My attention had been somewhat distracted from my prisoner by this brief conversation, a fact which had evidently not pa.s.sed unnoticed by him, for before I fully realised what was happening, he had in some inexplicable manner sprung to his feet with a single, lightning-like movement, and his hand was already upon my left wrist, when with a quick twist of the arm I managed to get my pistol-barrel pointed at him as I pressed the trigger. There was a bright flash, lighting up the whole cabin as though by a gleam of lightning, and glancing vividly from the rolling eyeb.a.l.l.s of my antagonist, a sharp explosion, and the Spaniard went reeling backward with a crash upon one of the sofas as the captain entered the cabin at a bound.
"Hillo!" he exclaimed, as he peered at me in the faint light of the lantern, "who are you, and what is the matter here? Why--bless me!--it is Mr Dugdale, isn"t it? And pray who is that man on the sofa?"
In a few brief words I narrated my adventure, to which he listened quietly, holding his wounded hand, bound up in a handkerchief, in the other meanwhile; and when I had finished, he glanced at the prostrate figure on the sofa and said, noticing the ghastly paleness of the upturned face, and the lifelessness of the outstretched limbs--
"Well, he looks as though there was not much mischief left in him now, at all events. But it will not do to take any risks; he is evidently a desperate character, or was before you pinked him, so slip up on deck and get a length of line--a bit off one of the topgallant-braces will do if you can"t find anything better--to make him fast with. And call a couple of hands to come below and carry him on deck; it is scarcely safe to leave such a fellow alone in the cabin, even when securely bound."
I hobbled on deck as well as my burnt foot--which by this time was excruciatingly painful--would permit, and finding a suitable bit of line, and securing the a.s.sistance of two of our lads, the slave-captain, as he eventually proved to be, was speedily bound hand and foot, conveyed on deck, and propped up in a reclining position against the bulwarks, well aft out of the way, in such a position as seemed least likely to encourage the bleeding of his wound.
Meanwhile, Ryan, upon leaving the skipper, had rushed forward and hailed the fugitive schooner, in his richest Dublin accent, to heave-to, or he would sink her. To this command, however, whether understood or not, no attention was paid; and before our people, groping about in the thick darkness among the dead and wounded, could lay their hands upon a single cartridge, they had the mortification of seeing her vanish round a bend of the creek on her way seaward, the lieutenant consoling himself with the a.s.surance that she would infallibly be snapped up by the _Barracouta_, whose slender crew would be certain to be on the alert all through the night. When the skipper and I arrived on deck, after securing our prisoner, Ryan and a few of our lads were busily employed ramming home a charge in the long eighteen mounted upon the brig"s forecastle, a cartridge and shot for which they had stumbled across in their search. The second luff at once began to relate, with many comical expressions of righteous indignation, the particulars of the schooner"s escape; but he had scarcely got well into his narrative when the faint _screep_ of a block-sheave from to windward warned us that another of our slippery neighbours was about to hazard a like experiment. Without waiting for orders, or thinking of what I was doing, forgetting even my injured foot in the excitement of the moment, I sprang upon the rail and hailed in Spanish--
"Hola there, keep all fast on board those schooners, or we will riddle you with grape! And light a lantern each of you and hoist it to your main-mast-head. I warn you that we will stand no nonsense, so if you value your lives you will attempt to play no tricks!"
To this no reply whatever was vouchsafed; and I was about to hail again, when the captain remarked, very quietly--
"May I inquire, Mr Dugdale, what is the nature of the communication-- the _unauthorised_ communication--that you have just made to those schooners?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," answered I, considerably abashed; "I thought I heard a sound just now as though another of the schooners were on the point of attempting to slip away; so I hailed them that if they attempted any such trick we would treat them to a dose of grape. I also ordered them to each hoist a lantern to the mast-head, so that we may see where they are."
"Very good," remarked the skipper suavely; "it was quite the proper thing to do. But I do not altogether approve of my young gentlemen taking the initiative in any matter unless they happen to be for the time being in supreme command. When that is not the case I expect them to wait for instructions. And now, be so good as to hail them again, and say that unless those lanterns are displayed within three minutes I will fire into them."
My second hail proved effective, the two lanterns being in position well within the time specified. Our skipper was, however, very uneasy; and after retiring aft and consulting with Ryan for a few minutes, the second luff and Gowland went away in the first and second cutters with two good strong crews, and boarded the schooners, the slavers--who were evidently on the look-out--shoving off in their own boats and escaping to the sh.o.r.e the moment that they detected what we were after. Both schooners had a cargo of slaves on board, and were of course at once taken possession of, an instant search--prompted by our experience on board the brig--revealing the fact that one of them had been set fire to so effectually that it took the prize-crew fully an hour to extinguish it.
