As the evening progressed it became evident to me that our new captain
had developed a very preoccupied mood; he fell into long fits of
abstraction; and often answered very much at random such remarks as
happened to be addressed to him. He appeared to be turning over some
puzzling matter in his mind; and at length that matter came to the
surface and found expression in speech.
"Mr Purchase," he said, "I have been trying to put two and two
together--or, in other words, I have been endeavouring to find an
explanation of the puzzle which this business of the wreck of the
_Psyche_ presents. I can understand quite clearly that poor Captain
Harrison was deliberately deceived and misled by certain persons in
Sierra Leone in order that the ship might be cast away. But why _here_
particularly? For if my theory be correct that the supposed decoy
schooner actually sailed out of this river with a full cargo of black
ivory, there must certainly be a barracoon somewhere close at hand from
which she drew her supplies; and the people who planned the destruction
of the sloop could scarcely have been so short-sighted as to have
overlooked the fact that such a happening would leave us here stranded
in close proximity to a slave factory which, presumably, they would be
most anxious should remain undiscovered by us. That is the point which
I cannot understand; and I have come to the conclusion that my theory
with regard to the schooner must be altogether wrong, or there must be
something else in the wind--that, in short, the wreck of the sloop is
only a part instead of the whole of their plan."
"But what about the barracoon which you destroyed to-day, sir?" asked
Purchase. "Might not that be the place from which those fellows draw
their supplies of slaves?"
"It might, of course," admitted the skipper; "but, all the same, I do
not believe it was. For the people who supplied Captain Harrison with
false information would surely know enough of him and his methods to be
certain that, failing to find anything in the nature of a slave factory
at King Olomba's town, we should not leave the river again until we had
thoroughly explored it; and if they knew the river at all they would
also know that the factory on the Camma Lagoon could scarcely be
overlooked by us. No; in my own mind I feel convinced that the factory
which we destroyed to-day was not the one in which those fellows are
interested; there is another one somewhere in the river; and I will not
leave until I have discovered and destroyed it. But that only brings me
back to the point from which I started, and once more raises the
question, Why did they cast us away within a few miles of this other
factory which I am persuaded exists? Is it that the place is so
strongly fortified that they are confident of our inability to take it?
Or is there something else at the back of it all, of which we have not
yet got an inkling?"
Purchase shook his head hopelessly. "Upon my word, sir," he answered,
"it is quite impossible for me to say. When you come to put the matter
like that it becomes as inexplicable as a Chinese puzzle. What is your
own opinion?"
"I haven't been able to form one at all," answered the skipper. "But
the matter is puzzling enough to convince me that it would be folly on
our part to assume that the casting away of the ship is the beginning
and ending of the adventure; therefore we will neglect no precautions,
Mr Purchase, lest we find ourselves landed in an even worse predicament
than our present one. Our first and most important precaution must be
to maintain a strict watch throughout the night. It need not be a very
strong watch, but it must be a vigilant one; therefore each watch will
be kept under the supervision of an officer who will be responsible for
the vigilance of the men under him. Moreover, all hands must see that
their muskets and pistols are loaded and ready for instant action; for
it would not be a very difficult matter to surprise this camp of ours
sometime during the small hours. Just come outside with me and let us
take a look round."
The result of the above conversation and the "look round" was an
arrangement that the night was to be divided into five watches of two
hours each, beginning at eight o'clock in the evening and ending at six
o'clock in the morning; each watch to consist of twelve men, fully
armed, who were to act as sentries, half of them being detailed to watch
the river in the neighbourhood of the boats, while the other half kept
watch and ward over the land approach to our encampment, being stretched
across the narrow isthmus in open order from the water's edge on the
river-side to that on the sea-side. Each watch was commanded by an
officer, with a midshipman under him; and the general orders were to
fire a single shot at the first sign of anything of an alarming
character, and then retire upon the camp, if an attack should threaten
to cut off the outpost from the main body.
The first watch was taken by the captain, with me for his subordinate;
and I was given the command of the party of six guarding the shore
approach to the camp, while the skipper took the party mounting guard
near the boats, as it was his opinion that if danger threatened it was
most likely to come by way of the river.
