Read Ebook: The Phantom Regiment; or Stories of Ours by Grant James

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Ebook has 1998 lines and 114419 words, and 40 pages

Whether it was the result of the good dinner, the good wine, the sultry atmosphere, or our own thoughts that oppressed us, I know not; but we sat long silent, and gazing at the varied scenery and glittering waters of the bay.

My thoughts were still wandering after Paulina, and I was endeavouring to imagine what she might be about at that precise moment.

"So you have not got the better of your Spanish fancies, eh?" said he, for lack of something better to talk about; "the charming Paulina--that most rotund of elderly females, her mamma, and all that sort of thing?"

"What leads you to think so?" I asked languidly, as I lay stretched at length on the Windsor chairs, watching the smoke which ascended from my lips to the ceiling.

"It is quite plain, dear Don Ricardo."

"You cannot mimic her, so don't attempt it, Jack; but how is it plain, eh?"

"As clear as when the right is in front, the left is the pivot."

"A technical reply."

"Dick Ramble, my boy, you are quite sad about her, and there is no use in attempting to conceal it," continued Slingsby.

"Not sad, exactly," said I, making an effort to look brave; "never was I fool enough to be sad about any woman yet; there are as good fish, &c., and as for the Spanish girl--try another Cuba, the box is beside you."

"Thanks--about this Spanish girl?"

"Fill your glass, and push across the decanter; has not that bottle been a little corked, think you?"

"Perhaps--about this Spanish girl?" continued Jack doggedly.

"Well, what the deuce about her?"

"You were just on the point of remarking some thing."

"Only that her eyes were very fine, were they not?"

"Very, but I prefer blue--

"For heaven's sake, Jack, don't begin that ever-lasting ditty!" said I, pettishly; "yes, Paulina's eyes were beautiful; they seemed, as the Spaniards say, to be in mourning for the murders they committed."

"A stale compliment," was Jack's retort to my interruption of a song with which he had favoured the mess every night since we left Southampton, for a small amount of vocal talent will go a long way to charm a mess-table; "she murdered you, however, with very little compunction; but to think of the doctor's botanising with the mother being mistaken for love-making--was it not glorious, Dick?"

"I have sometimes thought of a month's leave, just between musters," said I, without joining in Jack's boisterous laugh.

"Leave! for what purpose?"

"A ride into Spain--say, as far as Seville; what do you think of it?"

"Well, why the deuce did you not let Halim Pasha and his nag alone? What did their race matter to you?"

"But lend me the telescope--what is that puff--a gun?"

"It is a smuggler running right for the harbour, pursued by a Spanish guarda costa; bang! there goes another gun from the Don."

"And right through the felucca's sail too!"

"Hollo! they will be within gunshot of us ere long," said I, springing up: "and this will be work for us. Sentry, call the gunner of the guard."

"Gunner of the guard!" reiterated the sentinel, who stood, bayonet in hand, under a sunshade, at the guard-house door.

The solitary artilleryman, who was attached to my guard, appeared in an instant with his sword by his side, and a lintstock in his hand.

"Get ready a gun," said I; "for there is a Spanish guarda costa in pursuit of a smuggler, and we must protect our friend."

"An 18-pounder, or a 24, sir?"

"Oh, give him a twenty-four, and take a file of the guard to assist you."

While the smuggler, with her long sweeps out, and every stitch of canvas crowded on her long and tapering masts and whip-like yards, was straining every nerve to escape from the Spanish cruiser, which plied away with her bow guns, and bore after her close-hauled, and rushing through the shining waves till they seemed to smoke under her, it may be necessary to inform the reader that the manufacture and smuggling of tobacco and cigars at Gibraltar is a never-failing and never-ending source of angry discussion between the Governments of Spain and Britain; for, by the former, tobacco has long been reckoned a royal monopoly. Now, in Gibraltar, almost every second house is a cigar-shop, and more than two thousand men are daily employed in the manufacture of these articles of luxury, without which a Spaniard would be, as some one says. like a steamer without a funnel. Three-fourths of the British exports from Gibraltar to the three United Kingdoms are also smuggled, and to such an extent is the contraband trade carried, that the annual importation of tobacco into that fortified town, says Mr Porter, in his "Progress of the Nation," "amounts to from six millions to eight millions of pounds, nearly the whole of which is purchased by smugglers."

