I had been on duty as Leroy's deputy for two whole days when it fell to
my turn to keep the middle watch, that is to say, the watch which
extends from midnight to four o'clock in the morning.
When, upon being called by Marcel, the second mate, I went on deck to
relieve him, he informed me that the wind had been steadily dropping all
through the first watch, and expressed a fear that we were about to lose
it altogether. This did not in the least surprise me, for we were now
at about our lowest parallel, and on the border at least of, if not
actually within, the belt of practically perpetual calms that exists
about the Line, which are the sources of so much delay, vexation, and
hard work to the mariner. That the wind had dropped very considerably
since I had turned in was evident to me even before I reached the deck,
for, upon turning out of my bunk to dress after being called, I had
immediately noticed that the ship was almost upon an even keel, while
the inert "sloppy" sound of the water alongside that reached my ears
through the open port of my cabin told me that we were sailing but
slowly.
The night was intensely dark, for the moon was but one day old, and had
only barely revealed herself as a thin line of faint pearl in the
evening sky for about half an hour before she followed the sun beneath
the horizon, there was not a star to be seen in the whole of the visible
firmament, and there was a feeling of hot, muggy dampness in the air
that made me shrewdly suspect the presence overhead of a pall of rain-
charged vapour, which would account for the opacity of the darkness
which hemmed us in and pressed down upon us from above.
As Marcel curtly bade me good-night and went below upon being relieved,
after giving me the course to be steered, and expressing his forebodings
concerning the weather, I walked aft, glanced into the binnacle, and
inquired of the helmsman whether the ship still held steerage-way, to
which he replied that she did, and that was about all, the man whom he
had relieved at eight bells having informed him that the log, when last
hove, had recorded a speed of barely two and a half knots. He also
volunteered the opinion that we were booked for a heavy downpour of rain
before long, significantly glancing at the same time at the oilskins and
sou'wester which he had brought aft with him.
As the time dragged slowly along the heat seemed steadily to grow more
oppressive, and the difficulty of obtaining a full breath greater; the
perspiration was streaming from every pore of my body, and I felt almost
too languid to drag one foot after the other as I moved about the deck.
That the sick man also was affected unfavourably was evident, for his
shouts came up through the after skylight with positively startling
distinctness as his delirium grew more acute.
At length, just after two bells had struck--and how dreadfully
clamourous the strokes sounded in that heavy, stagnant air--the helmsman
reported that the ship was no longer under command; and presently she
swung broadside-on to the swell, rolling heavily, with loud splashing
and gurgling sounds in the scuppers, with a swirling and washing of
water under the counter, frequent vicious kicks of the now useless
rudder, accompanied by violent clankings of the wheel chains, loud
creakings and groanings of the timbers, heavy flappings and rustlings of
the invisible canvas aloft, with fierce jerks of the chain sheets, and,
in short, a full chorus of those multitudinous sounds that emanate from
a rolling ship in a stark calm. The helmsman, no longer needed, lashed
the wheel and, gathering up his oilskins, slouched away forward,
muttering that he was going to get a light for his pipe; and I let him
go, although I knew perfectly well that he had no intention of returning
uncalled; for, after all, where was the use of keeping the man standing
there doing nothing? I therefore contented myself by calling upon the
hands forward, from time to time, to keep a bright look-out, and flung
myself into a basket-chair belonging to the skipper.
Sitting thus, I gradually fell into a somewhat sombre reverie, in the
course of which I reviewed the events that had befallen me during the
short period that had elapsed since the _Dolphin_ and the _Eros_ had
parted company. I went over again, in memory, all the circumstances
connected with the loss of the brigantine, the hours I had spent alone
in the longboat, her destruction and my somewhat dramatic appearance
among the crew of _La Mouette_, my reception by her mad captain, and
then fell to conjecturing what the future might have in store for me,
when I was suddenly aroused to a consciousness of my immediate
surroundings by a sort of impression it was no more than that--that I
had heard the sound of a ship's bell struck four times--_ting-ting_,
_ting-ting_--far away yonder in the heart of the thick darkness. So
faint, such a mere ghost of a sound, did it seem to be that I felt
almost convinced it was purely imaginary, an effect resulting from the
train of thought in which I had been indulging; yet I rose to my feet
and, walking over to the skylight, peered through it at the cabin clock
to ascertain what the time might actually be. _It was on the stroke of
two o'clock_! Therefore if, as I had assured myself, the sounds were
imaginary, it was at least a singular coincidence that they should have
reached me just at that precise moment. I walked to the fore end of the
poop, upon the rail guarding which the ship's bell was mounted, and
sharply struck four bells, after which I again called to the crew
forward to maintain a sharp look-out.
