Across the Salt Seas

John Bloundelle-Burton

Across the Salt Seas / A Romance of the War of Succession

CHAPTER I

Dreams he of cutting foreign throats, of breaches, ambuscadoes, Spanish blades; of healths five fathoms deep. -Shakespeare.

"Phew!" said the captain of La Mouche Noire, as he came up to me where I paced the deck by the after bittacle. "Phew! It is a devil in its death agonies. What has the man seen and known? Fore Gad! he makes me shudder!"

Then he spat to leeward-because he was a sailor; also, because he was a sailor, he squinted into the compass box, then took off his leather cap and wiped the warm drops from his forehead with the back of his hand.

"Death agonies!" I said. "So! it is coming to that. From what? Drinking, old age, or-"

"Both, and more. Yet, when I shipped him at Rotterdam, who would have thought it! Old and reverend-looking, eh, Mr. Crespin? White haired-silvery. I deemed him some kind of a minister-yet, now, hearken to him!"

And as he spoke he went to the hatchway, bent his head and shoulders over it, and beckoned me to come and do likewise; which gesture I obeyed.

Then I heard the old man's voice coming forth from the cabin where they had got him, the door of it being open for sake of air, because, in this tossing sea, the ports and scuttles were shut fast-heard him screaming, muttering, chuckling and laughing; calling of healths and toasts; dying hard!

"The balustrades!" he screamed. "Look to them. See! Three men, their hands stretched out, peering down into the hall; fingers touching. God!" – he whispered this, yet still we heard-"how can dead men stand thus together, gazing over, glancing into dark corners, eyes rolling? See how yellow the mustee's eyes are! But still, all dead! Dead! Dead! Dead! Yet there they stand, waiting for us to come in from the garden. Ha! quick-the passado-one-two-in-out-good! through his midriff. Ha! Ha! Ha!" and he laughed hideously, then went on: "The worms will have a full meal. Or" – after a pause, and hissing this: "Was he dead before? Hast run a dead man through?"

"Like this all day long," the captain muttered in my ear, "from the dawn. And now the sun is setting; see how its gleams light up the hills inland. God's mercy! I hope he dies ere long. I want not his howlings through my ship all night. Mr. Crespin," and he laid his hand on my arm, "will you go down to him, to service me? You are a gentleman. Maybe can soothe him. He is one, too. Will you?"

I shrugged my shoulders and hitched my sea cloak tighter round me; then I said:

"To do you a service-yes. Yet I like not the job. Still, I will go," and I put my hand on the brass rail to descend. Then, as I did so, we heard him again-a-singing of a song this time. But what a song! And to come from the dying lips of that old, white-haired, reverend-looking man! A song about drinkings and carousings, of girls' eyes and lips and other charms, which he should have thought no more of for the past two score years! and killing of men, and thievings and plunder. Then another change, orders bellowed loudly, as though he trod on deck-commands given to run out guns-cutlasses to be ready. Shrieks, whooping and huzzas!

"He has followed the sea some time in his life," the captain whispered as I descended the companion steps. "One can tell that. And I thought him a minister!"

I nodded, looking up at him as I went below, then reached the open door of the cabin where the man lay.

He was stretched out upon his berth, the bedding all dishevelled and tossed beneath him, with, over it, his long white hair, like spun flax, streaming. His coat alone of all his garments was off, so that one saw the massive gold buttons to his satin waistcoat; could observe, too, the richness of his cravat, the fineness of his shirt. His breeches, also, were of satin, black like his waistcoat-the stuff of the very best; his buckles to them gold; his shoes fastened with silver latchets. That he was old other things than his hair showed-the white face was drawn and pinched with age, the body lean and attenuated, the fingers almost fleshless, the backs of his hands naught but sinews and shrivelled skin. And they were strange hands, too, for one to gaze upon; white as the driven snow, yet with a thickness at the tips of the fingers, and with ill-shapen, coarse-looking nails, all seeming to say that, once, in some far off time, those hands had done hard, rough work.

By the side of the berth, upon one of the drawers beneath it, pulled out to make a seat, there squatted a mulatto-his servant whom he had brought on board with him when we took him into the ship in the Maas. A mulatto, whose brown, muddy looking eyeballs rolled about in terror, as I thought, of his master's coming death, and made me wonder if they had given his distempered brain that idea of the "mustee's yellow eyes," about which he had been lately shrieking. Yet, somehow, I guessed that 'twas not so.

