The Belted Seas | Page 6

smiling.
"What are you going to do with that?" I says, surprised at the sight of it,
and he kept on smiling.
"I guess you and I will take the shiners ashore," he says; "I'd give you a
writing, but it would do you no good, Tommy. I'm what they called
tainted."
"I don't know what you mean by that," I says. "Scuttled she is, if you
say so. Shall we row for Tobago?"
"Well, I'll tell you how it is, Tommy," he says. "I don't know what the
Dagos will do, and they're pretty likely to get us anyhow, but we'll give
'em a hunt. But I've got a fancy you ain't got to the end of your rope yet,
lad," and he says no more for a minute or two, and then he heaves a
sigh and says: "The shiners are yours if they cut me off. I won't give
you no more advice, Tommy, but I wish you luck."
But I don't see why he had such a notion that he was near his own end.
It was a hard thing to do, to blow a hole in the bottom of the good ship.
The night was dark now, but the lights of the cruiser in plain sight, and
we knew she'd stand off until morning, or as long as the Hebe
Maitland's lanterns burned at the masts. The crew put off in three boats
to round the island and wait for us, and Clyde and I took the fourth boat,
and stowed the canvas bags, and went ashore, running up a little reedy
inlet to the end. We buried them in the exact middle of a small triangle
of three trees. Then we rowed out, and I threw the spade in the water,
and when we rounded the island, taking a last look at the Hebe
Maitland, she was dipping considerable, as could be seen from the
hang of her lanterns. Clyde changed to another boat and put Sadler,
Craney, Irish, Abe Dalrimple, and Stevey Todd, into mine.

I noticed it as curious about us, that so long as the old man was at hand,
telling us what to do, we all acted chipper and cheerful, but as soon as
we'd drifted apart, we grew quieter, and Stevey Todd began to act
scared and lost, and was for seeing Spanish cruisers drop out of the air,
and for calling the old man continually. Somehow we dropped apart in
the dark.
I've sometimes fancied that Clyde put me in that boat with those men
because it was the lightest boat, and because Sadler, Craney, and Little
Irish were powerful good rowers, and Abe he had this that was odd
about him for a steersman, for though he was always a bit wandering in
his mind, yet he could tell land by the smell. Put him within twenty
miles of land at sea, no matter how small an island, and he'd smell the
direction of it, and steer for it like a bullet, and that's a thing he don't
understand any more than I. I never made out why Clyde took to me
that way, as he surely did, and left me his shiners as sure as he could,
and gave me what chance he could for getting away, or so I fancied.
Just so surely I never saw him again, when once we'd drifted apart that
night among the Windwards.
A New Orleans paper of the week after held an item more or less like
this:
"An incoming steamer from Trinidad, reports the overhauling of a
smuggler, The Hawk, by the Spanish cruiser, Reina Isabella. The
smugglers scuttled the ship and endeavoured to escape, but were
captured, and are thought to have been all hanged. This summary action
would seem entirely unjustifiable, as smuggling is not a capital offence
under any civilised law. The disturbed state of affairs under our
Spanish-American neighbours may account for it. The Hawk is stated
to be an old offender. No American vessel of this name and description
being known however, it is not likely that there will be any
investigation."
The New York Shipping News of three months later had this:
"The bark, Hebe Maitland, Mdse., Clyde, Cap., which left this port the
9th of April, has not yet been heard from."

So the Reina Isabella thought she got all the crew of the Hebe Maitland,
likely she thinks so yet, for I don't know of anybody that ever dropped
around to correct her; but being as we rowed all night to westward and
were picked up next morning by an English steamer bound for Colon
on the Isthmus of Panama, and were properly landed in course of time,
I argue there were some of them she didn't get. Their names, as
standing