"Now," thought I, "if those sounds originated outside my own imagination
some of those fellows for'ard will certainly have heard them, and will
mention it." But my call elicited nothing more than the stereotyped
"Ay, ay, sir!" and a faint momentary shuffling of feet--meant, no doubt,
to convey to me the impression that the look-outs were on the alert and
then deep silence, as before, so far as any report of suspicious sounds
was concerned. I stood for quite two minutes listening intently for any
further sounds out of the darkness, but none came to me, nor could I
detect any light or other evidence of another craft in our
neighbourhood. At length, fully confirmed in my conviction that my
imagination had been playing a trick with me, I returned to the chair in
which I had been sitting, and there finished out the watch, merely
leaving my seat to strike six, and finally eight, bells. But I placed
my chair in such a position that while still sitting in it I could keep
my eye on the clock, and as the hands crept round its face, marking
first three and then four o'clock, I strained my listening powers to
their utmost in the hope that those elusive bell-strokes might again
come stealing across the sea to me, but without result. When four
o'clock came round, after striking eight bells with perhaps a little
more vigour than usual, I called Marcel, resigned the deck to him, and
went below.
Yet, although I had felt drowsy enough on deck, and although Tourville's
ravings had ceased and he seemed to have fallen asleep, when I flung off
my clothes and stretched myself on top of the bedding in my bunk,
expecting to instantly drop off to sleep, I found, to my annoyance, that
I had never been less inclined to slumber than I was just then. The
fact was that in spite of myself those ghostly tinklings were still
worrying me. Were they, or were they not, imaginary? If they were--
well, there was an end of it. But if they were not imaginary; if, as I
now perversely began to think, they were actual sounds, then it
followed, of necessity, that there must be a craft of some sort not very
far from us.
If this were the case, what, I asked myself, was she likely to be? She
could but be one of three things--either a trader, a slaver, or a craft
belonging to the Slave Squadron; the chances, therefore, were about even
that on the morrow I might be able to effect my escape from _La
Mouette_--always provided, of course, that those strokes of the bell had
been real. For if the craft on board which they had been struck
happened to be a trader, the odds were in favour of her being British;
and the same might be said presuming her to be a man-o'-war. On the
other hand, she might of course be a slaver; in which case I was fully
resolved to endure the ills I had, rather than fly to others which might
conceivably be worse.
Thinking thus, and worrying myself as to the best course to be pursued
in certain eventualities, I lay there restlessly tossing first to one
side, then to the other, until at length, sitting up in my bunk and
putting my face to the open port in quest of a breath of fresh air, the
fancy took me that the darkness was no longer quite so opaque as it had
been, nay, I was sure of it, for by putting my face right up against the
circular opening I was enabled to catch an occasional transient gleam of
faint, shifting light that I knew was the glancing of the coming dawn
upon the back of the oily swell that came creeping up to the ship;
while, by directing my glances higher, I found that I was able to make
out indistinctly something of the outline of the great black cloud-
masses that overhung us.
In those latitudes the dawn comes as quickly as the daylight vanishes,
day comes and goes with a rush--thus within five minutes of the time
when I first glanced out through the port there was enough light abroad
to reveal a louring, overcast, thunder-threatening sky, an inky, oil-
smooth, sluggishly undulating sea, and a long, low schooner with
tremendously taunt masts raking over her stern, and not an inch of
canvas set, lying broadside-on to us at a distance of some two miles to
the eastward. When I caught my first glimpse of her she was very little
more than a black blur standing out against the background of scarcely
less black sky; but even as I sat looking at her the light grew, her
outline sharpened and became clear and distinct, and my heart gave a
great bound of delight as the conviction forced itself upon me that I
knew her. Yes, that long low hull, with its abnormal length of counter,
and its bold sheer forward, the high, dominating bow with its excessive
rake of stem, and the peculiar steeve of the bowsprit were all familiar
to me. I had seen and noted them before while in Sierra Leone harbour,
and I was convinced that the craft was none other than the British man-
o'-war schooner _Gadfly_, armed with eight 12-pound carronades and a
long 32-pound pivot-gun on her forecastle, with a crew of eighty men
under the command of Lieutenant Peters, than whom there was not a more
dashing and enterprising officer on the Coast.
