The Pirate Slaver: A Story of the West African Coast

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER EIGHT.

  CAUGHT IN A CYCLONE.

  The watch below had been dismissed upon the completion of our work ofpreparation, but not a man had left the deck, their anxiety to see andknow the worst of what was to befall having completely overcome theirusual propensity to make the utmost of every moment allotted to them fornecessary rest, and they were now all huddled and clustered togetherupon the forecastle, discussing the situation in low, murmured tones,and holding themselves in readiness, like hounds in the leash, to springinto activity at the first word of command.

  The moaning and wailing sounds were now floating all round us, andpresently, making itself rapidly audible above them, we became consciousof a deep, fierce, bellowing roar that seemed to be approaching us onour starboard beam, the schooner's head being then about north-west.

  "Here it comes!" exclaimed Ryan, in a hoarse tone of suppressedexcitement. "Get hold of a belaying-pin each, you two, or you willstand a very good chance of being blown overboard. Starboard your helm;hard over with it, my man. Get under the lee of the starboard bulwarks,men. Carpenter, are your axes ready in case we should be obliged to cutanything away?"

  "All ready, sir," came the reply, scarcely audible above the roar of thetempest that was now close upon us; and as the man spoke a fierce gustof wind laden with salt mist swooped down upon us and careened theschooner almost to her covering-board as it filled the foresail with ajar and a report like that of a nine-pounder. This blast was onlymomentary, however, it was upon us and gone again in an instant, but itwas quickly succeeded by others; and then, away in the gloom, rightabeam of us, appeared a white, spectral glimmer swooping down upon theschooner with the speed of a race-horse, and spreading momentarily widerathwart the blackness as it came. It was a line of white foam churnedup on the surface of the sea by the advancing hurricane, and all behindit the ocean was white as milk. The air was now in violent motion allabout us, fierce eddies swooping hither and thither, but generally inthe same direction as that from which the gale was approaching. Anotherheavy salt-laden gust struck us, lasting just long enough to give theschooner way and render her obedient to her helm, and then the deep bassroar rose into a deafening, yelling medley of indescribable sounds asthe gale struck us, and the poor little schooner bowed beneath the blowuntil the water poured in over her lee gunwale and I thought that shewas going to "turn the turtle" with us. The foresail stood the strainfor just an instant, and then it split to ribbons, and was torn from thebolt-ropes as cleanly as though the work had been done with a knife.But the good sail had already done its work before the hurricane properhad struck us, in that it had imparted some life, even though ever solittle, to the schooner; she was already paying slowly off when thefirst stroke of the hurricane beat her down, and she continued to do sountil, as she got dead before it, she rose suddenly to an even keel andwent scudding away to leeward like a frightened sea-bird. The awfulvolume of sound given out by the fierce, headlong swoop of the wind asit bore down upon us quite prepared me to see both masts blown clean outof the schooner; but all her gear fortunately happened to be sound andgood, and the loss of the foresail was the full extent of the damagesustained by us.

  Having satisfied myself upon that point, I ventured to raise my head alittle above the bulwarks to see how the strange sail was faring.Pierrepoint had reported her as being visible in the north-easternquarter, and if this were so she ought now to be somewhere astern of us,since we were running off about south-west; and, sure enough, there shewas, about a point and a half on our starboard quarter, just visible inthe midst of the ghostly glare of the phosphorescent foam. She was,like ourselves, running dead before the gale, and I thought I could makeout that her topsails had withstood the tremendous strain of theoutburst and were still doing their duty. If this were so, since wewere scudding under bare poles, she would soon overtake and pass usquite as closely as would be at all consistent with the safety of thetwo craft, and we should be afforded an opportunity to learn somethingof her character, and to judge whether she was the barque that we hadbeen so industriously seeking. I made my way over to Ryan, who wasstanding--as well as he could against the violence of the wind thatthreatened to sweep him off his feet--close to the helmsman, pointedtoward the stranger, and, clinging to the companion, we stood andwatched her for a minute or two, half suffocated with the difficulty ofbreathing in so furious a tempest. She was now about four miles fromus, and it soon became apparent that she was overhauling us fast,although by no means so fast as I expected; and she was so nearly end-onto us that I suggested to Ryan the advisability of our showing a light,as it looked very much as though she had not yet seen us and mightapproach us so closely as to put both craft in imminent peril.

