The Pirate Slaver: A Story of the West African Coast

by Harry Collingwood

  CHAPTER NINE.

  THE GOVERNOR'S COMMUNICATION.

  At the distance which now separated us from the barque all the movementsof her crew were distinctly visible to us with the aid of our glasses--which of course were scarcely off her for a moment--and we accordinglywitnessed the launching of the first slave overboard. The unhappycreature was placed in a cask, and, as I have said before, headed uptherein, an aperture being cut in the two halves of the head justsufficient to admit his neck; and the cask was then slung by a whip fromthe main-yard-arm, and secured by a toggle, the withdrawal of which atthe right moment, by means of a lanyard, enabled the cask to be droppedgently, right end up, in the water, where it floated, with its inmate ahelpless prisoner, to be picked up or not as the case might be. Torender this ruse of real service, a smart breeze should be blowing,because under these conditions the pursuer has not only to lower a boatto pick up the floating black, but she has also to heave-to and wait forher boat; and however smartly the operations of lowering, picking up,and hooking on again may be performed, they still absorb quite anappreciable amount of time, during which the fugitive craft increasesher lead more or less according to her speed. In the present case,however, the conditions were by no means favourable to the pursuedcraft; for, since we were only moving through the water at a speed ofabout three knots, it was an easy matter for us to drop a boat into thewater and send her on ahead to pick up the man, and pull alongside againwithout detaining the schooner for an instant. The slaver tried thetrick four times in succession, and then, finding that it did notanswer, gave it up.

  The sun was just dipping beneath the horizon in a magnificent array oflight cirrus clouds, painted by his last rays in tinctures of the mostbrilliant purple and rose and gold, and the wind had died away to themerest zephyr when we arrived within gun-shot of the chase; and Ryan atonce ordered the long eighteen between the masts to be cleared away anda shot fired as close to the barque as possible without hitting her,just by way of a gentle hint that we were disposed to stand no morenonsense, and that the time had now arrived for her to surrender withoutgiving us any further trouble. But evidently the last thought in themind of her skipper was to yield, for instead of hauling down hiscolours like a good sensible man, he blazed away at us in return with acouple of twelve-pounders that he had run out through his stern-ports.The shots were well aimed, but did not quite reach us, striking thewater twice fair in line with us, and then making their final scurry,and sinking within about thirty yards of our bows.

  "By the piper, I believe the fellow intends to fight us!" exclaimedRyan. "As a rule these gentlemen are particularly careful of theirskins, and have no fancy for hard knocks, giving in when they find thattheir only choice lies between a fight and surrendering, but there areoccasional exceptions to this rule, and I fancy that this fellow willprove to be one of them. Now, Harry, me bhoy, we must be careful whatwe are after when it comes to boarding and carrying yonder gintleman;for if he happen to be one of the reckless desperado kind he may play usa scurvy trick. I have heard of men who blew their ship and everybodyin her into the air rather than allow her to be captured; and, for aughtthat we can tell to the contrary, the fellow who commands the barque maybe one of that stamp. Now, if he is, we may rest assured that he willdo nothing desperate until the capture of the ship is certain; untilthen he will be the foremost man in the fray; so we must both keep asharp look-out for him and put him _hors de combat_ before he has thechance to do any harm. I hope this breeze will hold long enough toenable us to get alongside; should we be becalmed and have to attack himwith the boats, it will give him an important advantage, and perhapsresult in the loss of some of our men."

  This hope of Ryan's was destined to disappointment; for the windcontinued to dwindle after sunset until it finally died away altogether,and left both craft without steerage-way. By this time, however, we haddrifted within range of the barque's guns, and she had opened a ratherdesultory but well-directed fire upon us whenever any of her guns couldbe brought to bear, the result of which was that one of our men hadalready been hurt by a splinter, while the schooner's rigging wasbeginning to be a good deal cut up. Meanwhile we were precluded fromreturning the barque's fire lest we should injure or kill any of theunhappy wretches pent up in her hold. At length a round-shot enteredthe schooner's bows, traversed the decks, and passed out over thetaffrail, glancing hither and thither as it went, and, although it didno material damage, affording several of the men a very narrow escape.