"How is 't with him now?" I asked the blackamoor, seeing that his master lay quiet for the time being; "is this like to be the end?"

"Maybe, maybe not," the creature said in reply. "I have seen him as far gone before-yet he is alive."

"How old is he?"

"I know not. He says he has seventy years."

"I should say more," I answered. Then I asked: "Who is he?"

"The captain has his name."

"That tells nothing. When he is dead he will be committed to the sea unless we reach Cadiz first. And he has goods," casting my eye on two chests, one above the other, standing by the cabin bulkhead. "They will have to be consigned somewhere. Where is he going?"

"To Cadiz."

"Ha! Well, so am I. He is English?"

"Yes-he is English."

'Twas evident to me that this black creature meant to tell nothing of his master's affairs-for which there was no need to blame him-and I desisted from my enquiries. For, in truth, this old man's affairs were not my concern. If he died he would be tossed into the sea, and that would be the end of him. And if he did not die-why still 'twas no affair of mine. I was but a passenger, as he was.

Therefore, I turned me on my heel to quit the cabin, when, to my astonishment, nay, almost my awestruck wonderment, I heard the old man speaking behind me as calmly as though there were no delirium in his brain nor any fever whatever. Perhaps, after all, I thought, 'twas but the French brandy and the Geneva he had been drinking freely of since we took him on board, and which he brought with him in case bottles, that had given him his delirium, and that the effect was gone now with his last shriekings and ravings.

But that which caused most my wonderment was that he was speaking in the French-which I had very well myself.

"What brings you here, Grandmont?" he asked, his eyes, of a cold grey, fixed on me.

"So," thinks I, "you are not out of your fever yet, to call me by a name I never heard of." But aloud, I answered:

"I have taken passage the same as you yourself. And we travel the same road-toward Cadiz."

Meanwhile the negro was a-hushing of him-or trying to-saying: "Master, master, you wander. Grandmont is not here. This gentleman is not he"; and angered me, too, even as he said it, by a scornful kind of laugh he gave, as though to signify: "Not anything like him, indeed."

But the old man took no heed of him-pushing him aside with a strength in the white coarse hand which you would not have looked to see in one so spent-and leaned a little over the side of the berth, and went on:

"Have you heard of it, yet, Grandmont?"

Not knowing what to do, nor what answer to make, I shook my head-whereon he continued: "Nineteen years of age now, if a day. Four years old then-two hundred crowns' worth of good wood burnt, – all burnt-a mort o' money! But we have enough left and to serve, 'tis true. A plenty o' money-though 'tis soaked in blood. Nineteen years old, and like to be a devil-like yourself, Grandmont!"

"Grandmont is dead," the negro muttered. "Drownded dead, master. You know."

This set the old man off on another tack, doubtless the words "drownded dead" recalling something to him; and once more he began his chantings-going back to the English-which were awful to hear, and brought to my mind the idea of a corpse a-singing:

"Fishes' teeth have eat his eyes; His limbs by fishes torn."

Then broke off and said: "Where am I? Give me to drink."

This the negro did, taking from out the drawer he sat upon a bottle of Hungary water, and pouring a draught into a glass, which, when the old man had tasted, set him off shrieking curses.

"Brandy!" he cried, "Brandy! French brandy, not this filth. Brandy, dog!" and as he spoke he raised his hand and clutched at the other's wool, "If I had you in Martinique-" then, exhausted, fell back on his pillows and said no more, forgetting all about the desired drink.

Now, that night, when I sat with the captain after supper, he being a man who had roamed the world far and wide, and had not always been, as he was now, a carrier of goods only, with sometimes a passenger or two, from London to the ports of France, Spain and Portugal, we talked upon that hoary-headed old sinner lying below in the after-starboard cabin; I telling him all that had passed in my hearing.

And he, smoking his great pipe, listened attentively, nodding his head every now and again, and muttering much to himself; then said:

"Spoke about two hundred crowns' worth of good wood being burnt, eh? That would be at Campeachy. Humph! So! So! We have heard about that. Told the black, too, that he wished he had him in Martinique, did he? Also knew Grandmont. Ha! 'tis very plain." Then he rose and went to his desk, lifted up the sloping lid and took out a book and read from it-I observing very well that it was his log.

