The Pirate Slaver: A Story of the West African Coast

  CHAPTER FIVE.

  THE `FELICIDAD'.

  The first lieutenant, looking exceedingly worried and distressed, was atthe gangway to meet us.

  "Well, Mr Young," exclaimed the captain as he stepped in on deck, "whatis the meaning of this?"

  "I wish I could tell you, sir," answered Young. "There has been foulplay of some sort; but who is the guilty party I know no more than youdo. As you will remember, it blew very hard last night when you leftus; 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 ather cable when the heavier puffs struck her, but by no means to such anextent as to arouse the slightest anxiety; and after I had been watchingfor fully an hour, finding that the holding ground was good, and thateven during the heaviest of the puffs the strain upon the cable was onlyvery 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 theforecastle, two in the waist, and one on either quarter; for although Ianticipated no danger, I was fully alive to the responsibility that youhad laid upon me in entrusting me with the care of the ship, as well asto the fact that in the event of a chance encounter just hereabout, wewere far more likely to meet with an enemy than a friend. The samefeeling animated the men too, I am sure, for the look-outs neverresponded to my hail with more alacrity, or showed themselves morekeenly watchful than they did last night; yet I had barely been off theforecastle half-an-hour when we discovered that we were adrift; andbefore I could let go the second anchor we were hard and fast upon thisbank, fore and aft, and that, too, just upon the top of high-water. Iof course at once hoisted out our remaining boats, and ran away thestream-anchor to windward; but, working as we were in the dark, it tookus 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 thatpossibly it might have chafed through on a rock; but to my surprise Ifound 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 strictlyquestioned both the forecastle look-outs, they persist in the statementthat they saw nothing, and were aware of nothing until the ship wasfound to be adrift."

  "Well, it is a most extraordinary circumstance," commented the captain."Are you quite satisfied that the men remained fully on the alert allthe time?"

  "Perfectly, sir," answered the lieutenant. "I hailed them every tenminutes or so, not knowing at what moment some disagreeable surprisemight be sprung upon us. Besides, we did not know how you might befaring, and thought it quite possible that the craft you were aftermight attempt to give you the slip in the darkness. The men on theforecastle were two of the best we have in the ship--William Robinsonand Henry Perkins."

  "Yes," assented the captain; "they have always hitherto seemedthoroughly trustworthy and reliable men. Where are they? I should liketo ask them a question or two."

  The two men were summoned, and at once subjected to a very sharpcross-examination, which led to nothing, however, as they bothpersistently declared that they had neither seen nor heard anything toarouse the slightest suspicion until the discovery was made that theship was adrift. The captain then went forward and inspected thesevered cable; but that revealed nothing beyond the fact that thestrands had been cut almost completely through with some very sharpinstrument before the stubborn hemp had given way. In short, the wholeaffair was enshrouded in the deepest mystery. When, however, thecaptain had heard the whole story, and thoroughly investigated thematter, he freely absolved the first luff from all blame, franklyacknowledging that he did not see what more could have been done toprovide for the safety of the ship, and that the thing would undoubtedlyhave happened just the same had he himself remained on board instead ofgoing 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 stitched up in their hammocks ready for burial. Atlength it came to my turn to be attended to, and when the doctor saw myfoot--now so dreadfully swollen and inflamed that my whole leg wasaffected, right up to the knee--I was promptly consigned to thesick-bay, with the intimation that I might think myself exceedinglyfortunate if in that hot climate mortification did not set in andnecessitate 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'scare, and once more able to hobble about with the aid of a soft feltslipper. The dead were buried that same forenoon on the pointprojecting into the river at the junction of the creek with the mainstream, the graves being dug in a small space of smooth, grassy lawnbeneath the shadow of a magnificent group of fine tall palms.

  A hasty breakfast was snatched, as soon as it could be got ready; andthen every man available was set to work upon the task of lightening thestranded brig, her guns and such other heavy weights as were most easilyaccessible being transferred to the prizes, after which the second bowerwas weighed and run away to windward in the long-boat by means of akedge; and such was the activity displayed, that at high-water that sameafternoon--the tides were fortunately making at the time--the_Barracouta_ floated and was hove off to her anchor. Meanwhile, themissing anchor had been swept for and found, and the severed end of thecable buoyed; before nightfall, therefore, the cable was spliced, andthe bonny brig once more riding to her best bower. The men were kept atwork until it was too dark to see further; and by six bells in theforenoon watch next day she was again all ataunto, her guns andeverything else once more on board her, and the ship herself all readyfor sea, it having been ascertained that she had sustained no damagewhatever. It may be mentioned that the schooner which had effected herescape from us in the lagoon managed to slip out of the creek and getclear away without being observed by anybody on board the _Barracouta_;but that of course is easily accounted for by the pitchy darkness of thenight, and the fact that she must have passed out of the creek a veryshort while after the brig had grounded upon the sand-bank, and when ofcourse our lads would be fully occupied in looking after their owncraft.

