Chapter Fifteen.
A Stern Chase—and a fruitless one.
“Welcome back to the Daphne, gentlemen!” exclaimed Captain Vernon as he met us at the gangway and extended his hand, first to Smellie and then to me. “This is indeed a pleasant surprise—for all hands, I will venture to say, though Armitage loses his step, at least pro tem., in consequence of your reappearance, Mr Smellie. But he is a good-hearted fellow, and when he entered my cabin to report you alongside, though he seemed a trifle incredulous as to your personality, he was as delighted as a schoolboy at the prospect of a holiday.”
Smellie took the skipper’s extended hand, and after replying suitably to his greeting, said:
“I must beg you will excuse Hawkesley, sir, if he gives you his left instead of his right hand. His starboard shoulder has been disabled to-night by a pistol-bullet whilst supporting me most intrepidly in the task of bringing out the schooner.”
The skipper seized my left hand with his right, and pressing it earnestly yet gently, said:
“I am proud and pleased to hear so gratifying an account of you, Hawkesley. Mr Armitage has already borne witness to your gallantry during the night attack upon the slavers; and it was with deep and sincere sorrow that I received the news of your being, with Mr Smellie, missing. I fear, gentlemen, your friends at home will suffer a great deal of, happily unnecessary, sorrow at the news which I felt it my duty to send home; but that can all be repaired by your personally despatching to them the agreeable intelligence of your both being still in the land of the living. But what of your hurts? Are they too serious to be attended to in my cabin? They are not? I am glad to hear that. Then follow me, both of you, please; for I long to hear where you have been, what doing all this time, and how you happened to turn up so opportunely here to-night I will send for Burnett to bring his tools into my cabin; and you can satisfy my curiosity whilst he is doing the needful for you. Will you join us, Austin? I’ll be bound your ears are tingling to hear what has befallen these wandering knights.”
Thereupon we filed down below in the skipper’s wake—I for one being most heartily thankful to find myself where I could once more sit down and rest my aching limbs. The skipper’s steward brought out some wine and glasses, and then at Burnett’s request—that individual having promptly turned up—went away to get ready some warm water.
“I think,” said our genial medico, turning to me, “you look in most urgent need of my services, so I will begin with you, young gentleman, if you please. Now whereabouts are your hurts?”
I told him, and he straightway began to cut away the sleeve of my coat and shirt, preparatory to more serious operations; whilst Smellie, drawing his chair up to the table, helped himself to a glass of wine, and then said:
“Before I begin my story, sir, will you permit me to ask what was the ultimate result of that most disastrous expedition against the slavers? I am naturally anxious to know, of course, seeing that upon my shoulders rests the odium of our failure.”
Captain Vernon stared hard at the second lieutenant for a minute, and then said:
“My dear Smellie, what in the world are you talking about? Disaster! Odium! Why, man, the expedition was a success, not a failure. I admit that there was, most unfortunately, a very serious loss of life among the unhappy slaves; but we took the brigantine and afterwards raised the schooner, with a loss to ourselves of only four killed—now that you two have turned up. It was a most dashing affair, and admirably conducted, when we take into consideration the elaborate preparations which had been evidently made for your reception; and the ultimate result about which you inquire so anxiously will, I hope, be a nice little bit of prize-money to all hands, and richly deserved promotion to yourself, Armitage, and young Williams.”
It was now Smellie’s turn to look surprised.
“You astonish me, sir,” he said. “The last I remember of the affair is that, after a most stubborn and protracted fight, in which the schooner was sunk, we succeeded in gaining possession of the brig, only to be blown out of her a few minutes later, however; and my own impression—and Hawkesley’s too, for that matter, as I afterwards discovered on comparing notes with him—was that our losses must have amounted to at least half of the men composing the expedition.”
“Well,” said Captain Vernon, “I am happy to tell you that you were mistaken. Our total loss over that affair amounts to four men killed; but the severity of the fight is amply testified to by the fact that not one man out of the whole number escaped without a wound of some kind, more or less serious. They have all recovered, however, I am happy to say, and we have not at present a sick man in the ship. There can be no doubt that the slavers somehow received timely notice of our presence in the river, through the instrumentality of your fair-speaking friend, the skipper of the Pensacola, I strongly suspect, and that they made the best possible use of the time at their disposal. Had I been as wise then as I am now my arrangements would have been very different. However, it is easy to be wise after the event; and I am thankful that matters turned out so well. And now, I think we are fairly entitled to hear your story.”
