About three bells in the forenoon watch next morning the look-out aloft
reported a sail on the larboard bow; and, on being questioned in the
usual manner, he shouted down to us the further information that the
stranger was a brig working in for the land on the starboard tack under
topgallant-sails, and that she had all the look of a man-o'-war.
By six bells we had closed each other within a mile; and a few minutes
afterwards the stranger crossed our bows, and, laying her main topsail
to the mast, lowered a boat. Perceiving that her captain wanted to
speak us, we of course at once hauled our wind and, backing our main
topsail, hove-to about a couple of cables' lengths to windward of the
brig. She was as beautiful a craft as a seaman's eye had ever rested
on: long and low upon the water, with a superbly-modelled hull,
enormously lofty masts with a saucy rake aft to them, and very taunt
heavy yards. She mounted seven guns of a side, apparently of the same
description and weight as our own--long 18-pounders, and there was what
looked suspiciously like a long 32-pounder on her forecastle. She was
flying French colours, but she certainly looked at least as much like an
English as she did like a French ship.
The boat dashed alongside us in true man-o'-war style; our side was duly
manned, and presently there entered through the gangway a man dressed in
the uniform of a lieutenant in the French navy. He was of medium height
and rather square built; his skin was tanned to a deep mahogany colour;
his hair and bushy beard were jet black, as also were his piercing,
restless eyes; and though rather a handsome man, his features wore a
fierce and repellent expression, which, however, passed away as soon as
he began to speak.
"Bon jour, m'sieu," he began, raising his uniform cap and bowing to Mr
Austin, who met him at the gangway. "What chip dis is, eh?"
"This, sir, is His Britannic Majesty's sloop _Daphne_. What brig is
that?"
"That, sair, is the Franch brigue of war _Vestale_; and I am Jules Le
Breton, her first leeftant, at your serveece. Are you le capitaine of
this vaisseau?"
"No, sir; I am the first lieutenant, and my name is Austin," with a bow.
"Captain Vernon is in his cabin. Do you wish to see him?"
At that moment the skipper made his appearance from below, and stepping
forward, the French lieutenant was presented to him with all due
formality by Mr Austin.
It being my watch on deck I was promenading fore and aft just to leeward
of the group, and consequently overheard pretty nearly everything that
passed. The _Vestale_, it appeared from Monsieur Le Breton's statement,
had just returned to the coast from a fruitless chase half across the
Atlantic after a large barque which had managed to slip out of the Congo
and dodge past them some three weeks previously, and she was now about
to look in there once more in the hope of meeting with better fortune.
And, judging from the course we were steering that we had just left the
river, Monsieur Le Breton had, "by order of Capitane Dubosc, ventured
upon the liberte" of boarding us in order to ascertain the latest news.
The skipper of course mentioned our exploring expedition of the previous
day, assured him of the total absence of all ships from the river, and
finally invited him into the cabin to take wine with him.
They were below fully half an hour, and when they returned to the deck
the Frenchman was chattering away in very broken English in the most
lively manner, and gesticulating with his hands and shoulders as only a
Frenchman can. But notwithstanding the animation with which he was
conversing, I could not help noticing that his eyes were all over the
ship, not in an abstracted fashion, but evidently with the object of
thoroughly "taking stock" of us. It struck me, too, that his English
was too broken to be quite genuine--or rather, to be strictly correct,
that it was not always broken to the same extent. For instance, he once
or twice used the word "the," uttering it as plainly as I could; and at
other times I noticed that he called it "ze" or "dee." And I detected
him ringing the changes in like manner on several other words. From
which I inferred that he was not altogether as fair and above-board with
us as he wished us to believe. I felt half disposed to seize an early
opportunity to mention the matter to Mr Austin; but then, on the other
hand, I reflected that Monsieur Le Breton could hardly have any possible
reason for attempting to deceive us in any way, and so for the moment
the matter passed out of my mind.
At length our visitor bowed himself down over the side, throwing one
last lingering look round our decks as he did so, and in another five
minutes was once more on board his own ship, which, hoisting up her
boat, filled her main topsail, and, with a dip of her ensign by way of
"good-bye," resumed her course.
"Thank Heaven I've got rid of the fellow at last!" exclaimed Captain
Vernon with a laugh, when the brig was once more fairly under weigh.
"He has pumped me dry; such an inquisitive individual I think I never in
my life encountered before. But I fancy I have succeeded in persuading
him that he will do no good by hanging about the coast hereabouts. We
want no Frenchmen to help us with our work; and I gave him so very
discouraging an account of the state of things here, that I expect they
will take a trip northward after looking into the river."
