The burning sun
Blistered and scorched; and stagnant on the sea
They lay like carcases: and hope was none.
Byron.
The schooner had made an unmolested run across the ocean, and was now
standing out of the river, to the southward of St. Felipe de Benguela,
upon which the factory was situated where she always obtained her cargo
of Africans, as when we first saw her coming out of the same river on a
farmer voyage; her hold was crowded with miserable captives, and her
crew were armed and vigilant, as they always were when they had slaves
on board. Willis and his mate were standing far aft, near the tafferel,
in conversation.
“I feel, Mateo,” said the captain, “as if we were going to have a safe
and a quick trip this time, to make up for the two or three failures we
have had lately; and I suppose you know, if we get in safe this time, I
am going to cut and quit the trade. And we are now making a good start
for a lucky run, for the wind is fair, and nothing in sight.”
“By St. Jago! I wish we may have a lucky run,” replied the mate. “Not
because I wish you to quit the trade, for a better or a braver captain
to sail with I never expect to mess with again; and I know you believe
what I say, though it is spoken to your face, sir. It has now been four
years since we first sailed together, but I have a dread or presentiment
that the Maraposa will never see Cuba again, and that both our voyages
are nearly over.”
“Pooh! pooh, man!” said Willis, “you have been drinking, and have the
vapors; that is all that ails you. Go below and take another good nip of
cogniac, and you will feel as well and confident as ever!”
“You can laugh at me as much as you please, captain; but I have not
drank of any thing stronger than coffee these three days; and I only
hope I will prove as false a prophet as that d—d negro Obi man we hung
two years ago, for trying to burn the schooner; and who said you and I
both would stretch hemp before the year was out.”
“We have had time to prove, Mateo, he did not know what he was talking
about, and in a month more, when we have landed this cargo, and handled
the dollars, you will find you are as much mistaken as he was. But I
wish you would jump up to the fore-topsail yard and see if you can make
out any thing. I fear that infernal sloop-of-war that chased us so hard,
when we had to run to the northward, more than any thing else.”
Mateo, taking a glass, was soon sweeping the horizon from his lofty
perch, and in a few moments he sung out—
“There she is, blast her! just where she has always managed to be yet,
dead to windward! and ahead!”
“How is she heading?” asked Willis.
“To the nor’ard, sir; and about fifteen miles off.”
“Very well, Mateo, we will try to get to the westward of her before she
makes much more northing, and if I can show her the Maraposa’s stern,
then we will get in before she can overhaul us.”
But Willis, this time underrated the speed of the vessel in sight, which
was a new sloop, and one of the fastest square-rigged vessels that ever
carried a sail; and long before he got on a line with her, she had
lessened the distance between them to seven or eight miles, and, having
seen the schooner, was now crowding on more duck, and heading a little
to the eastward; she would, in less than an hour more, be right on board
the slaver.
This was an arrangement that did not suit Willis at all, but there was
nothing for it but to try his heels. And hoping they would stand him in
as good stead now as they had on many a former occasion, he put the
Maraposa’s helm a-port and ran off before the wind to the northward.
Square-sail, studding-sails, ring-tail and water-sails were all set and
full; every place an inch of canvas could be put there was one, and the
schooner rushed through the water like a mad creature, heaving high the
waves, until they ran over her bows and deck in a perfect cataract. But
all would not do! Steadily astern of them came on the sloop-of-war, with
her lofty sails piled upon one another, until she looked like a
mountain, moving in the schooner’s wake. Every moment she gained upon
the slaver.
In four hours, so rapidly had the sloop come up, she was within gun-shot
of the Maraposa, whose doom seemed sealed, as a shot from the sloop’s
bow gun fell into the water, just ahead of her, showing she was within
range, and also as a signal to the slaver to surrender.
But Willis had no such intention; and in answer to the shot ran up to
his main-gaff the flaunting ensign of Spain.
“That proud Englishman thinks he is certain of the little slaver, but if
ever he gets any prize money out of her sale I will be very much
mistaken!” said Willis, as another shot from the sloop struck the
Maraposa’s starboard quarter, carried away the quarter davit, and
dropped one end of her stern boat in the water, just as the flag
unfurled itself in the wind; but the man-of-war knew the schooner was in
her power, and did not wish to cut such a beautiful craft to pieces with
her shot, and determined to carry the slaver by boarding.
On she came, therefore, silently, until her flying-jibboom was even with
the schooner’s tafferel, when the captain of the man-of-war, jumping up
on the hammock-nettings, ordered the schooner to surrender or he would
board her.
The slaver’s crew were all at quarters, and looked as quiet as desperate
men, determined to die rather than surrender, always do.
When the English captain hailed, Willis cast a glance at his men, and
reading their courage in their looks, said nothing. The sloop drew by
until she was abreast of the Maraposa. As soon as Willis saw that all
his guns would bear, he sung out—“Fire!” The loud report of his three
carronades and long gun instantly resounded; and fired, as they had
been, with their muzzles nearly touching the sloop’s sides, the shot did
fearful execution; leaving four gaping holes in the man-of-war’s hull,
and wounding many of her men.
