"Well, steer straight for it then, and I will fetch aft some hatch-
covers--there are several forward--and place them against the doors; I
think I can perhaps contrive to rig up a bullet-proof screen for you."
"But you are hurt yourself, sir," I protested.
"A mere graze after all, I believe," he replied lightly, and forthwith
set about the work of dragging aft the hatch-covers, six of which he
soon piled in front of the companion.
"There," he said, as he placed the last one in position, "I think you
are reasonably safe now; it was a pity we did not think of that before.
Shall I bind up your shoulder for you? You are bleeding, I see."
"No, thank you," I replied; "it is only a trifling scratch, I think, not
worth troubling about now. I would much rather you would go forward and
look out; it would never do to plump the schooner ashore now that we
have come so far. Besides, there are the men down forward; they ought
to be watched, or perhaps they may succeed in breaking out after all."
Smellie looked at me rather doubtfully for almost a full minute. "I
believe you are suffering a great deal of pain, Hawkesley," he said;
"but you are a thoroughly plucky fellow; and if you can only keep up
until we get clear of this confounded creek I will then relieve you.
And I will take care, too, to let Captain Vernon know how admirably you
have conducted yourself, not only to-night, but from the moment that we
left the _Daphne_ together. Now I am going forward to see that all is
right there. If you want help give me a timely hail."
And he turned and walked forward.
The navigation of the creek still continued to be exceedingly intricate
and difficult; the creek itself being winding, and the deep-water
channel very much more winding still, running now on one side of the
creek, now on the other, besides being studded here and there with
shoals, sand-banks, and tiny islets. This, whilst it made the
navigation very difficult for strangers, added greatly to the value of
the creek as a safe and snug resort for slavers; the multitudinous
twists in the channel serving to mask it most artfully, and giving it an
appearance of terminating at a point beyond which in reality a long
stretch of deep water extended.
At length we luffed sharply round a low sandy spit thickly covered with
mangroves, kept broad away again directly afterwards, and abruptly found
ourselves in the main stream of the Congo. Here the true channel was
easily discernible by the long regular run of the sea which had been
lashed up by the gale; and I had therefore nothing to do but keep the
schooner where the sea ran most regularly, and I should be certain to be
right. Smellie now gave a little much-needed attention to the party in
the forecastle, who had latterly been very noisy and clamourous in their
demonstrations of disapproval. Luckily they did not appear to possess
any fire-arms: the only fear from them, therefore, was that they would
find means to break out; and this the second lieutenant provided against
pretty effectually by placing a large wash-deck tub on the cover and
coiling down therein the end of one of the mooring hawsers which stood
on the deck near the windlass.
Having done this, he came aft to relieve me at the wheel, a relief for
which I was by no means sorry.
The party in the cabin had, shortly before this, given up their
amusement of popping at me through the closed doors of the companion,
having doubtless heard Smellie dragging along the hatch-covers and
placing them in position, and having also formed a very shrewd guess
that further mischief on their part was thus effectually frustrated.
Unfortunately, however, they had made the discovery that my head could
be seen over the companion from the fore end of the skylight, and they
had thereupon begun to pop at me from this new position. They had
grazed me twice when Smellie came aft, and he had scarcely opened his
lips to speak to me when another shot came whizzing past us close enough
to him to prove that the fellows still had it in their power to undo all
our work by a single lucky hit.
"Why, Hawkesley," he exclaimed, "this will never do; we _must_ put a
stop to this somehow. We cannot afford to be hard hit, either of us,
for another hour and a half at least. What is to be done? How does
your shoulder feel? Can you use your right arm?"
"I am afraid I cannot," I replied; "my shoulder is dreadfully painful,
and my arm seems to have no strength in it. But I can steer easily with
one hand now?"
"How many people do you think there are in the cabin?" was Smellie's
next question.
"I can scarcely say," I replied; "but I have only been able to
distinguish _three_ voices so far."