We continued running off the land for the remainder of that day, the
whole of the following night, and up to noon next day, with a breeze
which sent us along, under topsails only, at a rate of about six knots
an hour. On the following day, at six bells in the forenoon watch (11
a.m.), the look-out aloft reported a something which he took to be
floating wreckage, about three points on the port bow; and Mr Smellie,
our second lieutenant, at once went aloft to the foretopmast crosstrees
to have a look at it through his telescope. A single glance sufficed to
acquaint him with the fact that the object, which was about six miles
distant, was a raft with people upon it, who were making such signals as
it was in their power to make with the object of attracting our
attention. Upon the receipt of this news on deck Captain Vernon at once
ordered the ship's course to be altered to the direction of the raft, a
gun being fired and the ensign run up to the gaff-end at the same time.
It was a trifle past noon when the _Daphne_ rounded-to about a hundred
yards to windward of the raft, and sent away a boat to pick up those
upon it. It was a wretched make-shift structure, composed of a spar or
two, some half-burned hen-coops, and a few pieces of charred bulwark-
planking; and was so small that there was scarcely room on it for the
fourteen persons it sustained. It was a most fortunate circumstance for
them that the weather happened to be fine at the time; for had there
been any great amount of sea running, the crazy concern could not have
been kept together for half an hour. We concluded from the appearance
of the affair that the castaways had been burned out of their ship; and
so they had, but not in the manner we supposed. As we closed with the
raft it was seen that several sharks were cruising longingly round and
round it, and occasionally charging at it, evidently in the hope of
being able to drag off some of its occupants. So pertinacious were
these ravenous fish that the boat's crew had to fairly fight their way
through them, and even to beat them off with the oars and stretchers
when they had got alongside. However, the poor wretches were rescued
without accident; and in a quarter of an hour from the time of
despatching the boat she was once more swinging at the davits, with the
rescued men, most of whom were suffering more or less severely from
burns, safely below in charge of the doctor and his assistant. Later
on, when their injuries had been attended to and the cravings of their
hunger and thirst satisfied--they had neither eaten nor drunk during the
previous forty-two hours--Captain Vernon sent for the skipper of the
rescued crew, to learn from him an account of the mishap.
His story, as related to me by him during the second dog-watch, was to
the following effect:--
"My name is Richards, and my ship, which hailed from Liverpool, was
called the _Juliet_. She was a barque of three hundred and fifty tons
register, oak built and copper fastened throughout, and was only five
years old.
"Fifty-four days ago to-day we cleared from Liverpool for Saint Paul de
Loando with a cargo of Manchester and Birmingham goods, sailing the same
day with the afternoon tide.
"All went well with us until the day before last, when, just before
eight bells in the afternoon watch, one of the hands, who had gone aloft
to stow the main-topgallant-sail, reported a sail dead to leeward of us
under a heavy press of canvas. I have been to Saint Paul twice before,
and know pretty well the character of this coast; moreover, on my first
trip I was boarded and plundered by a rascally Spaniard; so I thought I
would just step up aloft and take a look at the stranger through my
glass at once. Well, sir, I did so, and the conclusion I came to was,
that though it was blowing very fresh I would give the ship every stitch
of canvas I could show to it. The strange sail was a brig of about
three hundred tons or thereabouts, with very taunt spars, a tremendous
spread of canvas, and her hull painted dead black down to the copper,
which had been scoured until it fairly shone again. I didn't at all
like the appearance of my newly-discovered neighbour; the craft had a
wicked look about her from her truck down, and the press of sail she was
carrying seemed to bode me no good. So, as the _Juliet_ happened to be
a pretty smart vessel under her canvas, and in splendid sailing trim, I
thought I would do what I could to keep the stranger at arms'-length,
and when the watch was called, a few minutes afterwards, I got the
topgallant-sails, royals, flying jib, main-topgallant, royal, and mizen-
topmast-staysails all on the old barkie again, and we began to smoke
through it, I can tell you. That done, I set the stranger by compass,
and for the first hour or so I thought we were holding our own; but by
sunset I could see--a great deal too plainly for my own comfort--that
the brig was both weathering and fore-reaching upon us. Still she was a
long way off, and had the night been dark I should have tried to dodge
the fellow; but that unfortunately was no use; the sun was no sooner set
than the moon rose, and of course he could see us even more plainly than
we could see him. At seven o'clock he tacked, and then I felt pretty
sure he meant mischief; and when, at a little before eight bells, he
tacked again, this time directly in our wake, I had no further doubt
about it. At this time he was about eight miles astern of us, and at
midnight he ranged up on our weather quarter, slapped his broadside of
seven 18-pound shot right into us without a word of warning, and ordered