My instructions were to march my men out to a distance of not more than
two cables' lengths from the camp, and there take such cover as might be
possible. At first sight it did not appear that there was the least bit
of cover of any description available, for the spit or peninsula on
which we were encamped was just bare sand for a distance of fully a mile
from the spot whereon our camp was pitched, and then there began a
growth of scrubby bush which gradually became more dense as one
proceeded in a southerly direction; but I solved the difficulty by
causing each man to scoop a little pit for himself in the loose sand, in
which it was easy for him to crouch perfectly concealed particularly as
there was no moon, and the light from the stars was not strong enough to
reveal objects at a distance much beyond a quarter of a mile.
The first, second, and third watches passed uneventfully; but the fourth
watch was little more than half through when--about a quarter after
three o'clock in the morning--the whole camp was roused from its
slumbers by the sound of musket-shots, one from the party guarding the
boats and the river approach, quickly followed by three in rapid
succession from the contingent that occupied the sand pits stretched
across the neck of the peninsula. Then three or four more shots from
the river party spurted out, and it began to dawn upon us that the
matter threatened to be serious. Of course none of us had thought of
discarding any of our clothing that night, the second shot therefore had
scarcely pealed out upon the night air before we in the camp were upon
our feet, with our weapons in our hands, and all drawn up in regular
array ready for the next move in the game, with the skipper in command.
"Where are Mr Fortescue and Mr Copplestone?" demanded the captain,
looking about him, as soon as the first momentary bustle was over.
"Here I am, sir," answered I, stepping forward and mechanically touching
my hat; and "Here I am, sir," answered Tom Copplestone, suddenly
appearing from nowhere in particular.
"Mr Fortescue," ordered the captain, "take to your heels and run out to
Mr Nugent as fast as you can; ascertain from him the reason for the
firing from his party; ask him whether he requires any assistance; and
then return to me with his reply as quickly as possible. Mr
Copplestone, you will run down to the boats with a similar message to
Mr Marline."
Away we both went, as fast as we could lay legs to the ground,
Copplestone down-hill toward the river beach, and I along the sand spit,
making upward gradually toward the ridge as I ran. Running in that
fine, heavy sand was, however, horribly exhausting work, especially to
one whose only mode of taking exercise was to stump the lee side of the
quarter-deck during his watch, and I was soon so completely blown that,
with the best will in the world to hurry, I was brought to walking pace.
But before I had made twenty fathoms from my starting-point two more
shots rang out from the party by the boats, and a moment later one of
the boat guns began to speak. I looked out over the river, striving to
discover what the disturbance was about, and thought I could dimly make
out several dark blurs on the faintly shimmering surface of the water,
which I conjectured must be canoes, but I could not be sure; meanwhile
my business was not with them, whatever they were, but with Nugent and
his party, from whom, as I struggled along, two more musket-shots
cracked out almost simultaneously. Then, down by the river-side, a
second shot roared from a boat gun, and this time before the ringing
report of the piece died away I distinctly heard a crash followed by
loud shrieks and much splashing out somewhere on the surface of the
river. A few seconds later, panting and gasping for breath, I staggered
up to a figure which I had made out standing upright and motionless on
the crest of the spit, and found it to be Nugent, with his drawn sword
tucked under his right arm while with both hands he held his night glass
to his eye.
"Who goes there?" he demanded sharply, wheeling round and seizing his
sword as he heard the noise of my panting behind him.
"Friend!" I answered. "The sk---captain desires to know why you are
firing, out here, and whether you require any assistance."
"Oh! is that Fortescue? All right. Just take my night glass, will you,
and sweep the face of the spit carefully at about two hundred yards
distance from here. Then tell me if you can see anything," answered
Nugent. "And, if it comes to that, why are the others firing, down by
the boats?"
"Can't say for certain," I answered, as I took the proffered night glass
and raised it to my eye, "but I believe some suspicious canoes or boats
have hove in sight, and they are just giving them a hint to keep their
distance."
"Ah! just so," returned Nugent. "Now _we_ are firing because, although
we can't be absolutely certain in this darkness, we think that there is
a body of men out there who would be not altogether disinclined to rush
the camp, if we gave them the opportunity; so we are just potting at
them--or what we fancy to be them--whenever we get a clear enough sight
of them, just as a hint that we are awake. But as to assistance--n-no,
I don't think we need any, at least not at present. Should we do so,
later on, I will blow a blast on this whistle of mine." And he produced
from his pocket a whistle possessing a particularly shrill and piercing
note, with which he had been wont to summon Cupid to the midshipmen's
berth aboard the _Psyche_, when that individual's presence had been
needed with especial urgency.