  "Why, this will never do!" exclaimed Ryan, as the shot made its exitafter passing between the legs of the man who was standing at the nowidle tiller. "A few of those fellows, as well aimed as that one was,would make a very pretty general average among us. We shall have to getout the boats--or, stop!--yes, I think that will be better; we will armthe men and make all ready for boarding; load the guns with a doublecharge of grape; and then man the sweeps, and sweep the schooneralongside, firing our guns as we heave the grappling-irons, and boardingin the smoke. We shall thus have all hands available when we getalongside, and our bulwarks will meanwhile afford the men a certainamount of protection."

  The necessary orders were accordingly given, and a few minutes later themen, stripped to the waist, had rigged out the heavy sweeps and weretoiling away at them. And now the advantages of the schooner's lightscantling, light draught, and fine lines made themselves fully apparent,for, having once overcome the inertia of the hull and put it in motion,the men found the little craft very easy on her sweeps, and capable ofbeing moved at quite a respectable pace through the water.

  The barque was of course much too large and unwieldy a craft to be movedby the same means, and nothing of the kind was even attempted; her crew,however, maintained a smart fire upon us as we approached; but as wewere careful to keep her end-on so that only her two stern-chasers couldbe brought to bear upon us, and as we kept up a hot musketry fire uponthat particular part of her, we did not suffer very severely; andwithout any further casualties we at length arrived near enough, withgood way on, to permit of the sweeps being laid in, preparatory to ourranging up alongside. Ryan now divided the boarders into two parties,one to be led by himself from aft, while I was instructed to head theother party from our forecastle, the idea being to pin the slaver's crewbetween the two parties, thus attacking them simultaneously in front andrear as it might be.

  Ryan himself conned the schooner alongside; and when we were within someten yards of the barque, our guns having previously been trained wellforward, the whole of our small broadside was poured in upon her deck,with terribly destructive effect it would seem from the outburst ofshrieks and groans and curses that immediately arose on board her. Ourfire was instantly returned, but in such a partial irregular way as onlytended to confirm the impression that the slaver's crew had sufferedseverely, yet it gave us a tolerably clear idea of what would have beenthe result to us had we withheld our fire for just a second or twolonger. Then, while both craft were still enveloped in the motionlesssmoke-wreaths, we felt the schooner's sides rasping against those of thebarque; and, with a shout to my little party to follow, I sprang uponour own bulwarks, from thence to those of the barque, and so down on theslaver's deck--for a slaver she was, as our olfactory nerves now assuredus beyond dispute.

  It was by this time quite dark, or at least as dark as it was likely tobe at all that night; but the sky was cloudless, the atmosphere wasclear, and the stars were shining with a lustre quite unknown in ourmore temperate clime; we therefore had but little difficulty in seeingwhat we were about, or in distinguishing friend from foe; still, I mustconfess that I felt a little awkward, and, having commenced bydischarging both my pistols into the thickest of the crowd that I foundopposed to me, confined myself pretty much to a random system ofslashing right and left with my cutlass, my principle--if I had one--being to strike the blows, leaving to others the task of warding them ifthey could. The fight that now ensued was brief, but sharp; the slaversdisputing every inch of their deck with us; but our fellows
were not tobe resisted; there was a brief space of time during which the air seemedfull of the sound of clashing steel, popping pistols, shouts, shrieks,groans, and execrations, and the barque was ours, her crew throwing awaytheir weapons and crying loudly for quarter, which of course was grantedto them.

  The fight being over I at once made my way aft, and was greatly shockedto find that during the brief struggle poor Ryan had been badly woundedin a hand-to-hand fight with the skipper of the barque, whom he had atonce singled out and engaged. It afterwards appeared that as soon asmatters seemed to be going badly for the barque's people her skipper hadattempted to slip out of the fight and slink below; but Ryan, suspectingsome sinister object in this projected movement, had stuck to the man soclosely, getting between him and the companion, that his object, if hehad one, was frustrated; and in his desperation he had struck a blow atRyan that clove the unfortunate Irishman's skull open, only to beimpaled himself upon our dashing captain's sword at the same moment.