I had just arrived at the above conclusion when I heard one of the
barque's crew hailing the poop; I could not distinguish what was said,
but I presumed that it had reference to the schooner, for immediately
upon the hail I heard the creaking of the basket-chair on the poop, as
though Marcel was just hoisting himself out of it, and presently his
reply came floating down through the skylight, "Ay, ay; I see her."
Then I heard the soft shuffling of his footsteps overhead and guessed
that he was getting hold of the telescope wherewith to examine the
schooner.
Ten minutes later, perhaps, I heard the second mate leave the poop and
enter the cabin, and I concluded that he had come down to report the
schooner to Leroy; but, to my surprise, instead of doing that, he came
straight to my cabin door and knocked softly. I at once guessed that he
wished to question me about the stranger, but it was no part of my
policy to let him know that I had already seen and made up my mind about
her, I therefore feigned to be sound asleep, and did not reply. Then he
knocked a second time more sharply, whereupon I started up and responded
in a drowsy tone of voice, "Hillo! who is it? What's the matter?"
"Monsieur Fortescue," Marcel responded, murmuring through the slats in
the upper panel of the door, "I want you on deck, quick!"
"Oh, indeed," I replied, still affecting drowsiness; "what for? Is
there anything wrong?"
"Please come up at once, monsieur," he returned, with a note of
impatience in his voice. "When you come on deck you will understand why
I want you."
"Very well," I grumbled, "I will be up in a brace of shakes;" whereupon
my disturber departed.
But his conversation with me, brief as it had been, and quietly as it
had been conducted, had evidently aroused Leroy, for as I emerged from
my cabin he stepped out of his and we proceeded to the poop together,
the chief mate expressing his surprise that Marcel should have called me
instead of him. Of course I had a very shrewd idea as to the reason,
but it was my cue to feign ignorance, and I did so.
By the time that Leroy and I reached the poop the sun must have risen--
although there was no sign of him to be seen through the dense canopy of
cloud that completely obscured the heavens--for the light had
strengthened so much and the atmosphere was so clear that every detail
of the distant schooner was plainly distinguishable even to the
unassisted eye. Marcel was again examining her through the glass; it
was therefore only natural that Leroy's and my own glances should turn
toward her as soon as our heads rose above the level of the rail.
Neither of us said anything, however, until Marcel took the glass from
his eye, when, seeing Leroy, he said:
"What d'ye think of her, monsieur? I have taken it upon myself to turn
out Monsieur Fortescue to see whether he can tell us anything about
her?"
"_I_?" I ejaculated. "What the dickens should I know about her? That
she is a slaver anybody can tell with half an eye,"--as a matter of fact
the _Gadfly_ had been a slaver in her time, but having been captured,
had been purchased into the Service--"but her skipper is a sensible
fellow, evidently; he doesn't believe in threshing his canvas threadbare
in a calm, so he has furled it."
"Permit me," said Leroy, taking the telescope from Marcel and placing
it to his eye. He looked long and anxiously at the distant schooner,
and at length, with an "Ah!" that spoke volumes, passed the glass over
to me.
I understood at once from that expressive "Ah!" that Leroy knew and had
recognised the vessel, and that my pretence of ignorance would no longer
serve any good purpose. I therefore determined to abandon it and to
make a virtue of necessity by frankly admitting my knowledge. For if
Leroy recognised the schooner, as I was certain he had, he would be
fully aware of the fact that I, as an officer of the Slave Squadron,
must necessarily know her too. After regarding her attentively through
the lenses, therefore, for more than a minute, I passed the glass back
to the chief mate with the quiet remark:
"Yes, I believe I recognise her now that I come to see her distinctly.
If I am not mistaken she is the British man-o'-war schooner _Gadfly_,
and her presence yonder affords Captain Tourville an opportunity to
fulfil his promise of transhipping me. He promised me that, should such
a case as this occur, he would give me a boat in which to transfer
myself; and that small dinghy of yours will be just the thing."
"Y-es," returned Leroy meditatively. "He promised you that, did he? I
remember your telling me so. But, unfortunately for you, he never said
a word upon the matter to me, and he is far too sick just now to be
worried about that or anything else. I am very much afraid, therefore,
Monsieur Fortescue, that you will be obliged to let this opportunity
pass; for, you see, I could not possibly take it upon myself to release
you and give you even the dinghy without first receiving definite
instructions from the captain."