Meanwhile, lamps and lanterns were found on board the brig and lighted, when those of us whose hurts were the least serious set to work to attend to our more unfortunate comrades. Closer investigation now revealed the welcome fact that we had suffered less severely than had been at first antic.i.p.ated, our killed amounting to five only--although two more died before they could receive proper surgical attention-- while, of the wounded, seven had received injuries serious enough to completely disable them, the rest, amounting to no less than twenty-three, suffering from hurts ranging from such an insignificant prod as I had received in the leg, up to a cutla.s.s-stroke that had all but scalped one poor fellow.
At length, just as we had completed the task of getting our worst cases below out of the persistent rain, and making them in a measure comfortable, the wind shifted and subsided to a gentle breeze from the north-eastward, the weather cleared, the rain ceased, and about half-an-hour later the day broke gloriously, and we were able to get a view of our surroundings.
We found ourselves in a nearly circular lagoon or basin, about half-a-mile in diameter, across the centre of which lay moored the brig and the two schooners, with a gap in the line to mark the berth that had been occupied by the third schooner--the craft that had succeeded in effecting her escape. We were completely land-locked, the sh.o.r.es of the creek being low, and for the most part closely fringed with mangroves, behind which rose dense and apparently impenetrable ma.s.ses of bush, now in full leaf, and thickly overgrown with flowering parasites, the bush being interspersed with trees of several kinds, some of which were very lofty and handsome. At a short distance above where we were lying, there appeared to be another creek--a small affair, not more than a hundred feet wide--branching off from the main channel; and, upon its being pointed out to him, the captain at once hailed the schooner of which the second lieutenant was in possession, directing that the latter should take his boat, with the crew well armed, and make an exploration of the subsidiary and main creeks for a short distance, for the purpose of ascertaining whether, as was exceedingly probable, there was a slave depot in the neighbourhood. I should greatly have liked to have made one of the party, and indeed asked permission to join it, but my burnt foot was by this time so inflamed and painful that I could not put it to the deck, and Captain Stopford, while expressing his gratification at the zeal manifested by the request, refused, pointing out that, lame as I was, I should not only be useless but an actual enc.u.mbrance and embarra.s.sment to the party in the event of resistance being offered to any attempt on their part to land.
In a few minutes Ryan was ready, and the boat shoved off from the schooner, leaving just enough hands to take care of her during the absence of the others. She made straight for the small subsidiary creek, in the first instance, but re-appeared in about a quarter of an hour, when the second luff hailed to say that it was a mere _cul de sac_, only some half-a-mile long, and with very little water in it, the banks being of soft, black, foetid mud, of a consistency which rendered landing an impossibility. Having communicated this intelligence, the cutter next proceeded up stream and quickly vanished round a bend. She had been out of sight fully half-an-hour, and the captain was just beginning to manifest some anxiety, neither sight nor sound having reached us to indicate her whereabouts, when thin wreaths of light brown smoke appeared rising above the bush and trees about a mile away, the smoke rapidly increasing in density and volume, and darkening in colour, until it became quite apparent that a serious conflagration was raging at no great distance. When the smoke at first appeared, there was some question in the mind of the captain whether it might not be the work of the people who had effected their escape from the craft during the darkness, they having perhaps set fire to the bush in the hope of involving the prizes and ourselves in the ensuing destruction; but a little reflection revealed the unlikelihood of this, the vegetation not only being saturated with the rain that had fallen during the night, but also being so green and full of sap that it would probably prove impossible to fire it. We had just reached this conclusion when Ryan and his party appeared returning, and in a few minutes the cutter ranged up alongside us to enable the second luff to make his report. He stated that he had proceeded about a mile and a half up the creek, the course of which he had found to be very sinuous, when he reached a spot at which the bank on his port hand was clear of bush and trees, with the soil firm enough to admit of a landing being conveniently effected, and as there were signs indicating that the place had been very freely used quite recently, he shoved alongside the bank and stepped ash.o.r.e. A single glance about him now sufficed to convince him that he had made an important discovery; the gra.s.s was much worn, as with the trampling of many feet, and from this well-trodden spot a broad path led into the bush. Leaving two men in the boat; to take care of her, with orders how to proceed in the event of an enemy heaving in sight, Ryan at once led his party along this path, and after traversing it for less than a hundred yards, came upon a large barrac.o.o.n, very solidly and substantially built, and of dimensions sufficient to accommodate fully a thousand slaves; there were also kitchens for the preparation of the slaves" food, tanks for the collection of fresh water, several large thatched huts that looked as if they were for the accommodation of the traders, a large store building, and, in short, everything necessary to complete an important slave-trading establishment. It was evident that it had been very hurriedly abandoned only a few hours previously; but a strict and prolonged search failed to reveal the whereabouts of any of its late occupants; Ryan had therefore first emptied the water-tanks, and had then set fire to the whole establishment, remaining until the flames had taken a strong hold upon the several buildings, when he had retired without molestation.
