the men, frightened by the force opposed to them, might possibly have
submitted, when, at the moment that Snowball made his onslaught on their
leader, Jack Harvey, who stood by his captain on the poop, rather
injudiciously fired off a shot from his revolver, which struck and broke
one of the Malays' outstretched arms, with crease uplifted ready to stab
his enemies.
With a ferocious yell the band again rushed forward.
"Fire!" said the lieutenant; and with one report the blue-jackets
delivered a volley which stretched four Malays in front of them lifeless
on the deck; and then rushing forward with their drawn cutlasses, a
terrific hand-to-hand fight ensued. Captain Morton and his officers on
the poop fired into the mass of the Malays, and then leaped down to join
the fray; and the boatswain, with Jem Backstay and the other sailors
from the forecastle, caught up handspikes and fell upon their rear.
Even in the very midst of the fierce struggle Snowball and the serang,
in deadly embrace, were rolling on the deck, each trying to get the
upper hand so as to be able to use their knives. Neither could succeed
in shaking the other off; and as the two rolled and twisted together
about the deck, now a mass of blood and gore, they gradually edged away
from the thick of the fight, until they rolled together close to the
fore-hatch; then, with one vigorous effort, the black cook, as if he had
reserved his final _coup_ until he had wearied the other out, lifted the
Malay over the combing of the hatchway, and both tumbled into the fore-
hold, with a smash and crash which even made itself heard above the din,
the black cook shouting out as he felt himself falling, dragging his
enemy with him, "Golly, yer yeller beggar, I got you at last!"
While this episode was being acted, the Malays were still fighting
desperately with their creases, a formidable weapon in the hands of men
fighting for their lives; and many of the tars were wounded, and one or
two killed. The Malays stood in a group at bay, and fought on
desperately, like rats driven into a corner, their numbers being still
but little inferior to those of their opponents. At this moment the
woolly head of Snowball appeared above the fore-hold with a triumphant
grin on his black face, all wet with perspiration; and in a second he
leaped on the deck, carrying on his shoulder the body of the serang, who
was knocked senseless by the tumble into the hold, although the darky's
head, accustomed to such rude shocks, was not one whit the worse.
Laying down his burden he hurried to the caboose.
The remaining Malays were huddled up in a corner by the capstan, hemmed
in by the bluejackets. To all cries of "surrender" they turned a deaf
ear, and they were evidently trying to prolong the struggle until their
piratical accomplices, as they no doubt were, in the schooner came up to
help them.
Lieutenant Meredith, being a humane man, did not wish to slaughter the
wretches like sheep, so refrained giving the fatal order to fire another
volley, which would have terminated the contest, and was endeavouring to
capture them alive. The struggle was so prolonged, however, and so many
of his men were wounded, that he was just going to give the word "Fire!"
when Snowball came to the rescue in a novel way, which completed the
victory.
The darky emerged from the caboose with a bucket of boiling water filled
from the galley coppers, which he had got ready with apt forethought,
and dashed it full on to the group of huddling Malays.
They did not want a second dose.
Giving out an appalling howl of pain, which no cut or shot had evoked,
they threw down their arms with one accord, and the blue-jackets before,
and Bill Musters and Jem Backstay in the rear, seized the trembling
scoundrels.
"Gag them all, as well as bind them, men!" said the lieutenant to the
blue-jackets. "I don't want them to give the alarm to the schooner.
Look alive, men! Be smart there; we've no time to lose! She isn't half
a mile off now, and will be alongside in a few minutes!"
Lieutenant Meredith was right.
It was almost a dead calm, and the _Hankow Lin_,--her way deadened by
the jib, which still trailed in the water across her bows, for no one
had time, during the deadly fight in which they had just been engaged,
to hoist it clear on board again--was almost motionless on the water;
while every breath of the fast-expiring breeze was gently wafting the
pirate schooner nearer and nearer.
The sail that obstructed her motion was at last cut away, and the ship
began to creep along through the water; but it was too late for her to
have got away from her enemy if those on board had so wished--which,
however, they didn't!
"Look out, my men," shouted out Captain Morton, who was as keenly alive
to the urgency of their situation as the naval lieutenant,--"we've all
our work cut out for us!"