  Proper prize-crews were now told off to the three prizes--Ryan beingplaced in charge of the _Mercedes_; Gowland, the master's mate, incharge of the _Dona Hermosa_; and Good, one of the midshipmen, in chargeof the _Felicidad_--and the order to weigh and proceed in company wasgiven. There was a slashing breeze from the eastward blowing; and this,combined with a strong downward current, carried us along over theground so smartly that in less than two hours we were abreast of SharkPoint, although the _Dona Hermosa_ proved to be such an indifferentsailer that the rest of us had to materially reduce our spread of canvasto avoid running away from her altogether. The _Felicidad_, on theother hand, sailed like a witch, and kept her station withoutdifficulty, under a single-reefed mainsail, foresail, and inner jib,with all her square canvas stowed. The master informed me that as wepassed Banana Point he had remembered to subject the anchorage to a verycareful scrutiny through his telescope, and, as he had foretold, thehandsome Spanish brig had disappeared, the Englishman and the Dutchmanbeing the only craft still lying off the wharf. Having made an offingof about twenty miles, we hauled up some three points to the northwardfor Cape Palmas, our destination being of course Sierra Leone.

  On the third day out, the captain of the _Mercedes_--whom I had shot inself-defence in his own cabin, it will be remembered--died of his wound,solemnly declaring with his last breath that he was absolutely innocentof any complicity in the destruction of the _Sapphire's_ two boats withtheir crews, or in the disappearance of the _Wasp_. He admitted that hehad heard of both occurrences, and had been told the name of theindividual who was said to be responsible for them, but he stubbornlypersisted in his refusal to give any information whatever, and carriedthe secret to his ocean grave with him.

  In due time we reached Sierra Leone without mishap and withoutadventure, after a moderately quick passage; and, our prizes having beentaken _in flagrante delicto_, they were f
orthwith condemned. At CaptainStopford's suggestion, however, the _Felicidad_ was purchased into theservice, and with all speed fitted to serve as a tender to the_Barracouta_, her extraordinary speed peculiarly fitting her for suchemployment, while her exceedingly light draught promised to render herespecially useful in the exploration of the various rivers along thecoast, many of which are very shallow. We remained in harbour a trifleover 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 secondlieutenant, being given the command of her, with--to my great delight--myself as his chief officer, Pierrepoint and Gowland being ourshipmates. We also shipped as surgeon a young fellow named Armstrong, aScotchman, whom the captain of the _Ariadne_ kindly spared to us with afirst-rate recommendation; and in addition we had Warren, the gunner'smate of the _Barracouta_, as gunner; Coombs, the carpenter's mate, ascarpenter; and Bartlett, the boatswain's mate, as boatswain. And by wayof a crew, the captain gave us forty of his best men, as he very wellcould without weakening his own ship's company, a ship withsupernumeraries having most opportunely arrived from home only a fewdays previously. It will thus be seen that, so far as strength wasconcerned, we were fairly well able to take care of ourselves. We wereexpected to do far more than that, however; the captain, when giving usour instructions, hinting that he looked to us to fully justify him byour services for all the trouble that he had taken in causing theschooner to be fitted out. I think, however, that having put such adashing fellow as Ryan in command, he had very few misgivings upon thispoint.

  The _Barracouta_ and the _Felicidad_ sailed together on the evening ofthe eighteenth of December, and, the captain having given Ryan a prettyfree hand, parted company off the shoals of Saint Ann; the schoonerkeeping her luff and heading about south-south-west, while the brig boreaway on a south-east-by-south course for Cape Palmas; the idea beingthat we should do better apart than together. We were to cruise for sixweeks, and at the end of that time, if unsuccessful, to rendezvous onthe parallel of six degrees south latitude and the meridian of twelvedegrees east longitude; or, in other words, some eighteen miles off themouth 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 toproceed on a further cruise of six weeks, and then return to SierraLeone to replenish our stores and await further orders.