"Oh, come, I say, Leroy, you surely don't mean to insinuate that you
doubt my word, do you?" I remonstrated. "I hope you don't pretend--"
"I do not pretend or insinuate anything," Leroy retorted, somewhat
impatiently; "I merely state the fact that I have received from Captain
Tourville no such instructions as those you mention, and without such
instructions I dare not comply with your wishes."
"Ha, ha!" jeered Marcel. "You will have to curb your impatience,
Monsieur Englishman. It is evident that we are not yet to lose the
pleasure of your society."
To this I replied nothing, but turned remonstratingly to the chief mate,
urging him to at least do me the favour to go down and see if the
captain chanced to be awake, and if so, to put the matter to him. But
he would not listen to my suggestion, insisting that, even if Captain
Tourville happened to be awake, he was far too ill to be troubled over
any such matter. Suddenly it came to me that, despite all his past
apparent friendliness, he was, for some unknown reason, anxious that I
should not be released. Seeing, therefore, the utter uselessness of
further argument, I desisted, and turned away, bitterly disappointed.
Not, of course, that with Leroy's refusal all hope of deliverance was to
be abandoned. By no means. So long as the _Gadfly_ remained in sight
there was always a chance; for if I knew anything of Lieutenant Peters,
he was not the man to let us go without giving us an overhaul, and then
my chance would certainly come. It was the duty of the ships of the
Slave Squadron to stop and examine the papers of _every_ ship
encountered in those waters, and I was certain that Peters would not be
likely to make an exception in our favour; while, if Leroy resisted, as,
of course, he would--well, it would simply mean that _La Mouette_ would
be captured.
Meanwhile Leroy and Marcel were eagerly consulting together, and
presently the second mate left the poop, went forward, and quietly
called all hands. Then, as soon as the crew were all on deck, they were
ordered to clear for action, the guns were cast loose, the magazine
opened, and powder and shot were passed up on deck; the arms' chests
were brought up, cutlasses and pistols were served out--a brace of the
latter to each man; pistols and muskets were loaded, pikes cast adrift
and distributed, and, in short, every preparation was made for a fight,
except that the guns were not then loaded. The second mate had been the
moving spirit in all these preparations, Leroy, meanwhile, remaining on
the poop and intently watching the schooner through the telescope.
By the time that the preparations for battle were complete it was close
upon seven bells, and the order was given for the crew to get breakfast,
and for that meal to be also served in the cabin. A few minutes later
the steward came along with a pot of cocoa in one hand and a covered
dish in the other, and Leroy, coming aft to where I stood moodily
pondering, thrust his hand under my arm and said, with all apparent
good-nature:
"Now, don't sulk, _mon cher_, but come down and have some breakfast.
Unless I am greatly mistaken the _Gadfly_ is about to send us her boats,
and then you may perhaps be able to return in them. But do not build
too much upon the chance, for as soon as they come within range I shall
open fire upon them with round and grape; and if we cannot sink them
before they get alongside, why, we shall deserve to be hanged, that's
all."
"Thank you, monsieur," I answered, "but I have no appetite for breakfast
just now, and, with your permission, will remain on deck rather than go
into that suffocating cabin, merely to watch you and Marcel eat."
"_Eh, bien_! as you please," he returned, with a shrug of the shoulders.
"I will not ask you to keep a look-out for me, because I can do that
quite well from the windows of the captain's cabin; and," looking round,
"I do not think you can do any mischief up here. You are sure you will
not come down? Very well, then, _an revoir_!"
Now, to be left on deck, practically alone, was a bit of luck that I had
not dared to hope for; and the fact that I had been, coupled with what
Leroy had said about the boats, gave me an idea upon which I immediately
acted. We were still lying broadside-on to the _Gadfly_, and I had not
the least doubt that on board her a constant watch was being kept upon
the barque; glancing round hurriedly, therefore, and observing that all
hands on the forecastle were busy with their breakfast, I slipped over
the side into the mizzen chains, where I could stand without being seen
from inboard, and, removing my jacket, so that my white shirt-sleeves
might show up clearly against the barque's black side, I forthwith began
to semaphore with my arms, waving them up and down for about a minute to
attract attention. Then, without knowing whether or not I had been
successful, I proceeded to signal the following message:
"_La Mouette_, slaver, armed with fourteen 28-pound carronades and four
6-pounders. Carries one hundred and seventy men. Attack with your long
thirty-two; boats too risky!"
Then, donning my jacket again, I returned inboard just in time to see
Marcel's head appear above the level of the poop.