"Well, d'ye see anything?" he demanded, after I had been peering through
his glass for a full minute or more.
"I am really not at all certain whether I do, or not," I answered, still
working away with the glass. "I thought, a moment or two ago, that I
caught sight of something in motion for an instant, but it is so
abominably dark, as you say, that--but stay a moment, what is that dark
mass out there stretching across the ridge? I don't remember having
noticed anything there before nightfall."
"Dark mass?" reiterated Nugent; "what dark mass d'ye mean? There is
nothing out there, so far as I--"
"By Jingo! but there is, though, sir; I can see it myself now, wi' the
naked eye!" exclaimed a seaman who was crouching in a sand pit a yard or
so distant from where Nugent and I were standing. "There, don't ye see
it, Mr Nugent, stretchin' athwart the back of the spit? Why, I can
make it out quite distinctly."
"Give me the glass," demanded Nugent, snatching the instrument from me
and applying it to his eye. For some eight or ten seconds he peered
intently through the tube, then exclaimed excitedly--
"Ah, now I have it. Yes, by Jove, Fortescue, you are right, there _is_
something out there; and it looks like--like--ay, and it _is_, too--a
body of blacks creeping along toward us on their stomachs! Why, there
must be hundreds of 'em, by the look of it; they reach right across the
spit! Yes, we shall certainly want help, and plenty of it, to keep
those fellows at arm's length. I thought it was only some twenty or
thirty when I first made them out. Yes, cut away to the skipper,
Fortescue, as hard as you can pelt; tell him what you've seen; and say
that I shall be obliged if he will kindly send me as many men as he can
spare. That disturbance down by the boats seems to have ceased, so he
ought to be able to send us a pretty strong reinforcement."
"All right," I said; "I'll tell him, and then comeback with the men."
And away I went back through the heavy sand at racing pace, and
delivered my message.
The captain listened patiently to my breathless and somewhat
disconnected story, and then turned to Mr Purchase, who was standing
close at hand, and said--
"Mr Purchase, have the goodness to take the entire port watch, and go
out to Mr Nugent's assistance. But do not allow your men to fire away
their ammunition recklessly, for we have very little of it. Let no man
pull trigger until he is quite certain of hitting his mark."
"Ay, ay, sir!" answered Purchase. "Port watch, follow me." And away he
and his following trudged into the darkness. I was making to join them,
but the skipper happened, unfortunately, to see me, and called me back.
"No, no, Mr Fortescue," he said; "you and Mr Copplestone will please
remain with me. I may want one or both of you to run messages for me
presently."
So we remained. But I at once ranged up alongside Copplestone, for I
was anxious to hear the news from Marline, down by the boats.
"Well, Tommy," I said, "what was old Marline blazing away at? Whatever
it was, he managed to hit it, for I heard the smash."
"Yes," answered Copplestone. "But it was more a case of luck than of
good shooting, for it is as dark as a wolf's mouth. Some of his men,
however, had eyes keen enough to see that there was a whole flotilla of
boats, or canoes, or something of that sort, hovering in the river and
manoeuvring in such a fashion as to lead to the suspicion that they had
designs upon our boats, so he dosed them with a few charges of grape,
which caused them to sheer off `one time,' as Cupid is wont to remark.
What was the row with Nugent?"
"Lot of niggers creeping along the spit on their stomachs toward him," I
answered. "Got some idea of rushing the camp for the sake of the
plunder in it, I expect. But now that Mr Purchase and the port watch
have gone out to back him up I think we need not--hillo! that sounds
like business, though, and no mistake."
My ejaculation was caused by a sudden cracking off of some six or eight
muskets, one after the other, closely followed by a heavy if slightly
irregular volley, and the next instant the air seemed to become
positively vibrant with a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, howls, yells,
and shouts as of men engaged in close and desperate conflict. The
skipper pricked up his ears and clapped his hand to his sword-hilt; then
he turned to where Tommy and I were standing close beside him.
"Mr Copplestone," he said, "take twenty men--the first you can pick--
and go with them to support Mr Marline, for I fancy he will need a
little help presently. The rest of us are going out to support Mr
Purchase and Mr Nugent."