us to at once heave-to. My owners had unfortunately sent me to sea with
only half a dozen muskets on board, and not an ounce of powder or shot;
so what could I do? Nothing, of course, but heave-to as I was bid; and
we accordingly backed the main topsail without a moment's delay. The
brig then did the same, and lowered a boat, which five minutes later
dashed alongside us and threw in upon our decks a crew of seventeen as
bloodthirsty-looking ruffians as one need ever wish to see. We were,
all hands fore and aft, at once bound neck and heels and huddled
together aft on the monkey-poop, with two of the pirates mounting guard
over us, and then the rest of the gang coolly set to work and ransacked
the ship. The fellow in command of the party--a man about five feet six
inches in height, square built, with deeply bronzed features and black
hair and beard--made it his first business to hunt for the manifest; and
having ascertained from it that we had amongst the cargo several bolts
of canvas, a large quantity of new rope, four cases of watches and
jewellery, and a dozen cases of beads, he first ordered me, in broken
English, to inform him where these articles were stowed, and then had
the hatches stripped off and the cargo roused on deck until he could get
at them. When the beads, rope, canvas, and other matters that he took a
fancy to, amounting to six boat loads, had been transferred to the brig,
he informed me that I must point out to him the spot where I had
concealed the money which he knew to be on board. Now it so happened
that I had _no_ money on board; my owners are dreadfully suspicious
people, and will not intrust _anybody_ with a shilling more than they
can help--and many a good fifty-pound note has missed its way into their
pockets through their over-cautiousness; but that's neither here nor
there. Well, I told the fellow we had no money on board, whereupon he
whipped out his watch and told me out loud, so that all hands could
hear, that he would give us five minutes in which to make up our minds
whether we would hand over the cash or not; and if we decided _not_ to
do so he would at the end of that time set fire to the ship and leave us
all to burn in her. And that's just exactly what he did."
"He actually set fire to the ship!" said I. "But of course he cast you
all adrift first, and gave you at least a _chance_ to save your lives?"
"I'll tell you what he did, sir," replied the merchant-skipper. "When
the five minutes had expired he called for a lantern, and, when he had
got it, went round and examined each man's lashings with his own eyes
and hands, so as to make sure that we were all secure to his
satisfaction. Then he ordered half-a-dozen bales of cotton goods to be
cut open and strewed about the cabin; poured oil, turpentine, and tar
over them; did the same down in the forecastle; and then capsized a cask
of tar and a can of turpentine over the most inflammable goods he could
put his hand upon down in the main hatchway; had the bottoms of all the
boats knocked out; took away all the oars; and then set fire to the ship
forward, aft, and in midships; after which he wished us all a warm
journey into the next world, and went deliberately down the side into
his boat. The brig stood by us until we were fairly in flames fore and
aft, and then filled away on the starboard tack under all the canvas she
could show to it, leaving us there to perish miserably."
"And how did you manage to effect your escape after all?" I inquired.
"Well, sir," the skipper replied, "the ship--as you may imagine, with a
cargo such as we had on board--burned like a torch. In less than five
minutes after the pirates had shoved off from our side the flames were
darting up through companion, hatchway, and fore-scuttle, and in a
quarter of an hour she was all ablaze. Luckily for us, the ship, left
to herself, had paid off before the wind, and the flames were therefore
blown for'ard; but the deck upon which we were lying soon became so hot
as to be quite unbearable; we were literally beginning to roast alive,
and were in momentary expectation that the deck would fall in and drop
us helplessly into the raging furnace below. At last, driven to
desperation by the torture of mind and body from which I was suffering,
I managed to roll over on my other side; and there, within an inch of my
mouth, was a man's hands, lashed, like my own, firmly behind his back,
and his ankles drawn close up to them. The idea seized me to try and
_gnaw_ through his lashings and so free him, when of course he would
soon be able to cast us adrift in return. I shouted to him what I
intended to do, and then set to work with my teeth upon his bonds,
gnawing away for dear life. When my teeth first came into contact with
the firm hard rope I thought I should never be able to do it--at least
not in time to save us--but a man never knows what he can do until he
tries in earnest, as I did then; and I actually succeeded, and in a few
minutes too, in eating my way through one turn of the lashings. The man
then strained and tugged until he managed to free himself, after which
it was the work of a few minutes only to liberate the rest of us. We
then hastily collected together such materials as we could first lay our
hands on, and with them constructed the raft off which you took us. It
was a terribly crazy affair, but we had no time to make a better one.
And of course, as the ship was by that time a mass of fire fore and aft,
it was impossible for us to secure an atom of provisions of any kind, or
a single drop of water."
