In those brief few minutes despair and dogged determination were turned
into the mingled emotions of triumph and delight, for the two boats,
after giving two or three volleys at the schooner, whose crew contented
themselves with hoisting a couple more sails to increase their speed,
came on as hard as the men could row, their crews cheering in French and
English with all their might, while in the stern of one the Count stood
up waving his cap; in that of the other Captain Chubb, looking grim and
stern, stood like a statue, his left foot on the thwart before him, his
right resting upon the muzzle of a musket.
"Here, I don't feel as if I'd got a cheer left in me, lads," cried Joe
Cross to his tired companions on board the stranded schooner; "but we
must give them one, or they'll think we aren't much obliged to them for
coming, and there's no gammon about it, we are, and no mistake."
"Cheer, yes!" cried Rodd. "With all your might, my lads. Take your
time from me. Now then, as you never cheered before--Hooray!"
There was no want of heartiness either in that or in those which
followed, to be returned as enthusiastically from the two boats, which
were rapidly nearing, so that in a few minutes Rodd and his uncle were
wringing the hands of the bluff old skipper, while it was observable
that all three kept their backs to the French Count and his son till
they came up together, when the three started round in surprise, going
through a curious kind of pantomime as if they were astonished to see
the Frenchmen there.
Meanwhile a regular fraternisation had gone on between the crews, and
after a mere glance at the three masts of the schooner, which were
standing out of the water about a couple of hundred yards away, the
skipper's whole attention was directed to their own vessel, whose keel
was now fast in the mud, and which was beginning to heel over slightly.
"Then I suppose you took her again, doctor?" he said gruffly.
"Well, hardly," said Uncle Paul. "It was Cross and the lads who did
that."
"More shame to him, then," growled the skipper. "I should have thought
you were seaman enough, Joe Cross, to have kept her afloat and not run
her aground like this."
"Well, I do call that ungrateful," cried Rodd. "I say, uncle, oughtn't
he to have saved the schooner from being taken?"
"That's one for me, doctor," said the skipper, with a grim smile and a
twinkle in his eye. "The boys of this here generation seem to grow up
pretty sharp. But he's quite right. They pretty well caught a weasel
asleep that time."
"But how was it?" cried Rodd.
"How was it, my lad? Why, we was hard at work one morning, when up the
river comes another of them nice respectable schooners in the oil trade.
Oil trade, indeed! Rank slavers, that's what they were, carrying on
trade with one of those murderous chiefs up country! Set of black
Satans as attack villages and carry off the poor wretches to sell to
your oil traders for sending off to the plantations. Well, one don't
like killing fellow-creatures, or seeing them pulled down below by the
crocs, but somehow I don't feel so very uncomfortable about them as we
had to fight with and have got the worst of it. What are you smiling
at, young Squire Rodd?"
"I was only thinking how you always hated the slave trade, captain."
"Right," said Captain Chubb, with a friendly nod. "Well, the schooner
sends her skipper aboard the three-master. Then he comes to where I was
busy at work with the men, putting the finishing touches to the brig,
and tells me and the Count a long tale about his having come up to join
his friend the Spanish captain, who he hears has gone up the river for a
row. Then he goes back to his schooner, makes her snug, and it seemed
as if him and his men had all gone to sleep, when it was me."
"You?" cried Rodd wonderingly.
"Well, what they call metyphorically, my boy, for I was wide awake
enough; but I couldn't see anything beyond the _Dagobert_, nor the Count
neither, for he wanted her afloat. Then the time went on, and all very
quiet, till just in the middle of one of the hottest days when I was in
full feather, thinking that I could tell the Count that night that the
job was done, and we could let her sit the water again next day when the
tide served, all at once we had a surprise. There were only four or
five men aboard the schooner, and I suppose they were keeping their
watch, but just all at once a couple of boats rowed up to them, one from
one schooner, one from the other, and before any of us knew what was up,
our fellows were swimming for the shore, and if it hadn't been for the
Count, who was on the look-out for crocs, and let them have two barrels
twice over, neither of the poor fellows would have joined their mates as
had been working with me."
The speaker turned to the Count, who nodded his head quickly, and then
looked at his son as much as to say, Yes, this is quite true.
"Well," continued the skipper, "I felt as if all the wind had been
knocked out of me, and as soon as I could speak and quite understand
that my schooner had been took, I began to bully-rag the poor lads who
had just escaped with their lives, for, not having time to get a gun or
a cutlass, they had been almost as helpless on board as they were in the
water among them reptiles. I couldn't even believe it then, and began
questioning the lads, and you might have knocked me down with a feather,
as people say, and the Count there with another, when they all swore
that our Spanish skipper had led the men from his three-master in one of
the boats. Then we began to see the worst."
The skipper turned with a questioning look at the Count again, to
receive a second grave nod, while this time the latter laid his hand
upon his son's shoulder, and a long eager glance passed between them.
"Well, I don't know that I have much more to say," said the skipper,
"only that it was a bad job, being a fresh one we had got to tackle and
meant to do. The Count here fitted me and my lads up with some weepuns,
and we settled that as soon as it was dark we'd man two of the brig's
boats, and board first one and then the other of the two schooners.
Well, we tried, but they were waiting for us, and I don't know how we
escaped, for they met us with such a fire that if we had kept on both
boats must have been sunk, and we never got within touch of either of
the enemy, but drifted down with the tide; and somehow just then I
suppose there must have been a flood somewhere up the river, down came
the water in a way that we couldn't meet, and it was only by pretty good
seamanship on the part of the Frenchmen more than ours, though we helped
all we knew, that we were able to keep afloat; and since then we have
been right down to the sea, and it's been very hard to get enough to
eat. But somehow we managed to keep alive, shooting what we could and
catching a fish or two now and then as we came up the river again. For
of course we were not going to give up without finishing our job; and it
seems to me that we got here just at the right time, and found that
things weren't half so bad as we thought; eh, Count?"
"My friend," replied the latter, "how can I ever repay you?"
"Oh, let's talk about that, sir, when I have done something to keep the
_Maid of Salcombe_ upright and finished my other job and the brig's
afloat, which it seems to me we can manage at high water; but I never
bargained for having our schooner to set right too through the lubberly
management of that chap Joe Cross. There," he cried angrily, "I can't
and won't say another word till I have had something to eat, for we are
all half starved."
"Get on board the schooner, then, every one," cried the doctor, "for I
have got my work here."
It was a fact, for now the fight was over the men began to stiffen, and
several unexpectedly turned faint, it proving that though not a single
man was seriously wounded, nearly every one of those who had followed
Joe Cross in his gallant achievement of boarding the schooner, and in
beating down the slaver's crew when they forced their way out of the
cabin, was more or less injured and had been doing his best to hide the
knife stabs and contusions he had received.
It was during the next two or three days that the doctor proved that he
was in his element, and that his knowledge of natural history was not
confined to his ordinary scientific pursuits, for no surgeon could have
been more skilful in his treatment of wounds, no physician more able in
alleviating the fever which supervened.
It was a busy time for all, for not only was there the grounded schooner
to guard from going over, but strict watch to keep for the return of
enemies, and then, when the high tide served, all hands were at work,
save the poor disappointed fellows whose injuries kept them to their
bunks, in raising the brig to her old proud position. As she floated
out, herself once more, and dropped anchor in the stream, the men
literally yelled themselves hoarse, while on the following day at the
Count's request both vessels were dropping down with the tide, all on
board eager to leave behind the river, which in spite of its many
beauties was too full of painful recollections for its waters to be
recalled without horror and disgust.