Chapter Fourteen.
We rejoin the “Daphne.”
The people in the cabin, finding that no good result followed their violent pounding upon the inside of the companion doors, soon abandoned so unprofitable an amusement, and I was just beginning to hope that they had philosophically made up their minds to submit with a good grace to the inevitable, when crash came a bullet through the teak doors and past my head in most uncomfortable proximity to my starboard ear.
Smellie looked round at the sound.
“Any damage done, Hawkesley?” he hailed.
“None so far, I thank you,” replied I; and as I spoke there was another report, and another bullet went whizzing past, well to port this time for a change. A minute or two passed, and then came a regular fusillade from quite half a dozen pistols discharged simultaneously I should say, one of the bullets knocking off the worsted cap I wore and grazing the skin of my right temple sufficiently to send a thin stream of blood trickling down into the corner of my right eye.
“You seem to be in a warm corner there,” hailed Smellie; “but if you can hold on until we round this point I’ll come and relieve you.”
“No, thanks, I would very much rather you would continue to con the ship,” I replied.
A minute or two later we rounded the point referred to, and, the creek widening out considerably, we began to feel the true breeze, when the schooner, even under the short and ill-set canvas we had been able to give her, at once increased her speed to about six knots. At the same time, however, she began to “gripe” most villainously, and with the helm hard a-weather it was as much as I could possibly do to keep her from running ashore among the bushes on our starboard hand. The people in the cabin were still pertinaciously blazing away through the companion doors at me, and doing some remarkably good shooting, too, taking into consideration the fact that they could only guess at my whereabouts; but I was just then far too busy to pay much attention to them. At length, fearing that, when we got a little lower down and felt the full strength of the breeze, the schooner would, in spite of all my efforts, fairly run away with me, I hailed Smellie, and, briefly explaining the situation to him, asked him to either give her the fore staysail or else come aft and trice up the tack of the mainsail. He chose the latter alternative, as leaving the craft under canvas easily manageable by one hand, and came aft to effect the alteration, hurriedly explaining that he would relieve me as soon as possible; but that there was still some difficult navigation ahead which he wanted to see the schooner safely through.
He triced the tack of the sail close up to the throat of the gaff, and was about to hurry forward again, when the schooner sheering round a bend into a new reach, my attention was suddenly attracted by something ahead and on our lee bow at a distance of perhaps half a mile.
“What is that away there on our lee bow, sir?” I exclaimed; “is it not a craft of some sort?”
Smellie jumped up on the rail to get a better view, and at the same moment a pistol shot rang out from the skylight, the bullet evidently flying close past him. He took not the slightest notice of the shot, but stood there on the rail with his hand shading his eyes, intently examining the object we were rapidly nearing.
“It is a brig,” said he, “and unless I am very greatly mistaken—but no, it can’t be—and yet it must be too—it surely is the Vestale.”
“It looks remarkably like her; but I can’t make out—confound those fellows! I wish they would stop firing.—I can’t make out the white ribbon round her sides,” said I.
“No, nor can I. And yet it is scarcely possible we can be mistaken. Luff you may—a little—do not shave her too close. She has no pennant flying, by the way, whoever she may be. Ah! the rascals have pinked me after all,” as a rattling volley was discharged at him through the glazed top of the skylight, and I saw him clap his hand to his side.
We were by this time close to the strange brig, on board which lights were burning in the cabin, whilst several persons were visible on deck. As we swept down toward her, hugging her pretty closely, a man sprang into the main rigging and hailed in Spanish:
“Josefa ahoy! What’s the matter on board? Why are you going to sea without a full cargo? Have matters gone wrong at the head of the creek?”
“No, no,” replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia’s assistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel’s roof—“no, everything is all right; our cargo—”
Unfortunately he was here interrupted by another volley from the cabin, and at the same time a voice yelled from the schooner’s stern windows:
“We are captured; a prize to the accursed Ingleses.”
The words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth when three or four muskets were popped at us from the brig, fortunately without effect. We were, however, by that time past her, and her crew, who seemed thoroughly mystified at the whole affair, made no further effort to molest us. Of one thing, however, we were amply assured, she was not the Vestale. The craft we had just passed—whilst the double of the French gun-brig in every other respect—was painted black down to her copper, and she carried under the heel of her bowsprit a life-size figure of a negress with a scarf striped in various colours round her waist. A negress? Ah! there could not be a doubt of it. “Mr Smellie,” said I, “do you know that craft?”
“N–n–no, I can’t say I do, Hawkesley, under her present disguise.”
“Disguise, my dear sir; she is not disguised at all. That is the pirate-brig which destroyed poor Richards’ vessel—the Juliet. And—yes—there can scarcely be a doubt about it—she must be the notorious Black Venus of which the Yankee skipper told us.”