In truth they had; still, although only just out of one fight, in which
some two or three had already lost their lives, and several were
severely wounded, the blue-jackets under their gallant officer, who had
already won the Victoria Cross for his bravery, ably seconded by Captain
Morton and Mr Scuppers, and the crew of the _Hankow Lin_ set to work to
prepare for a fresh struggle with all the alacrity and glee of
schoolboys going out for an unexpected holiday.
The conquered Lascars were tightly bound, and then tumbled below, the
hatch being secured over them; and all then set to work to unload the
heavy hogsheads which had caused the tar such uneasiness on account of
their cumbering his decks, when they had first been shipped on board at
Canton, some ten days before.
"There, Jem!" said the boatswain, as the staves of the first cask were
knocked to pieces, and a nine-pounder Armstrong gun disclosed in all its
ship-shape nicety. "There, didn't I tell you that the skipper had his
head screwed on straight?"
"Aye, aye, bo, right you were," answered the brawny foretopman as he
knocked in the head of another hogshead. "I'll never doubt him again,
you be sure."
There were four guns altogether, and the two other casks contained their
ammunition, and spare rifles for the _Hankow Lin's_ crew.
These cannon the lieutenant now caused to be loaded heavily with grape-
shot, and placed at the midship ports to windward, on the side that the
pirate was approaching; the ports still kept closed, but everything
ready for raising them, and running out the guns to command the
schooner's deck when she got alongside.
The hands were then mustered. Captain Morton, Mr Scuppers, the
lieutenant, and Jack Harper had escaped without a scratch on the part of
the officers; but Mr Sprott, the second mate, had a cut across his face
from a Malay crease, which caused him considerable pain, and undoubtedly
spoiled his beauty; although the brave fellow refused to be put on the
list of the non-fighters. Amongst the men, two blue-jackets were killed
outright, as well as Phillips, the ship's carpenter of the _Hankow Lin_;
while one blue-jacket was wounded severely, and two slightly, as well as
another of the ship's regular hands.
Altogether, their defensive force consisted now, therefore, of the
lieutenant, captain, and three other officers--for Sprott would fight,
and Jack Harper was quite as good with a revolver as any of his
seniors--and fifteen men, counting in Snowball, who was as good as two
others any day, besides Jem Backstay, who was a regular giant.
"Now, men," said the lieutenant addressing them--"Captain, I have your
permission to take the command?"
"Certainly, sir," said Captain Morton. "You're my senior officer in the
service, and I wouldn't wish to fight under a braver!"
"Well then, men," resumed the lieutenant, "we all here, _Albatrosses_
and _Hankow Lins_ alike, fight under one flag, the Union Jack of Old
England! Stop, don't cheer, men, or those pirate scoundrels will hear
us too soon, and we don't want 'em to hear us till they feel us! Men, I
want you to be cool--I know you are brave--and wait my word of command
before you utter a shout or draw a trigger. That pirate scoundrel is
plucky enough, and will take some beating; but he'll get it soon enough
if you only obey orders. Captain Morton, will you take charge of the
guns, please, with Mr Scuppers? Boatswain, you with that brave black
fellow, and two other hands, will mind the forecastle, to prevent
boarders coming up while we are attacking them elsewhere. I shall want
eight hands along with me for the gig, to clear her away, and get her
ready to lower to leeward, when the pirate comes alongside to windward.
When we've given them a good sweeping discharge, and cleared their deck,
captain, I shall, after reloading, drop into the gig, and board her on
her weather-side, so that'll take them between two fires. Now, men,
quick to your posts! Boatswain, to the forecastle with three others;
gig's men step out, four blue-jackets and four _Hankow Lins_; the others
of my cutter's crew will work the guns."
"May I come with you, sir?" said Mr Sprott anxiously. "I have no
special duty here, and I'd like to pay out that cut across my jib on
some of them piratical scoundrels!"
"Aye, you can come," said Mr Meredith cordially, "and glad I'll be to
have such a brave fellow with me. Now, is everything ready in the gig,
and the falls all slack for lowering?"
"Aye, aye, sir," said the coxswain. "Right as a trivet."
"Well, then, see to your small-arms, men. Have them all loaded ready,
like the guns. The surprise will favour us at first, but we shall have
to fight hard afterwards, as they'll muster pretty numerous if the
account I have received be true."