"See," he said, pushing it over to me, "that's what he calls himself now. Yet 'tis no more his name than 'tis mine-or yours."

Glancing my eye down the column, I came to my own name-after a list of things by way of cargo which he had on board, such as a hundred and seventy barrels of potash, sixty bales of hemp, a hundred bales of Russia leather, twenty barrels of salted meat, twenty-eight barrels of whale oil and many other things. Came to my own name, Mervyn Crespin, officer, passenger to Cadiz. Then to the old man's:

"John Carstairs, gentleman, with servant, passenger to Cadiz."

"No more his name than 'tis mine-or yours," the captain repeated.

"What then?" I asked.

"It might be-anything," and again he mused. "Martinique," he went on, "Campeachy. A friend of Grandmont's. Let me reflect. It might be John Cuddiford. He was a friend of Grandmont's. It might be Alderly. But no, he was killed, I think, by Captain Nicholas Crafez of Brentford. Dampier, now-nay, this one is too old; also William Dampier sailed from the Downs three years ago. I do believe 'tis Cuddiford."

"And who then is Grandmont, Captain? And this Cuddiford-or Carstairs?"

"Ho!" said he, "'tis all a history, and had you been sailor, or worn that sword by your side for King William as you wear it now for Queen Anne, you would have known Grandmont's name. Of a surety you would have done so, had you been sailor."

"Who are they, then?"

"Well now, see. Grandmont was-for he is dead, drowned coming back from the Indies in '96-that's six years agone-with a hundred and eighty men, all devils like himself."

As he said this I started, for his words were much the same as those which the old man had used an hour or so before when he had spoken of something-a child, as I guessed-that had been four years old, and was now nineteen and "like to be a devil" like himself-Grandmont. It seemed certain, therefore, that this man, Grandmont, was a friend in life, and that now there was roaming about somewhere a son who had all the instincts of its father, and who was known to Carstairs, or Cuddiford.

This made the story of interest to me, and caused me to listen earnestly to the captain's words.

"Coming back from the Indies, and not so very long, either, after the French king had made him a lieutenant of his navy-perhaps because he was a villain. He does that now and again. 'Tis his way. Look at Bart, to wit. There's a sweet vagabond for you. Has plagued us honest merchants and carriers more than all Tourville's navy. Yet, now, he is an officer, too."

"But Grandmont, Captain! Grandmont."

"Ah! Grandmont. Well, he was a filibuster-privateer-buccaneer-pirate-what you will! Burnt up all their woods at Campeachy-the old man spake true-because the commandant wouldn't pay the ransom he and his crew demanded; also because the commandant said that when he had slaughtered them all, if he did so, he would never find out where their buried wealth was. Then he took a Pink one day with four hundred thousand francs' worth of goods and money on board, and slew every soul in the ship. Tied dead and living together, back to back, and flung them into the sea. Oh! He was a devil," he concluded. "A wicked villain! My word! If only some of our ships of war could have caught him."

"Yet he is dead?"

"Dead enough, the Lord be praised."

"And if this is a friend of his-this Cuddiford, or Carstairs-he must needs be a villain, too."

"Needs be! Nay, is, for a surety. And, Mr. Crespin," he said, speaking slowly, "you have heard his shrieks and singings-could you doubt what he has been?"

"Doubt? No," I answered. "Who could? Yet, I wonder who were the dead men looking down the stairs, as they came in from the garden."

"Who? Only a few of their victims. If he and Grandmont worked together they could not count 'em. Well, one is dead; good luck when the other goes too. And, when he does, what a meeting they will have there!" and he pointed downward.

CHAPTER II.

SECRET SERVICE

It seemed not, however, as though this meeting were very likely to take place yet, since by the time we were off Cape St. Vincent-which was at early dawn of the second morning following the old man's delirium-that person seemed to have become very much restored. 'Tis true he was still very weak, and kept his berth; but otherwise seemed well enough. Also all his fever and wanderings were gone, and as he now lay in his bunk reading of many papers which the negro handed to him from the open uppermost chest, he might, indeed, have passed for that same reverend minister which the captain had, at the beginning, imagined him to be.