  It was a glorious evening when we sailed; a moderate breeze was blowingfrom the westward, pure, refreshing, and cool compared with thefurnace-like atmosphere in which we had been stewing for the previousthree 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 SierraLeone, just dipping beneath the horizon, glowed rosy red in the light ofthe sinking sun. It was an evening to make one's heart rejoice; such anevening as can only be met with in the tropics; and, just starting as wewere upon what all hands regarded as a holiday cruise, it is but smallwonder that we experienced and enjoyed its exhilarating influence to analmost intoxicating extent. Jocularity and laughter pervaded the littlecraft from end to end; and throughout the second dog-watch dancing,singing, and skylarking--all, of course, within the limits of properdiscipline--were the order of the evening. As the sun disappeared inthe west, the full, round orb of the moon floated majestically up overthe purple rim of the horizon to leeward; and the swift yetimperceptible change from the golden glory of sunset to the silveryradiance of a clear, moonlit night was a sight of beauty that must beleft to the imagination, for no mortal pen could possibly do justice toit.

  "Now, Harry, me bhoy," exclaimed Ryan, speaking in the broad brogue thatalways sprang to his lips when he was excited or exhilarated, andslapping me upon the back as we emerged from the companion after dinnerthat evening, and stood for a moment contemplating the glory of thenight, "from this moment we're slavers, we're pirates, we're cut-throatsof the first wather, to be hail-fellow-well-met with every dirtyblagguard that sails the says--until we can get them within rache ofthese pretty little barkers," affectionately tapping the breech of oneof our long nines as he spoke; "and thin see if we won't give thim sucha 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 burntas dark as a mulatto by the sun; with a thick, bushy black beard, and amost ferocious-looking moustache that he had been assiduouslycultivating ever since he had known that he was to have the command ofthe schooner--as he stepped out on deck at eight bells on the followingmorning, attired in white drill jacket and long flowing trousers of thesame, girt about the waist with a gaudy silken sash glowing in all thecolours of the rainbow, the costume being topped off with abroad-brimmed Panama hat swathed round with a white puggaree. He wasindeed the beau-ideal of a dandy pirate skipper, and I was not a verybad imitation of him--barring the whiskers. The only things perhapsthat a too captious critic might have objected to were the spotlesspurity of our clothing, and an utter absence of that ruffianly mannerwhich distinguishes the genuine pirate; but, as Ryan observed, the firstof these objections would grow less noticeable with every day that wewore the clothes, while the other was not necessary, or, if it shouldbecome so, must be assumed as successfully as our talents in thatdirection would permit. As for the crew, they had by Ryan's ordersdiscarded their usual clothing for jumpers and trousers of bluedungaree, with soft felt hats, cloth caps, or knitted worsted nightcapsby way of head-covering, so that, viewed through a telescope, we mightpresent as slovenly and un-man-o'-war-like an appearance as possible.This effect was further heightened by Ryan having very wisely insistedthat not a spar or rope of the schooner should be altered or interferedwith in any way, saving of course where it needed refitting; thosetherefore who happened to know the _Felicidad_ would recognise her atonce; and it was our business so to conduct ourselves that they shouldnot 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 craftfrequenting the Congo; but that we could not help; our plans were basedmostly upon the hope that there were still many who did not know it, andalso, to some extent, upon a belief that, even to those who were awareof it, we might by judicious behaviour convey an impression that herpeople had cleverly effected their own and her escape, and were oncemore boldly pursuing their lawless trade.

  We did not much expect to fall in with anything worthy of our attentionuntil we were pretty close up with the Line; we therefore carried on allthrough the first night and the whole of the next day, arriving bysunset upon the northern boundary of what we considered our cruisingground proper. And then, as ill-luck would have it, the wind died away,and left us rolling helplessly upon a long, glassy swell, withoutsteerage-way, the schooner's head boxing the compass. This period ofcalm lasted all through the night and the whole of the next day, variedonly by an occasional cat's-paw of scarcely sufficient strength orduration to enable us to get the schooner's jib-boom pointed in theright direction. But this did not trouble Ryan in the least, for, as hereminded 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 thegentry that we were so anxiously on the look-out for. Meanwhile, heavailed himself of the opportunity to prepare a certain piece ofapparatus that he had employed his leisure in devising, and which hethought 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'talways be convanient for the schooner to go through the wather at herbest speed, so I've devised a thriflin' arrangement that'll modherateher paces widhout annyone out of the craft bein' anny the wiser." Andtherewith he ordered a good stout hawser to be roused up on deck; andfrom this he had a length of some fifteen fathoms cut off, all along themiddle part of which he caused a dozen pi
gs of ballast to be securelylashed. This done, he ordered the bight, with the pigs attached, to bepassed under the ship's bottom, and the two ends of the hawser to bepassed inboard through the port and starboard midship ports and wellsecured, when we had a drag underneath the schooner that would certainlyexercise a very marked effect upon her sailing, without making asufficient disturbance in the water to reveal the fact that trickery wasbeing resorted to.