  "All in good time," shouted the captain in my ear, in response to thissuggestion. "I do not believe that she _has_ seen us yet; but that isnot of much consequence, since both of us are steering as steadily aspleasure-boats on a river, and I will take care to make her acquaintedwith our whereabouts if there appears to be the slightest danger of herrunning over us. But I want her to pass as near us as possible, so thatwe may have a good view of her. For there seems to me to be a somethingfamiliar-looking about her, as though I had seen her before; and,between you and me, Harry, I believe her to be our old friend the barqueagain. And, if so, we must keep up with her at all costs until theweather moderates sufficiently to bring her to; so just step for'ard,will you, my lad, and get the fore-trysail on deck and bent ready forsetting in case we need it. And let one hand bring aft a lantern, _not_lighted, mind ye; he can take it below, light it _there_, and leave itat the foot of the companion-ladder all ready to show a light if yonderstranger seems likely to sheer too close to us in passing."

  I went forward, as requested, and found that the watch below had alreadyreturned to their hammocks, the crisis having passed, and the schoonerscudding as comfortably as could be before the gale. The trysail wasgot up from below, bent, halliards and sheets hooked on, and, in short,made all ready for setting, and I returned aft to Ryan's side, having toclaw my way to him along the rail in preference to creeping along thedeck upon all fours, which seemed to be the only alternative method ofmaking headway against the wind. The sea was by this time getting up,and the air was full of spume and scud-water, caught up from the surfaceof the sea and the crests of the waves and swept along in a blinding,drenching shower by the gale. My superior officer was still clinging tothe companion, with his eyes intently fixed upon the strange sailastern, which, now that the dense masses of cloud overhead were torninto shreds of flying scud by the fury of the wind, was prettydistinctly visible, at a distance of about a mile and a half, by thedim, misty moonlight that filtered through.

  "I've been trying to get a peep at her through my night-glass,"exclaimed Ryan, with a wave of his hand toward the dark blotch in themidst of the white foam, "but there is no holding it in such a breeze asthis; you have to keep a tight grip on the thing or the wind will takeit away from you altogether. But I'm pretty certain that it is thebarque; and if so I'll stick to her as long as this schooner will hangtogether."

  "Do you think that she has seen us yet?" I asked.

  "Yes, I fancy so," answered Ryan. "She appears to me to be edging awaya trifle, so as to pass us to starboard, giving us as wide a berth aspossible. But even although she may have seen us, I do not believe thatwe are recognised, as yet; indeed, how should we be? At this distance,and end-on as we are, with no canvas set and our topmasts struck, wemust look like little more than a dot on the water."

  This was quite true, and I fully believed, with Ryan, that we had _not_been recognised, for although our companion had indeed manifested signsof an inclination to edge away from us, the tendency was only to asufficient extent to insure her passing us in safety. Had she suspectedus of being an enemy, it would not have been positively dangerous forher to have altered her course fully a point, although, blowing as itthen did, it would have been exceedingly imprudent to have attemptedmore than that.

 
In about half-an-hour after I had joined Ryan the strange craft overtookus; but while she was yet some half-a-mile astern of us we had made herout to be a barque of just about the same size as the one that we hadbeen hunting for; and when she came up abreast of us at a distance ofnot more than a quarter of a mile, we saw that her main-topmast had gonejust at the cap, and her people were still busy with the wreck of it; apretty tough job they seemed to be having with it, too. That she wasmuch more strongly-manned than is usually the case with a merchantman ofher size was also evident, for we could see that while one gang was atwork clearing away the wreck, another was busy securing the fore-topmastby getting up preventer-backstays, and so on. How they managed to workaloft at all in such terrific weather passed my comprehension; but therethey were, at least _trying_ to do something. And, as Ryan remarked, itshowed conclusively what a resolute set of fellows they were on boardher, and afforded us a clue as to the sort of resistance we were likelyto meet with should it ever come to a game of fisticuffs between themand ourselves.

  Having once overtaken us she seemed to very quickly pass ahead, and whenshe was once more about two miles distant, Ryan gave the order to setthe storm fore-trysail, a step that we might then very well take withoutexciting any very strong suspicion on board the barque as to ourulterior intentions, since the sea was by this time getting up to anextent which made the exhibition of a small amount of canvas on boardthe schooner not only justifiable but absolutely necessary. The sailwas accordingly set, and all risk of being pooped was, for the time atleast, done away with, and what was almost of equal importance in oureyes, we now appeared to be holding our own with the sail ahead.

