it was a wearisome journey by river and forest and swamp to new orleans in the swelter of the july heat, but i pushed on by horse and boat to the mosquito-and-fever-plagued city of the delta. having long since become hardened to the torments of the southern insect pests and to the dangers of ague, dengue, and yellow jack, i endured the first with resignation and braved the last without a qualm.
the sight of the creole city, with our glorious flag afloat above the bold little forts, st. louis and st. charles, filled me with joy and a sense of accomplishment. this marked my point of departure in the crossing of the gulf, which alone, i hoped, now separated me from my lady. though, even with the influx of our native-born americans since the annexation, the city could claim only nine thousand inhabitants, the amount of its trade and shipping was enormous. among the scores and hundreds of sea-going craft which lay moored along the wharfs and the levees or swung at anchor in the stream, i felt certain i should find one to bear me to vera cruz.
of all the merchants of the city, i knew that few if any stood so well with the spanish authorities in the new world or carried on so extensive a trade with the spanish colonies as my acquaintance, mr. daniel clark. accordingly i waited upon him the evening of my arrival, and stated my keen desire to obtain passage to vera cruz.
he took occasion to congratulate me on my share in the expedition, a general account of which had come to him, i suspect through secret sources of communication with the spaniards. he, however, shook his head over my request for advice and assistance, until, in desperation, i confessed that the object of my intended voyage was to meet the lady to whom i was betrothed.
"why did you not tell me that at the first, sir?" he snapped. "i set you down for an agent of that double-dealing scoundrel and traitor james wilkinson."
"mr. clark," i replied, "general wilkinson will, i presume, be subjected to the searching cross-examination of the counsel for colonel burr. personally i have little liking for the general, and have so expressed myself in the past. but for the present i think it only just to him, as to colonel burr, to await the publication of the facts of this deplorable scandal and the verdict of the trial."
"ay, ay! you can take a dispassionate view, doctor. you have not shared in all the heat and tumult of this last year. very well. be as nonpartisan as you wish, just so you do not join in the hounding of honorable men who chanced to show courtesies to that misguided dreamer, burr."
"sir, i have no other thought, no other object in life that i can consider until i have returned this to my lady," i said, showing him the rosary.
he turned to his portfolio, and at once wrote a letter in a neat, clerky hand. having folded and addressed it, he handed it to me unsealed.
"present that to monsieur lafitte. you will find his sloop, the siren, somewhere along the water front. wait. are you in funds?"
"enough for the present, sir. but this monsieur lafitte—he sails for vera cruz?"
"i have written him that you wish to land in that port. he bears papers from me which will enable you to effect a landing and a stay of a few weeks. should you need funds to carry you through with your venture in that city, this letter will enable you to draw upon captain lafitte for a hundred doubloons."
i sought to express my gratitude, but he cut me short, and rang for his mulatto boy to show me out. as it was by now past nine o'clock and a dark, cloudy evening, i returned to my hotel for the night.
but sunrise found me down in the midst of the hurly-burly and confusion of the water front. such a scene was never known elsewhere than here in the port of the father of waters. rowdy rivermen from the ohio and mississippi settlements, and no less rowdy seamen from the four quarters of the globe, lewd women and dock workmen, black and white, swarthy creole merchants and weather-beaten ship's officers,—all jostling and hurrying about wharf and levee in the cool of the early morning.
upon starting to inquire, i discovered that it was not so simple a matter to find the sloop siren as i had imagined. the slaves and creoles were polite in their replies, the sailors and rivermen gruff, but all alike expressed their inability to enlighten me.
at last i accosted at a venture a splendidly built gentleman of about my own age and breadth but a full two inches taller.
"monsieur," i said, noting his black hair and french features, "your pardon, but i am in search of the schooner siren, captain lafitte."
"ah," he replied, eying me with a polite yet penetrating gaze. "may i request you to name your business with captain lafitte?"
"sir," i answered, bowing, "my business with monsieur lafitte is private. if you cannot favor me with the location of the siren—"
"if i cannot favor you with that, i can at least with the location of jean lafitte," he said, bowing in turn. "monsieur, permit me to introduce myself as jean lafitte, at your service."
"monsieur, your servant, dr. john h. robinson, with a letter from monsieur daniel clark," i responded.
his fine hazel eyes glowed. "a friend of monsieur clark!"
i handed him the letter. he bowed with the polished ease of a courtier, and after a polite apology, opened and read the letter. at the end he slipped the letter into his wallet, and smilingly held out to me a shapely, bronzed hand.
"monsieur clark has explained your reason for sailing, doctor," he said, with a manner that won him my regard on the spot. "i shall be more than pleased to do all in my power to aid you. we shall first send for your chests."
i explained my lack of wardrobe.
