Mr Dewar had charge of the first cutter, Mr Mavers, sub-lieutenant, of
the second, and Harry himself commanded the whaler.
These were all the boats told off for the fight, about five-and-thirty
men all told.
Five-and-thirty men? Yes, but they were five-and-thirty
broad-shouldered British blue-jackets, armed with cutlass and revolver.
And what is it, pray, that blue-jackets will not dare, ay, and _do_ as
well as dare?
Even Dr Scott and the other officers had left their swords behind them,
preferring the ship's cutlass.
Every man had stripped to the waist before starting, for the night was
sultry and hot.
The boats were silently lowered before they came in sight of the dhow,
therefore before the dhow could see the _Bunting_.
With muffled oars, nearer and nearer they sweep to the spot from whence
the sounds proceed.
The whaler, being lighter, well-manned and well-steered by Harry, took
the lead.
The _Bunting_ came slowly on after the boats.
But behold! the latter are seen from the dhow's decks, and lights spring
up at once, and a rattling volley flies harmlessly over the heads of our
advancing heroes. At the same time it is evident that boarding-nets are
being quickly placed along the bulwarks of the slaver.
In a few minutes the whaler is at the bows of the dhow. This was
unprotected by netting, and low in the water, for the vessel was deep.
Harry was the first to spring on board, followed instantly by his
fellows.
He speedily parried an ugly thrust made at his throat by a spear, and
next moment his assailant fell on his face with a gash on his neck and
his life's blood welling away. For a few seconds this part of the dhow
bristled with spears, and one or two of Harry's men succumbed to the
lunges and fell to the deck.
But the Arabs retreated before the charge, fighting for every inch of
deck, however.
Meanwhile the cutters were boarding. They were cutters in more ways
than one, for they had not only to defend themselves against
spear-lunging, but to slash through the netting.
A bright white light now gleamed over the dhow's deck. The _Bunting_
was nearly alongside, and burning lights.
It was well this was so, for on the deck of that slave dhow stood fully
seventy as brave Arabs as ever drew a sword or carried a spear.
They went down before our blue-jackets, nevertheless, in twos and
threes. The modern colt is a glorious weapon when held in a cool hand
and backed by a steady eye.
Their very numbers told against these Arabs, but they fought well and
desperately, for they were fighting with the pirate-rope around their
necks. Arab dhows who fire on our British cruisers are treated as
pirates, and, when taken red-handed, have a short shrift and a long
drop.
That they fought with determined courage cannot be gainsaid--gentlemen
Arabs always do--but they have not the bull-dog pluck of our fellows.
They cannot hang on, so to speak; they lack what is technically called
"stay." Nor were they fighting in a good cause, and they knew it.
They knew or felt that they could not, if killed, walk straight from
that blood-slippery battle-deck into the paradise of Mahomed.
Add to this that their weapons were far inferior to ours. Their spears
were easily shivered, and even their swords; while their pistols could
scarcely be called arms of precision.
So after a brave but ineffectual attempt to stem the wild, stern rush of
our British blue-jackets, they fell back towards the poop, so huddled
together that the fire of our men riddled two at a time. They finally
sought refuge in the poop saloon, and even down below among the
remainder of those poor trembling slaves who had not been butchered or
forced to walk the plank.
Many were driven overboard, or preferred the deadly plunge into the
ocean to falling into the hands of the British.
The captain surrendered his sword, standing by the mainmast. He was a
tall and somewhat swarthy Arab, and spoke good English.
"Slay me now, if so minded, you infidel dogs," he shouted, "or keep me
to satiate your revenge?"
Meanwhile, up rose the moon--a vermilion moon--a moon that seemed to
stain all the waves with long quivering ribbons of blood, and the
shadows of the two ships were cast darkling on the water far to the
west.
A wretched half-caste Arab was found skulking under the poop, and
dragged forth by one of the _Bunting's_ men. He had _not_ been in the
fight, yet he had a most terrible appearance.
He was very black and ferocious-looking, dressed only in one white
cotton garment, with a rope for a girdle, from which dangled an ugly
knife.
This fiend in human form was dabbled in blood; his face, hands, bare
arms, and all the front of his garment were wet with gore. He had been
the butcher of the innocent slaves.
He was dragged forth and dragged forward, but suddenly, with an
unearthly yell, he sprang from the sailor's grasp, and next moment had
leapt into the sea.