  The watch had just been called when we noticed that the wind was backingfurther round from the northward--a pretty conclusive indication that itwas a cyclone, or revolving storm, that we had encountered--and Ryanbegan to be exceedingly anxious upon the subject of heaving-to, since,as he explained to me, every mile that we now travelled carried usnearer to the terrible vortex or "eye" of the storm. Still he could notbring himself to do so while the barque held on, thus allowing her toeffect her escape from us a second time--assuming, of course, that shereally was, as we very strongly suspected, our former acquaintance; itwas therefore with a feeling of considerable satisfaction that weshortly afterwards saw her start her fore-topsail sheets with theevident intention of clewing up the sail, if possible, preparatory toheaving-to.

  "Ah!" exclaimed Ryan, admiringly, "that fellow is no fool; he scentsdanger ahead; he has been in a cyclone before to-day, I'll warrant, andseems to know exactly what he is about. There goes his topsail, cleanout of the bolt-ropes, as I expected it would; but I do not suppose heever seriously hoped to save the sail. And now over goes his helm, andthere he rounds-to--ah-h! look at _that_! on her beam-ends, by allthat's--no--no--she is righting again--good! very prettily done,_v-e-r-y_ prettily done indeed! _Now_ she luffs!--excellent! capital!You are all safe now, my man. We will run down to him, Harry, my bhoy,and heave-to about a mile to leeward of him; then perhaps he will notsuspect us; he will gradually settle down towards us, as we shall liecloser than he will; and when the wind drops we shall have him to do aswe like with."

  It was a very anxious moment with us when, having run down to the spotselected by Ryan, we eased the helm over to bring the schooner to _onthe starboard tack_--that being the correct tack upon which to heave-toin a cyclone in the northern hemisphere--and I shall never forget thefeeling of absolute helplessness that seized me when, as our littlecraft gradually presented her broadside to the gale, I felt her goingover--over--over--until the water poured in a raging cataract over herlee rail, and she laid down beneath the strength of the howling blast--that now seemed to have suddenly increased to twice its former fury--until the lee side of her deck was buried almost to the combings of thehatchways. But as her bows came round and presented themselves moreobliquely to the gale she righted somewhat, and although she stillcareened until her lee rail was all but awash, she rode the furious seasas gallantly and buoyantly as a gull.

  Ryan had displayed a very considerable amount of judgment in conductingthe schooner down to the berth he had chosen for her, and had placed herthere in so natural a manner that we scarcely believed it possible thatour presence so near the barque would be likely to arouse any suspicionsof our intentions in the minds of her crew; and as we had never beenvery near her during the time of our former pursuit of her, we were inhopes that we should not now be recognised. We had taken up a positionexactly to leeward of our neighbour; and, as Ryan had anticipated, wesoon found that the schooner was looking up a full point higher than thebigger craft; but this was very evenly balanced by the greater amount oflee drift that we made, in consequence of our much lighter draught; wetherefore, contrived to maintain our position with almost perfectexactitude, except that the schooner manifested the greater tendency toforge ahead, thus placing herself gradually further upon the barque'slee bow.

  The wind continued to blow with unabated fury, and when day broke and wewere able to look about us, the scene was grand and awful beyond allpower of description. The sky was of an uniform deep, slaty,purple-grey hue, across the face of which careered a constant successionof lighter grey, smoky-looking clouds, all shredded and torn to tattersby the headlong sweep of the gale. The colour of the sea was a dirtygreen, deepening in tint to purple-black in the hollows, and capped bylong ridges of dirty yellowish foam, that was continuously snatched upby the wind and hurled through the air in drenching sheets that cut andstung the skin like the lash of a whip. The sea, although not so highas might have been expected from the force of the wind, was stillformidable enough to be almost terrifying in its aspect as it swept downupon the schooner in long, steep, mountain-like ridges, that soared tonearly half the height of our main cross-trees, with a hollow of fullyone hundred and eighty feet in width between them, each wave crownedwith a roaring, foaming crest that reared itself above our low hull asthough eager to hurl itself upon and destroy us.

  As the day wore on we received a temporary addition to our company, inthe shape of a brig. She hove in sight in the eastern quarter, aboutsix bells in the forenoon watch; and the first sight that we got of herrevealed that her jib-boom and both her topmasts were gone. She wasshowing a storm-staysail; and at first sight we supposed her to behove-to; but she drove down towards us so fast that we soon came to theconclusion that there must be something wrong with her steering-gear,and as she drew nearer it became evident that she was unmanageable,falling off occasionally until she was almost dead before the wind; andwe could see that whenever this happened the sea made a clean breachover her. When within about a mile of us she showed the Russian ensign,upside down, in her main-rigging, to which we responded by hoistingSpanish colours--to lull any doubts that might possibly be lurking inthe minds of our friends on board the barque, who did not condescend tofavour us with a sight of their bunting. As for the brig, she drovestraight down towards us, occasioning us a considerable amount ofanxiety, for so erratic were her movements that when she had arrivedwithin a couple of cables' lengths of us it became impossible to saywhether she would pass ahead or astern of us. The only thing that wecould do to avoid her was to fill upon the schooner and forge ahead outof her way, and this we would have done but for the possibility thatafter our having done so the brig might take a sheer in the wrongdirection and fall foul of us, when the destruction of the schooner, ifnot of both vessels, must inevitably have happened. At length it becameevident that something must be done, for she was settling bodily downupon us, and another two minutes would bring the two craft intocollision.