Meanwhile, by the captain"s orders, the hatches had been removed on board the three prizes, and the condition of the unfortunate prisoners looked to. I shall never forget the moment when the first hatch was taken off on board the brig; a thick cloud of steam slowly rose up through the opening, and the foetid, musky odour, of which I have already spoken, at once became so pungent and overpowering that the men who were engaged upon the operation of opening the hatchways were fairly driven away from their work for the moment, and until the strength of the stench had been to some extent ameliorated by the fresh air that immediately poured down into the densely-packed hold. What the relief of that whiff of fresh air must have been to the unhappy blacks can only be faintly imagined; but that it was ineffably grateful to them was evidenced by the deep murmur of delight, and the loud, long-drawn inspiration of the breath that swept from end to end of the hold the moment that the hatch was withdrawn, as well as by the upward glance of grat.i.tude that instantly greeted us from the upturned eyes of those who were placed nearest the hatchway! But what a sight that hold presented when in the course of a few minutes the hatches were all removed, and the blessed light of heaven and the sweet, pure air of the early morning had gained free access to its sweltering occupants, dispersing the poisonous fumes which they had been condemned to breathe from the moment when the approach of our boats had been first notified! I had more than once had the hold of a slaver and the mode of stowing her human cargo described to me, but it was necessary to actually _see_ it before the full horror and misery of the thing could be completely realised. The s.p.a.ce between the planking of the slave-deck and the underside of the beams was just three feet, or barely sufficient to allow the unfortunate wretches to sit upright; and in this confined s.p.a.ce they were stowed as tightly as herrings in a barrel, seated on their hams, with the feet drawn close up to the body, and the knees clasped by the arms close to the chest. Let anyone try the fatiguing effect of sitting in this constrained att.i.tude for only a single half-hour, and some idea may then be formed of the horrible suffering and misery that the unhappy slaves had to endure cooped up in this fashion for _weeks at a stretch_, not on a steady, motionless platform, but on the heaving, plunging deck of a ship driven at her utmost speed over a sea that was seldom smooth enough to render the motion imperceptible, and often rough enough to sweep her from stem to stern, and to render the closing of the hatches imperatively necessary to save her from foundering. Add to this the fact that the slaves were packed so tightly together that it was impossible to move, and thus obtain the relief of even a slight change of position; bear in mind that it was equally impossible to cleanse the slave-deck during the entire period of the pa.s.sage of the ship from port to port; think of the indescribable foulness of the place, the dreadful atmosphere generated by the ever-acc.u.mulating filth, and the exhalations from the bodies of four or five hundred human beings wedged together in this confined s.p.a.ce; and add to all this the horrors of sea-sickness, and it at once becomes a perfect marvel that a sufficient number remained alive at the end of the pa.s.sage to render the slave-traffic a remunerative business. It is true that, solely in their own interests, and not in the least from motives of humanity, the slavers exercised a certain amount of care and watchfulness over the health of their captives; that is to say, they allowed one-half to go on deck during meal-times (twice a day), for the double purpose of affording an opportunity for the inspiration of a little fresh air, and at the same time of providing s.p.a.ce for the poor wretches below to feed themselves.
This, however, was only when the weather and other circ.u.mstances were favourable; if the weather was bad, the hatches were put on and kept on until a favourable change occurred; and in the case of a gale, of wind the unhappy slaves have been known to have been kept without food or water for forty-eight hours, or even longer, simply because it was impossible to give them either. Of course in such a case the mortality was simply frightful, it being no uncommon occurrence for a slaver to lose more than half her cargo in a single gale; this loss, be it understood, arising not so much from the want of food as from simple suffocation through long confinement in the dreadful atmosphere of the unventilated hold. And when a slaver happened to be pursued by a man-o"-war, the sufferings of the slaves were almost as bad, for in such a case the crew seldom troubled themselves to attend to the wants of their helpless prisoners, devoting all their thoughts and energies to the task of effecting their own escape. But as I shall have more to say upon this subject further on, I will not enlarge upon it here.
Ryan having rejoined his prize, and there being a nice little easterly breeze blowing, the order was given for all three craft to weigh and proceed down the creek; the captain being rather anxious lest the slavers should return and take us at a disadvantage now that our force was divided. Nothing untoward occurred, however, and in a short time we were all proceeding down the creek, with the second lieutenant in his schooner as pilot.
And here it may be as well to enumerate the few particulars relative to our prizes that the exigencies of the narrative have hitherto not enabled me to give. To begin with the brig: she was, as Lobo had stated, the _Mercedes_ of Havana; a truly beautiful craft, measuring fully five hundred tons, very flat in the floor, and so exceedingly shallow that even in her sea-going trim, with everything on board as when we took her, she only drew a trifle over eight feet of water aft.
But what she lacked in depth she more than made up for in beam, her deck being half as s.p.a.cious again as that of the _Barracouta_. She was a perfectly lovely model, and sailed like a witch, as we soon discovered.