  Ryan had thus fulfilled his purpose of putting the slaver's skipper_hors de combat_, but at serious cost to himself; the poor fellow was sodesperately hurt that he could do nothing but murmur his gratificationat finding that I had emerged from the fray unhurt, and an injunction tome to take the command, when he fainted, and I at once had him carefullyconveyed to his own cabin on board the schooner, where Armstrong thesurgeon immediately took him in hand.

  Our capture was named the _San Sebastian_, and hailed from Havana; shehad four hundred and twenty-one slaves on board, out of a total of fourhundred and seventy-six that she had brought out of the Gaboon riveronly ten days before; she was a very fine handsome vessel of threehundred and forty-five tons measurement; and our recent experiences withher had proved that she sailed like a witch. We secured our prisoners;conveyed our own wounded--amounting to nine in all--on board theschooner; and then, having put Pierrepoint and a prize-crew on board thebarque, both vessels made sail in company for Sierra Leone, where wearrived safely, after a passage of exactly a week, and where we wererejoined by Gowland and the prize-crew of the _Conquistador_, whichvessel had arrived six days before us.

  Here, as the repairing of our damages and the provision of a newforemast for the schooner threatened us with a considerable amount ofdelay, Ryan went ashore to the hospital, where he made pretty fairprogress toward recovery, although the improvement was not so marked orrapid as it had been on board the schooner at sea; the intense heat, hecomplained, was against him, and his first inquiry every morning when Iwent to see him was, "When did I think the schooner would be ready forsea again?" It was therefore with a feeling of intense satisfactionthat I was at length able to inform him that another day would see usout of the hands of the shipwrights and riggers, and that we might sailon the day following if he so pleased. This news acted like a cordialupon his spirits; he brightened up wonderfully, and improved morerapidly within the ensuing twenty-four hours than he had done during thewhole time of his sojourn in hospital, and but for the firmness of thedoctor, would at once have taken his discharge, and actually busiedhimself about the final preparations for our departure. He, however,insisted upon joining me in the acceptance of an invitation to dine withthe Governor that evening; and at the appointed hour I called for him,and we sauntered slowly to Government House together. The party was nota very large one, nor did we sit very late; but as the other guests weretaking their leave, his Excellency intimated that he desired to have aword or two with us in private, and we accordingly deferred ourdeparture.

  When at length we were alone, our host invited us to light up anothercigar, and, himself setting us the example, proceeded to a cabinet thatstood in the corner of the room, opening which he produced a foldeddocument from a drawer, and unfolding it, laid it before us.

  "This, gentlemen," said he, "is a rough sketch-chart of the embouchureof the Congo. It does not profess to be drawn to scale; but I am toldthat it shows with approximate accuracy the relative positions of thevarious creeks and indentations that discharge into the main river, upto the Narrows. Now, the individual from whom I obtained this chartinforms me that at a distance of about two and a half miles up a certaincreek on the south bank--this one, the mouth of which is indicated by astar--there is a rather considerable native settlement, ruled by asavage, known to the few Europeans who possess the doubtful honour ofhis acquaintance as King Plenty. And, if my informant is to be dependedupon, this potentate, whose chief characteristics are avarice and brutalferocity, has discovered a very simple method of combining business withpleasure by making ruthless war upon his neighbours, and, after his lustfor slaughter is satisfied, disposing of his prisoners to certainslave-dealers, who have established themselves on the southern bank ofthe creek, where they have erected barracoons, factories, and everyconvenience for carrying on their nefarious trade. I am told thatwithin the last six months this spot, known only to a select few, hasbeen frequently visited, and large numbers of slaves have been carriedaway from it; its natural characteristics rendering it especiallysuitable for the traffic. For instance, it would appear that thiscreek, like most of the others that discharge into the Congo, and likethe African rivers generally, has its own little bar at its mouth, uponwhich there is only one and three-quarter fathoms of water, and istherefore unapproachable by any of the men-o'-war on the station--excepting perhaps the _Barracouta_, and she is away cruising just now--while the character of the banks is such as to afford every facility fora galling and continuous fire upon a flotilla of boats advancing up thecreek. I have therefore thought that the breaking up and destruction ofthis slave-trading station would be a piece of work admirably suited tothe _Felicidad_ and her gallant crew"--Ryan and I simultaneously bowedour appreciation of the compliment--"because it is especially a casewherein valour and discretion must go hand-in-hand, the service being ofan especially hazardous nature; and I feel that in no one are the twoqualities that I have mentioned more admirably combined than in theperson of Captain Ryan."