  Ryan therefore ordered the helm to be shifted, and we were just forgingclear, as we thought, and leaving her room to pass under our stern, whena terrific sea swept down upon her, throwing her quarter round, sweepingher from stem to stern, and driving her crew into the rigging, and in aninstant there she was, driving along stem-on right for us--or, rather,for the spot that we should occupy when she reached it. There was nowonly one way of
avoiding a disastrous collision, and that was by puttingour helm hard up, and, at all risks, jibing round upon the other tack;and this we accordingly did, missing the brig by a hair's-breadth, butspringing our foremast-head so badly as the trysail jibed over, that wehad to get in the sail at once, and set a close-reefed main-staysailinstead. As for the brig, she was little better than a wreck, for asshe drove past us we saw that her rudder was gone, her bulwarks carriedaway on both sides, from cat-head to taffrail, and her decks swept ofeverything that was movable. It was of course utterly impossible for usto help them in any way in the wind and sea that then raged; nor couldwe follow them in their helpless progress to leeward, and stand by them,the damage to our foremast being so serious as to utterly preclude thepossibility of getting any headsail upon the schooner until it had beenat least temporarily repaired, while the little hooker, having againbeen brought-to on the starboard tack, absolutely refused to pay offunder her staysail only, which was perhaps just as well, so far as wewere concerned, since any attempt on our part to run to leeward wouldalmost certainly have resulted in the swamping of the schooner. Whatbecame of the brig, and whether she outlived the gale or not, we neverknew, for she continued her erratic course to leeward, and we lost sightof her in about an hour and a half from the time when she so nearly fellon board us, and we saw her no more. But she was driving in a directionthat would carry her right into the track of the vortex of the storm, toencounter which, in her wrecked and helpless condition, would infalliblymean her destruction.

  As the day wore on, the wind gradually shifted round further from theeastward, and by nightfall it was blowing from about east-south-east,and showing some signs of moderating, although it still blew veryheavily; much too heavily indeed to justify us in sending any handsaloft to fish our sprung mast-head. Nevertheless, every preparation wasmade for the commencement of the operation at the earliest possiblemoment, as we had detected signs on board the barque indicative of anintention to send a new main-topmast up without delay; which might ormight not mean that a suspicion as to our true character had begun todawn upon them. By midnight the gale had moderated to a strong breeze,and the sky had cleared sufficiently to permit of a little moonlightpercolating through between the denser clouds, and we were then able tomake out--to our inexpressible chagrin--that the barque's people hadalready got their new topmast aloft and ridded, and were getting theirmain-topsail-yard across, having been hard at work, doubtless, eversince darkness set in, though how they had managed to perform their taskwas a puzzle to us. It was, however, another evidence of the resolutecharacter of their skipper; another hint to us that we should have allour work cut out to bag him; and the carpenter was therefore at oncesent for, and set forthwith to the task of fishing our mast-head withall possible expedition. The task was not half executed, however, whenwe had the mortification to see our neighbour sheet home hisdouble-reefed topsails and make sail to the westward. This sight putour men upon their mettle; they could vividly picture to themselves thelaugh that the slavers would be enjoying at our expense, should theyhave suspected our intentions toward them, and before the barque wasabsolutely out of sight from aloft, Chips had managed to make such a jobof his work as enabled us to make sail also.