"Ay, ay, sir," answered Tommy. He picked out the first twenty men he
could lay hands on and taarched them off to join Mr Marline's "picnic,"
as he expressed it, and the rest of us went off at the double to take
part in the scrimmage that was proceeding in the neighbourhood of the
sand pits. And a very pretty scrimmage it was, if one might judge from
the tremendous medley of sounds that reached us from that direction.
The firing was now very irregular and intermittent, but there was plenty
of yelling and shrieking mingled, as we drew nearer to the scene of the
fray, with sounds of gasping as of men engaged in a tremendous struggle,
quick ejaculations, a running fire of forecastle imprecations, the
occasional sharp order of an officer to "Rally here, lads!" dull,
sickening thuds as of heavy blows crashing through yielding bones, and
here and there a groan, or a cry for water. It was evident that the
fight had resolved itself into a desperate hand-to-hand struggle; and it
seemed to me that our lads were being hard put to it to hold their own.
But the worst feature of the whole affair, to my mind, was that the
darkness was so intense that it was almost impossible to distinguish
friend from foe.
We reached the scene of the struggle so much sooner than I had expected
that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that our people were
being steadily forced back in the direction of the camp; and this I
afterwards found to be correct; but the appearance of the skipper with
his reinforcements soon put another face upon the matter. It was
evident that the foe--consisting of some hundreds of negro savages had
been under the impression that they were fighting the entire strength of
the British, but when we came up they at once discovered their mistake,
which, with the knowledge that, for aught they could tell, there might
be further reinforcements waiting to take a hand in the game, somewhat
damped their courage. Not by any means at once, however; indeed it was
not for perhaps two or three minutes after our appearance upon the scene
that the first actual check upon their advance occurred. For they
appeared to number seven or eight to every one of us, and moreover they
were all picked warriors in the very prime of life, brave, fierce,
determined fellows, every one of them, and well armed with spear,
shield, war-club, and, in some cases, a most formidable kind of battle-
axe.
"Spread out right and left, and cut in wherever you can find room,"
ordered the skipper as we plunged, stumbling and gasping, into the midst
of the fray. And there was no difficulty in obeying this order; for,
narrow as the sand spit was, it was yet too wide for Mr Purchase and
the port watch to draw a close cordon across it; there were gaps of a
fathom or more in width between each of our men, and those gaps were
rapidly widening as some poor wretch went down, transfixed by a broad-
bladed spear, was clove to the shoulder by the terrific blow of an axe,
or had his brains dashed out by a war-club. But as our contingent
arrived each man chose an enemy--there was no difficulty in doing that--
and pulled trigger upon him, generally bringing him down, for we were
too close to miss; after which it became literally a hand-to-hand fight,
some using their discharged muskets as clubs while others flung them
away and trusted to their cutlasses, and one or two at least--for I saw
them close alongside me--depended entirely upon the weapons with which
nature had provided them, first dealing an enemy a knock-out blow with
the clenched fist and then dispatching him with one of his own weapons.
As for me, I still had the brace of pistols and the cutlass with which I
had provided myself when setting-out upon our ill-starred boat
expedition up the river, and I made play as best I could with these,
bowling over a savage with each of my pistols and then whipping out my
cutlass. For a time I did pretty well, I and those on either side of me
not only holding our ground but actually beginning to force the enemy
back; but at length a huge savage loomed up before me with his war-club
raised to strike. My only chance seemed to be to get in a cut or a
thrust before the blow could fall, and I accordingly lunged out at his
great brawny chest. But the fellow was keen-eyed and active as a cat;
he sprang to one side, avoiding my thrust, and at the same instant
brought down his club upon my blade with a force that shattered the
latter like glass and made my arm tingle to such an extent that for the
moment at least I was powerless in the right arm. Then, quick as
thought, he swung up the huge club again, with the evident determination
to brain me. Disarmed and defenceless, I did the on'y thing that was
possible, which was to spring at his great throat and grip it with my
left hand, pressing my thumb hard upon his wind-pipe. But I was like a
child in his hands; he shook me off with scarcely an effort; and as I
went reeling backward I saw his club come sweeping down straight for the
top of my head. At that precise instant something seemed to flash dully
before my eyes in a momentary gleam of starlight, a sharp _tchick_ came
to my ears, a few spots of what felt like hot rain spattered in my face,
and the great savage, his knees doubling beneath him, reeled backward
with a horrible groan and crashed to the sand, with Cupid's axe
quivering in his brain, while the club, flying from his relaxed grasp,
caught me on the left forearm, which I had instinctively flung up to
defend myself, snapping the bone like a carrot, and then whirling over
and catching me a blow upon the head that stretched me senseless. But
before I fell I had become conscious that through the distracting noises
of the fight that raged around me I could hear the sound of renewed
firing spluttering out from the direction of the boats.
