"_Josefa_ ahoy! What"s the matter on board? Why are you going to sea without a full cargo? Have matters gone wrong at the head of the creek?"
"No, no," replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia"s a.s.sistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel"s roof--"no, everything is all right; our cargo--"
Unfortunately he was here interrupted by another volley from the cabin, and at the same time a voice yelled from the schooner"s stern windows:
"We are captured; a prize to the accursed Ingleses."
The words were hardly out of the speaker"s mouth when three or four muskets were popped at us from the brig, fortunately without effect. We were, however, by that time past her, and her crew, who seemed thoroughly mystified at the whole affair, made no further effort to molest us. Of one thing, however, we were amply a.s.sured, she was not the _Vestale_. The craft we had just pa.s.sed--whilst the _double_ of the French gun-brig in every other respect--was painted black down to her copper, and she carried under the heel of her bowsprit a life-size figure of a negress with a scarf striped in various colours round her waist. _A negress_? Ah! there could not be a doubt of it. "Mr Smellie," said I, "do you know that craft?"
"N-n-no, I can"t say I do, Hawkesley, under her present disguise."
"Disguise, my dear sir; she is not disguised at all. That is the pirate-brig which destroyed poor Richards" vessel--the _Juliet_. And-- yes--there can scarcely be a doubt about it--she must be the notorious _Black Venus_ of which the Yankee skipper told us."
Smellie looked at me in great surprise and perplexity for a moment.
"Upon my word, Hawkesley, I verily believe you are right!" he exclaimed at last. "The _Black Venus_--a negress for a figure-head--ha! are you hurt?"
"Not much, I think," stammered I, as I braced myself resolutely against the wheel, determined that I would _not_ give in. The fact was, that whilst we were talking another shot had been fired through the companion doors, and had struck me fairly in the right shoulder, inflicting such severe pain that for the moment I felt quite incapable of using my right arm. Fortunately the schooner now steered pretty easily, and I could manage the wheel with one hand.
"We must stop this somehow," said Smellie, again jumping on the rail and taking a long look ahead.
"Do you see that very tall tree shooting up above the rest, almost directly ahead?" he continued, pointing out the object as he turned to me.
I replied that I did.
"Well, steer straight for it then, and I will fetch aft some hatch- covers--there are several forward--and place them against the doors; I think I can perhaps contrive to rig up a bullet-proof screen for you."
"But you are hurt yourself, sir," I protested.
"A mere graze after all, I believe," he replied lightly, and forthwith set about the work of dragging aft the hatch-covers, six of which he soon piled in front of the companion.
"There," he said, as he placed the last one in position, "I think you are reasonably safe now; it was a pity we did not think of that before.
Shall I bind up your shoulder for you? You are bleeding, I see."
"No, thank you," I replied; "it is only a trifling scratch, I think, not worth troubling about now. I would much rather you would go forward and look out; it would never do to plump the schooner ash.o.r.e now that we have come so far. Besides, there are the men down forward; they ought to be watched, or perhaps they may succeed in breaking out after all."
Smellie looked at me rather doubtfully for almost a full minute. "I believe you are suffering a great deal of pain, Hawkesley," he said; "but you are a thoroughly plucky fellow; and if you can only keep up until we get clear of this confounded creek I will then relieve you.
And I will take care, too, to let Captain Vernon know how admirably you have conducted yourself, not only to-night, but from the moment that we left the _Daphne_ together. Now I am going forward to see that all is right there. If you want help give me a timely hail."
And he turned and walked forward.
The navigation of the creek still continued to be exceedingly intricate and difficult; the creek itself being winding, and the deep-water channel very much more winding still, running now on one side of the creek, now on the other, besides being studded here and there with shoals, sand-banks, and tiny islets. This, whilst it made the navigation very difficult for strangers, added greatly to the value of the creek as a safe and snug resort for slavers; the mult.i.tudinous twists in the channel serving to mask it most artfully, and giving it an appearance of terminating at a point beyond which in reality a long stretch of deep water extended.
At length we luffed sharply round a low sandy spit thickly covered with mangroves, kept broad away again directly afterwards, and abruptly found ourselves in the main stream of the Congo. Here the true channel was easily discernible by the long regular run of the sea which had been lashed up by the gale; and I had therefore nothing to do but keep the schooner where the sea ran most regularly, and I should be certain to be right. Smellie now gave a little much-needed attention to the party in the forecastle, who had latterly been very noisy and clamourous in their demonstrations of disapproval. Luckily they did not appear to possess any fire-arms: the only fear from them, therefore, was that they would find means to break out; and this the second lieutenant provided against pretty effectually by placing a large wash-deck tub on the cover and coiling down therein the end of one of the mooring hawsers which stood on the deck near the windla.s.s.
Having done this, he came aft to relieve me at the wheel, a relief for which I was by no means sorry.
The party in the cabin had, shortly before this, given up their amus.e.m.e.nt of popping at me through the closed doors of the companion, having doubtless heard Smellie dragging along the hatch-covers and placing them in position, and having also formed a very shrewd guess that further mischief on their part was thus effectually frustrated.
