At the distance which now separated us from the barque all the movements
of her crew were distinctly visible to us with the aid of our glasses--
which of course were scarcely off her for a moment--and we accordingly
witnessed the launching of the first slave overboard. The unhappy
creature was placed in a cask, and, as I have said before, headed up
therein, an aperture being cut in the two halves of the head just
sufficient to admit his neck; and the cask was then slung by a whip from
the main-yard-arm, and secured by a toggle, the withdrawal of which at
the right moment, by means of a lanyard, enabled the cask to be dropped
gently, right end up, in the water, where it floated, with its inmate a
helpless prisoner, to be picked up or not as the case might be. To
render this ruse of real service, a smart breeze should be blowing,
because under these conditions the pursuer has not only to lower a boat
to pick up the floating black, but she has also to heave-to and wait for
her boat; and however smartly the operations of lowering, picking up,
and hooking on again may be performed, they still absorb quite an
appreciable amount of time, during which the fugitive craft increases
her lead more or less according to her speed. In the present case,
however, the conditions were by no means favourable to the pursued
craft; for, since we were only moving through the water at a speed of
about three knots, it was an easy matter for us to drop a boat into the
water and send her on ahead to pick up the man, and pull alongside again
without detaining the schooner for an instant. The slaver tried the
trick four times in succession, and then, finding that it did not
answer, gave it up.
The sun was just dipping beneath the horizon in a magnificent array of
light cirrus clouds, painted by his last rays in tinctures of the most
brilliant purple and rose and gold, and the wind had died away to the
merest zephyr when we arrived within gun-shot of the chase; and Ryan at
once ordered the long eighteen between the masts to be cleared away and
a shot fired as close to the barque as possible without hitting her,
just by way of a gentle hint that we were disposed to stand no more
nonsense, and that the time had now arrived for her to surrender without
giving us any further trouble. But evidently the last thought in the
mind of her skipper was to yield, for instead of hauling down his
colours like a good sensible man, he blazed away at us in return with a
couple of twelve-pounders that he had run out through his stern-ports.
The shots were well aimed, but did not quite reach us, striking the
water twice fair in line with us, and then making their final scurry,
and sinking within about thirty yards of our bows.
"By the piper, I believe the fellow intends to fight us!" exclaimed
Ryan. "As a rule these gentlemen are particularly careful of their
skins, and have no fancy for hard knocks, giving in when they find that
their only choice lies between a fight and surrendering, but there are
occasional exceptions to this rule, and I fancy that this fellow will
prove to be one of them. Now, Harry, me bhoy, we must be careful what
we are after when it comes to boarding and carrying yonder gintleman;
for if he happen to be one of the reckless desperado kind he may play us
a scurvy trick. I have heard of men who blew their ship and everybody
in her into the air rather than allow her to be captured; and, for aught
that we can tell to the contrary, the fellow who commands the barque may
be one of that stamp. Now, if he is, we may rest assured that he will
do nothing desperate until the capture of the ship is certain; until
then he will be the foremost man in the fray; so we must both keep a
sharp look-out for him and put him _hors de combat_ before he has the
chance to do any harm. I hope this breeze will hold long enough to
enable us to get alongside; should we be becalmed and have to attack him
with the boats, it will give him an important advantage, and perhaps
result in the loss of some of our men."
This hope of Ryan's was destined to disappointment; for the wind
continued to dwindle after sunset until it finally died away altogether,
and left both craft without steerage-way. By this time, however, we had
drifted within range of the barque's guns, and she had opened a rather
desultory but well-directed fire upon us whenever any of her guns could
be brought to bear, the result of which was that one of our men had
already been hurt by a splinter, while the schooner's rigging was
beginning to be a good deal cut up. Meanwhile we were precluded from
returning the barque's fire lest we should injure or kill any of the
unhappy wretches pent up in her hold. At length a round-shot entered
the schooner's bows, traversed the decks, and passed out over the
taffrail, glancing hither and thither as it went, and, although it did
no material damage, affording several of the men a very narrow escape.