  Towards the close of the afternoon the aspect of the sky seemed topromise that ere long we might hope for a welcome change of weather; thedeep, brilliant blue of the unclouded dome became blurred as though itwere gradually being overspread by a thin and semi-transparent curtainof mist, which gradually resolved itself into that streaky, featheryappearance called by seamen "mare's-tails"; and a bank of horizontalgrey cloud gathered in the western quarter, into which the sun at lengthplunged in a glare of fiery crimson and smoky purple that had all theappearance of a great atmospheric conflagration. A short, steep swell,too, gathered from the westward, causing the inert schooner to roll andwallow until she was shipping water over both gunwales, and her mastswere working and grinding so furiously in the partners that we had tolift the coats and drive the wedges home afresh, as well as to get uppreventer-backstays and rolling tackles.

  "There is a breeze, and a strong one too, behind all this," remarkedRyan to me, "and it will give us an opportunity to test the littlehooker's mettle. I wish it would come and be done with it, for by thepowers I'm gettin' mighty toired of this stoyle of thing," as theschooner's counter squattered down with a thud and a splash into a deephollow, and then rolled so heavily and so suddenly to starboard that weboth gathered way and went with a run into the scuppers just in time tobe drenched to the waist by the heavy fall of water that she dished inover her rail. This sort of thing soon gave us a taste of the_Felicidad's_ quality, for so lightly was she framed that the heavyrolling strained her tremendously, and she began to make so much waterthat we were obliged to set the pumps going every two hours, while thecreaking and complaining of her timbers and bulkheads raised a din thatmight have been heard half-a-mile away.

  "As soon as the breeze comes," said Ryan, as we descended thecompanion-ladder to shift into dry clothes, "we will bear up and jogquietly in for Cape Lopez, which will give us a chance of beingoverhauled by something running in for either the Gaboon or the Ogowe,or of blundherin' up against something coming out from one or the otherof those same rivers. If we don't fall in with annything by the timethat we make the land, we will just stand on and take a look in here andthere, beginning with the Ogowe and working our way northward graduallyuntil we've thoroughly overhauled the whole of the Bight."

  By the time that we were summoned below to dinner, the sky had becomeentirely overcast with heavy, black, thunderous-looking clouds thatentirely-obscured the stars, and only allowed the light of the moon tosift feebly through; yet there was light enough to enable us to see ourway about the deck, or to reveal to a sharp eye a sail as far away asseven or eight miles, had anything been within that distance. As weleft the deck a quivering gleam of sheet-lightning flashed up along thewestern horizon, and Ryan gave Pierrepoint--who was taking the deck forme while I got my dinner--instructions to keep a sharp eye upon theweather, as there was no knowing how it might turn out. While we sat attable the lightning became more vivid and frequent; and after a whilethe dull, deep rumble of distant thunder was heard. Presently we heardPierrepoint singing out to one of the boys to jump below and fetch uphis oil-skins for him; and a minute or two later the sound of a heavyshower advancing over the water became audible, rapidly increasing involume until it reached us, when in a moment we were almost deafened bythe loud pelting of the rain upon the deck overhead as the overladenclouds discharged their burden with all the fierce vehemence of a trulytropical downpour.

  At the first crash of the rain upon the deck Ryan and I both with oneaccord glanced hastily at the barometer that was hanging suspended ingimbals in the skylight; the mercury had dropped slightly, but notsufficient to arouse any uneasiness, and we therefore went quietly onwith our dinner, although Ryan shouted across the table to me--

  "When the rain comes before the wind, Halliards, sheets, and braces mind."

  There was little danger, however, of our being caught unawares, for wehad long ago clewed up and hauled down everything, except theboom-foresail and jib, to save the sails from thrashing themselvesthreadbare with the rolling of the ship; we consequently awaited thedevelopment of events with perfect equanimity. The downpour lastedperhaps three minutes, and then ceased with startling abruptness,leaving us in absolute silence save for the rush and splash of the waterathwart the flooded decks with the now greatly diminished rolling of theschooner, the gurgle of the spouting scuppers, the kicking of the rudderupon its gudgeons, the groaning and complaining of the timbers, or thevoices of the people on deck, and the soft patter of their bare feetupon the wet planks as they moved here and there. The shower hadknocked the swell down very considerably, rendering the movements of theschooner much more easy than they had been, and we were able to finishour meal in peace and comfort without the continued necessity to steadythe plate with one hand and the tumbler with the other, keeping a waryeye upon the viands meanwhile, in readiness to dodge any of them thatmight happen to fetch away in our direction, and snatching a mouthful ora sip in the brief intervals when the ship became comparatively steady.

