"All doing well, sir."
"And Lennox, how is he?"
The doctor laughed.
"Oh, all right with him now, sir; but the poor fellow is awfully ashamed at the exhibition his messmates have told him he made yesterday. He is much better, however; and I hope will be out of his hammock this forenoon, if the weather keeps fine."
I had a sort of anxiety to know, from my own observation, how the poor fellows were getting on; so I followed our friend, and descended with him in his visit to the sick and hurt.
Almost the first man I spoke to was Lennox.
"Glad to find you so much better, my man; I hope you feel yourself stronger this morning?"
A faint blush spread over the poor fellow's thin wasted features, and he hesitated in his answer. At length he stammered out—"Thank you, sir; I am much better, sir."
"Who is that blocking up the hatchway?"' said the doctor, as some dark body nearly filled the entire aperture.
Presently the half-naked figure of Serjeant Quacco descended the ladder. He paid no attention to me, or any body else; but spoke to some one on deck in the Eboe tongue, when his wife appeared at the coamings of the hatchway, hugging and fondling the identical and most abominable little graven image we had seen in the fetish hut, as if it had been her child—her own flesh and blood. She handed it down to the black Serjeant, who placed it in a corner, nuzzling, and rubbing his nose all over it, as if he had been propitiating the tiny Moloch by the abjectness of his abasement. I was curious to see how Lennox would take all this, but it produced no effect: he looked with a quizzical expression of countenance at the figure for some time, and then lay back in his hammock, and seemed to be composing himself to sleep. I went on deck, leaving the negro and his sable helpmate below amongst the men, and was conversing with Mr. Sprawl, who had by this time made his appearance; when we were suddenly startled by a loud shriek from the negress, who shot up from below, plunged instantly overboard, and began to swim with great speed towards the shore. She was instantly followed by our friend the serjeant, who for a second or two looked forth after the sable naiad, in an attitude as if the very next moment he would have followed her. I hailed the dingy Venus—"Come back, my dear—come back." She turned round with a laughing countenance, but never for a moment hesitated in her shoreward progress.
"What sall become of me!" screamed Serjeant Quacco—"Oh, Lord, I sail lose my vife—debil fetch dem sailor buccra—cost me feefty dallar—Lose my vife I—dat de dam little fetish say mosh be save. Oh, poor debil dat I is I"—and here followed a long tirade in some African dialect, that was utterly unintelligible to us.
"My good fellow, don't make such an uproar, will ye?" said I. "Leave your wife to her fate: you cannot better yourself if you would die for it."
"I don't know, massa; I don't know. Him cost me feefty dallar. Beside, as massa must have seen, him beautiful! oh, very beautiful!—and what you tink dem willain asore will do to him? Ah, massa, you can't tell what dem will do to him?"
"Why, my good man, what will they do?"
"Eat him, massa, may be; for dey look on him as one who now is enemy—dat is, dey call me enemy, and dey know him is my vife—Oh, Lord—feefty dallar—all go, de day dem roast my vife."
I could scarcely refrain from laughing; but on the instant the poor fellow ran up to the old quartermaster, who was standing near the mast, admiring the construction of the canoe—as beautiful a skiff, by the way, as was ever scooped out of tree. "Help me, old man; help me to launch de canoe. I must go on sore—I must go on sore."
The seaman looked at me—I nodded; and, taking the hint, he instantly lent Blackie a hand. The canoe was launched overboard, and the next moment Serjeant Quacco was paddling after his adored, that had cost him fifty dollars, in double-quick time.
He seemed, so far as we could judge, to be rapidly overtaking her, when the little promontory of the creek hid them from our view; and under the impression that we had seen the last of him, I began to hug myself in the hope of getting over the bar that forenoon. An hour might have elapsed, and all remained quiet, except at the bar, and even there the thunder and hissing of the breakers began to fail. As the tide made, Lanyard saw all ready to go to sea; but I was soon persuaded, that, from the extreme heaviness of the ground swell that rolled in, there was no chance of our extricating ourselves until the evening at the soonest, or it might be next morning, when the young ebb would give us a lift; so we were walking up and down, to while away the time, when poor Lennox, who had by this time come on deck, said, on my addressing him, that he had seen small jets of white smoke rise up from among the green mangroves now and then; and although he had not heard any report, yet he was persuaded they indicated musket-shots.
"It may all be as you say, Lennox; but I hope we shall soon be clear of this accursed river, and then they may blaze away at each other as much as they please."
The words were scarcely out of my mouth, when we not only saw the smoke, but heard the rattle of musketry, and presently a small black speck shot rapidly beyond the headland or cape, that shut in our view, on the larboard side, up the river.
On its nearer approach, we soon perceived that it was our friend Quacco once more, in his small dory of a canoe, with the little fetish god stuck over the bow; but there was no appearance of his wife.
As he drew closer to the vessel, the man appeared absolutely frantic. He worked and sculled away with his paddle as if he had been mad; and when at last he got on deck, having previously cast the little horrible image up before him, he began to curse and to swear, at one moment in the Eboe tongue, at another in bad Creole English, as if he had been possessed with a devil—
"Hoo chockaro, chockaro, soo ho—Oh, who could tink young woman could hab so mosh deceit!—Ah, Queykarre tol de rot jig tootle too—to leave me Quacco, and go join dem Eboe willain!" Then, as if recollecting himself—"But how I do know dat dem no frighten him for say so? Ah, now I remember one ogly dag stand beside him hab long clear knife in him hand. Oh, Lord! Tooka, Tooka—Cookery Pee Que—Ah, poor ting! dem hab decoy him—cheat him into dem power—and to-morrow morning sun will see dem cook him—ay, and eat him. Oh dear, dem will eat my vife—oh, him cost me feefty dallar—eat my feefty dallar—oh Kickereboo—Rotan!"
And straightway he cast himself on the deck, and began to yell and roll over and over, as if he had been in the greatest agony. Presently he jumped on his legs again, and ran and laid hold of the little graven image. He caught it up by the legs, and smashed its head down on the hard deck. "You dam fetish—you false willain, dis what you give me for kill fowl, eh? and tro de blood in you face, eh? and stick fedder in you tail, eh? and put blanket over you shoulder when rain come, and night fog roll over we and make you chilly? What you give me for all dis? You drive me go on board dam footy little Englis cruiser, and give my vife, cost me feefty dallar, to be roast and eat? Oh, Massa Carpenter, do lend me one hax;" and seizing the tool, that had been brought on deck and lay near him, he, at a blow, split open the fetish's head, and continued to mutilate it, until he was forcibly disarmed by some of the men that stood by him.
After this the poor savage walked doggedly about the deck for a minute or two, as if altogether irresolute what to do; at length he dived suddenly below.
"Breakfast is ready, sir," said the boy who acted the part of steward; and Lanyard, having asked me to accompany him, descended to do the honours to his company—rather a large party, by the way, for the size of the small cabin.
We all made the best use of our time for a quarter of an hour; at length little Binnacle broke ground.
"We have been hearing a curious history of this black fellow, sir."
"What was it? Little good of him you could have heard, I should have thought," quoth Sprawl.
"Why, no great harm either," said young De Walden, who now chimed in, with his low, modest, but beautifully pitched voice—"We have had his story at large, sir, this morning, after the decks were holystoned and washed down."
"Come,