Thereupon Smellie launched out into a detailed recital of all that had befallen us from the moment of the explosion on board the brig up to our unexpected arrival that same night alongside the Daphne. He was interrupted by countless exclamations of astonishment and sympathy; and when he had finished there seemed to be no end to the questions which one and another was anxious to put to him. In the midst of it all, however, Burnett broke in with the announcement that, having finished with me, he was ready to attend to the second lieutenant.
The worthy medico’s attentions to me had been, as may be gathered from the fact that they outlasted Smellie’s story, of somewhat protracted duration, and that they were of an exceedingly painful character I can abundantly testify, the ball having broken my shoulder-blade and then buried itself among the muscles of the shoulder, whence Burnett insisted on extracting it, in spite of my protestations that I was quite willing to postpone that operation to a more convenient season. After much groping and probing about, however, utterly regardless of the excruciating agony he thus inflicted upon me, the conscientious Burnett had at last succeeded in extracting the ball, which he kindly presented to me as a memento, and then the rest of the work was, comparatively speaking, plain sailing. My wound was washed, dressed, and made comfortable; and I was dismissed with a strict injunction to turn-in at once.
To this the skipper moved, as an amendment, that I be permitted to drink a single glass of wine before retiring; and whilst I was sipping this they turned upon me with their questions, with the result that I soon forgot all about my hammock. At length Captain Vernon said:
“By-the-by, Hawkesley, what sort of a young lady is this Doña Antonia whom Mr Smellie has mentioned once or twice?”
“She is simply the most lovely creature I have ever seen, sir,” I replied enthusiastically.
”—And my promised wife,” jerked in Smellie, in a tone which warned all hands that there must be no jocularity in connection with the mention of the doña’s name.
“Ho, ho!” ejaculated the skipper with a whistle of surprise. “That is how the wind blows, is it? Upon my word, Smellie, I heartily congratulate you upon your conquest. Quite a romantic affair, really. And pray, Mr Hawkesley, what success have you met with in Cupid’s warfare?”
“None whatever, sir,” I replied with a laugh. “The only other lady in Don Manuel’s household was old Dolores, Doña Antonia’s attendant, and I was positively afraid to try the effect of my fascinations upon her.”
“Lest you should prove only too successful,” laughed the skipper. “By the way, Smellie, do you think this Don Manuel was quite plain and above-board with you? I suppose he does nothing in the slave-trading business, eh?”
“I think not, sir; though he undoubtedly possesses the acquaintance of a certain Señor Madera, a most suspicious-looking character, whose name I have already mentioned to you—by the way, Hawkesley, you were evidently mistaken as to the Josefa belonging to Madera; he was nowhere to be found on board her.”
“What is it, Mr Armitage?” said the skipper just then, as the third lieutenant made his appearance at the door.
“A vessel, apparently a brig, sir, has just come into view under the northern shore, evidently having just left the river. She is hugging the land very closely, keeping well under its shadow, in fact, and has all the appearance of being anxious to avoid attracting our attention.”
The skipper glanced interrogatively at Smellie, who at once responded to the look by saying:
“The Black Venus, without doubt. I expect that our running away with the Josefa has given them the alarm, and they have determined to slip out whilst the option remains to them, and take their chance of being able to give us the slip.”
“They shall not do that if I can help it,” remarked the skipper energetically; and, rising to his feet, he gave orders for all hands to be called forthwith. This broke up the party in the cabin, much to the gratification of Burnett, who now insisted that both Smellie and I should retire to our hammocks forthwith, and on no account presume to leave them again until we had his permission.
I was not very long in undressing, having secured the services of a marine to assist me in the operation; but before I had gained my hammock I was rejoined by Keene, a brother mid, whose watch it was below, and who brought me down the news that the sloop was under weigh and fairly after the stranger, who, as soon as our canvas dropped from the yards, had squared away on a westerly course with the wind on her quarter and a whole cloud of studding-sails set to windward.
What with the excitement of finding myself once more among so many friends and the pain of my wound it was some time before I succeeded in getting to sleep that night; and before I did so the Daphne was rolling like an empty hogshead, showing how rapidly she had run off the land and into the sea knocked up by the gale.