"Hillo!" he exclaimed; "I was wondering what had become of you. What
have you been doing over the side? Considering whether you should
attempt to swim across to the _Gadfly_?"
"Yes," answered I boldly, seizing at once upon the suggestion thus
given. "But I have thought better of it," I continued. "There are too
many sharks about. Look there!" and I pointed to a dorsal fin that was
sculling lazily along half-a-dozen fathoms away.
The man looked at me suspiciously for several seconds, then walked to
the side and looked over into the chains, but of course there was
nothing to be seen. Then, muttering to himself, he returned to the
cabin, presumably to finish his breakfast.
He had scarcely disappeared, and I was looking round for the telescope,
when a flash of flame and a cloud of white smoke suddenly burst from the
schooner's forecastle, and presently a 32-pound shot dashed into the
water within half-a-dozen fathoms of our rudder. "Good shot, but not
quite enough elevation!" muttered I, delighted at this indication that
my message had been noted and was being acted upon; and then came the
sullen _boom_ of the gun across the water. I went to the skylight and
quite unnecessarily reported, "The schooner has opened fire!"
"_Sacre-e-e_!" I heard Leroy exclaim between his teeth. "The one thing
that I was afraid of! He has thought better of sending his boats,
then!"
Marcel answered something, but what it was I could not catch, and then
the pair of them came racing up on deck. They had scarcely arrived when
another shot came from the schooner, crashing through the bulwarks just
forward of the fore rigging, dismounting a gun, and playing havoc with
the men who crowded that part of the deck. Five were killed outright
and nine wounded by that one shot and the splinters that it created.
Leroy at once called the crew to quarters and ordered them to return the
schooner's fire; but the latter was too far off for either the
carronades or the 6-pounders to reach her; and my spirits began to rise,
for if the schooner could only continue as she had begun she would soon
compel _La Mouette_ to strike. And there was every prospect of this
happening, for the _Gadfly_ had now got our range to a nicety, and shot
after shot hulled us, playing the very mischief with us, dismounting
another gun, strewing our decks with killed and wounded, and cutting up
our rigging, but, most unfortunately, never touching our spars. Leroy
stamped fore and aft the deck, cursing like a madman, shaking his fist
at the schooner, glowering savagely at me, and whistling for a wind.
"Give me a breeze!" he shouted; "give me a breeze, and I will run down
and blow that schooner out of the water!"
Presently his prayer was answered, but not quite as he desired; for,
while we watched, the clouds broke away to the eastward, and presently
we saw a dark line stealing along the water toward the schooner. Ten
minutes later all hands aboard her were busily engaged in making sail,
and by the time that the wind reached her she was all ready for it.
Then, as it filled her sails, she put up her helm and squared away for
us, running down before the wind and yawing from time to time to give us
another shot. But it was a fatal mistake; she should have continued to
play the game of long bowls, in which case she could have done as she
pleased with us; by keeping away, however, and running down to us, she
gave Leroy just the chance he wanted; he waited until she was well
within range of his carronades, and then, double-shotting them and
watching his opportunity, he gave her the whole of his starboard
broadside, and down came her foremast and main-topmast. At the same
moment another shot came from the schooner, badly wounding our main-
topmast above the cap, and the breeze reaching us almost immediately
afterward, the spar went over the side, dragging down the mizzen topmast
and the fore-topgallant-mast with it. The result of all this was that
while the schooner broached to and rode by the wreck of her foremast as
to a sea anchor, _La Mouette_ fell broad off and refused to come to the
wind again; consequently the distance between the two vessels rapidly
widened until both were out of range, and the firing ceased.
Thus ended the fight; and I presume that the two craft soon passed out
of sight of each other and did not again meet, during that voyage at
least, for there was no more firing from _La Mouette_ while I remained
aboard her. But what transpired during the rest of the voyage I was
destined to know very little about, for scarcely had the firing ceased
when Captain Tourville, thin, weak, and emaciated, crept up on the poop.
He had a pistol in his hand, and no sooner did his gaze fall on me than
he levelled the weapon at me and fired it point-blank.
Fortunately for me, the man's hand was so unsteady that the ball flew
wide; but the report brought the mates and half-a-dozen men to us with a
rush to see what was the matter.
"Take that young scoundrel," exclaimed Tourville, pointing at me with a
finger that trembled with rage as much as with weakness, "put his hands
and his feet in irons, heave him down on the ballast, and leave him
there until I give you further instructions."