"Is that Mr Ryan's voice that I hear, aft there?"
"Ay, ay, sorr," answered the second luff; "it's myself, bedad, all
that's left ov me!"
A sound of footsteps followed, suggesting that he had walked away
forward to join his superior; but as the man at my feet just then
stirred uneasily, as though his senses were returning to him, I made a
quick grab at my cutlass, and drawing from my belt a loaded pistol, the
existence of which I had until then forgotten, I pulled myself together
and made ready for the next emergency.
Presently, my prisoner, for such he now was, stirred again, sighed
deeply, and opened his eyes, his glance immediately falling upon me.
For a few seconds he seemed not to know where he was, or what had
happened; then, as we gazed into each other's eyes, I saw that his
memory had returned to him, and as he made a motion to rise to his feet,
I sprang to mine, and pointing my pistol straight at his head, said in
the best Spanish that I could muster--
"Stay where you are! If you make the slightest attempt to move I will
blow your brains out, you villain!"
He continued to gaze steadfastly at me for some moments; and then
seeing, I suppose, that I fully meant what I said, he smiled bitterly
and muttered--
"So it has come to this, has it, that I must lie here in my own cabin,
helpless, at the mercy of a mere boy? _Car-r-am-ba_!"
He still kept his regards steadfastly fixed upon me; and as I seemed to
read in the expression of his eyes a dawning determination to make at
least one more effort for freedom, I was not sorry to hear footsteps
coming along the deck, and the voices of the skipper and Ryan in earnest
conversation.
"We must get a light from somewhere at once, and look to the wounded
without a moment's delay," said the former. "I fear that our loss has
been very serious in this affair. Ah! there is a faint glimmer of light
from the skylight yonder; I will go below and see what it is.
Meanwhile, Mr Ryan, muster your men, and load the guns, if you can lay
your hand upon any ammunition. Those schooners will try to slip away if
they can, now that we have got the brig; but I shall not be satisfied
unless I can secure the whole of them; we _must_ have something more
than we have got already to account satisfactorily for our loss!"
"Niver fear, sorr," answered the second luff; "they'll not get away
from--By all the powers though, there goes one of thim now!"
And away he dashed forward again, shouting out certain orders to the
men, while the skipper, after hesitating for a few seconds, entered the
companion and began to descend.
My attention had been somewhat distracted from my prisoner by this brief
conversation, a fact which had evidently not passed unnoticed by him,
for before I fully realised what was happening, he had in some
inexplicable manner sprung to his feet with a single, lightning-like
movement, and his hand was already upon my left wrist, when with a quick
twist of the arm I managed to get my pistol-barrel pointed at him as I
pressed the trigger. There was a bright flash, lighting up the whole
cabin as though by a gleam of lightning, and glancing vividly from the
rolling eyeballs of my antagonist, a sharp explosion, and the Spaniard
went reeling backward with a crash upon one of the sofas as the captain
entered the cabin at a bound.
"Hillo!" he exclaimed, as he peered at me in the faint light of the
lantern, "who are you, and what is the matter here? Why--bless me!--it
is Mr Dugdale, isn't it? And pray who is that man on the sofa?"
In a few brief words I narrated my adventure, to which he listened
quietly, holding his wounded hand, bound up in a handkerchief, in the
other meanwhile; and when I had finished, he glanced at the prostrate
figure on the sofa and said, noticing the ghastly paleness of the
upturned face, and the lifelessness of the outstretched limbs--
"Well, he looks as though there was not much mischief left in him now,
at all events. But it will not do to take any risks; he is evidently a
desperate character, or was before you pinked him, so slip up on deck
and get a length of line--a bit off one of the topgallant-braces will do
if you can't find anything better--to make him fast with. And call a
couple of hands to come below and carry him on deck; it is scarcely safe
to leave such a fellow alone in the cabin, even when securely bound."