  Ryan bowed again, and remarked--

  "I am obliged for your Excellency's good opinion of me; and still moreso for the information that you have been good enough to give usto-night. I have been very fortunate, so far, in the schooner, and Isuppose I may reckon upon my promotion as certain; but I am eager tohave further opportunities of distinguishing myself, and if we can onlybe lucky enough to find two or three slavers up that creek, and tocapture them, it would afford me just the opportunity that I require. Ishall sail to-morrow, and shall hope to be back here again in a month orsix weeks, with two or three prizes in company, and the assurance thatthe establishment in question is completely destroyed."

  We sat a few minutes longer, drank a final glass of wine, and then tookour leave and walked down to the schooner together, Ryan havingdetermined to sleep on board her that night.

  We sailed from Sierra Leone on the following day, as Ryan had resolvedwe should; but, as usually happens when matters are hurried, we met withan endless succession of petty delays at the last moment that detainedus at anchor until nearly nightfall, and occasioned us a vast amount oftrotting about in the broiling sun to put some life into the dilatorypeople who were keeping us waiting; the consequence of which was thatwhen at last we lifted the anchor and stood out of the bay with the verylast of the sea-breeze, to run into a calm when we had attained anoffing of some two miles, I felt altogether too tired and knocked up toeat or drink; while, as for Ryan, he was in a state of high fever oncemore.

  We got the land breeze about eight o'clock that night, and stood away tothe southward and westward until midnight, in order that we might obtaina good offing, when we hauled up on a south-east course for the Congo.I remained on deck until midnight--at which hour I was relieved byPierrepoint--and then was obliged to send for the doctor, who, afterfeeling my pulse, ordered me to my bunk at once, and when I was thereadministered to me a tremendous dose of some frightfully bitterconcoction, telling me at the same time, for my comfort, that he wouldnot be in the least surprised if, when he next visited me,
he shouldfind me suffering from a severe attack of coast fever. Happily, hisanticipations, so far as I was concerned, were unfounded; but bydaybreak poor Ryan was in a state of raving delirium, with three men inhis cabin told off to keep him in his bunk and prevent him frominflicting upon himself some injury. As for me, the medicine that I hadtaken threw me first into a profuse perspiration, and afterwards into adeep sleep, from which I awoke next morning cool, free from pain, andwith a quiet, steady pulse, but very weak; and I did not fully recovermy strength until a day or two before we made the land about the Congomouth, which we did after a long passage that was uneventful ineverything save the persistency with which we were beset by calms andlight, baffling airs. By this time Ryan, too, had recovered to acertain extent; that is to say, he was able to leave his bunk and tostagger up on deck for an hour or so at a time, but he was stillfrightfully weak; and it often appeared to me, from the rather wild talkin which he sometimes indulged, that he had not thus far fully recoveredhis mental balance.