This was not to be wondered at, however, for in addition to the beautiful, easy grace of her flowing lines, her scantling was extraordinarily light--less than half that of the _Barracouta_--and all her chief fastenings were _screws_! With so light a scantling she of course worked like a wicker basket in anything of a breeze and seaway, and leaked like a sieve, the latter being of little or no consequence with plenty of negroes to send to the pumps in relays, while the working of her gave her life, and contributed in no small degree toward the extraordinary speed for which she was distinguished. She was armed with eight nine-pounder broadside guns, and a long eighteen mounted upon a pivot on her forecastle; and in the course of our investigations we discovered that her crew had numbered no less than seventy men, of whom fourteen were killed in her defence, and twenty-six too severely wounded to effect their escape. At the moment of her capture five hundred and sixty-four slaves, all males, were confined in her hold. She was thus, in herself, a very valuable prize, and quite worth all the trouble that we had taken to secure her. But in addition to her there were the two schooners, the larger of which, named the _Dona Hermosa_, was a vessel of close upon one hundred and twenty tons measurement, with nothing very remarkable about her appearance to distinguish her from a perfectly honest trader. Her cargo consisted of exactly three hundred slaves, rather more than half of whom were women and children. She was unarmed save for the few muskets that were found scattered about her decks when our lads boarded and took possession of her. The second schooner, of which Gowland, the master"s mate, had temporary command, was a little beauty. She was named the _Felicidad_, and hailed from Santiago de Cuba. She was of one hundred and eighteen tons measurement, and in model generally very much resembled the _Mercedes_ though neither quite so shallow nor so beamy in proportion, while her proportionate length was considerably greater; her lines were therefore even more easy and beautiful than those of the larger vessel. She sat very low in the water, and might have been sworn to as a slaver as far away as she could be seen, her raking masts being short and stout, and her yards of enormous proportionate length--her foreyard measuring no less than seventy-eight feet--with a truly astonishing spread of beautifully cut canvas. In light winds and smooth water she developed a speed that was absolutely phenomenal, easily running away from her two consorts on the pa.s.sage down the creek under her flying jib and main sail only. She was pierced for three guns of a side, and was further fitted with a very ingenious arrangement for mounting a gun on a pivot amidships, and at the same time shifting it a few feet to port or starboard so as to permit of its being fired directly ahead or astern clear of the masts.
None of her guns, however, were mounted at the time of her capture, they afterwards being found stowed below at the very bottom of her hold in a s.p.a.ce left for them among her water-leaguers, from which they could easily be raised on deck when required. Like her consorts, she had on board a full cargo of slaves--numbering two hundred and forty, of whom about one-fourth were women and children--when captured.
Our pa.s.sage up the creek having been effected in the intense darkness of an overcast and rainy night, it had of course been quite impossible for us to form any conception of the appearance of our surroundings; but now, in the broad daylight and clear atmosphere of a fresh and brilliant morning, every detail of the scene in the midst of which we found ourselves stood out with the most vivid distinctness, and I was not only astonished but delighted with the singularity and beauty of Nature"s handiwork that everywhere met my eye in this region of tropical luxuriance. The three craft were the only evidences of man"s intrusion upon the scene with which we were confronted; everything else was the work of Nature herself, untrammelled and uninterfered with; and it appeared as though in the riotous delight of her creative powers she had put forth all her energies in the production of strange and curious shapes and bewildering combinations of the richest and most dazzling colours. True, the water of the creek, which in consequence of the sheltering height of the bordering vegetation was gla.s.sy smooth, was so fully charged with mud and soil held in suspension that it resembled chocolate rather than water; but its rich brown colour added to rather than detracted from the beauty of the picture, harmonising subtly with the brilliant greens, deep olives, and splendid purples of the foliage, and the dazzling white, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and blue of the trailing blossoms that were reflected from its polished surface, as well as the delicate blue of the sky into which it merged at a short distance from the vessels. Mangroves with their mult.i.tudinous and curiously twisted and gnarled roots and delicate grey-green foliage lined the margin of the creek on either hand, and behind them rose tall, feathery clumps of bamboo alternating with impenetrable thickets of bush, the foliage of which was of the most variegated colours and curious forms, beyond which again rose the umbrageous ma.s.ses of lofty trees, several of which were clothed with blossoms of pure scarlet instead of leaves, while over all trailed the serpentine convolutions of gorgeous flowering creepers. Euphorbias, acacias, baobabs, all were in blossom, and the fresh morning air was laden with delicious and almost overpoweringly fragrant perfume. Wherever a slight break in the continuity of the mangrove belt permitted the river bank itself to be seen, the margin of the water was ablaze with tall orchids, whose eccentricities of form were matched only by their unsurpa.s.sable beauty of colouring; and even the tall, luxuriant gra.s.ses contributed their quota to the all-pervading loveliness of the scene by the delicate purple tints of their stamens; while the curious, pendent nests of the weaver-bird, hanging here and there from the longer and coa.r.s.er gra.s.s-stalks curving over the water, added a further element of strangeness and singularity to the picture.