I hobbled on deck as well as my burnt foot--which by this time was
excruciatingly painful--would permit, and finding a suitable bit of
line, and securing the assistance of two of our lads, the slave-captain,
as he eventually proved to be, was speedily bound hand and foot,
conveyed on deck, and propped up in a reclining position against the
bulwarks, well aft out of the way, in such a position as seemed least
likely to encourage the bleeding of his wound.
Meanwhile, Ryan, upon leaving the skipper, had rushed forward and hailed
the fugitive schooner, in his richest Dublin accent, to heave-to, or he
would sink her. To this command, however, whether understood or not, no
attention was paid; and before our people, groping about in the thick
darkness among the dead and wounded, could lay their hands upon a single
cartridge, they had the mortification of seeing her vanish round a bend
of the creek on her way seaward, the lieutenant consoling himself with
the assurance that she would infallibly be snapped up by the
_Barracouta_, whose slender crew would be certain to be on the alert all
through the night. When the skipper and I arrived on deck, after
securing our prisoner, Ryan and a few of our lads were busily employed
ramming home a charge in the long eighteen mounted upon the brig's
forecastle, a cartridge and shot for which they had stumbled across in
their search. The second luff at once began to relate, with many
comical expressions of righteous indignation, the particulars of the
schooner's escape; but he had scarcely got well into his narrative when
the faint _screep_ of a block-sheave from to windward warned us that
another of our slippery neighbours was about to hazard a like
experiment. Without waiting for orders, or thinking of what I was
doing, forgetting even my injured foot in the excitement of the moment,
I sprang upon the rail and hailed in Spanish--
"Hola there, keep all fast on board those schooners, or we will riddle
you with grape! And light a lantern each of you and hoist it to your
main-mast-head. I warn you that we will stand no nonsense, so if you
value your lives you will attempt to play no tricks!"
To this no reply whatever was vouchsafed; and I was about to hail again,
when the captain remarked, very quietly--
"May I inquire, Mr Dugdale, what is the nature of the communication--
the _unauthorised_ communication--that you have just made to those
schooners?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," answered I, considerably abashed; "I thought I
heard a sound just now as though another of the schooners were on the
point of attempting to slip away; so I hailed them that if they
attempted any such trick we would treat them to a dose of grape. I also
ordered them to each hoist a lantern to the mast-head, so that we may
see where they are."
"Very good," remarked the skipper suavely; "it was quite the proper
thing to do. But I do not altogether approve of my young gentlemen
taking the initiative in any matter unless they happen to be for the
time being in supreme command. When that is not the case I expect them
to wait for instructions. And now, be so good as to hail them again,
and say that unless those lanterns are displayed within three minutes I
will fire into them."
My second hail proved effective, the two lanterns being in position well
within the time specified. Our skipper was, however, very uneasy; and
after retiring aft and consulting with Ryan for a few minutes, the
second luff and Gowland went away in the first and second cutters with
two good strong crews, and boarded the schooners, the slavers--who were
evidently on the look-out--shoving off in their own boats and escaping
to the shore the moment that they detected what we were after. Both
schooners had a cargo of slaves on board, and were of course at once
taken possession of, an instant search--prompted by our experience on
board the brig--revealing the fact that one of them had been set fire to
so effectually that it took the prize-crew fully an hour to extinguish
it.
Meanwhile, lamps and lanterns were found on board the brig and lighted,
when those of us whose hurts were the least serious set to work to
attend to our more unfortunate comrades. Closer investigation now
revealed the welcome fact that we had suffered less severely than had
been at first anticipated, our killed amounting to five only--although
two more died before they could receive proper surgical attention--
while, of the wounded, seven had received injuries serious enough to
completely disable them, the rest, amounting to no less than
twenty-three, suffering from hurts ranging from such an insignificant
prod as I had received in the leg, up to a cutlass-stroke that had all
but scalped one poor fellow.