Both of us-the captain because he was the captain, and I because I was the only other passenger-had been in and out to see him now and again and to ask him how he did. Yet, I fear, 'twas not charity nor pity that induced either of us to these Christian tasks. For the skipper was prompted by, I think, but one desire, namely, to get the man ashore alive out of his ship, and, thereby, to have done with him. He liked not pirates, he said, "neither when met on the high seas, nor when retired from business"; while as for myself, well! the man fascinated me. He seemed to be, indeed, so scheming an old villain, and to have such a strange past behind him, that I could not help but be attracted.

Now in these visits which I had paid him at intervals, he had told me that he was on his way to Cadiz, where he had much business to attend to; sometimes, he said, in purchasing goods that the galleons brought in from the Indies, sometimes in sending out other goods, and so forth. Also he said-which was true enough, as I knew very well-the galleons were now due; it was for this reason he was on his way to the south of Spain.

"So," said the captain, when I repeated this, "the devil can speak truth sure enough when he needs. To wit, it is the truth that the galleons are on their way home. What else has he said to you, Mr. Crespin?"

"He has asked me what my business may be."

"And you have told him?"

"Nay. I tell no one that," I replied, "It is of some consequence, and I talk not of it."

Yet here, and with a view to making clear this narrative which I am setting down, 'tis necessary that I should state who and what I am, and also the reason why I, Mervyn Crespin, am on my road to Cadiz on board a coasting vessel, La Mouche Noire-once a French ship of merchandise, now an English one. She was taken from that nation by some of our own vessels of war, sold by public auction, and bought by her present captain, who now is using her in his trade between England and Holland, and Holland and Spain-a risky trade, too, seeing that war has broken out again, that England and Austria are fighting the French and Spanish, and that the sea swarms with privateers; yet, because of the risk, a profitable trade, too, for those who can make their journeys uncaught by the enemy.

However, to myself.

I am, let me say, therefore, an officer of the Cuirassiers, or Fourth Horse, which, a short time before the late King William's death, has been serving in the Netherlands under the partial command of Ginkell, Earl of Athlone. The rank I hold is that of lieutenant-aspiring naturally to far greater things-and already I have had the honor of taking part in several sieges, amongst others Kaiserswerth, with which the war commenced, as well as in many skirmishes. Now, 'twas at this place, where my Lord the Earl of Athlone commanded, that I had the extreme good fortune, as I shall ever deem it, of being wounded, and thereby brought under his Lordship's notice. As for the wound, 'twas nothing, one of M. Bouffler's lancers having run me through the fleshy part of my arm, and it was soon healed; but the earl happened to see the occurrence, as also the manner in which I cut the man down a second later, and from that moment he took notice of me-sent for me to his quarters when the siege was over, spoke with commendation of my riding and my sword play, and asked me of my family, he being one who, although a Dutchman who came only into England with his late master, knew much of our gentry and noble homes.

"Of the Crespins of Kent, eh?" he said. "The Crespins-a fair, good family. I knew Sir Nicholas, who fell at the Boyne. What was he to you?"

"My uncle, sir. The late king gave me my guidon in the Cuirassiers because of his service."

"Good! He could do no less. Your uncle was a solid man-trustworthy. If he said he would do a thing, he did it-or died. 'Twas thus in Ireland. You remember?"

"I remember, sir. He said he would take prisoner Tyrconnel with his own hands, and would have done it had not a bullet found his brain."

"I do believe he would. Are you as trustworthy as he?"

"Try me," and I looked him straight in the face.

"Maybe I will. A little later," and even as he spoke fell a-musing, while he drank some schnapps, which was his native drink, and on which, they say, these Hollanders are weaned-from a little glass. Then soon spake again:

"What languages have you? Any besides your own?"

"I have the French. Also some Spanish. My grandmother was of Spanish descent, and dwelt with us in Kent. She taught me."

"Humph!" And again he mused, then again went on, though now-doubtless to see if my French was any good, and to try me-he spoke in that tongue.

"Could you pass for a Frenchman, think you, amongst those who are not French, say in Spain itself?"

"Yes, amongst those who are not French, I am sure I could. Even amongst those who are French, if I gave out that I was, say, a Dutchman speaking with an accent," and I laughed, for I could not help it. The earl had a bottle nose and eyes like a lobster's, and made a queer grimace when I said this boldly. Then he, too, laughed.

"So I've an accent, eh, when I speak French? You mean that?"