  We made the land about six bells in the forenoon watch, and stoodstraight in for Shark Point, which we hugged pretty closely, in order tocheat the current, which, as usual at that time of the year, was runningout pretty strongly. The sea-breeze was blowing half a gale, however,and despite the current the little _Felicidad_ slid over the groundbravely, arriving abreast the mouth of the creek to which we were boundabout four bells in the afternoon watch. We here cleared the schoonerfor action, sent the men to their quarters, and, with a leadsman in thefore-chains, both on the port and on the starboard sides, and with Ryan,sketch-chart in hand, conning the vessel, steered boldly into the creek.The soundings which we obtained at the entrance proved the chart to beso far correct, and with our confidence thus strengthened we glidedgently forward over the glassy waters of the creek, every eye beingdirected anxiously ahead, for we knew not at what moment we mightencounter our enemy, nor in what force he might be. To me it appearedthat we were acting in rather a foolhardy manner in thus rushingblindfold as it were upon the unknown, and earlier in the day--in fact,just after we had entered the river--I had suggested to Ryan theadvisability of taking the schooner somewhat higher up the stream andanchoring her in a snug and well-sheltered spot that we had noticed whenlast in the river in the _Barracouta_, and sending the boats away atnight to reconnoitre. But this happened to be one of the captain's baddays--by which I mean that it was one of the days when the fever fromwhich he had been suffering seemed to partially regain its hold uponhim, making him impatient, irritable, and unwilling to receive anythingin the shape of a suggestion from anybody; and my proposal was thereforescouted as savouring of something approaching to timidity. I had longago got over any such feeling, however; and even now, when wemomentarily expected to come face to face with the enemy, I found myselfsufficiently calm and collected to note and admire the many beauties ofthe scene as the creek opened up before us.

  For the scene _was_ beautiful exceedingly with a wild, tropicallavishness of strange and, in some cases, grotesque forms and richmagnificence of colour that no words can adequately describe, and eventhe artist's palette would be taxed to its utmost capacity to merelysuggest. The creek was, as usual in the Congo, lined with an almostunbroken, impassable belt of mangroves, their multitudinous roots,gnarled and twisted, springing from the thick, mud-stained water, andpresenting a confused, inextricable tangle to the eye, from the deepshadows of which flitted kingfishers of many species and brilliantplumage; while above swayed and rustled in the gentle breeze thedelicate grey-green foliage of the trees themselves, now in full andluxuriant leaf, affording a delicious contrast of cool green shadow,with the glints of dazzling sunshine that streamed here and therethrough the verdant masses. Great clusters of magnificent orange-tintedorchids gleamed like galaxies of golden stars between the mangrovetrunks at frequent intervals; clumps of feathery bamboo swayed gently inthe soft warm breeze; the dense background of bush displayed everyconceivable tint of foliage, from brilliant gold to deepest purplebronze; and magnificent forest trees towered in stately majesty overall, rearing their superb heads a hundred and fifty feet into theintense blue of the cloudless sky; while everywhere, over bush and treeand withered stump, blazed in thousands the trailing blossoms ofbrilliant-hued climbing plants that loaded the air to intoxication withthe sweetness of their mingled perfumes. Parrots and othergaily-plumaged birds flitted busily hither and thither with loud and--itmust be admitted--more or less discordant cries; inquisitive monkeysswung from branch to branch, and either peered curiously at us as wepassed, or dashed precipitately, with loud cries of alarm, into theconcealment of the deepest shadows at our approach; and at one point,where the belt of mangroves was interrupted, and a small, open, grassyspace reached down to the water's edge, a stately antelope steppeddaintily down into the water, as though to slake his thirst, butcatching sight of the approaching schooner, bounded off again into thecontiguous bush, where he was instantly lost sight of in the sombregreen gloom.

  At a distance of about two miles from the mouth of the creek we reacheda spot where it forked, one arm--the wider of the two--running in a dueeast-by-south direction, while the other trended away to thewest-south-west, communicating--as we afterwards discovered--withanother creek which, although too shoal for navigation by sea-goingcraft, would have afforded us excellent facilities for a reconnaissancewith the boats. At this point the southern shore of the creek exhibitedsigns of cultivation, small patches of bush having been cleared here andthere and planted with maize, or sugarcane, or yams, a small reed-hutthatched with palm-leaves usually standing in one corner of the plot,with a tethered goat close by, a few fowls, or other traces of its beinginhabited. Of the human inhabitants themselves, however, strangelyenough, nothing was to be seen. But it was clear that we were nearingour goal; and word was passed along the deck for the men to holdthemselves prepared for instant action.