All these preparations being complete, the guns loaded, and ready for
discharging the moment the enemy ranged herself alongside, and each man
being in his proper station, they awaited with the courage and caution
of brave men the approach of the pirate. Fortunately for them, as it
gave them more time to prepare, the breeze had quite died away, and a
dead calm had fallen on the surface of the deep, while yet the schooner
had scarcely decreased her distance, and they had been making their
preparations for the fight. The glassy sea heaved up and down under the
burning sun, which was now high in the heavens, with a sort of heavy,
waveless throb, as if composing itself uneasily to sleep, the ship
rolling with the motion to and fro.
The pirates were not asleep, however. As soon as the breeze failed they
rigged out long oars from her low sides, and were leisurely sweeping
nearer and nearer to the _Hankow Lin_ with every pulse of the sea.
They must have heard the reports of the rifles and revolvers, as well as
seen the smoke of the discharges, and heard the yells of the Malays as
they fought hand to hand with the blue-jackets, for the air was as clear
as could be; but the stillness now, and the absence of any attempt to
trim the sails or to escape, deceived them. They evidently thought that
their fellow-conspirators on board had gained the day, or that the
slaughter had been so great on both sides that there was no longer
anybody capable of resistance; for after a short pause, when they were a
cable's-length distant, the sweeps again set to work, and the low black
hull of the schooner was urged forwards again towards the _Hankow Lin_,
until those on the watch between the ports could see down on to her
deck, which was crowded with yellow Malays like those with whom they had
had such a desperate fight; besides numbers of Chinese, some of the
black natives of Borneo and New Guinea, Portuguese desperadoes, and such
ferocious-looking ruffians as herd together in Eastern seas.
"Be ready, men, to lift the ports and run out the guns," said the
lieutenant, with finger uplifted to impose silence. "Depress your
muzzles, and wait till I give the word to fire. She'll come up on this
side, as I thought, so we'll give her the benefit of all four at once!"
Up crept the pirate, the ominous black flag still hoisted, although, as
the breeze had dropped, it hung down limp from the mast; and they could
hear the chatter of voices on board her quite distinctly. Nearer and
nearer she came--until the lieutenant could count every man that stood
grouped on her flush deck.
There seemed to be sixty or seventy of them, and they clustered
together, looking over the side of their vessel at their expected prey.
Nearer and nearer she still continued to glide--until the schooner was
almost alongside the _Hankow Lin_, and not ten yards off. It looked as
if the pirate was going to run them aboard!
"Now," whispered the lieutenant again to the expectant Englishmen around
him--"small-arm men reserve your fire; you at the guns, be ready to run
them out. Now, men, altogether, drop the ports! Run out the guns!
Fire!"
The concussion shook the ship to her centre, and a perfect hail of
grape-shot was poured on the deck of the schooner, making long lanes or
furrows through the ranks of the pirate's crew, as if they had been
mowed down by a scythe!
"Again, men; sharp's the word. Load again, and give them another round.
Quick! That's right," as a wild yell rose again from the crowded
pirate. "Now, Captain Morton, one more round and then I shall board her
on the weather-side. Load again as quickly as you can. Fire!"
The terrific shot-shower again swept into the schooner, which had
remained in the same position, the first two broadsides having broken
the sweeps and killed the men manning them; and before the pirates could
recover from their surprise the guns had been loaded again, and the gig
of the _Hankow Lin_, with Lieutenant Meredith and his chosen crew, not
forgetting Mr Sprott, had dashed out from the ship and boarded the
schooner on her other side, where they least of all expected a foe, and
the smoke concealed the boat's movements.
At the instant that the naval lieutenant jumped into her rigging with
his men, another discharge of the Armstrong guns swept her decks, and
the schooner, impelled by the calm, which makes floating surfaces
approach each other on the water, ranged up alongside the tea-ship. At
this moment, Snowball dropped from the forecastle of the _Hankow Lin_
into the bows of the schooner, followed by Jem Backstay and half-a-dozen
others.
