Part 36 (1/2)
The sailor looked at him from head to foot. ”Have you an appointment with him?”
”I have not, but he will see me, nevertheless, when he knows that I am here.”
On looking round while the man hesitated, Stephen saw the admiral speaking to an officer in captain's uniform. The petty officer, after some hesitation, went up to the officer on watch, who at once came over to Stephen.
”You want to speak to the admiral?”
”I do, lieutenant. I see him yonder, and if you will be good enough to inform him that Lieutenant Embleton is here and ready to report himself for duty, you will find that he will not mind being disturbed.”
The officer looked at him doubtfully. ”You have neither the appearance of an Englishman nor of a lieutenant,” he said.
”That may be, sir, but it does not alter the fact.”
At this moment the captain left the admiral's side and walked forward.
”What is it, Lieutenant Romoro?” he asked as he pa.s.sed them.
”This gentleman,” and he hesitated over the word, ”says that he is Lieutenant Embleton, and desires to speak to the admiral.”
”Lieutenant Embleton!” the captain repeated in English; ”not the admiral's flag-lieutenant in Chili, surely? If so, Lord Cochrane will be delighted to see you; he has spoken of you to me several times. He believed you to be dead, and but yesterday he was saying how he missed your services.”
”I am the man, sir,” Stephen replied. ”I have been eighteen months in crossing the continent, and to get here from Para had to make the voyage to the Cape de Verde and back again.”
”I congratulate you on your escape,” the captain said, shaking his hand warmly. ”My name is Crosbie, I am Lord Cochrane's flag-captain, I will take you to him at once.”
The admiral had left the deck and retired to his cabin. Captain Crosbie took Stephen there, and at once knocked at the door and entered.
”Excuse my troubling you now, admiral,” he said, ”but my object will, I am sure, excuse my intrusion. I have a gentleman here that you will, I know, be glad to meet.”
Lord Cochrane looked earnestly at Stephen; he had not seen him since he had sent him down to Valparaiso after the capture of the _Esmeralda_. The two years that had elapsed had greatly changed his appearance, and he had grown from a tall lad of eighteen into a powerful young man. A flash of recognition came into his face, he made a step forward and exclaimed: ”Good heavens, can it be-”
”Stephen Embleton, sir. I have come on board to report for duty.”
”My dear boy, my dear boy,” Lord Cochrane said, holding out both hands and wringing those of Stephen, ”I am glad to see you indeed. I thank G.o.d that I see you alive and well again, which I never dreamt that I should do, for I thought that you had died or had been tortured to death in the dungeons of that accursed Inquisition at Callao. But where have you sprung from, where have you been all this time, by what miracle are you here?”
[Ill.u.s.tration: ”MY DEAR BOY”, EXCLAIMED LORD COCHRANE, ”THANK G.o.d INDEED THAT I SEE YOU ALIVE.”]
”I escaped the night before I was to be handed over to the Inquisition,”
Stephen replied, ”then finding it impossible to make my way down to Chili I crossed the Andes and have come down the Amazon. I had an unfortunate adventure which detained me for eight months; at least, I thought it unfortunate at the time, but I cannot think it so now, as I have just arrived in time to join your lords.h.i.+p here.”
”And now, admiral, if you will excuse me I will be off to my duties,”
Captain Crosbie put in. ”I could not deny myself the pleasure of bringing in Mr. Embleton, but his story will a.s.suredly be a long one, and, as you know, my hands are pretty full.”
”Well now, lad,” the admiral said when they were alone, ”sit down and tell me all about it. Here I am with my old worry again, but worse. I thought the Chilians were as bad as could be in matters of business, but these fellows are infinitely worse. I have had no end of trouble with them, and have been obliged to threaten, three or four times already, to resign. As it is, I have only been able to get four s.h.i.+ps out of a dozen ready, and even these, with the exception of this s.h.i.+p, are in a shameful state, and deficient in every necessary. What is worse, I cannot even rely upon the crews, which I always could do in the Chilian service. Well, before you begin your story I must tell you that I did not forget you, but tried every means in my power to effect your release. When I got a letter from my wife mentioning that you had sailed in that store-s.h.i.+p that had been so long missing, I set about making inquiries, and sent a boat ash.o.r.e with a white flag to inquire if any such s.h.i.+p had been wrecked on the coast, for there had been a heavy gale at the time that she was making her pa.s.sage. I was informed that she and all hands had been lost.
”From some deserters, however, I learned that this was a lie; a few sailors had got ash.o.r.e and had been killed. I then sent a frigate down to the place where the wreck had been and sent a letter ash.o.r.e to the governor. He replied that an English officer had been captured, and had been sent to Callao and handed over to the authorities there. When the frigate returned with the news I sent a furious letter ash.o.r.e to the governor. He replied that he was not before aware that the officer in question had belonged to the s.h.i.+p that was wrecked, and that the person I spoke of had escaped from prison and had not been recaptured. A few days after this a fresh governor was appointed at Callao. I wrote to him, and he gave me substantially the same reply that the other had done. However, I opened negotiations with a merchant there and got him to make inquiries.
He sent word that he had talked to some of the prison officials, and that they told the same story as the governor had done; they said that you had, in some extraordinary way, overpowered two prison officials and had made your escape. Of course I did not believe this, and supposed that instructions had been given to all the people connected with the prison to tell the same story. So I sent again to the merchant, and told him to use whatever means were necessary to get at the truth, as bribery will do anything on that coast. He found that the new governor on taking the command had found a book with a record as to the disposition of the prisoners on leaving. Some were marked merely discharged, others as returned to their regiments, many as having died in prison. There were also a large number of official doc.u.ments relating to these matters, and among them the governor found an order for you to be handed over to the Inquisition on the day following that on which you were said to have escaped. As soon as I heard this, it seemed to me that there was no doubt about your fate. You had been handed over, and this c.o.c.k-and-bull story was only intended to throw dust in my eyes if I captured Callao. I therefore sent a demand to the Peruvian authorities for your release and surrender, saying what I had learned; and in reply they declared that I had been misinformed, for that you had escaped, and that the authorities of the Inquisition denied positively that you had ever been handed over to them.
”I wrote a strong letter in reply, saying that no one ever believed the word of an inquisitor, and that if it should ever be my good fortune to capture Callao I would burn their buildings to the ground, and hang every official, priest, and layman belonging to it. There the matter dropped. Of course I did not get the chance of carrying my threat into execution, but if I had done so I should have certainly carried it out; and even if I had found afterwards that I had been mistaken about you I should not have regretted it, for they have deserved the fate a hundred times over. Well, tell me about your escape; the story afterwards must keep. You know the state the Chilian navy was in when I took the command; well, this is much worse, and the factions here are even more bitter and unscrupulous than they were in Chili, impossible as that may seem to you.”
”The affair was a very easy one, sir, for it was by bribery rather than force that I got away.” And he then related the manner in which he had been befriended by Don Filippo Conchas and his cousin.