When my senses returned to me the day was apparently some three or four
hours old, for the shadows of certain objects upon which my eyes
happened to fall as I first opened them were, if anything, a trifle
shorter than the objects themselves, which was a sure indication that
the sun stood high in the heavens. I was lying, with a number of other
people, in the large tent-like structure which the ward-room officers
had used on the preceding evening; and Hutchinson, the ship's surgeon,
was busily engaged in attending to the hurts of a seaman who lay not far
from me.
This was the first general impression that I gained of my surroundings
with the recovery of consciousness; the next was that my left arm, which
was throbbing and burning with a dull, aching pain from wrist to
shoulder, was firmly bound up and strapped tightly to my body, and that
my head, which also ached most abominably, was likewise swathed in
bandages. I was parched with thirst, which was increased by the sound
of a man drinking eagerly at no great distance from me, and, turning my
head painfully in the direction of the sound, I saw Jack Keene, a
fellow-mid., administering drink out of a tin pannikin to a man whom I
presently recognised as Nugent, the master's mate, who, poor fellow,
seemed to be pretty near his last gasp.
"Jack," I called feebly, "you might bring me a drink presently, when you
have finished with Nugent, will you? How are you feeling, Nugent? Not
very badly hurt, I hope."
I saw Nugent's lips move, as though attempting to answer me, but no
sound came from them, while Keene, glancing towards me, shook his head
and laid his finger upon his lips as a sign, I took it, that I should
not attempt to engage the poor fellow in conversation.
"All right, Fortescue," he said, in a low voice, "I'll attend to you in
a brace of shakes."
He laid Nugent's head very gently back upon a jacket which had been
folded to serve as a pillow, and then, refilling the pannikin from a
bucket which stood close at hand, he came to me.
"Feeling bad, old chap?" he asked, as he raised my head and placed the
pannikin to my lips. I emptied the pannikin before attempting to reply,
and then said--
"Not so bad but that I might easily be a jolly sight worse. Bring me
another drink, Jack, there's a good boy; that was like nectar."
"Ah; glad you enjoyed it," was the reply. "But you'll have to wait a
spell for your next drink; Hutchinson's orders to me are that water is
to be administered to you fellows very sparingly, as it is drawn from
the river and is probably none too wholesome. What are your hurts?"
"Broken arm and a cracked skull, so far as I know," I answered. "What's
the matter with poor Nugent?" I added, in a whisper. "He looks as
though he is about to slip his cable."
Jack nodded. "Yes, poor chap," he whispered. "No chance of his
weathering it. Ripped open by one of those broad-bladed spears. Can't
possibly recover. Well, I must go and look after my other patients; I'm
acting surgeon's mate, you know."
"Surgeon's mate!" I ejaculated. "Why, you surely don't mean to say
that Murdoch has been bowled over, too, do you?"
"No; not so bad as that," answered Jack. "He's away with the rest in
the boats. The skipper's gone to pay a return visit to those fellows
who beat up our quarters last night. And now I really must be off, you
know. Go to sleep, if you can; it will do you all the good in the
world."
Go to sleep! Yes, it was excellent advice, but I did not seem able to
follow it just then; the throbbing and aching of my arm and the racking
pain of my sore head were altogether against it, to say nothing of the
continuous groaning and moaning of the injured men round about me, and
the occasional sharp ejaculations of agony extorted from the unfortunate
individual who happened at the moment to be under the surgeon's hands.