Smellie looked at me in great surprise and perplexity for a moment.
“Upon my word, Hawkesley, I verily believe you are right!” he exclaimed at last. “The Black Venus—a negress for a figure-head—ha! are you hurt?”
“Not much, I think,” stammered I, as I braced myself resolutely against the wheel, determined that I would not give in. The fact was, that whilst we were talking another shot had been fired through the companion doors, and had struck me fairly in the right shoulder, inflicting such severe pain that for the moment I felt quite incapable of using my right arm. Fortunately the schooner now steered pretty easily, and I could manage the wheel with one hand.
“We must stop this somehow,” said Smellie, again jumping on the rail and taking a long look ahead.
“Do you see that very tall tree shooting up above the rest, almost directly ahead?” he continued, pointing out the object as he turned to me.
I replied that I did.
“Well, steer straight for it then, and I will fetch aft some hatch-covers—there are several forward—and place them against the doors; I think I can perhaps contrive to rig up a bullet-proof screen for you.”
“But you are hurt yourself, sir,” I protested.
“A mere graze after all, I believe,” he replied lightly, and forthwith set about the work of dragging aft the hatch-covers, six of which he soon piled in front of the companion.
“There,” he said, as he placed the last one in position, “I think you are reasonably safe now; it was a pity we did not think of that before. Shall I bind up your shoulder for you? You are bleeding, I see.”
“No, thank you,” I replied; “it is only a trifling scratch, I think, not worth troubling about now. I would much rather you would go forward and look out; it would never do to plump the schooner ashore now that we have come so far. Besides, there are the men down forward; they ought to be watched, or perhaps they may succeed in breaking out after all.”
Smellie looked at me rather doubtfully for almost a full minute. “I believe you are suffering a great deal of pain, Hawkesley,” he said; “but you are a thoroughly plucky fellow; and if you can only keep up until we get clear of this confounded creek I will then relieve you. And I will take care, too, to let Captain Vernon know how admirably you have conducted yourself, not only to-night, but from the moment that we left the Daphne together. Now I am going forward to see that all is right there. If you want help give me a timely hail.”
And he turned and walked forward.
The navigation of the creek still continued to be exceedingly intricate and difficult; the creek itself being winding, and the deep-water channel very much more winding still, running now on one side of the creek, now on the other, besides being studded here and there with shoals, sand-banks, and tiny islets. This, whilst it made the navigation very difficult for strangers, added greatly to the value of the creek as a safe and snug resort for slavers; the multitudinous twists in the channel serving to mask it most artfully, and giving it an appearance of terminating at a point beyond which in reality a long stretch of deep water extended.
At length we luffed sharply round a low sandy spit thickly covered with mangroves, kept broad away again directly afterwards, and abruptly found ourselves in the main stream of the Congo. Here the true channel was easily discernible by the long regular run of the sea which had been lashed up by the gale; and I had therefore nothing to do but keep the schooner where the sea ran most regularly, and I should be certain to be right. Smellie now gave a little much-needed attention to the party in the forecastle, who had latterly been very noisy and clamourous in their demonstrations of disapproval. Luckily they did not appear to possess any fire-arms: the only fear from them, therefore, was that they would find means to break out; and this the second lieutenant provided against pretty effectually by placing a large wash-deck tub on the cover and coiling down therein the end of one of the mooring hawsers which stood on the deck near the windlass.
Having done this, he came aft to relieve me at the wheel, a relief for which I was by no means sorry.
The party in the cabin had, shortly before this, given up their amusement of popping at me through the closed doors of the companion, having doubtless heard Smellie dragging along the hatch-covers and placing them in position, and having also formed a very shrewd guess that further mischief on their part was thus effectually frustrated. Unfortunately, however, they had made the discovery that my head could be seen over the companion from the fore end of the skylight, and they had thereupon begun to pop at me from this new position. They had grazed me twice when Smellie came aft, and he had scarcely opened his lips to speak to me when another shot came whizzing past us close enough to him to prove that the fellows still had it in their power to undo all our work by a single lucky hit.
“Why, Hawkesley,” he exclaimed, “this will never do; we must put a stop to this somehow. We cannot afford to be hard hit, either of us, for another hour and a half at least. What is to be done? How does your shoulder feel? Can you use your right arm?”
“I am afraid I cannot,” I replied; “my shoulder is dreadfully painful, and my arm seems to have no strength in it. But I can steer easily with one hand now?”
“How many people do you think there are in the cabin?” was Smellie’s next question.
“I can scarcely say,” I replied; “but I have only been able to distinguish three voices so far.”