"What a story of fiendish cruelty!" I ejaculated when Richards had
finished his story. "By the by," I suddenly added, moved by an impulse
which I could neither analyse nor account for, "of what nationality was
the leader of the pirates? Do you think he was a _Frenchman_?"
"Yes, sir, I believe he _was_, although he addressed his men in
Spanish," answered Richards in some surprise. "Why do you ask, sir?
Have you ever fallen in with such a man as I have described him to be?"
"Well, ye--that is, not to my knowledge," I replied hesitatingly. The
fact is that Richards' description of the pirate leader had somehow
brought vividly before my minds' eye the personality of Monsieur Le
Breton, the first lieutenant of the French gun-brig _Vestale_; and it
was this which doubtless prompted me to put the absurd question to my
companion as to the nationality of the man who had so inhumanly treated
him. Not, it must be understood, that I seriously for a single instant
associated Monsieur Le Breton or the _Vestale_ with the diabolical act
of piracy to the account of which I had just listened. We had at that
time no very great love of or respect for the French, it is true; but
even the most bigoted of Englishmen would, I think, have hesitated to
hint at the possibility of a French man-of-war being the perpetrator of
such a deed.
The mere idea, the bare suggestion of such a suspicion, was so absurd
that I laughed at myself for my folly in allowing it to obtrude itself,
even in the most intangible form, for a single moment on my mind. And
yet, such is the perversity of the human intellect, I could not, in
spite of myself, quite get rid of the extravagant idea that Monsieur Le
Breton was in some inexplicable way cognisant of the outrage; nor could
I forbear sketching, for Richards' benefit, as accurate a word-portrait
as I could of the French lieutenant; and--I suppose on account of that
same perversity--I felt no surprise whatever when he assured me that I
had faithfully described to him the arch-pirate who had left him and his
crew to perish in the flames. Indeed, in my then contradictory state of
mind I should have been disappointed had he said otherwise. The man's
conduct--his stealthy but searching scrutiny of the ship; his endeavour,
as I regarded it, to mislead us with his broken English; and his
excessive curiosity, as hinted at by Captain Vernon, had struck me as
peculiar, to say the least of it, on the occasion of his visit to the
_Daphne_. I had suspected _then_ that he was not altogether and exactly
what he pretended to be; and _now_ Richards' identification of him from
my description seemed to confirm, in a great measure, my instinctive
suspicions, unreasonable, extravagant, and absurd as I admitted them to
be. My first impulse--and it was a very strong one--was to take Mr
Austin into my confidence, to unfold to him my suspicions and the
circumstances which had given rise to them, frankly admitting at the
same time their apparent enormity, and then to put the question to him
whether, in his opinion, there was the slightest possibility of those
suspicions being well-founded.
So strongly, so unaccountably was I urged to do this, that I had
actually set out to find the first lieutenant when reflection and common
sense came to my aid and asked me what was this thing that I was about
to do. The answer to this question was, that with the self-sufficiency
and stupendous conceit which my father had especially cautioned me to
guard against, I was arrogating to myself the possession of superhuman
sagacity, and (upon the flimsy foundation of a wild and extravagant
fancy, backed by a mere chance resemblance, which after all might prove
to be no resemblance at all if Richards could once be confronted with
Monsieur Le Breton) was about to insinuate a charge of the most
atrocious character against an officer holding a responsible and
honourable position--a man who doubtless was the soul of honour and
rectitude. A moment's reflection sufficed to convince me of the utter
impossibility of the same man being in command of a pirate-brig one day
and an officer of a French man-o'-war the next. I might just as
reasonably have suspected the _Vestale_ herself of piracy; and _that_, I
well knew, would be carrying my suspicions to the uttermost extremity of
idiotic absurdity. I had, in short--so I finally decided--discovered a
mare's nest, and upon the strength of it had been upon the very verge of
proclaiming myself a hopeless idiot and making myself the perpetual
laughing-stock of the whole ship. I congratulated myself most heartily
upon having paused in time, and resolved very determinedly that I would
not further dwell upon the subject, or allow myself to be again lured
into entertaining such superlatively ridiculous notions.
Yet only four days later I was harassed by a temporary recurrence of all
my suspicions; and it was with the utmost difficulty that I combated
them. I succeeded, it is true, in so far maintaining my self-control as
to keep a silent tongue; but they continued persistently to haunt me
until--but steady! Whither away, Dick, my lad? You are out of your
course altogether and luffing into the wind's eye, instead of working
steadily to windward, tack and tack, and taking the incidents of your
story as you come to them.