The audacity of this attack, for a moment, seemed to paralize the
Englishman; but recovering from his surprise, the captain of the sloop
cried out—
“Heave over the grappling-irons, and away, ye boarders, away! Spare none
of them but the captain; take him alive if you can.”
Like an avalanche, the sloop’s boarders poured down upon the deck of the
schooner, but her stern crew gave back not an inch! Heroically they
stood their ground! In a better cause their deeds would have been
immortalized in song and story; but they knew their cause was hopeless,
and they were only fighting for revenge: and deep, deep did their
cutlases and boarding-axes drink of English blood that day!
But they could not contend long against such fearful odds; one by one,
they fell dead in their tracks, suppressing even their groans as they
died. Soon all that were left alive of the slaver’s crew were Willis,
Mateo, and the old captain of the forecastle, who, back to back, on the
quarter-deck, were fighting like tigers; and a ring of dead and dying
foes around them proved their prowess and strength of arm.
A cutlas stroke over the head laid low the hardy old captain of the
forecastle, and Willis was alone with Mateo. With a loud huzza, when the
old seaman fell, the sloop’s men made a rush to encircle Willis, and
capture him alive, but he had heard the English captain’s orders, and
determined never again to be in chains.
Willis made a desperate effort, and with three strokes of his cutlas,
felling a foeman at each, he brought himself opposite the cabin
companion-way; quickly from his belt he drew a pistol and fired it down
into the cabin.
A bright flash followed, and then a noise as if heaven’s artillery had
pealed forth a salvo; and all was silent!
The lofty sloop, and the graceful schooner, where were they? They had
entirely disappeared; and in the place they had occupied nothing was now
to be seen but a confused mass of spars! splinters! cordage! dead men’s
bodies! legs! arms! heads! floating about; and here and there a few who
had escaped with their lives, swimming and endeavoring to get on some
floating spar, to prolong for a little time their existence.
Willis, before the combat, had placed a train from his magazine to a keg
of powder at the foot of the cabin companion-way, and finding he was
about to be captured, he had set fire to the train, by firing his pistol
into the open keg, and blown up his own vessel and the sloop, which was
lying close alongside.
Sitting on a large spar, which had formerly done duty as the Maraposa’s
main-mast, was the figure of a man, the calm and philosophical
expression of whose countenance was strangely at variance with the scene
of confusion and death that surrounded him; and the current of his
thoughts was equally uncommon for one in his situation.
“Well!” soliloquized he, “that was the tallest hoist I have ever had
yet. I fell from a frigate’s topgallant-yard once, but, by the Virgin’s
Son, that was nothing to this! First, I went up, until I thought I was
on a voyage to the moon, and then I came down like a burst rocket, and
sunk into the sea, down, down, until I was sure I would come out on the
other side; and then I came up in the midst of this infernal mess, safe
and sound, and am booked for a cruise on this old spar. _Maldito!_ I
wish the berth was a better one! But after getting alive out of that hot
fight, and coming off safe from a blowing up, I know I am not going to
be drowned or starved to death! No, no, hanging will be my lot yet! and
I could make out well enough here, for a while, if I only had a
shipmate; messmates we would not be, for there is no grub—and, blast
me, if there is not another chap alive, if he only has strength enough
to get here.” As he said this, he stretched out his arm to aid a man,
who, with feeble effort, was endeavoring to get on the spar.
The new comer’s face was grimed and black with powder, and he was
stained with blood that was exuding from a deep gash in his shoulder;
for a moment he sat motionless to recover himself, and then exclaimed,
extending his hand to his companion on the mast,
“My God, is that you, Mateo!”
“_Madre de Cielo!_” said Mateo, who was the individual that had been
philosophising. “Is that you, captain? By St. Antony, I am glad to see
you! I was just wishing for a shipmate, but had no thought I would be
lucky enough to fall in with you; for I thought it hardly possible we
should both escape.”
“Nor have we yet,” said Willis; for it was he. “We have a poor chance of
ever going from here, but to the fishes; but even that is better than to
be carried into Havana again and hung. And it is some consolation that
the sloop’s gone to Davy Jones’ locker as well as the Maraposa. I said
this would be her last voyage to the coast, but I had no idea the poor
craft would come to an end altogether.”
“Keep up your heart, captain,” said Mateo, “for I know I am going to die
by hanging; and as you could not find the means of doing the job for me
here, even if I wished it, we must necessarily get safe somewhere; and
you know I am a true prophet!”
For three days, on the bare mast, exposed to the burning heat of the
sun, without food or water, and hope dying in their hearts, Willis and
Mateo lived. Their sufferings were awful: daily their strength failed:
and Willis, who was weaker than Mateo, from loss of blood, and stiff
from his wound, would have fallen off the mast, had not his mate taken
the belt from around the captain’s waist, and bound him on with it: and
feeling his own strength failing, he got to the other end of the spar,
propped himself in between the cross-trees, and took a long look around
the horizon, to see if there was not a sail in sight; but no such
blessing greeted his eyes.
They were alone on the great and boundless solitude of the wide
ocean—out of reach of all succor—and thus they floated on.