Unfortunately, however, they had made the discovery that my head could be seen over the companion from the fore end of the skylight, and they had thereupon begun to pop at me from this new position. They had grazed me twice when Smellie came aft, and he had scarcely opened his lips to speak to me when another shot came whizzing past us close enough to him to prove that the fellows still had it in their power to undo all our work by a single lucky hit.
"Why, Hawkesley," he exclaimed, "this will never do; we _must_ put a stop to this somehow. We cannot afford to be hard hit, either of us, for another hour and a half at least. What is to be done? How does your shoulder feel? Can you use your right arm?"
"I am afraid I cannot," I replied; "my shoulder is dreadfully painful, and my arm seems to have no strength in it. But I can steer easily with one hand now?"
"How many people do you think there are in the cabin?" was Smellie"s next question.
"I can scarcely say," I replied; "but I have only been able to distinguish _three_ voices so far."
"Three, eh? The skipper and two mates, I suppose." He ruminated a little, stepped forward, and presently returned with a rather formidable-looking iron bar he had evidently noticed some time before; and coolly remarked as he began to drag away the hatch-covers from before the companion:
"I am going down below to give those fellows their _quietus_. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the--what was it those fellows called her?--ah! the _Josefa_--before we get the _Josefa_ under the _Daphne"s_ guns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try to draw their fire and then rush down upon them."
With that he removed his jacket and threw it loosely over the iron bar, which he laid aside for the moment whilst he cleared away the obstructions from before the doors. Then, taking up the coat and holding it well in front of the opening so as to produce in the uncertain light the appearance of a figure standing there, he suddenly flung back the slide and threw open the doors.
The immediate results were a couple of pistol shots and a rush up the companion-ladder, the latter of which Smellie promptly stopped by swinging his somewhat bulky carca.s.s into the opening and letting himself drop plump down upon the individuals who were making it. There was a scuffle at the bottom of the ladder, another pistol shot, two or three dull crushing blows, another brief scuffle, and then Smellie reappeared, with blood flowing freely from his left arm, and a truculent-looking Spaniard in tow. This fellow he dragged on deck, and unceremoniously kicking his feet from under him, lashed him securely with the end of the topgallant brace. This done, he once more dived below, and in due time two more Spaniards, senseless and bleeding, were brought up out of the cabin and secured.
"There," he said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "I think we shall now manage to make the rest of our trip unmolested, and without having constantly before our eyes the fear of being blown clear across the Congo. Let me take the wheel; I am sure you must be sadly in need of a spell. But before you do anything else I will get you to clap a bandage of some sort round my arm here; I am bleeding so profusely that I think the bullet must have severed an artery. Here is my handkerchief, clap it round the arm and haul it as taut as you can; the great thing just now is to stop the bleeding; Doctor Burnett will do all that is necessary for us when we reach the sloop."
I bound up his arm after a fashion, making a good enough job of it to stop the bleeding, and then went forward to keep a look-out. We were foaming down the river at a tremendous pace, the gale being almost dead fair for us, and having the additional impetus of a red-hot tide under foot we swept down past the land as though we had been a steamer. Sooth to say, however, I scarcely felt in cue just then either to admire the _Josefa"s_ paces or to take much note of the wonderful picture presented by the river, with its brown mud-tinted waters lashed into fury by the breath of the tropical tempest and chequered here and there with the shadows of the scurrying clouds, or lighted up by the phosph.o.r.escence which tipped each wave with a crest of scintillating silvery stars. The wound in my shoulder was every moment becoming more excruciatingly painful and more exacting in its demands upon my attention; my interest seemed to centre itself upon the _Daphne_ and her surgeon; and it was with a feeling of ineffable relief that, on jibing round Shark Point, about an hour and a half after clearing the creek, I saw at a distance of about seven miles away an indistinct object off Padron Point which I knew must be the _Daphne_ at anchor.
"Do you see the sloop, sir?" I hailed.
"No," returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering straight into the darkness. "I cannot make her out from here. Do you see her?"
"Yes, sir," I replied joyously; "there she is, broad on our port bow.
Luff, sir, you may."
"Luff," I heard Smellie return; and the schooner"s bows swept round until they pointed fair for the distant object. "Steady, sir!"
"Steady it is," replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim over the jib-sheet without a.s.sistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards, and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had but just emerged from the dockyard.
The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, pa.s.sing to windward of her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our jib-sheet to windward.
As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in the skipper"s cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight- heads, and Armitage"s voice rang out across the water with the hail of:
"Schooner ahoy!"
"Hillo!" responded Smellie.
A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then--
"What schooner is that?"
"The _Josefa_, slave schooner. Is that Mr Armitage?"
"Ay, ay, it is. Who may you be, pray?"
I had by this time gone aft and was standing by Smellie"s side. The schooner was just jibing over and darting along on the _Daphne"s_ starboard side.