WE LAY IN OUR CARGO
The next day was a busy one aboard _The Gentle Hand_. All the boats were
gotten out early, and the barque headed in shore again. We had stood off
at night, for fear of a current setting us into the breakers, and we did
not care to let go an anchor.
By two bells (nine o’clock) in the forenoon, we were close in to the bar
at the river mouth, the breeze giving us way at the rate of about five
knots, but, as we drew under the land, it became puffy and showed signs
of dying out altogether. It was decided not to go in any closer, so the
foreyards were left full, the main backed, and the forestaysail hauled
amidship, heaving the barque to with a slight reach to the southward.
Pretty nearly all hands tumbled into the boats and rowed through the
broiling sunshine for the beach, it being the captain’s object to get
all the cargo aboard at once, and stand off to work along to the
eastward.
By noon the first boat-load of the poor creatures arrived. There were
fourteen of them closely packed and manacled in the bottom of the craft.
As they drew nearer, they set up a chattering like a crowd of monkeys,
and the Guinea in charge rapped them severely over the head with a stout
stick, bidding them be quiet. Their white eyeballs and teeth shone in
contrast to their skins, and the excitement they were undergoing made
them show both eyes and teeth much more than usual, giving them a
strange, wild look. Streaks of mud and filth showed upon their black
bodies. The men had little kinky beards upon their chins and lips, and
the women had huge bunches of wool on their heads, which were simply
great nests of dirt and vermin. Poor creatures, they were hardly human,
but for all that I felt sorry for them when I thought of the
’tween-decks of the barque under that torrid sun.
Henry hustled them on deck, and Jorg, with a couple of men, sent them
below at once to get them out of the way. By eight bells, we had the
crowd below, where they kept chattering until Gull went among them with
a long whip, and touched them up lustily whenever they made a noise.
Martin, Anderson, Bill, Shannon, and myself went in for the last
boat-load.
The heat was terrible, and the breeze was almost imperceptible after the
bar was crossed, making all hands quiet and sullen with the exertion.
Inside the river mouth the same glaring quiet prevailed, broken only now
and then by the sound of a gull’s scream, the dull, heavy rumble of the
swell only adding to the desolate stillness.
“’Tis a good coast for the business,” said Martin, in a low tone to the
long sailor, who was rowing stroke oar. I held the tiller, and had
charge, but Martin appeared to think my rating did not command silence,
and I let him speak.
The fellow Shannon only looked over his shoulder up the turbid stream
that flowed around the distant point of marsh in the direction of the
heavy forest beyond.
“What better place d’ye want? ’Twould be a good one to find ye in that
glade,” continued the Scot.
“There’s mighty little water on the bar, Scotty,” said Shannon. “What
the devil would become of yer ship, I wanter know?”
“Lighten her more, lighten her. Take out her guns and ballast. She’d be
a floatin’ fort until ye were ready to go to sea full o’ niggers. Mon,
mon, na mon-o’-war c’u’d come after ye, an’ as fer small boats--hoot!”
And he gave a cry of contempt at the idea.
“Joust whin would ye do these things, friend Martin?” asked Bill.
“Shut up, ye square-head. Keep silence when men are speakin’, or I’ll be
fer whollopin’ ye the minit we hit the beach,” growled Martin.
Then they rowed on in the heat without a word, the regular clank of the
oar-locks sounding over the glassy surface of the stream with the
regularity of the ticking of a clock.
We ran the boat up near the “factory,” and the villainous Guinea in
charge brought down the last instalment of the slaves. Some of them were
young girls barely in their teens, but all without any clothing
whatever. The sun would have flayed a white man and cooked him to death
in half an hour, but they appeared not to suffer with the heat. Some of
the girls were made to spring into the river, with a line attached, in
order that they might get a last bath before entering the hell in store
for them. One tried to remain under water and drown herself; at least
the Guinea feared that was her design, for he hauled her in hand over
hand, and administered several whacks to brace her up, while I sat and
tried to invent some new opprobrious epithet to call him, finally
exhausting the English language without apparent effect.
One girl, who had left behind her brother and relatives, on account of
their not coming up to Yankee Dan’s standard of fitness for a middle
passage, was tearful and sad. This poor creature was flung into the
water, and held by a strapping black buck, who used a bunch of grass to
scrub her clean. Her piteous screams had no effect on him, so, when my
patience was quite exhausted by the heat, I seized an oar. He was
bending over, and wore nothing but a gee-string. The swing of the oar
landed fair on his buttocks with all the weight and strength I could put
into it, and he shot forward with a crack, making a very creditable dive
into deep water. It was only because payment had not been complete that
bloodshed was averted when he arose, for he made straight for his rifle,
which had to be forced from him by half a dozen pirates as fierce and
powerful as himself. Finally we had the crowd all aboard, and shoved off
for the barque, meeting the boat with the Portuguese fellow, who had
gone aboard for the pay, just as we cleared the breakers.
Arriving aboard, we soon had the blacks below, and, as payment had been
made in gold for our cargo, we had nothing further to do with the
scoundrels on the beach. The yards were swung, and we stood offshore to
take advantage of the light breeze and work along the coast to the
eastward, in the hope of picking up the rest of our cargo before some
prying ship-of-war should overhaul us. For several days we worked along
without any luck. One or two places Dan knew of had been deserted since
the law against slaving had begun to be enforced, and we had to row in
through a heavy surf to find this out. This caused the loss of one boat
and the drowning of a sailor named Tom, an English cockney chap of
little account. During this part of the cruise, I had much to do on the
poop, keeping the battery in order and ready for instant action. I saw
something of the life aft, and the feeling between Mr. Curtis and Hicks,
which had shown itself that night in the town of Funchal. These two men,
whose interests were identical, seldom spoke directly to each other now,
and only when the trader’s daughter appeared on deck did they show
anything but polite hatred in their speech. Curtis was sarcastic, and
Hicks was almost as savage by the time we reached Lagos and ran in to
finish loading. Miss Allen seemed to avoid both as much as possible,
although it was quite evident that she favoured the bolder of the two
adventurers. Curtis was anything but a coward, but Hicks had a certain
reckless gallantry about him that could hardly fail to attract.
Forward I had been entertained several times by Martin’s brutal jests
regarding affairs aft, and, as the girl had always been civil to me, it
was all I could do not to chastise the rogue for his foul tongue. My
apparent apathy, however, gave him cause to believe I favoured him, and
soon he spoke of things that caused me to pay attention and watch him
more closely.