Perils of Certain English Prisoners | Page 3

that on that first day, if I had been captain of the
Christopher Columbus, instead of private in the Royal Marines, I
should have kicked Christian George King--who was no more a
Christian than he was a King or a George--over the side, without
exactly knowing why, except that it was the right thing to do.
But, I must likewise confess, that I was not in a particularly pleasant
humour, when I stood under arms that morning, aboard the Christopher
Columbus in the harbour of the Island of Silver-Store. I had had a hard
life, and the life of the English on the Island seemed too easy and too
gay to please me. "Here you are," I thought to myself, "good scholars
and good livers; able to read what you like, able to write what you like,
able to eat and drink what you like, and spend what you like, and do
what you like; and much you care for a poor, ignorant Private in the
Royal Marines! Yet it's hard, too, I think, that you should have all the
half- pence, and I all the kicks; you all the smooth, and I all the rough;
you all the oil, and I all the vinegar." It was as envious a thing to think
as might be, let alone its being nonsensical; but, I thought it. I took it so
much amiss, that, when a very beautiful young English lady came
aboard, I grunted to myself, "Ah! you have got a lover, I'll be bound!"
As if there was any new offence to me in that, if she had!
She was sister to the captain of our sloop, who had been in a poor way
for some time, and who was so ill then that he was obliged to be carried
ashore. She was the child of a military officer, and had come out there
with her sister, who was married to one of the owners of the
silver-mine, and who had three children with her. It was easy to see that

she was the light and spirit of the Island. After I had got a good look at
her, I grunted to myself again, in an even worse state of mind than
before, "I'll be damned, if I don't hate him, whoever he is!"
My officer, Lieutenant Linderwood, was as ill as the captain of the
sloop, and was carried ashore, too. They were both young men of about
my age, who had been delicate in the West India climate. I even took
that in bad part. I thought I was much fitter for the work than they were,
and that if all of us had our deserts, I should be both of them rolled into
one. (It may be imagined what sort of an officer of marines I should
have made, without the power of reading a written order. And as to any
knowledge how to command the sloop--Lord! I should have sunk her in
a quarter of an hour!)
However, such were my reflections; and when we men were ashore and
dismissed, I strolled about the place along with Charker, making my
observations in a similar spirit.
It was a pretty place: in all its arrangements partly South American and
partly English, and very agreeable to look at on that account, being like
a bit of home that had got chipped off and had floated away to that spot,
accommodating itself to circumstances as it drifted along. The huts of
the Sambos, to the number of five-and-twenty, perhaps, were down by
the beach to the left of the anchorage. On the right was a sort of barrack,
with a South American Flag and the Union Jack, flying from the same
staff, where the little English colony could all come together, if they
saw occasion. It was a walled square of building, with a sort of
pleasure-ground inside, and inside that again a sunken block like a
powder magazine, with a little square trench round it, and steps down
to the door. Charker and I were looking in at the gate, which was not
guarded; and I had said to Charker, in reference to the bit like a powder
magazine, "That's where they keep the silver you see;" and Charker had
said to me, after thinking it over, "And silver ain't gold. Is it, Gill?"
when the beautiful young English lady I had been so bilious about,
looked out of a door, or a window--at all events looked out, from under
a bright awning. She no sooner saw us two in uniform, than she came
out so quickly that she was still putting on her broad Mexican hat of
plaited straw when we saluted.
"Would you like to come in," she said, "and see the place? It is rather a