"Three, eh? The skipper and two mates, I suppose." He ruminated a
little, stepped forward, and presently returned with a rather
formidable-looking iron bar he had evidently noticed some time before;
and coolly remarked as he began to drag away the hatch-covers from
before the companion:
"I am going down below to give those fellows their _quietus_. If I do
not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we
get the--what was it those fellows called her?--ah! the _Josefa_--before
we get the _Josefa_ under the _Daphne's_ guns. Now, choose a star to
steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on
deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try to draw their fire
and then rush down upon them."
With that he removed his jacket and threw it loosely over the iron bar,
which he laid aside for the moment whilst he cleared away the
obstructions from before the doors. Then, taking up the coat and
holding it well in front of the opening so as to produce in the
uncertain light the appearance of a figure standing there, he suddenly
flung back the slide and threw open the doors.
The immediate results were a couple of pistol shots and a rush up the
companion-ladder, the latter of which Smellie promptly stopped by
swinging his somewhat bulky carcass into the opening and letting himself
drop plump down upon the individuals who were making it. There was a
scuffle at the bottom of the ladder, another pistol shot, two or three
dull crushing blows, another brief scuffle, and then Smellie reappeared,
with blood flowing freely from his left arm, and a truculent-looking
Spaniard in tow. This fellow he dragged on deck, and unceremoniously
kicking his feet from under him, lashed him securely with the end of the
topgallant brace. This done, he once more dived below, and in due time
two more Spaniards, senseless and bleeding, were brought up out of the
cabin and secured.
"There," he said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, "I think we
shall now manage to make the rest of our trip unmolested, and without
having constantly before our eyes the fear of being blown clear across
the Congo. Let me take the wheel; I am sure you must be sadly in need
of a spell. But before you do anything else I will get you to clap a
bandage of some sort round my arm here; I am bleeding so profusely that
I think the bullet must have severed an artery. Here is my
handkerchief, clap it round the arm and haul it as taut as you can; the
great thing just now is to stop the bleeding; Doctor Burnett will do all
that is necessary for us when we reach the sloop."
I bound up his arm after a fashion, making a good enough job of it to
stop the bleeding, and then went forward to keep a look-out. We were
foaming down the river at a tremendous pace, the gale being almost dead
fair for us, and having the additional impetus of a red-hot tide under
foot we swept down past the land as though we had been a steamer. Sooth
to say, however, I scarcely felt in cue just then either to admire the
_Josefa's_ paces or to take much note of the wonderful picture presented
by the river, with its brown mud-tinted waters lashed into fury by the
breath of the tropical tempest and chequered here and there with the
shadows of the scurrying clouds, or lighted up by the phosphorescence
which tipped each wave with a crest of scintillating silvery stars. The
wound in my shoulder was every moment becoming more excruciatingly
painful and more exacting in its demands upon my attention; my interest
seemed to centre itself upon the _Daphne_ and her surgeon; and it was
with a feeling of ineffable relief that, on jibing round Shark Point,
about an hour and a half after clearing the creek, I saw at a distance
of about seven miles away an indistinct object off Padron Point which I
knew must be the _Daphne_ at anchor.
"Do you see the sloop, sir?" I hailed.
"No," returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering
straight into the darkness. "I cannot make her out from here. Do you
see her?"
"Yes, sir," I replied joyously; "there she is, broad on our port bow.
Luff, sir, you may."
"Luff," I heard Smellie return; and the schooner's bows swept round
until they pointed fair for the distant object. "Steady, sir!"
"Steady it is," replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful
above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim
over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks
watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon
swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards,
and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had
but just emerged from the dockyard.
The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we
made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of
her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our
jib-sheet to windward.
As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in
the skipper's cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two
peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of
course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within
easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-
heads, and Armitage's voice rang out across the water with the hail of:
"Schooner ahoy!"
"Hillo!" responded Smellie.