At length, just as we had completed the task of getting our worst cases
below out of the persistent rain, and making them in a measure
comfortable, the wind shifted and subsided to a gentle breeze from the
north-eastward, the weather cleared, the rain ceased, and about
half-an-hour later the day broke gloriously, and we were able to get a
view of our surroundings.
We found ourselves in a nearly circular lagoon or basin, about
half-a-mile in diameter, across the centre of which lay moored the brig
and the two schooners, with a gap in the line to mark the berth that had
been occupied by the third schooner--the craft that had succeeded in
effecting her escape. We were completely land-locked, the shores of the
creek being low, and for the most part closely fringed with mangroves,
behind which rose dense and apparently impenetrable masses of bush, now
in full leaf, and thickly overgrown with flowering parasites, the bush
being interspersed with trees of several kinds, some of which were very
lofty and handsome. At a short distance above where we were lying,
there appeared to be another creek--a small affair, not more than a
hundred feet wide--branching off from the main channel; and, upon its
being pointed out to him, the captain at once hailed the schooner of
which the second lieutenant was in possession, directing that the latter
should take his boat, with the crew well armed, and make an exploration
of the subsidiary and main creeks for a short distance, for the purpose
of ascertaining whether, as was exceedingly probable, there was a slave
depot in the neighbourhood. I should greatly have liked to have made
one of the party, and indeed asked permission to join it, but my burnt
foot was by this time so inflamed and painful that I could not put it to
the deck, and Captain Stopford, while expressing his gratification at
the zeal manifested by the request, refused, pointing out that, lame as
I was, I should not only be useless but an actual encumbrance and
embarrassment to the party in the event of resistance being offered to
any attempt on their part to land.
In a few minutes Ryan was ready, and the boat shoved off from the
schooner, leaving just enough hands to take care of her during the
absence of the others. She made straight for the small subsidiary
creek, in the first instance, but re-appeared in about a quarter of an
hour, when the second luff hailed to say that it was a mere _cul de
sac_, only some half-a-mile long, and with very little water in it, the
banks being of soft, black, foetid mud, of a consistency which rendered
landing an impossibility. Having communicated this intelligence, the
cutter next proceeded up stream and quickly vanished round a bend. She
had been out of sight fully half-an-hour, and the captain was just
beginning to manifest some anxiety, neither sight nor sound having
reached us to indicate her whereabouts, when thin wreaths of light brown
smoke appeared rising above the bush and trees about a mile away, the
smoke rapidly increasing in density and volume, and darkening in colour,
until it became quite apparent that a serious conflagration was raging
at no great distance. When the smoke at first appeared, there was some
question in the mind of the captain whether it might not be the work of
the people who had effected their escape from the craft during the
darkness, they having perhaps set fire to the bush in the hope of
involving the prizes and ourselves in the ensuing destruction; but a
little reflection revealed the unlikelihood of this, the vegetation not
only being saturated with the rain that had fallen during the night, but
also being so green and full of sap that it would probably prove
impossible to fire it. We had just reached this conclusion when Ryan
and his party appeared returning, and in a few minutes the cutter ranged
up alongside us to enable the second luff to make his report. He stated
that he had proceeded about a mile and a half up the creek, the course
of which he had found to be very sinuous, when he reached a spot at
which the bank on his port hand was clear of bush and trees, with the
soil firm enough to admit of a landing being conveniently effected, and
as there were signs indicating that the place had been very freely used
quite recently, he shoved alongside the bank and stepped ashore. A
single glance about him now sufficed to convince him that he had made an
important discovery; the grass was much worn, as with the trampling of
many feet, and from this well-trodden spot a broad path led into the
bush. Leaving two men in the boat; to take care of her, with orders how
to proceed in the event of an enemy heaving in sight, Ryan at once led
his party along this path, and after traversing it for less than a
hundred yards, came upon a large barracoon, very solidly and
substantially built, and of dimensions sufficient to accommodate fully a
thousand slaves; there were also kitchens for the preparation of the
slaves' food, tanks for the collection of fresh water, several large
thatched huts that looked as if they were for the accommodation of the
traders, a large store building, and, in short, everything necessary to
complete an important slave-trading establishment. It was evident that
it had been very hurriedly abandoned only a few hours previously; but a
strict and prolonged search failed to reveal the whereabouts of any of
its late occupants; Ryan had therefore first emptied the water-tanks,
and had then set fire to the whole establishment, remaining until the
flames had taken a strong hold upon the several buildings, when he had
retired without molestation.
