'HIS NAME IS--WHAT?'
The saving of this creature, which Bella elected to call Bengalee,
because she said she was sure it came from Bengal, and also because
she had once sung a song having that name, was followed by no other
events of any importance whatever. Nor need their stay at the Cape be
dwelt upon, because it consisted simply of various visits which were
paid in the outskirts by Mr. and Mrs. Pooley, accompanied by Bella; by
the unloading of a considerable portion of the cargo of the _Emperor
of the Moon_, and by the refilling of the hold with other goods
saleable in India.
And, now, they were once more on their way towards the Equator, going
due north instead of due south, as when they had last approached it,
and with a cool southern breeze driving the Emperor along under full
sail. Yet, so gentle was this breeze that, even if there had been any
who were not sailors in the ship--as Bella, as well as Mrs. Pooley,
might now well be considered, after the length of voyage she had
already gone through, added to a few extra days and nights of
turbulence and storm--scarcely would they have felt any inconvenience
from the motion. Thus, therefore, with occasionally a dropping of the
wind which reduced their speed a few knots, and, sometimes, with a
total drop in it, so that they did not progress a knot an hour, while
the ship swung slowly round and round the compass, they found
themselves at the time which is about to be described in about
Latitude 45.10 S., and Longitude 30.50 E., or, as near as may be,
about 250 miles to the S.W. of Mauritius.
Wherefore, since the _Emperor of the Moon_ has arrived thus far in the
Indian Ocean there has now to be set down a series of strange events
which befell her, of so remarkable and peculiar a nature that one
wonders that those events have never been chronicled before. For, far
different from the ordinary stress and disasters which overtake ships
at sea were those which have to be described; far different from those
which the recorders of maritime calamities are in the habit of
chronicling either in romance or dry-as-dust descriptions of facts.
All of which the writer now proceeds to relate, beginning with so
strange a coincidence as, perhaps, none but those readers who, in
their voyage through life, have recognised that truth is more strange
than the wildest fiction, will be willing to allow within the bounds
of likelihood. However, to make a beginning--since the coincidence is
true--the _Emperor of the Moon_ was in those latitudes above described
when, it being a bright hot morning with the sea already gleaming like
molten brass, with the pitch between the planks already of the
consistency of putty, and with the brasswork in such a state of heat
that it was unsafe to touch it unless one wanted to leave the skin of
his palms and fingers behind them, the look-out on the fo'c's'le head
yelled: 'Sail, right ahead!' Now, since nothing of this kind, neither
steamer nor sailing vessel, had been seen since they had northed out
of the west-wind drift, and since, also, the liners were rarely found
outside of the Equatorial current, this cry was sufficient to fill
every one on board with a considerable amount of interest and
excitement.
'Whereaway?' called out Charke, who was on the poop at this moment,
the captain, his wife, and Bella being below at breakfast; and, ere
the man could repeat that the sail was right ahead and about five
miles off, all those others there had come on deck.
'How pretty it looks, shining in the sun!' the girl exclaimed, as she
regarded it through a pair of marine glasses which her uncle had
placed at her disposal; 'and how the sail glistens! It looks like a
star.'
'Humph!' said the captain, as he gazed through his binocular. 'Like a
star! True enough, so it does. And,' he said, addressing the two mates
who were standing near him, 'we have seen such stars hereabouts
before, eh? Do you think,' he went on, addressing Charke, lowering his
voice a little, 'it is one of those?'
'Don't know,' Charke said, working his own glass a good deal. 'Can't
see how it can be; too far to the east. Bussorah, Muscat, Ras-el-Had,
Mohamrah, Oman--that's their mark. What should they be doing here?'
'All the same,' exclaimed Pooley, 'it's the rig, and the true shape,
that of a Jargonelle pear cut in half. I do believe that's what it is.
They might have been blown out of their course, you know, or chased by
one of Her Majesty's ships. What do you think?'
'I think,' said Charke, who always spoke of everything connected with
his calling in the most unemotional manner possible, 'I think we shall
know when we come up to her, as we must do in about half an hour.
While,' he continued, with a subdued tone in his voice, while his eye
glinted sideways towards where Bella stood, 'we are not naval officers
but only humble merchant seamen. There's no prize-money for us,
therefore it is not our business.'
Bella had, of course, been listening attentively to all that had been
said since she had come on deck after running lightly up the poop
ladder, and now, hearing these words about 'naval officers' and
'prize-money,' her interest became more intense than before.
'Oh, uncle!' she exclaimed, putting her hand on his sleeve, 'what does
it all mean? Naval officers and prize-money! That's not one of Her
Majesty's ships?'
'No, my dear,' the captain replied, 'that is not one of Her Majesty's
ships; but I shall be precious surprised if she doesn't turn out to be
one of the very craft that Her Majesty's ships are always on the
look-out for hereabouts, only rather closer in towards the African
coast than this. She has all the build of an Arab slave-dhow.'
'Ay,' exclaimed Charke, who was still using his glass freely, from
where he stood behind them. 'Ay, and something more than the build,
too. If I'm not mistaken, her hatches have open gratings. What do you
say, Fagg?' turning to his junior.