  There were several memoranda jotted down upon the chart for ourguidance, and among these was an intimation to look out for a clump ofexceptionally tall trees on the southern bank of the creek, under thebroad shadow of which the slave barracoons were stated to be built. Afew minutes after passing the branch creek already referred to wearrived at a bend, and as the schooner glided round it, and entered anew reach, these trees swept into view; there could be no mistakingthem, for they lifted their majestic heads--there were five of them--fully fifty feet clear above those of their brethren. Moreover, theystood quite close to the margin of the creek, thus confirming thestatement made upon the sketch-chart. But had there been any lurkingdoubt in our minds about the matter they would have been quicklydispelled, for as we glided forward, a small sandy beach--also referredto in the chart--was made out projecting from the southern bank, atwhich some twenty or thirty large canoes lay with their bows hauledsufficiently out of the water to prevent their going adrift. That avigilant watch was being kept upon the waters of the creek becamequickly apparent, for we had scarcely made out the canoes when we sawseveral negroes rush down to one of them, launch it, and paddle swiftlyaway up the creek and round another bend, while, as we advanced, a crowdof naked blacks, armed with spears, shields, and muskets, gathered uponthe beach, and, from their actions, seemed fully prepared to forciblyresist any attempt on our part to effect a landing.

  Still advancing up the creek, we gradually opened the vista of the reachbeyond--that in which the canoe had a few minutes previously vanished--and at length, when only a short half-mile intervened between us and thebeach--which projected boldly nearly half-way across the channel--themain-mast of a schooner crept into view beyond the concealment of thehitherto intervening bush and trees; and bringing our glasses to bearupon her, we detected signs of great bustle and confusion on board her,and made out that her crew were busily engaged in tricing up boardingnettings, and otherwise making preparations for her defence.

  Ryan now ordered our ensign and pennant to be hoisted, thus boldlyannouncing at once our nationality and the fact of our being an enemy--an announcement which I should hav
e deemed it perfectly justifiable todefer until the last possible moment--and the schooner at once repliedby hoisting French colours and firing a gun of defiance. This greatlyamused our people, to whom the act seemed a piece of ridiculousbraggadocio--for the stranger was no bigger than ourselves--but thelaugh left their faces and was succeeded by a look of grim resolutionwhen presently we opened out another and a larger schooner and a heavy,handsome brigantine, the first flying Spanish colours and the brigantine_a black flag_! But this was not all, for before we arrived abreast thebeach we had opened out still another schooner with the Spanish flagfloating from her mast-head; and by what we saw going on board the fourcraft it became evident that we had by no means caught these bold roversnapping, and that we might confidently reckon upon meeting with a verywarm reception. Moreover, it was clear that, snug as was their place ofconcealment, and unlikely as it was to be discovered save, as in ourcase, by betrayal, they had left nothing to chance, but had taken everypossible precaution to insure their safety, the four craft being mooredin pairs, with springs on their cables, stern to stern right across thestream, so that, the fair-way being very narrow, they would have to befought and taken in succession, a necessity which I at once recognised,and which, to my limited experience, seemed to militate very stronglyagainst our chances of success. It was, however, altogether too latenow to hesitate or alter our plans; we had plunged headlong and, as itwere, blindfold into a hornet's nest from which nothing but the coolestcourage and determination could extricate us, and, while I had long agocompletely conquered the feeling of trepidation and anxiety that almosteverybody experiences more or less when going into action for the firsttime, I could not altogether suppress a doubt as to whether Ryan, in histhen very indifferent state of health, possessed quite all the coolnessand clear-headedness as well as the nerve that I anticipated would benecessary to see us safely out of our present entanglement.