  Daylight brought with it a clear sky, dappled with high, fleecy, white,fine-weather clouds, and a moderate breeze from the south-east, with avery heavy, confused sea still running, however; and as the barque'sroyals were still in sight above the horizon, we cracked on after her,although the carpenter had warned Ryan that the work done during thenight was scarcely as satisfactory as might be, and that the mast-headwas hardly to be trusted. But the fellow was a thoroughly good man, andeager to avoid all possibility of it being said that we had lost thechance of a prize through him. As soon therefore as it was light enoughto see, he was aloft again; and by eight bells he had finished his work,and reported that we might now pack sail upon the schooner to ourhearts' content, which we forthwith did, giving her everything thatwould draw, from the royal down, the wind being very nearly aft, that isto say, about two points on the larboard quarter. By noon it becameapparent that we were gaining, although but slowly, on the barque, herroyals and half her topgallant-sails being by this time above thehorizon; and now all was anxiety on board the schooner as to thecharacter of the coming night; for we had no doubt that, seeing, as theynow must, that we were following them, the ever-vigilant suspicions ofthe barque's people would prompt them to avoid us should the night provedark enough to permit of such a manoeuvre. The indications were all forfine weather, however; the glass was rising steadily, the sky wasbecoming of a deeper clearer blue; the white clouds were melting away,promising a clear, star-lit night between the hours of sunset andmoonrise, and, what was equally as much in our favour, both wind and seawere going down steadily.

  Toward eight bells in the afternoon watch we sighted another sail--aschooner this time; she was beating up to the eastward, and crossed thehawse of the barque at no great distance, exchanging signals with her,although what was their nature we could not see, and even had we beennear enough to have made out the flags, it is exceedingly improbablethat we should have understood them. We had a suspicion, however, thatthey in some way referred to us; for shortly afterwards the schoonertacked and stood towards us, crossing our bows at a distance of about amile, and exhibiting the French ensign. We replied by showing Spanishcolours, as before; upon which the stranger threw out some signal thatwe could not understand, and after displaying it for some few minuteshauled it down and hoisted another. We thought it would never do todisplay a total ignorance of the signals; Ryan therefore ordered thesignal-bag to be produced, and we strung some flags together haphazard,and hoisted them. This signal the schooner acknowledged, tacking at thesame time and standing toward us once more; but we were far too busy towait for her, for although she had all the looks of a slaver, we knew,from the course she was steering, that she could have no slaves onboard, and was therefore altogether unworthy of our attention with sopromising a craft as the barque in plain view. She made no attempt tofollow us, and in an hour was out of sight to the northward.

  By sunset that night the weather was everything that we could wish, andwe had risen the chase to her topsails; everybody on board the_Felicidad_ was therefore in the highest spirits, and hope ran high thatby daybreak on the morrow we should have our neighbour under our guns,and be able to give her an overhaul. The stars came out brilliantly,and although the moon would not rise until after midnight--and would notgive us much light even then, since she had entered her fourth quarter--we soon found that we should have light enough to prevent the barquefrom giving us the slip, provided that we kept both eyes open.Nevertheless, darkness had no sooner set in, than she made an effort todo so by edging off to the northward, a couple of points, which move,however, we soon detected and frustrated by steering directly after her.

  During the night the wind breezed up again somewhat, and this gave thechase so great an advantage that at daybreak she was still about eightmiles ahead. Shortly after sunrise, however, it dwindled away again,and gradually dropped to a gentle air that barely fanned us along at aspeed of five knots.

  By noon we had brought the chase to within five miles of us, and Ryandeemed that the time had now arrived for us to declare ourselves; weaccordingly hoisted British colours, and fired a gun as a signal to thebarque to heave-to; the only notice taken of which was the exhibition ofSpanish colours by the chase, and the firing of a shotted gun ofdefiance; so now at last we knew each other.

  Meanwhile the wind was very gradually dropping, and the schooner asgradually gaining upon the craft ahead, until at length, late in theafternoon, we had reached within a mile and a half of her. And thenbegan one of those barbarous practices that I had heard of, but hadhitherto been scarcely able to credit as sober truth, namely, thethrowing of slaves overboard in order to retard pursuit by causing thepursuer to stop and pick up the poor wretches, as British men-o'-warinvariably did whenever it was at all practicable.

 
; The mode of procedure was generally to launch the unhappy blackoverboard, securely lashed to a plank or piece of timber large enough tofloat him, and as he was dropped exactly in the track of the pursuingman-o'-war, he was certain to be seen by some one on board, and aneffort made to pick him up. In waters infested by sharks, however, thishad been found to be of very doubtful utility, since it happened asoften as not that long before the unfortunate wretch had served thepurpose for which he was sacrificed, the sharks had found him and tornhim to pieces. In order, therefore, that certain hundreds of gooddollars--or their value--might not be wasted, and not from any motivesof humanity to the slave, or any desire to give him a better chance forhis life, but merely that he might last long enough to delay theman-o'-war to the extent of picking him up, an improved plan had beendevised for use on occasions where the presence of sharks might beexpected; this plan consisting simply in _heading the black up in acask_! This was the plan now adopted by the people on board the barque.