He was watched for a few moments swimming quickly away from the ship,
then a strange commotion was seen near him, and the wretch threw up his
arms and disappeared.
He had been dragged under by the sharks.
It is through no love of the sensational I pen these lines, reader, nor
describe the capture of this blood-stained dhow. The story is almost
from the life, and I deem it not wrong that my young readers should know
something of the horrors of the slave trade.
Two hundred living slaves were found in the hold of the dhow, many dead
were among the living, and many dying. And it will never be known in
this world how many poor creatures were butchered or thrown overboard to
lighten the ship.
The vessel was condemned at Zanzibar, and taken away out to sea and set
on fire. Nothing was taken out of her except a few shields and spears
that the men got by way of curios. She was simply burned, and sank
hissing and flaming beneath the waves.
The slaves were liberated. Well, even their liberty was something. But
that would not restore them their far-off happy homes amid the wild and
beautiful scenery in the African interior: no, nor restore them their
friends and kindred. Henceforward they must languish in a foreign land.
"What became of the captain of the dhow?" I fancy I hear some of my
readers ask. Have I not, I reply, given you horrors enough in this
chapter? But, nevertheless, I will tell you. He and five others were
hanged. This end was at all events less revolting than an Arab
execution as sometimes carried out. Fancy five political offenders tied
hand and foot, and placed on their backs all in a row in the prison
yard, an Arab executioner with a sharp sword leisurely stepping from one
to another and half-beheading them!
It was a very lovely morning. Harry came on the quarter-deck just as a
great gun was fired from the bows of the _Bunting_; making every window
in the front part of the town rattle, and multiplying its echo among the
distant coral islands. That gun told the condemned men that their day
had come.
"What a lovely morning!" said Harry to Mavers, who was leaning over the
bows, looking seaward and eastward where the sun was silvering a broad
belt of long rippling wavelets.
"Charming," replied Mavers; "but bother it all, Milvaine, old man, I
fell asleep last night thinking about those poor beggars that have to
die this morning."
"So did I," said Harry, "and I dreamt about them."
"You see," continued Mavers, "it is one thing dying sword in hand on a
battle-deck, and another being coolly hanged. But notwithstanding,
Milvaine, don't let us fall into the blues over the matter; the villains
richly deserve their fate."
"Yes," he added, after a pause, "it is a lovely morning. What a
beautiful world it would be if there was neither sin nor sorrow in it!"
The doctor joined them. He was a young man of a somewhat poetical
temperament, curiously blended with an intense love for anatomy and
post-mortems, and a very good fellow on the whole.
"Talking about the condemned criminals? Eh?" he said. Then he laughed
such a happy laugh.
"I'm going to post-mortem them. Will you come and see the operation?"
"Horrible--no!"
"Oh, it is all for the good of science. Shall I describe it?"
"No, no, no?" cried Harry.
"Then come below to breakfast, boys."
"Why," said Mavers, "you've almost taken away my appetite."
"And mine too," said Harry Milvaine.
"Stay," exclaimed the doctor, "I will restore it. Listen."
He threw himself into an attitude as he spoke.
"Sweetly, oh, sweetly the morning breaks
With roseate streaks,
Like the first faint blush on a maiden's cheeks.
Alas! that ever so fair a sun
As that which its course has now begun
Should gild with rays, so light and free,
That dismal dark-frowning gallows-tree."
"I'm not sure," said Mavers, laughing, "that you haven't made matters
worse. But come along, we'll go below, anyhow."
------------------------------------------------------------------------
The _Bunting_, as her name implies, was only a little bit of a gunboat,
but to the slave-dealing dhows she became the scourge of the seas in the
Indian Ocean, all the way south from Delagoa Bay, to Brava and Magadoxa
in the north.
She was always appearing where least expected, sometimes far out at sea,
at other times inland on rivers or wooded creeks. She could sail as
well as any dhow, and that is saying a good deal, and she could steam
well also.
Many a prize fell to her lot, many a cutting-out expedition the boats
had, and right bravely they did their work. So the prize money that
would fall to the share of even the ordinary seamen when the commission
was completed, would be rather more than a trifle.
On Saturday nights, when, after dancing for a time to the merry tunes
the doctor played on his fiddle, the sailors would assemble round the
fo'c's'le to smoke their pipes and quaff the modest drop of rum they had
saved to toast their sweethearts and wives in, they might be heard
building castles in the air as to what they would do with their prize
money.