"Why, this will never do!" exclaimed Ryan, as the shot made its exit
after passing between the legs of the man who was standing at the now
idle tiller. "A few of those fellows, as well aimed as that one was,
would make a very pretty general average among us. We shall have to get
out the boats--or, stop!--yes, I think that will be better; we will arm
the men and make all ready for boarding; load the guns with a double
charge of grape; and then man the sweeps, and sweep the schooner
alongside, firing our guns as we heave the grappling-irons, and boarding
in the smoke. We shall thus have all hands available when we get
alongside, and our bulwarks will meanwhile afford the men a certain
amount of protection."
The necessary orders were accordingly given, and a few minutes later the
men, stripped to the waist, had rigged out the heavy sweeps and were
toiling away at them. And now the advantages of the schooner's light
scantling, light draught, and fine lines made themselves fully apparent,
for, having once overcome the inertia of the hull and put it in motion,
the men found the little craft very easy on her sweeps, and capable of
being moved at quite a respectable pace through the water.
The barque was of course much too large and unwieldy a craft to be moved
by the same means, and nothing of the kind was even attempted; her crew,
however, maintained a smart fire upon us as we approached; but as we
were careful to keep her end-on so that only her two stern-chasers could
be brought to bear upon us, and as we kept up a hot musketry fire upon
that particular part of her, we did not suffer very severely; and
without any further casualties we at length arrived near enough, with
good way on, to permit of the sweeps being laid in, preparatory to our
ranging up alongside. Ryan now divided the boarders into two parties,
one to be led by himself from aft, while I was instructed to head the
other party from our forecastle, the idea being to pin the slaver's crew
between the two parties, thus attacking them simultaneously in front and
rear as it might be.
Ryan himself conned the schooner alongside; and when we were within some
ten yards of the barque, our guns having previously been trained well
forward, the whole of our small broadside was poured in upon her deck,
with terribly destructive effect it would seem from the outburst of
shrieks and groans and curses that immediately arose on board her. Our
fire was instantly returned, but in such a partial irregular way as only
tended to confirm the impression that the slaver's crew had suffered
severely, yet it gave us a tolerably clear idea of what would have been
the result to us had we withheld our fire for just a second or two
longer. Then, while both craft were still enveloped in the motionless
smoke-wreaths, we felt the schooner's sides rasping against those of the
barque; and, with a shout to my little party to follow, I sprang upon
our own bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down on the
slaver's deck--for a slaver she was, as our olfactory nerves now assured
us beyond dispute.
It was by this time quite dark, or at least as dark as it was likely to
be at all that night; but the sky was cloudless, the atmosphere was
clear, and the stars were shining with a lustre quite unknown in our
more temperate clime; we therefore had but little difficulty in seeing
what we were about, or in distinguishing friend from foe; still, I must
confess that I felt a little awkward, and, having commenced by
discharging both my pistols into the thickest of the crowd that I found
opposed to me, confined myself pretty much to a random system of
slashing right and left with my cutlass, my principle--if I had one--
being to strike the blows, leaving to others the task of warding them if
they could. The fight that now ensued was brief, but sharp; the slavers
disputing every inch of their deck with us; but our fellows were not to
be resisted; there was a brief space of time during which the air seemed
full of the sound of clashing steel, popping pistols, shouts, shrieks,
groans, and execrations, and the barque was ours, her crew throwing away
their weapons and crying loudly for quarter, which of course was granted
to them.
The fight being over I at once made my way aft, and was greatly shocked
to find that during the brief struggle poor Ryan had been badly wounded
in a hand-to-hand fight with the skipper of the barque, whom he had at
once singled out and engaged. It afterwards appeared that as soon as
matters seemed to be going badly for the barque's people her skipper had
attempted to slip out of the fight and slink below; but Ryan, suspecting
some sinister object in this projected movement, had stuck to the man so
closely, getting between him and the companion, that his object, if he
had one, was frustrated; and in his desperation he had struck a blow at
Ryan that clove the unfortunate Irishman's skull open, only to be
impaled himself upon our dashing captain's sword at the same moment.
Ryan had thus fulfilled his purpose of putting the slaver's skipper
_hors de combat_, but at serious cost to himself; the poor fellow was so
desperately hurt that he could do nothing but murmur his gratification
at finding that I had emerged from the fray unhurt, and an injunction to
me to take the command, when he fainted, and I at once had him carefully
conveyed to his own cabin on board the schooner, where Armstrong the
surgeon immediately took him in hand.