Meanwhile, by the captain's orders, the hatches had been removed on
board the three prizes, and the condition of the unfortunate prisoners
looked to. I shall never forget the moment when the first hatch was
taken off on board the brig; a thick cloud of steam slowly rose up
through the opening, and the foetid, musky odour, of which I have
already spoken, at once became so pungent and overpowering that the men
who were engaged upon the operation of opening the hatchways were fairly
driven away from their work for the moment, and until the strength of
the stench had been to some extent ameliorated by the fresh air that
immediately poured down into the densely-packed hold. What the relief
of that whiff of fresh air must have been to the unhappy blacks can only
be faintly imagined; but that it was ineffably grateful to them was
evidenced by the deep murmur of delight, and the loud, long-drawn
inspiration of the breath that swept from end to end of the hold the
moment that the hatch was withdrawn, as well as by the upward glance of
gratitude that instantly greeted us from the upturned eyes of those who
were placed nearest the hatchway! But what a sight that hold presented
when in the course of a few minutes the hatches were all removed, and
the blessed light of heaven and the sweet, pure air of the early morning
had gained free access to its sweltering occupants, dispersing the
poisonous fumes which they had been condemned to breathe from the moment
when the approach of our boats had been first notified! I had more than
once had the hold of a slaver and the mode of stowing her human cargo
described to me, but it was necessary to actually _see_ it before the
full horror and misery of the thing could be completely realised. The
space between the planking of the slave-deck and the underside of the
beams was just three feet, or barely sufficient to allow the unfortunate
wretches to sit upright; and in this confined space they were stowed as
tightly as herrings in a barrel, seated on their hams, with the feet
drawn close up to the body, and the knees clasped by the arms close to
the chest. Let anyone try the fatiguing effect of sitting in this
constrained attitude for only a single half-hour, and some idea may then
be formed of the horrible suffering and misery that the unhappy slaves
had to endure cooped up in this fashion for _weeks at a stretch_, not on
a steady, motionless platform, but on the heaving, plunging deck of a
ship driven at her utmost speed over a sea that was seldom smooth enough
to render the motion imperceptible, and often rough enough to sweep her
from stem to stern, and to render the closing of the hatches
imperatively necessary to save her from foundering. Add to this the
fact that the slaves were packed so tightly together that it was
impossible to move, and thus obtain the relief of even a slight change
of position; bear in mind that it was equally impossible to cleanse the
slave-deck during the entire period of the passage of the ship from port
to port; think of the indescribable foulness of the place, the dreadful
atmosphere generated by the ever-accumulating filth, and the exhalations
from the bodies of four or five hundred human beings wedged together in
this confined space; and add to all this the horrors of sea-sickness,
and it at once becomes a perfect marvel that a sufficient number
remained alive at the end of the passage to render the slave-traffic a
remunerative business. It is true that, solely in their own interests,
and not in the least from motives of humanity, the slavers exercised a
certain amount of care and watchfulness over the health of their
captives; that is to say, they allowed one-half to go on deck during
meal-times (twice a day), for the double purpose of affording an
opportunity for the inspiration of a little fresh air, and at the same
time of providing space for the poor wretches below to feed themselves.