"sacre!" he exclaimed. "but i sail at once. come! i have it. i lost my third mate in a brush with an english privateer last month. he was a cleanly man of much your build. you shall ship in his berth."
i pointed to the nearest flatboat. "that is the extent of my seamanship, monsieur captain."
he shrugged. "the clothes will fit, if the berth does not. you can save your present costume for your landing."
i bowed assent, and we at once swung along side by side to a wharf where his boat was in waiting for him. with a courtesy which i did not then appreciate, though i noted how it impressed the half-dozen swarthy, red-capped oarsmen, he sprang first into the stern-sheets. the moment i stepped in after him, the men pushed off. they rowed with a skill and regularity of stroke that speedily brought us out around the brig which blocked our view, when we approached the most graceful sloop upon which i had ever set eyes.
not being a seaman, i can only say that the siren's masts and yards seemed to me to be unusually long, and the former strongly inclined to the stern—raked, i believe is the marine term. her hull, which was painted a dull gray, with a narrow stripe of red, was sharp in the bow, broad and overhanging at the stern, and low-set in the water.
when we came aboard, i noticed that the sloop's decks were cleaner and more orderly than those of any other merchant vessel i had seen at close quarters, and that besides a number of carronades, she carried abaft the mainmast a great pivot-gun that could have found few mates afloat elsewhere than aboard a man-of-war. it was a long french twenty-four-pounder, which is really a twenty-six-and-a-half-pounder by english weight. as is well known, many frigates carry no heavier longs than eighteen-pounders.
observing my interested glance, captain lafitte said, with a smile: "as you see, doctor, monsieur clark is disinclined to deliver his sloop and cargo to the spanish privateers without a protest."
"is the siren, then, his vessel?" i asked in surprise.
"for this voyage, at least," he answered; and leaving me to guess what this might mean, he turned and called out a series of nautical orders in a voice like a trumpet.
instantly such a swarm of sailors poured up from the forecastle and hatchways and rushed here and there about the decks that i wondered they did not run one another down. between times the captain beckoned to a grinning imp of a cabin-boy and told him to show me below.
it was three days before i again saw the deck. once the sloop was under way, captain lafitte came down long enough to start me overhauling the chests of the dead third mate. this kept me occupied until the mid-afternoon, aside from the time it took me to eat the savory meal brought to me by the cabin-boy. captain lafitte remained all the time on deck with the pilot who conned us down to the gulf. when at last he did come below, the sloop was pitching in a rough cross-sea and i was most disgracefully nauseated.
the gale freshening to a downright storm, we were, as i was afterwards told, compelled to run before it under a storm jib. at the time i knew only that i was too seasick to care whether the ship floated or foundered.
but on the fourth day the storm abated to a half gale, and the sloop, being brought about and put under more sail, became so much steadier that i made shift to eat a scant meal and crawl on deck. such of the weary-eyed crew as took heed of me grinned at the pale-faced landsman, but they took on another look when at noon i helped the captain to take his observations and work out the result. i had not spent all those months with pike for nothing.
lafitte appeared highly amused at this discomfiture of his tars, and promptly declared in their hearing that i should be rated as third mate. the following day, when i really found my sea-legs, he proposed in all seriousness that i should accept the berth. having candidly declared his bitter hatred of the british, he sought to sting me to a like hatred by relating in full detail the account of the shameful, brutal outrage of the leopard upon the chesapeake, off hampton roads, hardly more than a month past.
despite my anger and humiliation at this unavenged insult to my flag, i felt no longing for a seafaring life other than such as was necessary to win me my lady. lafitte acknowledged that, in my situation, my decision was probably a wise one. but he went on with the statement that he, for one, would live and die in the contest against tyranny on the high seas, and repeated a terrible vow which he had taken against all britons and spaniards. his hatred of the first i could well understand, since he was a frenchman. but his enmity to the latter, now the allies of his country, i could explain only as the result of private injuries. on this point he was as reserved as he was free in expressing his determination to wreak vengeance upon the ships of both nations.
not two days later we were roused at dawn by the muffled cry of "ship, ho!" and slipping up on deck, found the siren within a cable's-length of a british frigate. the surprise was complete, for the british sighted us within a few moments after they were themselves seen. detecting lafitte's attempt to set more sail, they fired a solid shot across our bows. our captain could do no other than obey this grim signal to heave-to, since disobedience would have meant the blowing of the sloop to matchwood by the frigate's broadside of long eighteen-pounders.
according to a prearranged plan, the half-dozen british seamen in our crew and a dozen of the more english-appearing americans at once slipped down into the hold, where they were hidden by their shipmates in a stow-hole prepared for the purpose in the midst of the cargo. meantime, cursing beneath his breath, captain lafitte paced his little quarterdeck, if so it may be called, and stared at the frigate's cutter, which came racing toward us over the dancing waves in the refulgent glow of the low, red sunrays. it was a pretty sight, but one which not a man aboard looked upon with other than a sour face.
very shortly the cutter came alongside, and we were boarded by a pert young cockerel of a midshipman, with a following of six or eight heavy-jawed british tars. meeting captain lafitte's punctilious bow with a curt nod, the young fellow demanded to see his papers, and added with the lordliness of an admiral: "pipe all hands on deck, and let there be no stowaways, for i warn you i shall exercise the rights of search and impressment."