Our capture was named the _San Sebastian_, and hailed from Havana; she
had four hundred and twenty-one slaves on board, out of a total of four
hundred and seventy-six that she had brought out of the Gaboon river
only ten days before; she was a very fine handsome vessel of three
hundred and forty-five tons measurement; and our recent experiences with
her had proved that she sailed like a witch. We secured our prisoners;
conveyed our own wounded--amounting to nine in all--on board the
schooner; and then, having put Pierrepoint and a prize-crew on board the
barque, both vessels made sail in company for Sierra Leone, where we
arrived safely, after a passage of exactly a week, and where we were
rejoined by Gowland and the prize-crew of the _Conquistador_, which
vessel had arrived six days before us.
Here, as the repairing of our damages and the provision of a new
foremast for the schooner threatened us with a considerable amount of
delay, Ryan went ashore to the hospital, where he made pretty fair
progress toward recovery, although the improvement was not so marked or
rapid as it had been on board the schooner at sea; the intense heat, he
complained, was against him, and his first inquiry every morning when I
went to see him was, "When did I think the schooner would be ready for
sea again?" It was therefore with a feeling of intense satisfaction
that I was at length able to inform him that another day would see us
out of the hands of the shipwrights and riggers, and that we might sail
on the day following if he so pleased. This news acted like a cordial
upon his spirits; he brightened up wonderfully, and improved more
rapidly within the ensuing twenty-four hours than he had done during the
whole time of his sojourn in hospital, and but for the firmness of the
doctor, would at once have taken his discharge, and actually busied
himself about the final preparations for our departure. He, however,
insisted upon joining me in the acceptance of an invitation to dine with
the Governor that evening; and at the appointed hour I called for him,
and we sauntered slowly to Government House together. The party was not
a very large one, nor did we sit very late; but as the other guests were
taking their leave, his Excellency intimated that he desired to have a
word or two with us in private, and we accordingly deferred our
departure.
When at length we were alone, our host invited us to light up another
cigar, and, himself setting us the example, proceeded to a cabinet that
stood in the corner of the room, opening which he produced a folded
document from a drawer, and unfolding it, laid it before us.
"This, gentlemen," said he, "is a rough sketch-chart of the embouchure
of the Congo. It does not profess to be drawn to scale; but I am told
that it shows with approximate accuracy the relative positions of the
various creeks and indentations that discharge into the main river, up
to the Narrows. Now, the individual from whom I obtained this chart
informs me that at a distance of about two and a half miles up a certain
creek on the south bank--this one, the mouth of which is indicated by a
star--there is a rather considerable native settlement, ruled by a
savage, known to the few Europeans who possess the doubtful honour of
his acquaintance as King Plenty. And, if my informant is to be depended
upon, this potentate, whose chief characteristics are avarice and brutal
ferocity, has discovered a very simple method of combining business with
pleasure by making ruthless war upon his neighbours, and, after his lust
for slaughter is satisfied, disposing of his prisoners to certain
slave-dealers, who have established themselves on the southern bank of
the creek, where they have erected barracoons, factories, and every
convenience for carrying on their nefarious trade. I am told that
within the last six months this spot, known only to a select few, has
been frequently visited, and large numbers of slaves have been carried
away from it; its natural characteristics rendering it especially
suitable for the traffic. For instance, it would appear that this
creek, like most of the others that discharge into the Congo, and like
the African rivers generally, has its own little bar at its mouth, upon
which there is only one and three-quarter fathoms of water, and is
therefore unapproachable by any of the men-o'-war on the station--
excepting perhaps the _Barracouta_, and she is away cruising just now--
while the character of the banks is such as to afford every facility for
a galling and continuous fire upon a flotilla of boats advancing up the
creek. I have therefore thought that the breaking up and destruction of
this slave-trading station would be a piece of work admirably suited to
the _Felicidad_ and her gallant crew"--Ryan and I simultaneously bowed
our appreciation of the compliment--"because it is especially a case
wherein valour and discretion must go hand-in-hand, the service being of
an especially hazardous nature; and I feel that in no one are the two
qualities that I have mentioned more admirably combined than in the
person of Captain Ryan."