When I awoke next morning the wind had dropped to a considerable extent, the sea had gone down, and the ship was a great deal steadier under her canvas. I was most anxious to leave my hammock and go on deck, but this Burnett would not for a moment consent to; my wound was very much inflamed and exceedingly painful, the result, doubtless, of the probing for the bullet on the night before; and instead of being allowed to turn out I was removed in my hammock, just as I was, to the sick bay. I was ordered to keep very quiet, but I managed to learn, nevertheless, that the chase was still in sight directly ahead, about nine miles distant, and that, though she certainly was not running away from us, there seemed to be little hope of our overtaking her for some time to come.
Matters remained in this unsatisfactory state for the next five days, the Daphne keeping the chase in sight during the whole of that time, but failing to come up with her. The distance between the two vessels varied according to the weather, the chase appearing to have the best of it in a strong breeze, whilst the Daphne was slightly the faster of the two in light airs. Unfortunately for us, the wind continued very nearly dead fair, or about three points on our starboard quarter, whereas the sloop seemed to do best with the wind abeam. We would not have objected even to a moderate breeze dead in our teeth, our craft being remarkably fast on a taut bowline; and as day after day went by without any apparent prospect of an end of the chase the barometer was anxiously watched, in the hope that before long we should be favoured with a change of weather.
On the morning of the fifth day I was so much better that, acceding to my urgent request, Burnett consented, with many doubtful shakes of the head, to my leaving my hammock and taking the air on deck for an hour or two. I accordingly dressed as rapidly as possible, and got on deck just in time to catch sight of the chase, about six miles distant, before a sea mist settled down on the scene, which soon effectually concealed her from our view. This was particularly exasperating, since, the wind having dropped to about a five-knot breeze, we had been slowly but perceptibly gaining on her for the last three or four hours; and now, when at length there appeared a prospect of overtaking her, a chance to elude us in the fog had presented itself. Of course it was utterly impossible to guess what ruse so wary a foe would resort to, but that he would have recourse to one of some kind was a moral certainty. Captain Vernon at once took counsel with his first and second lieutenants as to what course it would be most advisable to adopt under the circumstances, and it was at last decided to put the ship upon a wind, and make short tacks to the eastward until the fog should clear, it being thought highly probable that the chase would likewise double back upon her former course in the hope of our running past her in the fog.
The studding-sails were accordingly taken in, and the ship brought to the wind on the starboard tack. We made short reaches, tacking every hour, and had gone about for the third time when, just as the men were coiling up the ropes fore and aft, the look-out reported:
“Sail, ho! straight ahead. Hard up, sir, or you will be into her.”
Mr Austin, who had charge of the deck, sprang upon a gun, and peered out eagerly ahead.
“Hard over, my man, hard over!” he exclaimed excitedly; then continued, after a moment of breathless suspense:
“All clear, all clear! we have just missed her, and that is all. By Jove, Hawkesley, that was a narrow squeak, eh? Why, it is surely the Vestale! Vestale ahoy!”
“Hillo!” was the response from the other craft, indubitably the brig which we had fallen in with shortly after our first look into the Congo, and which we had been given to understand was the Vestale, French gun-brig.
“Have you sighted a sail of any kind to-day?” hailed Austin.
“Non, mon Dieu! We have not nevaire seen a sail until now since we leave Sierra Leone four weeks ago.”
This ended the communication between the two ships, the Vestale—or whatever she was—disappearing again into the fog before the last words of the reply to our question had been uttered.
“Well,” said Mr Austin, as he jumped down off the gun, “I am disappointed. When I first caught sight of that craft close under our bows I thought for a moment that we had made a clever guess; that the chase had doubled on her track, and that, by a lucky accident, we had stumbled fairly upon her in the fog. But as soon as I caught sight of the white figure-head and the streak round her sides I saw that I was mistaken. Well, we may drop upon the fellow yet. I would give a ten-pound note this instant if the fog would only lift.”
“I cannot understand it for the life of me,” I replied in a dazed sort of way, as I stepped gingerly down off the gun upon which I, like the first lieutenant, had jumped in the first of the excitement.
Mr Austin looked at me questioningly.
“What is it that you cannot understand, Hawkesley?” he asked.
“That brig—the Vestale, as she calls herself—and all connected with her,” I answered.
“Why, what is there to understand about her? Or rather, what is there that is incomprehensible about her?” he asked sharply.
