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Page 4
"It's rising out of the water, steady," a voice said close to me. I
had been thinking on so, that it like woke me with a start, though
it was no stranger voice than the voice of Harry Charker, my own
comrade.
"What's rising out of the water, steady?" I asked my comrade.
"What?" says he. "The Island."
"O! The Island!" says I, turning my eyes towards it. "True. I
forgot the Island."
"Forgot the port you're going to? That's odd, ain't it?"
"It is odd," says I.
"And odd," he said, slowly considering with himself, "ain't even.
Is it, Gill?"
He had always a remark just like that to make, and seldom another.
As soon as he had brought a thing round to what it was not, he was
satisfied. He was one of the best of men, and, in a certain sort of
a way, one with the least to say for himself. I qualify it,
because, besides being able to read and write like a Quarter-master,
he had always one most excellent idea in his mind. That was, Duty.
Upon my soul, I don't believe, though I admire learning beyond
everything, that he could have got a better idea out of all the
books in the world, if he had learnt them every word, and been the
cleverest of scholars.
My comrade and I had been quartered in Jamaica, and from there we
had been drafted off to the British settlement of Belize, lying away
West and North of the Mosquito coast. At Belize there had been
great alarm of one cruel gang of pirates (there were always more
pirates than enough in those Caribbean Seas), and as they got the
better of our English cruisers by running into out-of-the-way creeks
and shallows, and taking the land when they were hotly pressed, the
governor of Belize had received orders from home to keep a sharp
look-out for them along shore. Now, there was an armed sloop came
once a-year from Port Royal, Jamaica, to the Island, laden with all
manner of necessaries, to eat, and to drink, and to wear, and to use
in various ways; and it was aboard of that sloop which had touched
at Belize, that I was a-standing, leaning over the bulwarks.
The Island was occupied by a very small English colony. It had been
given the name of Silver-Store. The reason of its being so called,
was, that the English colony owned and worked a silver-mine over on
the mainland, in Honduras, and used this Island as a safe and
convenient place to store their silver in, until it was annually
fetched away by the sloop. It was brought down from the mine to the
coast on the backs of mules, attended by friendly Indians and
guarded by white men; from thence it was conveyed over to Silver-
Store, when the weather was fair, in the canoes of that country;
from Silver-Store, it was carried to Jamaica by the armed sloop once
a-year, as I have already mentioned; from Jamaica, it went, of
course, all over the world.
How I came to be aboard the armed sloop, is easily told. Four-and-
twenty marines under command of a lieutenant--that officer's name
was Linderwood--had been told off at Belize, to proceed to Silver-
Store, in aid of boats and seamen stationed there for the chase of
the Pirates. The Island was considered a good post of observation
against the pirates, both by land and sea; neither the pirate ship
nor yet her boats had been seen by any of us, but they had been so
much heard of, that the reinforcement was sent. Of that party, I
was one. It included a corporal and a sergeant. Charker was
corporal, and the sergeant's name was Drooce. He was the most
tyrannical non-commissioned officer in His Majesty's service.
The night came on, soon after I had had the foregoing words with
Charker. All the wonderful bright colours went out of the sea and
sky in a few minutes, and all the stars in the Heavens seemed to
shine out together, and to look down at themselves in the sea, over
one another's shoulders, millions deep. Next morning, we cast
anchor off the Island. There was a snug harbour within a little
reef; there was a sandy beach; there were cocoa-nut trees with high
straight stems, quite bare, and foliage at the top like plumes of
magnificent green feathers; there were all the objects that are
usually seen in those parts, and I am not going to describe them,
having something else to tell about.
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