  When we again went on deck the sky presented a really magnificentspectacle, the vast masses of heavy, electrically-charged cloud beingpiled one above the other in a fashion that resembled, to me, nothing somuch as a chaos of titanic rocks of every conceivable shape and colour,the forms and hues of the clouds being rendered distinctly visible bythe incessant play of the sheet-lightning among their masses. Not onlythe whole sky, but the entire atmosphere seemed to be a-quiver with thesilent electric discharges, and the effect was indescribably beautifulas the quick, tremulous flashes blazed out, now here, now there,strongly illumining one portion of the piled-up masses and thereflection in the glassy water with its transient radiance, while therest of the scene was by contrast thrown into the deepest, blackest,most opaque shadow. Meanwhile the mutterings of the distant thunder hadgradually grown louder and drawn nearer, while sudden, vivid flashes offorked or chain-lightning, golden, violet, or delicate rose-tinted,darted at ever-lessening intervals from the lowering masses of intenselyblack cloud heaped up along the western horizon.

  We had been on deck perhaps half-an-hour, when a delicious coolness andfreshness began by almost insensible degrees to pervade the hithertointolerable closeness of the hot and enervating atmosphere, and, lookingaway to the westward, we saw, by the quick, flickering illumination ofthe lightning, a few transient cat's-paws playing here and there uponthe surface of the water. Gradually and erratically these evanescentmovements in the inert air stole down to the schooner, lightly ripplingthe water round her for an instant, just stirring the canvas with afaint rustle for a moment, and then dying away again. They weresucceeded by others, however, with rapidly increasing frequency, andpresently a faint blurr upon the glassy surface of the water to thewestward marked the approach of the true breeze.

  "Sheet home your topsail, and hoist away!" shouted Ryan. "Up with yourhelm, my man"--to the man at the tiller--"and let her go offeast-south-east. Sheet home your topgallant-sail, and man thehalliards. Lay aft here, some of you, to the braces, and lay the yardssquare. Well there, belay! Main throat and peak-halliards hoist away.Ease off the mainsheet. Rouse up the squaresail, Mr Dugdale, and setit, if you please. Well there with the throat-halliards; well with thepeak; belay! Away aloft, one hand, and loose the gaff-topsail! Giveher everything but the studding-sails while you are about it, MrDugdale; it will save the canvas from mildew if it does little else."

  The breeze--a light air from about west--had by this time crept up tous, and under its vivifying influence the schooner had gathered way, andwas soon creeping along at a speed of barely two and a half knots,which, h
owever, rose to three and finally to five as the wind freshened,the sky meanwhile clearing as the heavy thunder-clouds drove away toleeward before the welcome breeze, until the sky was once more cloudlesssave for the mare's-tails that thickly overspread the blue, throughwhich the stars blinked dimly, and the moon, with a big halo round her,poured her chastened radiance.

  "By the powers," exclaimed Ryan, as we paced the deck together after theoperation of making sail had been completed--"By the powers, but thatdhrag of mine is a wondherful invention entirely! Do ye notice, Harry,me bhoy, how it's modherated the little huzzy's paces? Bedad, she'sgoin' along as sober as a Quaker girl to meetin' instead of waltzin'away like a ballet-dancer! But wait until one of those light-heeledpicaroons comes along, and then won't we surprise thim above a bit! Ifit's not blowing too hard when ye come on deck in the middle watch yemay give her the stunsails; it'll look more ship-shape, and as if wewere in a hurry to make the coast and get our cargo aboard, if we happento be overhauled by anybody in the same line of business, and the deuceof a fear have I now of outsailing any of them that may happen to be inthe neighbourhood. Keep a sharp look-out, Mr Pierrepoint, and ifanything heaves in sight, either ahead or astern, during your watch,give me a call. I'm going below to turn in now."

  I followed suit a minute or two later and, with my cabin-door wide opento freely admit the cool, welcome breeze that poured down through theopen skylight, soon fell into a deep, refreshing sleep.