“Everything,” I replied eagerly. “In the first place, we have only the statement of one man—and he a member of her own crew—that she actually is the veritable Vestale, French gun-brig, which we know to be cruising in these waters. Secondly, her very extraordinary resemblance to the Black Venus, which, as you are aware, I have seen, absolutely compels me, against my better judgment, to the belief that the two brigs are, in some mysterious way, intimately associated together, if, indeed, they are not absolutely one and the same vessel. And thirdly, my suspicion that the latter is the case receives strong confirmation from the fact that on both occasions when we have been after the one—the Black Venus—we have encountered the other—the Vestale.”
Mr Austin stared at me in a very peculiar way for a few minutes, and then said:
“Well, Hawkesley, your last assertion is undoubtedly true; but what does it prove? It can be nothing more than a curious coincidence.”
“So I have assured myself over and over again, when my suspicions were strengthened by the first occurrence of the coincidence; and so I shall doubtless assure myself over and over again during the next few days,” I replied. “But if a coincidence only it is certainly curious that it should have occurred on two occasions.”
“I am not quite prepared to admit that,” said the first lieutenant. “And, then, as to the remarkable resemblance between the two vessels, do you not think, now, honestly, Hawkesley, that your very extraordinary suspicions may have magnified that resemblance?”
“No,” said I; “I do not. I only wish Mr Smellie had been on deck just now to have caught a glimpse of that inexplicable brig; he would have borne convincing testimony to the marvellous likeness between them. Why, sir, but for the white ribbon round the one, and the difference in the figure-heads, the two craft would be positively indistinguishable; so completely so, indeed, that poor Richards was actually unable to believe the evidence of his own senses, and, I firmly believe, was convinced of the identity of the two vessels.”
“Indeed!” said Mr Austin in a tone of great surprise. “That is news to me. So Richards shared your suspicions, did he?”
“He did, indeed, sir,” I replied. “It was, in fact, his extraordinary demeanour on the occasion of our second encounter with the Vestale—you will remember the circumstance, sir?—which confirmed my suspicions; suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of the Pensacola relative to the Black Venus and the Vestale, how evasive were his replies!”
“Look here, Hawkesley; you have interested me in spite of myself,” said Mr Austin. “If you are not too tired I should like you to tell me the whole history of these singular suspicions of yours from the very moment of their birth.”
“I will, sir, with pleasure. They arose with Monsieur Le Breton’s visit to us on the occasion of our first falling in with the Vestale,” I replied. And then having at last finally broached the subject which had been for so long a secret source of mental disquiet to me, I fully detailed to the first luff all those suspicious circumstances—trifling in themselves but important when regarded collectively—which I have already confided to the reader. When I had finished he remained silent for a long time, nearly a quarter of an hour I should think, with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes bent on the deck, evidently cogitating deeply. Finally he emerged from his abstraction with a start, cast an eye aloft at the sails, and then turning to me said:
“You have given me something to think about now with a vengeance, Hawkesley. If indeed your suspicions as to the honesty of the Vestale should prove well-founded, your mention of them and the acute perception which caused you in the first instance to entertain them will constitute a very valuable service—for which I will take care that you get full credit—and may very possibly lead to the final detection and suppression of a series of hitherto utterly unaccountable transactions of a most nefarious character. At all events we can do no harm by keeping a wary eye upon this alleged Vestale for the future, and I will make it my business to invent some plausible pretext for boarding her on the first opportunity which presents itself. And now I think you have been on deck quite as long as is good for you, so away you go below again and get back to your hammock. Such a wound as yours is not to be trifled with in this abominable climate; and you know,”—with a smile half good-humoured and half satirical—“we must take every possible care of a young gentleman who seems destined to teach us, from the captain downwards, our business. There, now, don’t look hurt, my lad; you did quite right in speaking to me, and I am very much obliged to you for so doing; I only regret that you did not earlier make me your confidant. Now away you go below at once.”
I of course did dutifully as I was bidden, and, truth to tell, was by no means sorry to regain my hammock, having soon found that my strength was by no means as great as I had expected. That same night I suffered from a considerable accession of fever, and in fine was confined to my hammock for rather more than three weeks from that date, at the end of which I became once more convalescent, and—this time observing proper precautions and a strict adherence to the doctor’s orders—finally managed to get myself reported as once more fit for duty six weeks from the day on which Smellie and I rejoined the Daphne. I may as well here mention that the fog which so inopportunely enveloped us on the day of my conversation with Mr Austin did not clear away until just before sunset; and when it did the horizon was clear all round us, no trace of a sail being visible in any direction from our main-royal yard.