Rodman The Boatsteerer And Other Stories by George Lewis Becke (best fiction novels to read TXT) 📖

pursuit by the ship's people.

Taking the boy by the hand, he set out at a run past the line of native houses which dotted the beach, and to all inquiries as to his haste he made no answer. Suddenly, as he turned into a path that led mountain-wards, he found his way blocked by an officer and a party of blue-jackets.

"Halt!" cried the officer, covering him with a fowling-piece. "Who are you, and why are you running like this?"

"That is my business, sir," he said. Then the officer sprang at him.

"Surrender, you villain! I know you--you are one of the men we want."

He turned like lightning, and, with the boy in his arms, sped back again towards the beach in the hope of getting a canoe and gaining the opposite shore of the island. But his pursuers were gaining on him fast, and when the beach was reached at last he turned and faced them, for every canoe was gone.

The officer motioned to his men to stand back.

"Brandon, there is no chance for you. Do not add another crime to that which you have already committed."

"No, sir; no. I shall do no more harm to any one in the King's service, but I will never be taken alive."

He pressed the muzzle of his pistol to his heart, pulled the trigger, and fell dead at their feet.



OXLEY, THE PRIVATEERSMAN

I.


All day long the _Indiana_, Tom de Wolfs island trading brig, had tried to make Tucopia Island, an isolated spot between Vanikoro and the New Hebrides, but the strong westerly current was too much for her with such a failing breeze; and Packenham, the skipper, had agreed with Denison, his supercargo, to let Tucopia "slide" till the brig was coming south again from the Marshalls.

"Poor old Oxley won't like seeing us keep away," said Denison. "I promised him that we would be sure to give him a call this time on our way up. Poor old chap! I wish we could send him a case of grog ashore to cheer him up. But a thirty miles' pull dead to windward and against such a current is rather too much of a job even for a boat's crew of natives."

But about midnight the breeze freshened from the eastward, and by daylight the smooth, shapely cone of the green little island stood up clear and sharply defined from its surrounding narrow belt of palm-covered shore in a sunlit sea of sparkling blue, and Denison told the captain to get the boat ready.

"Ten miles or so isn't much--we can sail there and back in the boat."

Tucopia was a long way out of the _Indiana's_, usual cruising ground; but a year or so before a French barque had gone ashore there, and Denison had bought the wreck from her captain on behalf of Mr. Tom De Wolf. And as he had no white man on board to spare, he had handed his purchase over to the care of Oxley, the one European on the island.

"Strip her, Jack, and then set a light to her hull--there's a lot of good metal bolts in it. You shall have half of whatever we get out of the sale of her gear."

And so old Jack Oxley, who had settled on Tucopia because forty-five years before he had married a Tucopian girl, when he was a wandering boat-steerer in the colonial whaling fleet, and was now too shaky to go to sea, shook Denison's hand gratefully, and was well satisfied at the prospect of making a few hundred pounds so easily.

A quiet, blue-eyed, white-haired, stooping old man with a soft voice and pleasant smile, he had bade Denison goodbye and said with his tremulous laugh, "Don't be surprised if when you come back you find my old hull has broken up before that of the wreck. Eighty-seven is a good age, Mr. Denison. However, I'll take things easy. I'll let some of my boys" (his "boys" were sons of over forty years of age) "do all the bullocking{*} part of the work."

* A colonial expression denoting heavy labour--i.e., to work
like bullocks in a team.

*****


When Denison reached the landing-place he was met by a number of the old whaler's whitey-brown descendants, who told him that Jack was dead--had died three months ago, they said. And there was a letter for the supercargo and captain, they added, which the old man had written when he knew he was dying. Denison took the letter and read it at once.

"Dear Mr. Denison,--Tom and Sam will give you all
particulars about the gear and metal from the wreck.... You
asked me one day if I would write you something about the
privateer I sailed in, and some of the fights in which I was
engaged. You and Captain Packenham might like to read it
some day when time hangs heavy. Sam will give you the
yarn.... Goodbye. I fear we shall not meet again.--Yours
very truly, John Oxley."

A few days later, as the _Indiana_ was sailing northward from Tucopia, Denison took out old Oxley's yarn. It was written in a round schoolboy hand on the blank pages of a venerable account-book.

