When we boarded the slaver, we left on board our vessel the helmsman
Peter Mangrave, the black quarter-master Pearl, five negroes who were
on board as passengers, little Reefpoint, who was wounded, and Bangs,
Gelid, and Wagtail. At the moment when I had given up all as lost,
honest Pearl sprang on deck, his cutlass in his hand, accompanied by
the five blacks and Peter Mangrave, whilst behind him came no less a
person than Aaron Bangs, with the three negro servants, whom he had
armed with pikes.
"Now Pearl, my beauty," cried Bangs, waving his cutlass, "give them a
touch of their own lingo."
Immediately the black quarter-master called out:
"Coramantee Sheik Cowloo kokemoni pepulorum fir."
Which I afterwards found out meant, "See the Sultan Cowloo, the great
ostrich, with a feather on his back as big as a palm leaf; fight for
him, you dogs."
Immediately the blacks joined Bangs' party, and commenced so fierce an
attack on their former masters, that they soon drove them down the
hatchway, leaving half their number on the bloody deck, dead or
dangerously wounded. But, driven to desperation, they still resisted,
firing up the hatchway, and paying no attention to my repeated demands
to them to surrender.
"God in Heaven!" cried Jigmaree, "that is the sound of hammers; they
are freeing the blacks."
"If you unchain the negroes," cried I, in the Spanish language, "by
the Heaven above us, I will blow you into the air, if I have to go
with you. Stop, Spanairds! think madmen, what you are doing."
"Cover the hatches," cried Tailtackle.
But the covers must have been lost overboard, for they were nowhere to
be found. The firing from the hold still continued.
"Loosen the gun, and load it with grape," cried I. "Forward with it,
and fire down the hatchway."
The shot struck among the closely packed slaves, and a fearful,
heart-rending cry rent the air. Oh God! I shall never forget it. Yet
still the madmen continued their fire.
"Load, and fire again."
My men were now mad with rage, and fought more like devils than human
beings.
"Once more, my lads," cried I; but this time they pushed the gun so
madly forward, that both it and the carriage were precipitated with a
fearful crash into the hold. At the same moment a cloud of smoke burst
forth from the hold.
"They have fired the brig," cried Jigmaree. "Back to the schooner, or
we shall be blown into the air like onion peels."
But the schooner had got loose, and was fast leaving us. Gelid,
Wagtail, and Reefpoint, were on board; the latter, though badly
wounded, had crept out of his hammock, and on deck. They made us
understand, by signs, that they could not hoist the sails, and that,
moreover, the rudder was shot away, and the vessel unmanageable in
consequence.
"Up with the foresail, men," cried I; "hoist the foresail, and get the
brig under way, or we are lost."
My men obeyed my orders with the calmness of desperation. I took hold
of the wheel myself, and in a few moments we lay alongside of our
vessel once more. It was high time, for already some hundred and fifty
unfettered slaves had rushed on deck, and we had hardly time to spring
on board, to escape the furious charge they made on us from the hinder
part of the vessel. The murderous fire of grape shot they had endured,
had made them perfectly mad with rage, and had they been able to get
at us we should undoubtedly have been torn to pieces.
But the fire was quicker than they. The smoke, which rose like a
pillar of clouds through the hatchway, was now mingled with red
tongues of flame, which, like fiery serpents, twined themselves round
the crackling masts and rigging, that shrivelled in their hot
embrace. The sea, too, vied with its fierce brother element in
destroying the ill-fated vessel. Either through our shots, or from the
falling of the gun into its hold, some of the planks had been started,
and the water rushed in in torrents. The flames increase, the guns
become heated and go off, and at last the ship suddenly sinks from our
view, whilst the loud and awful death-cry of five hundred helpless
beings, imprisoned in the burning vessel, rings in our ears, curdling
our blood, and seeming as if it would burst the very vault of Heaven
with its appalling tones. It was a fitting knell to be rung over the
slaver's grave.
And now the brilliant rays of the setting sun, streaming brightly over
the waters, gild with an unearthly glare the whirling clouds of smoke,
that rising towards the blue sky, grow fainter and fainter until they
are lost in the clear ether. The sea no longer dances and flashes in
the red light, as if exulting with the glee of fiends at the mortal
agony of its victims. Calm and smooth as a polished mirror, it lies
spread out over the spot where the slaver sank.
Suddenly a huge cloud of thick black smoke rises from the bosom of the
deep. It mounts upward until it rivals in height our vessel's masts,
and then it spreads itself over the scene like a sable pall, as if it
would prevent the fumes of such unclean and hideous offering from
rising to Heaven, and hurl them down on our accursed heads, as
witnesses of the wrath of that Being, who has said: "Thou shalt not
kill." And now for a moment all is still as the grave, and it seems to
me that the air is too hot and close to breathe; it stifles me, and I
feel like a second Cain.
At this moment a crowd of slaves, men, women, and little children, who
had been drawn down by the sinking vessel, appeared struggling on the
surface of the sea. The strongest cried like very devils in their
despair, whilst the women and children, the weak and the helpless,
gasped vainly for breath, and worn out by their efforts to sustain
themselves above the water, sank at last to the bottom with a look of
mute agony I shall never forget. Among the whole number, we did not
see one of the ship's crew. Like desperate men, they had sunk with
their vessel. We fished up about one half of the unhappy blacks, but
the direst necessity compelled us to leave the rest of them, as it was
impossible for us to take them on board. Oh that I could for ever blot
this scene from my memory!
It chanced that among those saved, was a young and pretty girl, who,
weak and exhausted, was lying on deck, her head resting on a block of
wood. A powerful negro swam to that part of the vessel where she lay.
Seeing him in the water, she sprang up and held out her hand to him,
to help him on board. As he was about to grasp it, he was struck in
the breast by a shot, and mortally wounded. With a shriek the poor
girl sprang overboard, clasped him in her arms, and they sank
together.
"Oh, woman, woman," said Aaron, "whatever may be the color of thy
skin, thy heart is always the same."
Soon all was still again; here and there a wounded negro still
struggled for a moment ere he sank into his watery grave. A few spars
from the ill-fated vessel, were yet tossed about on the surface of
the sea, whilst the blood-red rays of the setting sun poured a flood
of light over the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn rigging of the
schooner, lighting up the faces of the dead with an unearthly glare.
At this moment some drops of rain fell from a passing cloud, like
tears from the pitying eyes of an angel, who, sailing through the
skies, had stopped for a moment in her flight to look down sorrowfully
on the scene of desolation which man, the worm of a day, had caused in
a moment of power and savage madness.
On a gun-carriage, close to me, sat Aaron, whilst the surgeon bound up
a cut in his neck. He looked solemnly at me for a moment, and then
pointing towards the brilliant luminary, which, as it sank beneath the
waves, lit up the western sky with a crimson and golden light, said:
"Remember this morning, captain, and thank the Almighty, who whilst
sending so many poor creatures to their final account, has in his
great mercy permitted us to see the end of this fearful day. Oh, thank
him, captain, that you have once more seen the sun set."