The boats of the contrabandistas are generally rigged as feluccas, and painted black; they are built sharp as a pike-head, and carry a heavy brass gun, which, in harbour, is usually concealed under a pile of old boxes and casks, with a tarpaulin thrown over it, while in cases of emergency, various pistols, pikes, and cutlasses, make their appearance in the hands of the brown-visaged, black-bearded, red-sashed, and rather pictorial-looking ruffians, whose chief occupation is to sleep and lounge about their decks by day.

To look out for these lads of the knife and pistol, the Government of Her Most Catholic Majesty maintains a number of fast-sailing revenue craft, called guarda costas, commanded by brave and vigilant officers. These are the abhorrence of the contrabandistas, whose operations are greatly facilitated on land by the concurrence of the corrupt Spanish officials; and those guarda costas, in their zeal, had, of late, been rash enough to pursue their prey into those waters which are under the jurisdiction of the Governor and Commander-in-Chief of Gibraltar; and in three instances had boarded them with pistol and cutlass, shot the crews, or driven them overboard, and thereafter cut the feluccas out from under the very guns of Her Britannic Majesty's fortress.

This, however, was not to be tolerated again, and strict orders had been issued that every guarda costa who ventured into troubled waters should be fired on. John Bull is consistently absurd and unjust in all things, and, with all his boasted justice, is the most veritable bully in the world--except, perhaps, his thriving son Jonathan; he would no doubt cut his own smugglers out of any port in the world, and in the same moment would deny the poor Spaniards the right to do the same; for John is a man full of honour and liberality, or a man of neither, just as may suit his own particular purpose for the time; but to return,--

On came the felucca in question, running straight for the anchorage, which was protected by the heavy guns of the New Mole Fort where we were on guard. and the parapet of which was lined by the soldiers, all eager to witness the result of that most exciting of all things, a chase--a struggle between a strong party and a weak one. On came the guarda costa in pursuit, plying her bow-chaser, cleaving asunder the clouds of white smoke which ever and anon it rolled ahead of her, and riding over the waves, then shining in all the rosy brilliance of a Spanish sunset, while astern waved the large ensign with the red and yellow horizontal bars of Castile and Leon.

Suddenly the little felucca ran up British colours; a sharp patter rang over the water, and a wreath of smoke rose from her stern as the devil-may-care contrabandistas gave the cruiser a dose of small arms.

Boom again! The don gave another shot from his brass gun, and this time an angry shout arose from our own vessels in the roadstead, for the ball had crossed the forefoot of a Newcastle collier.

"Ramble, this will never do," said Slingsby; "that Spanish craft is too near by half--much nearer than our standing orders permit."

"All ready, sir."

"Then bang at her."

We all watched the shot with breathless interest, for to us, the whole affair was merely a race, a game of hazard, like any other. The sullen roar of the 24-pounder shook the solid parapet of the New Mole Fort, and pealed in repeated echoes round all the shore to the extremity of Rosia Bay; and as the cloud of light smoke curled away from before us, we saw the shot whipping the water far astern of the guarda costa, and a flush of annoyance spread over the honest face of the artilleryman; for, as all our eyes were bent upon his performance, he had been most anxious to excel, and this very anxiety had probably defeated its object.

A muttered exclamation of impatience escaped him.

"Run back the gun," said he to the guard.

Back went the carronade, and home went the sponge, as he set his teeth, and, with hasty determination, proceeded to reload.

"Quick, quick," said I; "for if she hauls her wind, gunner, there will barely be time to give another shot."

"I'll toss you for it, Se?or Capitano," said Slingsby; "bet you a bottle of champagne that I will hit the guarda costa."

"Done," said I; "toss for the first fire."

We tossed, and it fell to Jack.

"Take care that you don't hit the felucca."

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