*****


"Old as I am now I have never forgotten the exultant feeling that filled my bosom one dull gray morning in February, 1805, when I, John Oxley, put my weak hands to the capstan bars to help weigh anchor on board the _Port-au-Prince_ at Gravesend, and the strange, wild thrill that tingled my boyish blood at the rough, merry chorus of the seamen while the anchor came underfoot and the hands sprang aloft to make sail. For I was country-born and country-bred, and though even in our little town of Aylesbury, where my father was a farmer, we were used to hearing tales of the sea and to the sight of those who had fought the king's battles by land and sea, I had never until that morning caught sight of the ocean.

"Two weeks before I, foolish lad that I was, had been enticed by two village comrades into a poaching venture, and although I took no actual part therein--being only stationed as a watch on the outskirts of Colstone Wood--I was seized by two of Sir John Latham's keepers and taken away to the county gaol. I will not here attempt to describe the days of misery and shame that followed, and the grief and anguish of my parents; for although Sir John and the other county magistrates before whom I was brought believed my tale when I weepingly told them that I had no intention of poaching (and, indeed, I did not actually know that my two companions were bent upon so dangerous an enterprise) and my punishment was but light, yet the disgrace was too much for me to bear. So ere the sting of the whipping I received had died away I had made up my mind to run away to London and get some honest employment, and trust to time for my father's forgiveness. My sister Judith--Heaven bless her loving heart--to whom alone I made known my purpose, sought with tender words and endearing caresses to overcome my resolution; but, finding her pleading was of no avail, she made heart to dry her tears, and, giving me half a guinea, which a month before had been given to her by Lady Latham, she folded me in her arms, and, kissing me a last goodbye, as I stood with her at midnight behind my father's barn, bade me God speed.

"'Goodbye, John,' she whispered, ''twill surely break mother's heart, I fear, when she knows you have gone.'

"So, whispering back a promise that I would find some one in London to write to her for me and tell her how I fared, I gently took poor Judith's loving arms from around my neck, and ran as hard as I could across the field into the high road; for every moment my courage was failing me, and when I reached a hedge and lay down to rest awhile, my mother's face rose before me, and I thought I heard her tender voice crying, 'My boy, my boy! Has he gone without a last kiss from me?' Twice did I rise up with tears running down my cheeks and resolve to go back and at least receive her farewell kiss and blessing, but my boyish pride came to my aid, and with a choking sob I lay down again and waited for the morning.

"It took me some days to reach London, for it is a long journey from Aylesbury, and then for nearly a week I endured much hardship and misery, for my starved and dejected appearance was such that no one would give me employment of any sort, and my half-guinea became exhausted in buying food. But weak and wretched as I was, my courage to go on in the course I had taken was still unshaken; and, although it was a bitter winter, and I all but perished with the cold, I managed to always obtain some sort of shelter at night-time.

"I do not know, even now, in what part of London those my first wanderings led me; but at last, one morning, weak, footsore, and faint from hunger I came in sight of the shipping on the Thames, and for the moment forgot my woes in the strangeness of the sight. Seating myself on a great log of mahogany that some strange-looking, black-whiskered seaman had just rolled up from a ship lying in the dock, I remained gazing in a sort of dulled amazement at the bustle and, to my mind, confusion that seemed to prevail around me.

"For nearly half an hour I remained thus watching the hurrying to and fro of those about me; for there was an Indiaman just about to leave the dock, and many hundreds of people had come down to bid farewell to those on board, among whom were about a hundred or so of soldiers. Hungry and weary as I felt, the sight of these soldiers, and the inspiriting sounds of drum and fife music played upon the quarter-deck of the Indiaman, made me stand upon the log so that I might obtain a better view. Just then I heard a voice beside me exclaim--

"'Well, my lad, I suppose you would like to be one of them, with a red coat on your back and a musket on your shoulder, eh?'

"The suddenness of the address nearly caused me to fall off the log, and the speaker put out his hand to save me. He was an old, white-haired gentleman of between sixty and seventy, and kindness and benevolence seemed to irradiate his countenance.

"'Indeed, sir, I should,' I answered as I slipped down off the log and made him a bow, as was my duty to such a gentleman, and trying to speak bravely, 'I should like to be a soldier, sir.'

"He looked at me for a moment, and then put his hand on my shoulder.

"'Who are you, my lad, and how came you-down among the docks? You are a country lad, I can see. Have you been dishonest, or done anything wrong?'

"There was so much kindliness in his tones as he asked me this that I could not tell him naught but the whole truth, and although his face was very grave at the finish, his kind manner