Assailed thus on all sides--the lieutenant and his crew clearing all
before them with a valiant cheer, which Snowball re-echoed with a
terrific shout like an Indian war-cry, perhaps from some intuitive
recollections of his native wilds on the banks of the Congo, in which
the words "golly, take dat now!" could, however, be plainly
distinguished--the attack proved a trifle too hot for the mongrel lot of
scoundrels whom the pirate captain, or cut-throat, commanded; and they
gave way instanter. Some died fighting to the last; some jumped
overboard, preferring cold water to English cold steel; and the
remainder, some twenty in number, who had escaped the murderous grape
from the guns and the keen cutlasses of the blue-jackets, threw down
their arms and surrendered, when they were driven into the hold, and the
hatches battened down over them.
The fight from beginning to end had not lasted ten minutes; and the
pirate ship was captured in almost quicker time than it had taken to
overcome the original Malay gang on board the _Hankow Lin_.
"Hoist the Union Jack, Snowball," said the lieutenant to the darky, who
had done so much to gain the victory--seeing him with the flag in his
hand, and apparently itching to haul it up. "Hoist away, darky, and let
us have honest colours over that dirty black rag! Now, lads, three
cheers!"
"Lord bless you!" as Bill the boatswain said to his wife when telling
her the story of the pirate's repulse when he got home some time
afterwards, safe and sound, as luck would have it, "you oughter have
just heard the shout that then went up from our throats to heaven! It
sounded a'most like thunder; it were louder nor the report of the
Armstrong guns as peppered the varmint!"
VOLUME ONE, CHAPTER SIX.
"ALL'S WELL THAT ENDS WELL."
To make a long story short, I may state briefly that in the second part
of the action--the second act of a tragedy, it was for the Malays--both
the bluejackets and the men of the _Hankow Lin_ got off scot-free, not
another casualty happening to swell the death-roll, or a fresh wound of
any consequence being received by any of those engaged. The surprise to
the pirates on finding they had "caught a Tartar," instead of assailing
a defenceless merchant vessel, as they had expected, was so complete,
that, in nautical phraseology, they were "taken all aback."
Not expecting any opposition to speak of, and confident that the ship
they were attacking carried no guns--for how could even the most astute
of the Malays have supposed, with all their prying and peeping, that the
_Hankow Lin_ had a set of Armstrongs on board her, headed up in
hogsheads?--the pirates were stupefied by the first broadside they
received; and, after that, their resistance amounted to _nil_,
especially the more as one of the discharges killed their chief, when,
of course, they had no one to lead them on or rally their drooping
energies on the pinch.
The schooner, it was found, was none other than the _Diavolo_, a pirate
craft commanded by a Portuguese renegade, who had already earned for
himself a somewhat questionable reputation in Eastern seas; and how
Captain Morton got wind of the intentions of the Malay crew to mutiny
and bring his ship for destruction may be thus briefly told:--
Several large tea-traders having mysteriously disappeared on their
voyage home to England, after shipping Malay crews on board, the English
admiral on the station had conferred with the Chinese authorities, and
from them learned that the _Diavolo_ was suspected, and that a spy had
discovered that an attempt would be made on the _Hankow Lin_, which was
just loading at the time, and which had, like the other missing ships,
shipped some Malay hands, in consequence of the loss of the main portion
of her English crew on the voyage out.
Accordingly, precautions were taken to counteract the conspiracy of the
Malay crew and capture the pirate by putting on board arms and
munition--of which they supposed the ship to have none--and concealing
in the saloon a force of blue-jackets to combine with the English part
of the crew should the contemplated mutiny break out--the result of
which precautions proved, as we have seen, to be eminently successful.
While the calm lasted, the bodies of the dead pirates were hove
overboard, and the three bluejackets and Phillips who had lost their
life in the first struggle with the Malays committed carefully to the
deep with every solemnity; and then the _Hankow Lin_, as soon as the
wind sprang up again, as it did by sundown, was headed towards Singapore
in accordance with Lieutenant Meredith's wish, although it was sorely
against Captain Morton's will to bear off from his direct course to
England, which was almost right in front of him, the Straits of Sunda
bearing a point or two off the lee beam.