Brilliant-plumaged birds flashed hither and thither; kingfishers of all sizes perched solemnly upon the roots and overhanging branches of the mangroves, intently watching the surface of the muddy water for the tiny ripple that should betray the presence of their prey, or flitted low athwart the placid, shining surface of the creek; bright-coloured parrots were seen clawing their way about the trunks of the more lofty trees, or winging their flight fussily with loud screams from branch to branch; the cooing of pigeons was heard in every direction; and high overhead, a small black spot against the deep, brilliant blue of the sky, marked the presence of a fishing eagle on the look-out for his breakfast.
In less than half-an-hour we had traversed the distance to the mouth of the creek, just before reaching which we were astonished to discover the _Barracouta_ hard and fast upon a sand-bank that lay just off the entrance, with her topgallant-masts struck, and her remaining boats in the water, apparently engaged in the task of lightening her. The captain looked terribly annoyed, but said nothing until we had rounded the last point and come to an anchor near the spot at which we had left the _Barracouta_ on the previous night, when he ordered the gig to be hauled alongside, and, directing me to accompany him, gave the word for us to pull to the stranded craft.
CHAPTER FIVE.
THE "FELICIDAD".
The first lieutenant, looking exceedingly worried and distressed, was at the gangway to meet us.
"Well, Mr Young," exclaimed the captain as he stepped in on deck, "what is the meaning of this?"
"I wish I could tell you, sir," answered Young. "There has been foul play of some sort; but who is the guilty party I know no more than you do. As you will remember, it blew very hard last night when you left us; and for some time after you had gone I remained on the forecastle, watching the ship as she rode to her anchor. She strained a little at her cable when the heavier puffs struck her, but by no means to such an extent as to arouse the slightest anxiety; and after I had been watching for fully an hour, finding that the holding ground was good, and that even during the heaviest of the puffs the strain upon the cable was only very moderate, I felt perfectly satisfied as to the safety of the ship, and retired to the quarter-deck, leaving two men on the look-out on the forecastle, two in the waist, and one on either quarter; for although I antic.i.p.ated no danger, I was fully alive to the responsibility that you had laid upon me in entrusting me with the care of the ship, as well as to the fact that in the event of a chance encounter just hereabout, we were far more likely to meet with an enemy than a friend. The same feeling animated the men too, I am sure, for the look-outs never responded to my hail with more alacrity, or showed themselves more keenly watchful than they did last night; yet I had barely been off the forecastle half-an-hour when we discovered that we were adrift; and before I could let go the second anchor we were hard and fast upon this bank, fore and aft, and that, too, just upon the top of high-water. I of course at once hoisted out our remaining boats, and ran away the stream-anchor to windward; but, working as we were in the dark, it took us a long time to do it; and I then sent down the royal and topgallant-- yards and masts. When daylight came I examined the cable, thinking that possibly it might have chafed through on a rock; but to my surprise I found that it had been clean cut at the water"s edge. How it was done, or who did it, is impossible to guess, for although I have very strictly questioned both the forecastle look-outs, they persist in the statement that they saw nothing, and were aware of nothing until the ship was found to be adrift."
"Well, it is a most extraordinary circ.u.mstance," commented the captain.
"Are you quite satisfied that the men remained fully on the alert all the time?"
"Perfectly, sir," answered the lieutenant. "I hailed them every ten minutes or so, not knowing at what moment some disagreeable surprise might be sprung upon us. Besides, we did not know how you might be faring, and thought it quite possible that the craft you were after might attempt to give you the slip in the darkness. The men on the forecastle were two of the best we have in the ship--William Robinson and Henry Perkins."
"Yes," a.s.sented the captain; "they have always. .h.i.therto seemed thoroughly trustworthy and reliable men. Where are they? I should like to ask them a question or two."
The two men were summoned, and at once subjected to a very sharp cross-examination, which led to nothing, however, as they both persistently declared that they had neither seen nor heard anything to arouse the slightest suspicion until the discovery was made that the ship was adrift. The captain then went forward and inspected the severed cable; but that revealed nothing beyond the fact that the strands had been cut almost completely through with some very sharp instrument before the stubborn hemp had given way. In short, the whole affair was enshrouded in the deepest mystery. When, however, the captain had heard the whole story, and thoroughly investigated the matter, he freely absolved the first luff from all blame, frankly acknowledging that he did not see what more could have been done to provide for the safety of the ship, and that the thing would undoubtedly have happened just the same had he himself remained on board instead of going away with the boats.