This, however, was only when the weather and other circumstances were
favourable; if the weather was bad, the hatches were put on and kept on
until a favourable change occurred; and in the case of a gale, of wind
the unhappy slaves have been known to have been kept without food or
water for forty-eight hours, or even longer, simply because it was
impossible to give them either. Of course in such a case the mortality
was simply frightful, it being no uncommon occurrence for a slaver to
lose more than half her cargo in a single gale; this loss, be it
understood, arising not so much from the want of food as from simple
suffocation through long confinement in the dreadful atmosphere of the
unventilated hold. And when a slaver happened to be pursued by a
man-o'-war, the sufferings of the slaves were almost as bad, for in such
a case the crew seldom troubled themselves to attend to the wants of
their helpless prisoners, devoting all their thoughts and energies to
the task of effecting their own escape. But as I shall have more to say
upon this subject further on, I will not enlarge upon it here.
Ryan having rejoined his prize, and there being a nice little easterly
breeze blowing, the order was given for all three craft to weigh and
proceed down the creek; the captain being rather anxious lest the
slavers should return and take us at a disadvantage now that our force
was divided. Nothing untoward occurred, however, and in a short time we
were all proceeding down the creek, with the second lieutenant in his
schooner as pilot.
And here it may be as well to enumerate the few particulars relative to
our prizes that the exigencies of the narrative have hitherto not
enabled me to give. To begin with the brig: she was, as Lobo had
stated, the _Mercedes_ of Havana; a truly beautiful craft, measuring
fully five hundred tons, very flat in the floor, and so exceedingly
shallow that even in her sea-going trim, with everything on board as
when we took her, she only drew a trifle over eight feet of water aft.
But what she lacked in depth she more than made up for in beam, her deck
being half as spacious again as that of the _Barracouta_. She was a
perfectly lovely model, and sailed like a witch, as we soon discovered.
This was not to be wondered at, however, for in addition to the
beautiful, easy grace of her flowing lines, her scantling was
extraordinarily light--less than half that of the _Barracouta_--and all
her chief fastenings were _screws_! With so light a scantling she of
course worked like a wicker basket in anything of a breeze and seaway,
and leaked like a sieve, the latter being of little or no consequence
with plenty of negroes to send to the pumps in relays, while the working
of her gave her life, and contributed in no small degree toward the
extraordinary speed for which she was distinguished. She was armed with
eight nine-pounder broadside guns, and a long eighteen mounted upon a
pivot on her forecastle; and in the course of our investigations we
discovered that her crew had numbered no less than seventy men, of whom
fourteen were killed in her defence, and twenty-six too severely wounded
to effect their escape. At the moment of her capture five hundred and
sixty-four slaves, all males, were confined in her hold. She was thus,
in herself, a very valuable prize, and quite worth all the trouble that
we had taken to secure her. But in addition to her there were the two
schooners, the larger of which, named the _Dona Hermosa_, was a vessel
of close upon one hundred and twenty tons measurement, with nothing very
remarkable about her appearance to distinguish her from a perfectly
honest trader. Her cargo consisted of exactly three hundred slaves,
rather more than half of whom were women and children. She was unarmed
save for the few muskets that were found scattered about her decks when
our lads boarded and took possession of her. The second schooner, of
which Gowland, the master's mate, had temporary command, was a little
beauty. She was named the _Felicidad_, and hailed from Santiago de
Cuba. She was of one hundred and eighteen tons measurement, and in
model generally very much resembled the _Mercedes_ though neither quite
so shallow nor so beamy in proportion, while her proportionate length
was considerably greater; her lines were therefore even more easy and
beautiful than those of the larger vessel. She sat very low in the
water, and might have been sworn to as a slaver as far away as she could
be seen, her raking masts being short and stout, and her yards of
enormous proportionate length--her foreyard measuring no less than
seventy-eight feet--with a truly astonishing spread of beautifully cut
canvas. In light winds and smooth water she developed a speed that was
absolutely phenomenal, easily running away from her two consorts on the
passage down the creek under her flying jib and main sail only. She was
pierced for three guns of a side, and was further fitted with a very
ingenious arrangement for mounting a gun on a pivot amidships, and at
the same time shifting it a few feet to port or starboard so as to
permit of its being fired directly ahead or astern clear of the masts.