However, Captain Morton lost nothing by his compliance with the
lieutenant's wish. The _Hankow Lin_ when she arrived at Singapore was
allotted a half share of the value of the pirate schooner and all she
contained; and that craft being pretty nearly crammed full of plunder,
which she had accumulated from the different ships that had been
captured and scuttled by her in her nefarious career, the sum thus
awarded to Captain Morton was more than sufficient to compensate his
owners for any delay that had arisen through the _Hankow Lin's_
detention at the Dutch port, besides swelling the handsome bounty that
was paid to each and all of the crew engaged in the affair.
This was not all, either.
At Singapore, Captain Morton was able to obtain what he could not have
very well voyaged home without, and that was a supply of fresh hands to
navigate the ship in place of the treacherous scoundrels who had engaged
with him at Canton only to plot her destruction, although the captain
had ample satisfaction for all this ere he left the place, for, as Bill
the boatswain said in mentioning the fact afterwards, he "saw every
mother's son of them hung before he weighed anchor again."
After bidding adieu to their late active comrades the blue-jackets, all
went well with the old vessel, from Singapore to the Straits of Sunda,
across the Indian Ocean, and round the Cape of Good Hope. Not an
untoward event happened on the way home, not a mishap occurred, and, as
Snowball said when he stepped ashore in the East India Dock, "All's well
dat ends well." And so ended *The Voyage of the "Hankow Lin*."
VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER ONE.
AT ZANZIBAR.
"Have I ever been to Madagascar?" he repeated, with a look of amazement
and wonder quaintly combined on his good-natured, ruddy-brown, weather-
beaten face. "Is that what you wanted to know, eh?"
"Yes," I replied, "that is, if you've no objection to answer my
question."
"Why, no! I've nothing to keep dark of my doings."
"All right!" said I; "then you can go ahead."
"Well, sir," he began, drawing a deep breath as if he only just took in
the import of my question and was turning over in his mind the matter in
all its bearings, "I should rather just think I had been to Madagascar,
and there's precious little chance too of my forgetting it, either, in a
hurry. Ah! if you'd once been wrecked on sich a queer, outlandish,
wild, desolate sort o' shore as that there, arterwards havin' to swim
miles upon miles through a heavy rolling sea to get to land, and that
under a fierce burning sun the while; besides, when got ashore at last,
being forced to tramp for ten long weary days and nights across slimy
green marshes filled with alligators, crawling through thick jungles of
thorny bushes that tore your flesh to pieces before ever you could ha'
come to a civilised place to get your wants attended--you, that is me,
not having a morsel of food or a drop of pure water to drink all the
way--why, sir, I fancy as how you'd remember the blessed place to your
dying day; and, would recollect all about it in the flash of a moment
again when any one just mentioned its name again the same as you have
done just now!"
The speaker was a fine, robust-looking seaman of middle height, and
probably of middle age also, for there was a slight suspicion of grey in
the crisp brown beard that covered the lower part of his countenance,
while several prominent wrinkles were apparent about the corners of his
merry, twinkling, blue eyes.
He was dressed respectably in a sober suit of some rough material that
fitted easily to his well-proportioned limbs, and, from his civilian
costume and nautical look--for he had a sort of briny flavour about him,
so to speak--I took him for a petty officer of the Royal Navy who had
retired from the active duties of his profession on account of his
length of service afloat having entitled him to the _otium cum
dignitate_ of a pension ashore for the remainder of his days. Such was
my surmise at first sight--an impression subsequently in part confirmed;
but be that as it may, he and I had got into conversation one bright
summer day not long ago while standing on Portsmouth Hard, watching a
white-hulled Indian troopship steaming out of the harbour beyond, with
the marines for Egypt on board. I had mentioned Madagascar in casually
commenting on the plucky behaviour displayed at Tamatave by Captain
Johnstone of HMS _Dryad_ in resisting the high-handed proceedings of the
French admiral, who appeared to think that he might insult the English
flag with impunity from the fact of his being in command of a squadron
flying the Tricolour flag while the representative of the Union Jack had
only one solitary vessel to oppose to that force.
"Aye, I know the East African station well," continued my friend. "I
was invalided home from there, and got my pension three years before my
twenty years' term of service was up in consequence."
"Indeed!" said I, to lead him on, in expectation of the yarn I could
perceive looming before me; but playing with my fish gently, as anglers
know so well how to do, so that I might not frighten him into silence by
any undue display of anxiety on my part.