Meanwhile, the dead and wounded had been conveyed from the prizes to the _Barracouta_, where the doctor immediately took the sufferers in hand, while the slain were st.i.tched up in their hammocks ready for burial. At length it came to my turn to be attended to, and when the doctor saw my foot--now so dreadfully swollen and inflamed that my whole leg was affected, right up to the knee--I was promptly consigned to the sick-bay, with the intimation that I might think myself exceedingly fortunate if in that hot climate mortification did not set in and necessitate the amputation of my leg. I am thankful to say, however, that it did not; and in three weeks I was discharged from the doctor"s care, and once more able to hobble about with the aid of a soft felt slipper. The dead were buried that same forenoon on the point projecting into the river at the junction of the creek with the main stream, the graves being dug in a small s.p.a.ce of smooth, gra.s.sy lawn beneath the shadow of a magnificent group of fine tall palms.
A hasty breakfast was s.n.a.t.c.hed, as soon as it could be got ready; and then every man available was set to work upon the task of lightening the stranded brig, her guns and such other heavy weights as were most easily accessible being transferred to the prizes, after which the second bower was weighed and run away to windward in the long-boat by means of a kedge; and such was the activity displayed, that at high-water that same afternoon--the tides were fortunately making at the time--the _Barracouta_ floated and was hove off to her anchor. Meanwhile, the missing anchor had been swept for and found, and the severed end of the cable buoyed; before nightfall, therefore, the cable was spliced, and the bonny brig once more riding to her best bower. The men were kept at work until it was too dark to see further; and by six bells in the forenoon watch next day she was again all ataunto, her guns and everything else once more on board her, and the ship herself all ready for sea, it having been ascertained that she had sustained no damage whatever. It may be mentioned that the schooner which had effected her escape from us in the lagoon managed to slip out of the creek and get clear away without being observed by anybody on board the _Barracouta_; but that of course is easily accounted for by the pitchy darkness of the night, and the fact that she must have pa.s.sed out of the creek a very short while after the brig had grounded upon the sand-bank, and when of course our lads would be fully occupied in looking after their own craft.
Proper prize-crews were now told off to the three prizes--Ryan being placed in charge of the _Mercedes_; Gowland, the master"s mate, in charge of the _Dona Hermosa_; and Good, one of the midshipmen, in charge of the _Felicidad_--and the order to weigh and proceed in company was given. There was a slashing breeze from the eastward blowing; and this, combined with a strong downward current, carried us along over the ground so smartly that in less than two hours we were abreast of Shark Point, although the _Dona Hermosa_ proved to be such an indifferent sailer that the rest of us had to materially reduce our spread of canvas to avoid running away from her altogether. The _Felicidad_, on the other hand, sailed like a witch, and kept her station without difficulty, under a single-reefed mainsail, foresail, and inner jib, with all her square canvas stowed. The master informed me that as we pa.s.sed Banana Point he had remembered to subject the anchorage to a very careful scrutiny through his telescope, and, as he had foretold, the handsome Spanish brig had disappeared, the Englishman and the Dutchman being the only craft still lying off the wharf. Having made an offing of about twenty miles, we hauled up some three points to the northward for Cape Palmas, our destination being of course Sierra Leone.
On the third day out, the captain of the _Mercedes_--whom I had shot in self-defence in his own cabin, it will be remembered--died of his wound, solemnly declaring with his last breath that he was absolutely innocent of any complicity in the destruction of the _Sapphire"s_ two boats with their crews, or in the disappearance of the _Wasp_. He admitted that he had heard of both occurrences, and had been told the name of the individual who was said to be responsible for them, but he stubbornly persisted in his refusal to give any information whatever, and carried the secret to his ocean grave with him.
In due time we reached Sierra Leone without mishap and without adventure, after a moderately quick pa.s.sage; and, our prizes having been taken _in flagrante delicto_, they were forthwith condemned. At Captain Stopford"s suggestion, however, the _Felicidad_ was purchased into the service, and with all speed fitted to serve as a tender to the _Barracouta_, her extraordinary speed peculiarly fitting her for such employment, while her exceedingly light draught promised to render her especially useful in the exploration of the various rivers along the coast, many of which are very shallow. We remained in harbour a trifle over three weeks while the necessary alterations were being effected-- during which time, owing to the unremitting vigilance and skill of "Paddy" Blake, our doctor, we lost only one man through fever--and then, all being ready, the _Felicidad_ was commissioned, Ryan, our second lieutenant, being given the command of her, with--to my great delight-- myself as his chief officer, Pierrepoint and Gowland being our shipmates. We also shipped as surgeon a young fellow named Armstrong, a Scotchman, whom the captain of the _Ariadne_ kindly spared to us with a first-rate recommendation; and in addition we had Warren, the gunner"s mate of the _Barracouta_, as gunner; Coombs, the carpenter"s mate, as carpenter; and Bartlett, the boatswain"s mate, as boatswain. And by way of a crew, the captain gave us forty of his best men, as he very well could without weakening his own ship"s company, a ship with supernumeraries having most opportunely arrived from home only a few days previously. It will thus be seen that, so far as strength was concerned, we were fairly well able to take care of ourselves. We were expected to do far more than that, however; the captain, when giving us our instructions, hinting that he looked to us to fully justify him by our services for all the trouble that he had taken in causing the schooner to be fitted out. I think, however, that having put such a dashing fellow as Ryan in command, he had very few misgivings upon this point.
