“Not a word, Shoodith! not a word!”
“Then no one need be a word the wiser. As to Captain Jowler – ”
“Showler daren’t show hish face in the Bay: that’sh why he landed hish cargo on the coast. Besides, there wash an understanding between him and me. He doeshn’t care what ish done with the prinshe – not he. Anyhow, he’ll be gone away in twenty-four hours.”
“Then in twenty-four hours the Mandingoes may be yours – prince, attendants, and all. But time is precious, papa. We had better hasten home at once, and strip his royal highness of those fine feathers before some of our curious neighbours come in and see them. People will talk scandal, you know. As for our worthy overseer – ”
“Ah, Ravener! he knowsh all about it. I wash obliged to tell him ash we landed.”
“Of course you were; and it will cost you a Mandingo or two to keep his tongue tied: that it will. For the rest, there need be no difficulty. It won’t matter what these savages may say for themselves. Fortunately, there’s no scandal in a black man’s tongue.”
“Wonderful Shoodith!” again exclaimed the admiring parent. “My precious daughter, you are worth your weight in golden guinish! Twenty-four shlaves for nothing, and one of them a born prinshe! Two thousand currenshy! Blesh my soul! It ish a shplendid profit – worth a whole year’s buyin’ and shellin’.” And with this honest reflection, the slave-merchant hammered his mule into a trot, and followed his “precious Shoodith” – who had already given the whip to her horse, and was riding rapidly homeward.
Volume One – Chapter Ten
The Sea Nymph
On the third day after the slaver had cast anchor in the Bay of Montego, a large square-rigged vessel made her appearance in the offing; and, heading shoreward, with all sail set, stood boldly in for the harbour. The Union Jack of England, spread to the breeze, floated freely above her taffrail; and various boxes, bales, trunks, and portmanteaus, that could be seen on her deck – brought up for debarkation – as well as the frank, manly countenances of the sailors who composed her crew, proclaimed the ship to be an honest trader. The lettering upon her stern told that she was the “Sea Nymph, of Liverpool.”
Though freighted with a cargo of merchandise, and in reality a merchantman, the presence on board of several individuals in the costume of landsmen, denoted that the Sea Nymph also accommodated passengers.
The majority of these were West India planters, with their families, returning from a visit to the mother country – their sons, perhaps, after graduating at an English university, and their daughters on having received their final polish at some fashionable metropolitan seminary.
Here and there an “attorney” – a constituent element of West Indian society, though not necessarily, as the title suggests, a real limb of the law. Of the latter there might have been one or two, with a like number of unpractised disciples of Aesculapius; both lawyer and doctor bent on seeking fortune – and with fair prospects of finding it in a land notorious for crime as unwholesome in clime. These, with a sprinkling of nondescripts, made up the list of the Sea Nymph’s cabin-passengers.
Among these nondescripts was one of peculiarities sufficiently distinctive to attract attention. A single glance at this personage satisfied you that you looked upon a London Cockney, at the same time a West-End exquisite of the very purest water. He was a young man who had just passed the twenty-first anniversary of his birth; although the indulgence of youthful dissipation had already brushed the freshness from his features, giving them the stamp of greater age. In complexion he was fair – pre-eminently so – with hair of a light yellowish hue, that presented the appearance of having been artificially curled, and slightly darkened by the application of some perfumed oil. The whiskers and moustache were nearly of the same colour; both evidently cultivated with an elaborate assiduity, that proclaimed excessive conceit in them on the part of their owner.
The eyebrows were also of the lightest shade; but the hue of the eyes was not so easily told: since one of them was kept habitually closed; while a glancing lens, in a frame of tortoise-shell, hindered a fair view of the other. Through the glass, however, it appeared of a greenish grey, and decidedly “piggish.”
The features of this individual were regular enough, though without any striking character; and of a cast rather effeminate than vulgar. Their prevailing expression was that of a certain superciliousness, at times extending to an affectation of sardonism.
The dress of the young man was in correspondence with the foppery exhibited in the perfumed locks and eye-glass. It consisted of a surtout of broadcloth, of a very light drab, with a cape that scarce covered the shoulders; a white beaver hat; vest and pants of spotless huff kerseymere; kid gloves on his hands; and boots, blight as lacquer could make them, on his feet. These items of apparel, made in a style of fashion and worn with an air of savoir faire, loudly proclaimed the London fop of the time.
The affected drawl in which the gentleman spoke, whenever he condescended to hold communion with his fellow-passengers, confirmed this character.
Notwithstanding a certain ill-disguised contempt with which he was regarded by some of his fellow-voyagers, not a few treated him with marked deference; and the obeisance paid him by the steward and cabin boys of the Sea Nymph gave evidence of his capability to bestow a liberal largess. And such capability did he possess: for Mr Montagu Smythje, the individual in question, was a youth of good family and fortune – the latter consisting of a magnificent sugar estate in Jamaica, left him by a deceased relative, to visit which was the object of his voyage.
The estate he had never seen, as this was his first trip across the Atlantic; but he had no reason to doubt the existence of the property. The handsome income which it had afforded him, during several years of his minority, and which had enabled him to live in magnificent style in the most fashionable circles of London society, was a substantial proof that Montagu Castle – such was the name of the estate – was something more than a castle in the air. During his minority, the estate had been managed by a trustee resident in the island: one Mr Vaughan, himself a sugar-planter, whose plantation adjoined that of Montagu Castle.
Mr Smythje had not come over the water with any intention of settling upon his Jamaica estate. “Such an ideaw,” to use his own phraseology, “nevwaw entawed ma bwain. To exchange London and its pwesyaws for a wesidence among those haw-ed niggaws – deaw, no – I could nevwaw think of such a voluntawy banishment; that would be a baw – a decided baw!” “A meaw twip to see something of the twopics, of which I’ve heard such extwaor’nary stowies – have a look at my sugaw plantation and the dem’d niggaws – besides, I have a stwong desire to take a squint at these Queeole queetyaws, who are said to be so doocèd pwetty. Haw! haw!”
After such fashion did Mr Montagu Smythje explain the purpose of his voyage to such of his fellow-passengers as chanced to take an interest in it.
There were but few travellers in the steerage of the Sea Nymph. They who are compelled to adopt that irksome mode of voyaging across the Atlantic have but little errand to the West Indies, or elsewhere to tropical lands – where labour is monopolised by the thews and sinews of the slave. Only three or four of this class had found accommodation on board the Sea Nymph; and yet among these humble voyagers was one destined to play a conspicuous part in our story.
The individual in question was a young man, in appearance of the same age as Mr Montagu Smythje, though differing from the latter in almost everything else. In stature he was what is termed “middle height,” with limbs well set and rounded, denoting activity and strength. His complexion, though not what is termed brunette, was dark for a native of Britain, though such was he.
His features were nobly defined; and his whole countenance sufficiently striking to attract the attention of even an indifferent observer. Dark-brown eyes, and hair of like colour, curling jauntily over his cheeks, were characteristic points of gracefulness; and, take him all in all, he was what