"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.