The _Barracouta_ and the _Felicidad_ sailed together on the evening of the eighteenth of December, and, the captain having given Ryan a pretty free hand, parted company off the shoals of Saint Ann; the schooner keeping her luff and heading about south-south-west, while the brig bore away on a south-east-by-south course for Cape Palmas; the idea being that we should do better apart than together. We were to cruise for six weeks, and at the end of that time, if unsuccessful, to rendezvous on the parallel of six degrees south lat.i.tude and the meridian of twelve degrees east longitude; or, in other words, some eighteen miles off the mouth of the Congo. We were to remain on this spot twenty-four hours; and if at the end of that time the brig had not appeared, we were to proceed on a further cruise of six weeks, and then return to Sierra Leone to replenish our stores and await further orders.
It was a glorious evening when we sailed; a moderate breeze was blowing from the westward, pure, refreshing, and cool compared with the furnace-like atmosphere in which we had been stewing for the previous three weeks. The sky was without a cloud; the sea a delicate blue, necked here and there with miniature foam-caps of purest white; while, broad on our lee quarter, the high land about the settlement of Sierra Leone, just dipping beneath the horizon, glowed rosy red in the light of the sinking sun. It was an evening to make one"s heart rejoice; such an evening as can only be met with in the tropics; and, just starting as we were upon what all hands regarded as a holiday cruise, it is but small wonder that we experienced and enjoyed its exhilarating influence to an almost intoxicating extent. Jocularity and laughter pervaded the little craft from end to end; and throughout the second dog-watch dancing, singing, and skylarking--all, of course, within the limits of proper discipline--were the order of the evening. As the sun disappeared in the west, the full, round orb of the moon floated majestically up over the purple rim of the horizon to leeward; and the swift yet imperceptible change from the golden glory of sunset to the silvery radiance of a clear, moonlit night was a sight of beauty that must be left to the imagination, for no mortal pen could possibly do justice to it.
"Now, Harry, me bhoy," exclaimed Ryan, speaking in the broad brogue that always sprang to his lips when he was excited or exhilarated, and slapping me upon the back as we emerged from the companion after dinner that evening, and stood for a moment contemplating the glory of the night, "from this moment we"re slavers, we"re pirates, we"re cut-throats of the first wather, to be hail-fellow-well-met with every dirty blagguard that sails the says--until we can get them within rache of these pretty little barkers," affectionately tapping the breech of one of our long nines as he spoke; "and thin see if we won"t give thim such a surprise as they haven"t met with for manny a day!"
And he quite looked the character, too--for he was of very powerful, athletic build, though not very tall, swarthy in complexion, and burnt as dark as a mulatto by the sun; with a thick, bushy black beard, and a most ferocious-looking moustache that he had been a.s.siduously cultivating ever since he had known that he was to have the command of the schooner--as he stepped out on deck at eight bells on the following morning, attired in white drill jacket and long flowing trousers of the same, girt about the waist with a gaudy silken sash glowing in all the colours of the rain bow, the costume being topped off with a broad-brimmed Panama hat swathed round with a white puggaree. He was indeed the beau-ideal of a dandy pirate skipper, and I was not a very bad imitation of him--barring the whiskers. The only things perhaps that a too captious critic might have objected to were the spotless purity of our clothing, and an utter absence of that ruffianly manner which distinguishes the genuine pirate; but, as Ryan observed, the first of these objections would grow less noticeable with every day that we wore the clothes, while the other was not necessary, or, if it should become so, must be a.s.sumed as successfully as our talents in that direction would permit. As for the crew, they had by Ryan"s orders discarded their usual clothing for jumpers and trousers of blue dungaree, with soft felt hats, cloth caps, or knitted worsted nightcaps by way of head-covering, so that, viewed through a telescope, we might present as slovenly and un-man-o"-war-like an appearance as possible.
This effect was further heightened by Ryan having very wisely insisted that not a spar or rope of the schooner should be altered or interfered with in any way, saving of course where it needed refitting; those therefore who happened to know the _Felicidad_ would recognise her at once; and it was our business so to conduct ourselves that they should not suspect her change of ownership until too late to effect an escape.
Her capture was of course by this time known to many of the craft frequenting the Congo; but that we could not help; our plans were based mostly upon the hope that there were still many who did not know it, and also, to some extent, upon a belief that, even to those who were aware of it, we might by judicious behaviour convey an impression that her people had cleverly effected their own and her escape, and were once more boldly pursuing their lawless trade.