So, instead, I looked about me and endeavoured to form some idea of the
extent of our casualties during the past night. Judging from what I
saw, they must have been pretty heavy, for I counted twenty-three
wounded, including myself, and I realised that there might be others
elsewhere, for the tent in which we lay was full; there did not seem to
be room enough for another patient in it without undue crowding. And
even supposing that we comprised the sum total of the wounded, there
must have been a large proportion of dead in so desperate an affair as
that of the past night. I estimated that in so obstinately contested a
fight as that in which we had all sustained our injuries, and against
such tremendous odds as those which were opposed to us, there must have
been at least half as many dead as wounded, which would make our
casualties up to thirty-five; a very heavy percentage out of a crew
that, owing to various causes, was already, before this fresh
misfortune, growing short-handed. When to these came to be added the
casualties sustained on the preceding day in the attack upon the
barracoon, it seemed to me that our new captain would have little more
than a mere handful of men available for service on this fresh
expedition upon which he had embarked--for I did not suppose that he had
gone off taking with him every sound man and leaving the camp and the
wounded entirely unprotected and exposed to a renewed attack by the
savages.
After about an hour's absence Jack came back to me again and gave me
another draught of water, which so greatly refreshed me that the
excitement and uneasiness under which I had been labouring since his
first visit gradually subsided, my aches and pains grew rather more
tolerable; my thoughts grew first more placid and then gradually more
disconnected, wandering away from the present into the past and to more
agreeable themes, my memory of past incidents became confused, and
finally I slept.
I must have slept some three or four hours; for when I awoke it was
undoubtedly afternoon; Hutchinson had completed his gruesome labours and
was sitting not very far away entering some notes in his notebook, and a
few of the less seriously wounded were sitting up partaking of soup or
broth of some kind out of basins, pannikins, or anything of the kind
that came most handy. The sight of these people refreshing themselves
reminded me that I was beginning to feel the need of food, and I called
out to the doctor to ask if I might have something to eat and drink. He
at once rose up and came to me, felt my pulse, looked at my tongue, and
prescribed a small quantity of broth, which Jack Keene presently brought
me, and which I found delicious. I may here mention that several days
later I became aware that this same broth--the origin of which puzzled
me at the moment, though not enough to prevent me from taking it--had
been prepared from a kind of tortoise, the existence of which in large
numbers on the spit Hutchinson had accidentally discovered that very
morning, and in pursuit of which he had sent out two of the most
slightly wounded with a sack, and instructions to catch and bring in as
many of the creatures as they could readily find.
While I was taking my broth the worthy medico stepped to where Nugent
was lying and bent over the poor fellow, feeling his pulse and watching
his white, pain-drawn face. Then, rising softly, he went into a dark
corner of the tent, where, it appeared, his medicine-chest was stowed
away, and quickly prepared a draught, which he brought and held to the
lips of the patient, tenderly raising the head of the latter to enable
him to drink it. Then, having replaced the sufferer's head upon the
makeshift pillow, he bent over and murmured a few words in the dying
man's ear. What they were I know not, nor did I catch Nugent's
response, but the effect of the brief colloquy was that Hutchinson drew
from his pocket a small copy of the New Testament and, after glancing
here and there at its opened pages, finally began to read, in a clear
voice and very impressively, the fifteenth chapter of the first epistle
to the Corinthians, reading it through to the end. As he proceeded I
saw poor Nugent slowly and painfully draw up his hands, that had lain
clenched upon the sand beside him, until they were folded upon his
breast in the attitude of prayer. And when at length Hutchinson, with a
steady voice, but with the tears trickling down his cheeks, reached the
passage, "But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory," Nugent's
lips began to move as though he were silently repeating the words. The
chapter ended, Hutchinson remained silent for a few moments, regarding
his patient, who he evidently believed was praying. Suddenly Nugent's
eyes opened wide, and he stared up in surprise at the canvas roof over
his head as though he beheld some wonderful sight; the colour flowed
back into his cheeks and lips, and gradually his face became illumined
with a smile of ecstatic joy.
"Yes," he murmured, "thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory--_the
victory_--victory!" As he spoke his voice rose until the final word was
a shout of inexpressible triumph. Then the colour ebbed away again from
cheeks and lips, a film seemed to gather over the still open eyes, the
death-rattle sounded in the patient's throat, he gasped once, as if for
breath, and then a look of perfect, ineffable peace settled upon the
waxen features. Nugent's gallant soul had gone forth to join the ranks
of the great Captain of his salvation.