order or they see me hurt. Then I won't answer for them. 'Tain't because they're so fond of me, youngsters," he continued, with an ugly cat-like grin, "because they ain't; but they're afraid, and that's a good deal better for me. And look here, they're lying back there in the dark because I told 'em to, and you can't see them; but they're not niggers--oh no! You can't trust niggers to fight. Your Jack Tars there would send a hundred of 'em running. Niggers are good field hands, and my chaps are bad at that, but they can fight, and so I tell you. Now, skipper," he continued, turning quietly to the lieutenant, who was pressing his lower lip hard between his teeth, "I think we understand one another now, and that you see I didn't put up any bunkum when I telled you that I was boss of this show. So you let me alone, and I'll let you."
"Sir," said the lieutenant firmly, "I give you fair warning that if harm happens to a man of my party my captain will land a force that will burn this place to the ground."
"Very kind of him, too," said the man grimly, "but he won't, because he mustn't. You don't seem to savvy, skipper, that you ain't at home here. Do you know, sir, where you are?"
"Yes, sir; on the shores of one of his Majesty's West Indian Islands."
"I thought so, squire; well, then, you're jest about wrong, and you've no more business here than if this here was Spain. I dessay you think you can hyste the British flag here, but I tell you that you can't, for this here island is called South Baltimore, and whenever a flag is hysted here it's the stars and stripes and the Aymurrican eagle, what some fellows call the goose and gridiron; and that's so."
"South Baltimore!" cried the lieutenant, who looked puzzled by the announcement. "And pray, sir, who gave the island that name?"
"I did," said the Yankee drily. "Now then, will that do for you?"
"No, it will not do," cried the lieutenant hotly. "My officer will need some far better explanation--one based upon greater authority than this--before he gives up the duty he has to fulfil."
"Vurry well, sir, let him go and find a better explanation, then. It don't trouble me. Only you had better march your men back aboard your schooner, or brig, or whatever you call it, before they get falling out with my fellows. You see yon men's sailors like yours are, and my fellows may get upset by your chaps, for I always find that British sailors get a bit sarcy and quarrelsome when they come ashore, and no matter how quiet and patient the Aymurricans, they lay themselves out for a fight."
"As in the present case, sir," said the lieutenant sarcastically.
"Jes' so, squire. So now you take my advice and march your chaps back again. You see how the land lies, and as I've said afore, I don't want to ride rusty over your skipper. You've on'y got to send word ashore as you wants fresh provisions and water, and say as you're ready to make a fair swap with a few things as we want, and there you are."
The lieutenant stood frowning in silence, turning his eyes from the American to the feeble-looking planter, and from him to the two middies and his men, in each case finding that he was being watched eagerly, every eye seeming to ask the same question--what are you going to do?-- while on his part he felt the impossibility of responding.
For the responsibility he felt was almost maddening. It was plain enough that his men called upon him to resent the American planter's insolence, and that if he did not do so at once, not only would the two lads and his men look upon his behaviour as cowardly and degrading to the British _prestige_, but the Yankee and his faintly seen scum of followers would treat the whole party with contempt.
It was a painful position, for the Yankee had plainly shown him the risks he ran. He would not have hesitated for a moment, in spite of the display of armed men ready to attack, for if he had felt free to act he would have chanced everything, depending as he felt he could upon his little party of thoroughly well-drilled able-bodied seamen, and boldly attacked at once; but he had to think of his captain and the great risk he ran of bringing him into difficulties and forcing him to answer for some international difficulty over the rights of the United States, which, if the American overseer was right, were sure to be jealously maintained.
It was hard to do, and Murray noticed a peculiar twitching about his officer's lips as he turned at last to the smiling, sneering man, his first words showing his hearers how bitterly he felt his position and the necessity for obeying the teachings of the proverb that discretion is the better part of valour.
"Well, sir," he said, in a cold, hard fashion, "I have heard all that you have to say. As to the correctness of your statement that we are not upon British soil, I must leave that to my superior's judgment and decision, for certainly I cannot feel that it is my duty to proceed farther without drawing off my men and going back to lay the matter before Captain Kingsberry."
"That's right, Mr Lieutenant," said the overseer. "Nothing like it. You always do that; when you find yourself in a tight corner, you get out of it as soon as you can."
"Ha, ha, ha!" rang out in a harsh, discordant tone from somewhere inside the house, and this acted as the signal for a burst of jeering laughter which made the lieutenant wince and his face turn pale even to his lips, which he bit until they were white, while a low, dull murmur that sounded like the threatening premonitory growl of the British bulldog being pricked by an insult, ran through the group of sailors.
"Silence, there!" cried the lieutenant, in a choking voice; and the murmur died away.
"That's right, Mr Officer," said the American. "Yew always drop on to your fellows sharply when they show signs of mutiny. I allus do. And you within there, none of that row. Quiet, do you hear?"
There was another low mocking laugh, but the American paid no heed, only went on talking at Mr Anderson.
"That was very good of you, squire, but while you're about it if I were you I'd just say a word or two to them two bantam-cock-like boys of officers of yours, who keep on sneering like at my men and setting their backs up. You don't mean it, of course, being ready to do what's right. So you give 'em a good talking to when you get 'em back safe aboard. You'd best do it, for if them puppies keep on that how they may make my chaps wild. Now just look at that!"
For the two midshipmen had been growing warmer for some minutes past as they listened to the American's insulting language, and at last, hot with annoyance, Murray, unable to contain himself and forgetting discipline, clapped his hand upon his side-arms and took a step forward, his eyes flashing with boyish anger, and exclaimed--
"Do you mean that insulting language for me, sir?"
Perhaps there was something in the lad's manner, as in that of Roberts', who immediately followed his example, or maybe the overseer's men were only waiting for an opportunity to be aggressive. At any rate, they seized upon the opportunity to burst out into a derisive laugh.
"Quiet! Steady, my lads!" cried the lieutenant fiercely.
"But, sir--" began Murray hotly.
"Silence, sir!" roared his officer; and then what happened was too much for him, for a dark shadow came from somewhere amongst the trees, a shadow-like something which described a curve and struck the speaker full in the chest, and fell to the ground in the shape of a great unhusked cocoanut.
In an instant the lieutenant's hand flew to his sword, but he checked himself. His act, though, had its effect, for there was a yell of laughter, and the one great nut was followed by a shower, two of which half drove the two young officers mad as they struck heavily, the rest having effect amongst the sailors, who with one impulse fell into line and presented arms.
There was another yell of laughter, and the overseer sprang up from his cane chair.
"That'll do!" he shouted; but he made no effort further to check his men, but dashed in through one of the open windows of the house, just as from another came the sharp flash and puff of smoke from a rifle, followed by a ragged volley from the creeper-covered building that lay farther back.
This was answered by a fierce British cheer and a rush on the part of the sailors, who either carried their officers with them or were led--no one afterwards seemed to know--but in almost less time than it takes to describe, the little party of sailors swept through the plantation house from front to back, driving its defenders before them, and without firing a shot till a few desultory rifle-shots began to spatter from the thick patch of tropic forest which sheltered the back of the attractive dwelling. Then, and then only, three or four volleys silenced the enemy's fire, and it was evident that the overseer and his men had now fled, taking with them the planter, if he had not retreated by his own efforts, for he was nowhere visible. Then all was silence as soon as the rustling and crackling of cane and the heavy shaddock-like foliage had ceased. _