"I mean, sir, that however well one speaks a language not their own, there is some accent that betrays them to those whose native tongue they are speaking. A Dutchman, a Swiss, most Englishmen and many Germans can all speak French, and 'twould pass outside France for French. But a native of Touraine, or a Parisian, or any subject of King Louis could not be deceived."

"True. Yet you or I could pass, say in Spain, for Frenchmen."

"I am sure."

"Humph! Well, we will see. And, perhaps, I will, as you say, try you. Only if I do, 'twill be a risky service for you. A lieutenant-colonelcy or a gibbet. A regiment or a bullet. How would you like that?"

"I risk the bullet every moment that the Cuirassiers are in action, and there is no lieutenant-colonelcy in the other scale if I escape. I prefer the 'risky service,' when there is one. As for the gibbet; well, one death is the same as another, pretty much, and the gibbet will do as well as any other, so long as 'tis not at Tyburn-which would be discreditable."

"You are a man of metal!" the Dutchman exclaimed, "and I like you, although you don't approve of my accent. You will do. I want a man of action, not a courtier-"

"I meant no rudeness," I interposed.

"Nor offered any. Tush! man, we Dutch are not courtiers, either. But we are staunch. And I will give you a chance of being so. Come here again to-morrow night. You shall have a throw for that colonelcy-or that gibbet."

"My Lord, I am most grateful to you."

"Good day. Come to-morrow night. Now I must sleep." And he began to divest himself of his wig and clothes, upon which I bowed and withdrew.

Be sure I was there the next night at the same time, exchanging my guard with Bertram Saxby, who, alas! was killed shortly afterward at Ruremonde. The day I had passed in sleeping much, for I had a suspicion that it was like enough Ginkell would send me on the service he had spoken of that very night; might, indeed, order me to take horse within the next hour, and I was desirous of starting fresh-of beginning well. He was a rough creature, this Dutch general-or English, rather, now! – and would be as apt as not to give me my instructions as I entered the room, and bid me be miles away ere midnight struck. Therefore I went prepared. Also my horse was ready in its stall.

He was not alone when I did enter his quarters. Instead, he was seated at a table covered with papers and charts, on the other side of which there sat another gentleman, a man of about fifty, of strikingly handsome features; a man who, in his day, I guessed, must have played havoc with women's hearts-might, indeed, I should think, have done so now had he been inclined that way. Those soft, rounded features, and those eyes, themselves soft and liquid-I saw them clearly when he lifted them to scan my face! – would, I guessed, make him irresistible to the fair sex.

He spoke first after I had saluted the Earl of Athlone-and I observed that, intuitively, he also returned my salute by a bend of his head, so that I felt sure he was used to receive such courtesies wherever he might be and in whatever company-then he said to the Dutchman, in a voice that, though somewhat high, was as musical as a chime of bells.

"This is the gentleman, Ginkell?"

"This is the gentleman. A lieutenant of the Fourth Horse."

"Sir," said the other, "be seated," and he pointed with a beautifully white hand to a chair by the table. "I desire some little conversation with you. I am the Earl of Marlborough." And as he mentioned his name he put out that white hand again and offered it to me, I taking it with all imaginable respect. He was at this time the most conspicuous subject of any sovereign in the world; his name was known from one end of Europe to the other. Also it was the most feared, although he had not yet put the crowning point to his glory nor risen to the highest rank for which he was destined. But he was very near his zenith now-his greatness almost at its height-and, I have often thought since, there was something within him at this time which told him it was close at hand. For he had an imperturbable calmness, an unfailing quiet graciousness, as I witnessed afterward on many occasions, which alone could be possessed by one who felt sure of himself. In every word he spoke, in his every action, he proclaimed that he was certain of, and master of, his destiny!

"My Lord Athlone tells me," he continued, when I was seated, the soft voice flowing musically, "that you have the fitting aspirations of a soldier-desire a regiment, and are willing to earn one."

I bowed and muttered that to succeed in my career was my one desire, and that if I could win success I would spare no effort. Then he went on:

"You speak French. That is good. Also Spanish. That, too, is good. Likewise, I hear, can disguise your identity as an Englishman if necessary. That is well, also. Mr. – " and he took up a piece of paper lying before him, on which I supposed my name was written, "Mr. Crespin, I-we-are going to employ you on secret service. Are you willing to undertake it?"