We did not much expect to fall in with anything worthy of our attention until we were pretty close up with the Line; we therefore carried on all through the first night and the whole of the next day, arriving by sunset upon the northern boundary of what we considered our cruising ground proper. And then, as ill-luck would have it, the wind died away, and left us rolling helplessly upon a long, gla.s.sy swell, without steerage-way, the schooner"s head boxing the compa.s.s. This period of calm lasted all through the night and the whole of the next day, varied only by an occasional cat"s-paw of scarcely sufficient strength or duration to enable us to get the schooner"s jib-boom pointed in the right direction. But this did not trouble Ryan in the least, for, as he reminded me for my consolation, we were now just where we wanted to be, and the first breeze that sprang up might bring with it one of the gentry that we were so anxiously on the look-out for. Meanwhile, he availed himself of the opportunity to prepare a certain piece of apparatus that he had employed his leisure in devising, and which he thought might possibly prove useful on occasion. "I"ve been thinking,"
said he to me on the morning after the calm had set in, "that it mayn"t always be convanient for the schooner to go through the wather at her best speed, so I"ve devised a thriflin" arrangement that"ll modherate her paces widhout annyone out of the craft bein" anny the wiser." And therewith he ordered a good stout hawser to be roused up on deck; and from this he had a length of some fifteen fathoms cut off, all along the middle part of which he caused a dozen pigs of ballast to be securely lashed. This done, he ordered the bight, with the pigs attached, to be pa.s.sed under the ship"s bottom, and the two ends of the hawser to be pa.s.sed inboard through the port and starboard midship ports and well secured, when we had a drag underneath the schooner that would certainly exercise a very marked effect upon her sailing, without making a sufficient disturbance in the water to reveal the fact that trickery was being resorted to.
Towards the close of the afternoon the aspect of the sky seemed to promise that ere long we might hope for a welcome change of weather; the deep, brilliant blue of the unclouded dome became blurred as though it were gradually being overspread by a thin and semi-transparent curtain of mist, which gradually resolved itself into that streaky, feathery appearance called by seamen "mare"s-tails"; and a bank of horizontal grey cloud gathered in the western quarter, into which the sun at length plunged in a glare of fiery crimson and smoky purple that had all the appearance of a great atmospheric conflagration. A short, steep swell, too, gathered from the westward, causing the inert schooner to roll and wallow until she was shipping water over both gunwales, and her masts were working and grinding so furiously in the partners that we had to lift the coats and drive the wedges home afresh, as well as to get up preventer-backstays and rolling tackles.
"There is a breeze, and a strong one too, behind all this," remarked Ryan to me, "and it will give us an opportunity to test the little hooker"s mettle. I wish it would come and be done with it, for by the powers I"m gettin" mighty toired of this stoyle of thing," as the schooner"s counter squattered down with a thud and a splash into a deep hollow, and then rolled so heavily and so suddenly to starboard that we both gathered way and went with a run into the scuppers just in time to be drenched to the waist by the heavy fall of water that she dished in over her rail. This sort of thing soon gave us a taste of the _Felicidad"s_ quality, for so lightly was she framed that the heavy rolling strained her tremendously, and she began to make so much water that we were obliged to set the pumps going every two hours, while the creaking and complaining of her timbers and bulkheads raised a din that might have been heard half-a-mile away.
"As soon as the breeze comes," said Ryan, as we descended the companion-ladder to shift into dry clothes, "we will bear up and jog quietly in for Cape Lopez, which will give us a chance of being overhauled by something running in for either the Gaboon or the Ogowe, or of blundherin" up against something coming out from one or the other of those same rivers. If we don"t fall in with annything by the time that we make the land, we will just stand on and take a look in here and there, beginning with the Ogowe and working our way northward gradually until we"ve thoroughly overhauled the whole of the Bight."
By the time that we were summoned below to dinner, the sky had become entirely overcast with heavy, black, thunderous-looking clouds that entirely-obscured the stars, and only allowed the light of the moon to sift feebly through; yet there was light enough to enable us to see our way about the deck, or to reveal to a sharp eye a sail as far away as seven or eight miles, had anything been within that distance. As we left the deck a quivering gleam of sheet-lightning flashed up along the western horizon, and Ryan gave Pierrepoint--who was taking the deck for me while I got my dinner--instructions to keep a sharp eye upon the weather, as there was no knowing how it might turn out. While we sat at table the lightning became more vivid and frequent; and after a while the dull, deep rumble of distant thunder was heard. Presently we heard Pierrepoint singing out to one of the boys to jump below and fetch up his oil-skins for him; and a minute or two later the sound of a heavy shower advancing over the water became audible, rapidly increasing in volume until it reached us, when in a moment we were almost deafened by the loud pelting of the rain upon the deck overhead as the overladen clouds discharged their burden with all the fierce vehemence of a truly tropical downpour.