'Seems so, sir,' said that young officer, who never wasted more words
than necessary, 'though I'm not quite sure.'
'I am,' replied Charke. 'I can see the grating slits perfectly as we
get nearer.'
'What does that mean?' asked Bella, to whom this conversation conveyed
nothing.
'It means,' said Pooley, 'that there is live stock below those
gratings. Black cattle, as they used to be called on the West Coast.
Ordinary hatches, to simply cover up cargo, are not made to let the
air in. Cargo can do without breathing.'
'How awful!' Bella exclaimed, while through her mind there ran
recollections of what she had heard or read casually of the slave
trade in the old days, and also of the horrors of the North-West
passage. 'How awful!'
'Bad enough,' replied Pooley, 'though not as bad as the old West
African days, nor as shocking as you might think. The slave trade is a
valuable one in this ocean, and those who are carried in the dhows are
well enough fed. Rice, Indian corn, maize, and cassava is given them
for food, and they have mats and matting galore to sleep on. Persian
merchants and Arab gentlemen don't buy starved scarecrows for their
domestic servants.'
'Whatever she is, and whatever her cargo is, there's something wrong
with her,' the chief mate suddenly exclaimed. 'She's off the wind now,
and the fellow who was at the helm has left it. It is abandoned. By
Jove!' he exclaimed, 'he is lying wriggling by it. What on earth's the
matter?'
'And,' added the second mate, 'there's a negro woman waving a red
scarf. Something's wrong there, no doubt.'
'We shall be up to them in ten minutes,' the master said, all bustle
and excitement now. 'Let go the foretack. Stand by to lower the
starboard-quarter boat'; while, as he spoke, the men of the watch who
had been leaning on the fife-rail rushed to the falls to be ready to
let the boat sink to the water when the proper moment came. To Bella
this seemed the most exciting moment of her life! There, in front of
her, was one of those vessels, the name of which, or class of which,
was almost unknown to her, except that, from odds and ends of
conversation with her lover, she had gathered that these were the
things in the chasing of which part of his existence might be passed
until they met once more at Bombay. Here, on this glistening, glassy
sea, the dhow lay--her one mast raking towards her bow instead of her
stern, as is the case with most vessels of the Western world, and her
long white triangle of a sail unfilled and flapping listlessly. A
dhow--perhaps a slaver! as her uncle and the mate had said--a dhow in
sore distress with, writhing by her helm, the man who had lately been
steering her, and, over her bow, that negro woman waving frantically
the red scarf. Excitement there was, indeed, in all this; excitement
which caused Bella, even as she eagerly watched the vessel they were
approaching, to wonder how the striking up of the band at a ball, or
the ring of the prompter's bell ere the curtain rose on a drama that
all London was flocking to see, could have ever stirred her pulses.
What were they, those trivialities, to the smiling, glistening face of
this Eastern sea--to the horror and the cruelties that this now
tranquil ocean's bosom had enfolded through the ages.
Still the negress waved, not recognising, perhaps, in her blind,
besotted, dumb, animal-like ignorance that help was at hand, and
still, through their glasses, they could see that he who had steered
the dhow now lay motionless. Then, at her ear, as the _Emperor_ came
within six cable-lengths of the dhow, her uncle gave a few rapid
orders, the second mate, accompanied by the boat's crew, jumped into
the quarter-boat--the man at the wheel luffed until the vessel had not
a motion in her. Swiftly the boat was lowered, the rudder and thole
pins shipped, and she was on her way to the dhow.
'What do you make of it?' the master roared to Fagg ten minutes later,
as, by then, the _Emperor of the Moon_ had come closer to the dhow
through the motion of the swell. 'What?'
'I don't know what to make of it, sir,' the second mate called back.
'The man who was steering is, I think, dead. He does not move, and
there is a white film over his eyes. The woman who waved the
handkerchief seems well, but I cannot understand what she means. She
does nothing but howl and point below.'
'Are the hatches grated?'
'Yes, sir, and there are four negroes beneath them. It is a slave dhow
for certain. The negroes are shackled and handcuffed.'
'Have you searched further?'
'I am going to do so now. The ship is settling, I think. There is a
kind of poop superstructure forming cabins.'
'Search at once; then bring all alive on board us.'
In a moment Mr. Fagg had disappeared into what he had termed a 'kind
of poop superstructure,' and, while he was in it, all on board the
_Emperor_ were occupied in speculating on what could have brought a
slaver so far to the East and out of her ordinary course, and also in
wondering what the mate would find during his further search.
But that wonderment was soon to be resolved, for, ere Mr. Fagg had
been out of their sight five minutes, he rushed back from the
superstructure to the deck, and bawled through his hands:
'There is a young naval officer lying in the poop cabin, and he is
slightly wounded. His name is--is----'
'What?' roared Pooley, astonished at the mate's hesitation.
'It is marked on the rim of his cap--inside. It is--I--I am afraid it
is Miss Waldron's _fiancé_. The--the--name is Bampfyld.'