None of her guns, however, were mounted at the time of her capture, they
afterwards being found stowed below at the very bottom of her hold in a
space left for them among her water-leaguers, from which they could
easily be raised on deck when required. Like her consorts, she had on
board a full cargo of slaves--numbering two hundred and forty, of whom
about one-fourth were women and children--when captured.
Our passage up the creek having been effected in the intense darkness of
an overcast and rainy night, it had of course been quite impossible for
us to form any conception of the appearance of our surroundings; but
now, in the broad daylight and clear atmosphere of a fresh and brilliant
morning, every detail of the scene in the midst of which we found
ourselves stood out with the most vivid distinctness, and I was not only
astonished but delighted with the singularity and beauty of Nature's
handiwork that everywhere met my eye in this region of tropical
luxuriance. The three craft were the only evidences of man's intrusion
upon the scene with which we were confronted; everything else was the
work of Nature herself, untrammelled and uninterfered with; and it
appeared as though in the riotous delight of her creative powers she had
put forth all her energies in the production of strange and curious
shapes and bewildering combinations of the richest and most dazzling
colours. True, the water of the creek, which in consequence of the
sheltering height of the bordering vegetation was glassy smooth, was so
fully charged with mud and soil held in suspension that it resembled
chocolate rather than water; but its rich brown colour added to rather
than detracted from the beauty of the picture, harmonising subtly with
the brilliant greens, deep olives, and splendid purples of the foliage,
and the dazzling white, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and blue of the
trailing blossoms that were reflected from its polished surface, as well
as the delicate blue of the sky into which it merged at a short distance
from the vessels. Mangroves with their multitudinous and curiously
twisted and gnarled roots and delicate grey-green foliage lined the
margin of the creek on either hand, and behind them rose tall, feathery
clumps of bamboo alternating with impenetrable thickets of bush, the
foliage of which was of the most variegated colours and curious forms,
beyond which again rose the umbrageous masses of lofty trees, several of
which were clothed with blossoms of pure scarlet instead of leaves,
while over all trailed the serpentine convolutions of gorgeous flowering
creepers. Euphorbias, acacias, baobabs, all were in blossom, and the
fresh morning air was laden with delicious and almost overpoweringly
fragrant perfume. Wherever a slight break in the continuity of the
mangrove belt permitted the river bank itself to be seen, the margin of
the water was ablaze with tall orchids, whose eccentricities of form
were matched only by their unsurpassable beauty of colouring; and even
the tall, luxuriant grasses contributed their quota to the all-pervading
loveliness of the scene by the delicate purple tints of their stamens;
while the curious, pendent nests of the weaver-bird, hanging here and
there from the longer and coarser grass-stalks curving over the water,
added a further element of strangeness and singularity to the picture.
Brilliant-plumaged birds flashed hither and thither; kingfishers of all
sizes perched solemnly upon the roots and overhanging branches of the
mangroves, intently watching the surface of the muddy water for the tiny
ripple that should betray the presence of their prey, or flitted low
athwart the placid, shining surface of the creek; bright-coloured
parrots were seen clawing their way about the trunks of the more lofty
trees, or winging their flight fussily with loud screams from branch to
branch; the cooing of pigeons was heard in every direction; and high
overhead, a small black spot against the deep, brilliant blue of the
sky, marked the presence of a fishing eagle on the look-out for his
breakfast.
In less than half-an-hour we had traversed the distance to the mouth of
the creek, just before reaching which we were astonished to discover the
_Barracouta_ hard and fast upon a sand-bank that lay just off the
entrance, with her topgallant-masts struck, and her remaining boats in
the water, apparently engaged in the task of lightening her. The
captain looked terribly annoyed, but said nothing until we had rounded
the last point and come to an anchor near the spot at which we had left
the _Barracouta_ on the previous night, when he ordered the gig to be
hauled alongside, and, directing me to accompany him, gave the word for
us to pull to the stranded craft.