captain lafitte made a formal protest against these so-called rights of search and impressment aboard an american sloop sailing from the neutral port of new orleans to the unblockaded port of vera cruz. without waiting for the insolent reply which this elicited, he sent for the ship's papers and ordered all hands on deck. while the midshipman glanced through the papers and log, all the crew, other than those concealed, assembled in the bows for inspection.
unable to find a flaw in the papers, for lafitte and the siren were alike certified to as belonging to the port of new orleans, our unwelcome visitor ordered the crew to file before him. in all the lot there was not one british subject nor one who looked like a briton, yet the young tyrant picked out, without hesitancy, ten of the likeliest looking men, seven of them lean, lantern-jawed yankees and three french creoles. in answer to the protests of the first that they were new englanders, he snapped out the one word "hull"—to the creoles, "guernsey."
"good god!" i cried to captain lafitte, who stood by, gnawing his mustache in silent fury. "you know these are native-born citizens of the united states. can you submit to such an outrage?"
far better had i held my peace! instantly the middy demanded of the nearest of our men who i was. the fellow, a stupid mulatto, mumbled something about my being the third mate.
"so!" snapped the englishman. "third mate? it is well known that all yankee ships are officered by british deserters. i'll take this loud-mouthed sea-lawyer."
"not alive!" i rejoined. "i'm a free-born citizen of the republic. i'll not submit, you lying young scoundrel!—captain lafitte!—shipmates! show these bullies we can die like men!"
my appeal was in vain. lafitte still stood silent, and the men turned to stare shamefaced at the guns of the frigate. i stepped back to catch up a marlin-spike, but the british crimps were too well trained in their despicable business. they sprang at and about me in a body. i struck out right and left; then a belaying-pin crashed upon my head with stunning force.
when i recovered consciousness, i found myself swinging in a sailor's hammock that was suspended from the beams of a low wooden ceiling. i felt strangely weak and faint, but made shift to turn my head enough to see that i was in a long, wide space between decks. the rows of cannon resting each before its open port roused in me a sort of dull, vague wonderment. a puff of salt sea air through the nearest port tempered the suffocating heat of the place and revived me to a clearer self-consciousness, though all my memory seemed, as it were, wrapped in a gray mist.
the first clear idea was that there was about my neck something precious which must not be lost. i fumbled about with a feeble hand, and drew out the rosary and cross from the open bosom of my shirt. i was gazing at this, still bewildered, when there came to my side a dried-up, kindly faced, bespectacled little gentleman who, at sight of my open eyes, nodded and chirruped almost gayly: "ahoy, jack! pleased to see your wits out of limbo! you've had a narrow squeak of it, my man."
"who are you? where am i?" i murmured.
he took a pinch of snuff, sneezed with hearty enjoyment, and then answered me with genial condescension: "in due order, jack, i reply that i am dr. cuthbert, surgeon to his majesty's frigate belligerent, of whose crew you are a member."
i stared at him, my memory still in that gray mist. seeing my bewilderment, he was thoughtful enough to explain: "you were so foolish as to resist, my man, when midshipman hepburn impressed you. either the blow which stunned you, or the close air of the forecastle, or the seeds of disease in your system, brought on a fever and delirium in which you have lain for the past fortnight."
"fortnight!" i gasped. "but—i remember now—i must get to vera cruz—vera cruz! fortnight! what is the date?"
"august the ninth."
i groaned.
"vera cruz?" he cackled. "why should you wish to go to vera cruz?"
i put my hand to my head, and tried to think—to penetrate that gray mist. "i cannot remember—i cannot remember—only i know i must go—at once—and it has to do with this cross."
"eh! eh!" he cackled. "i thought there was something in that rosary. third mates of merchantmen do not usually go about with romish crucifixes and beads about their necks. your name?"
i opened my lips, but not a syllable came from them. i racked my brains, groping in that terrible mist of oblivion. it was in vain. i could not remember my own name!
"eh! eh!" he murmured, when i told him the dreadful truth. "you are in a pretty pickle. i have known before of such cases, resulting from a crack on the head. the famous john hunter agrees with jean louis petit that it is due to a bloodclot on the brain, which, in favorable cases, dissolves, and the patient becomes fully restored."
i stared, uncomprehending. i had forgotten hunter and petit; i had forgotten all my learning—everything of my past life. i did not even realize that i was a physician.
he went on cheerily: "so you have some little hope for a full return of memory, jack. in the meantime you will soon regain strength enough to leave the sick bay. for your own good, let me advise you to obey orders and do your duty, with no further attempts at vain and foolish resistance to your superiors. whether or not you are a british subject,—which personally i strongly doubt,—you are entered in the crew of the 'belligerent,' and the iron rules of the royal navy deal severely with the slightest infractions of discipline."