“Three, eh? The skipper and two mates, I suppose.” He ruminated a little, stepped forward, and presently returned with a rather formidable-looking iron bar he had evidently noticed some time before; and coolly remarked as he began to drag away the hatch-covers from before the companion:
“I am going down below to give those fellows their quietus. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the—what was it those fellows called her?—ah! the Josefa—before we get the Josefa under the Daphne’s guns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try to draw their fire and then rush down upon them.”
With that he removed his jacket and threw it loosely over the iron bar, which he laid aside for the moment whilst he cleared away the obstructions from before the doors. Then, taking up the coat and holding it well in front of the opening so as to produce in the uncertain light the appearance of a figure standing there, he suddenly flung back the slide and threw open the doors.
The immediate results were a couple of pistol shots and a rush up the companion-ladder, the latter of which Smellie promptly stopped by swinging his somewhat bulky carcass into the opening and letting himself drop plump down upon the individuals who were making it. There was a scuffle at the bottom of the ladder, another pistol shot, two or three dull crushing blows, another brief scuffle, and then Smellie reappeared, with blood flowing freely from his left arm, and a truculent-looking Spaniard in tow. This fellow he dragged on deck, and unceremoniously kicking his feet from under him, lashed him securely with the end of the topgallant brace. This done, he once more dived below, and in due time two more Spaniards, senseless and bleeding, were brought up out of the cabin and secured.
“There,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, “I think we shall now manage to make the rest of our trip unmolested, and without having constantly before our eyes the fear of being blown clear across the Congo. Let me take the wheel; I am sure you must be sadly in need of a spell. But before you do anything else I will get you to clap a bandage of some sort round my arm here; I am bleeding so profusely that I think the bullet must have severed an artery. Here is my handkerchief, clap it round the arm and haul it as taut as you can; the great thing just now is to stop the bleeding; Doctor Burnett will do all that is necessary for us when we reach the sloop.”
I bound up his arm after a fashion, making a good enough job of it to stop the bleeding, and then went forward to keep a look-out. We were foaming down the river at a tremendous pace, the gale being almost dead fair for us, and having the additional impetus of a red-hot tide under foot we swept down past the land as though we had been a steamer. Sooth to say, however, I scarcely felt in cue just then either to admire the Josefa’s paces or to take much note of the wonderful picture presented by the river, with its brown mud-tinted waters lashed into fury by the breath of the tropical tempest and chequered here and there with the shadows of the scurrying clouds, or lighted up by the phosphorescence which tipped each wave with a crest of scintillating silvery stars. The wound in my shoulder was every moment becoming more excruciatingly painful and more exacting in its demands upon my attention; my interest seemed to centre itself upon the Daphne and her surgeon; and it was with a feeling of ineffable relief that, on jibing round Shark Point, about an hour and a half after clearing the creek, I saw at a distance of about seven miles away an indistinct object off Padron Point which I knew must be the Daphne at anchor.
“Do you see the sloop, sir?” I hailed.
“No,” returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering straight into the darkness. “I cannot make her out from here. Do you see her?”
“Yes, sir,” I replied joyously; “there she is, broad on our port bow. Luff, sir, you may.”
“Luff,” I heard Smellie return; and the schooner’s bows swept round until they pointed fair for the distant object. “Steady, sir!”
“Steady it is,” replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards, and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had but just emerged from the dockyard.
The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our jib-sheet to windward.
As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in the skipper’s cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-heads, and Armitage’s voice rang out across the water with the hail of:
“Schooner ahoy!”
“Hillo!” responded Smellie.
A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then—
“What schooner is that?”
“The Josefa, slave schooner. Is that Mr Armitage?”
“Ay, ay, it is. Who may you be, pray?”
I had by this time gone aft and was standing by Smellie’s side. The schooner was just jibing over and darting along on the Daphne’s starboard side.
“Armitage evidently has not recognised my voice as yet,” remarked Smellie, “or else,” he added, “they have given us up on board as dead, and he is unable so suddenly to realise the fact of our being still alive.”
Then, as we finally rounded-to under the Daphne’s quarter, Armitage reappeared aft, and the confab was renewed, Smellie this time taking the lead.
“Daphne ahoy!” he hailed, “has Captain Vernon yet retired for the night?”
“I think not,” was the reply. “What do you want?”
“Kindly pass the word to him that Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley are alongside in a captured slaver: and say we shall feel greatly obliged if he will send a prize crew on board us to take possession.”
“Ay, ay! I will.”
Armitage thereupon disappeared, and, we being at the time to leeward of the sloop, a slight but distinct commotion became perceptible on board her. Presently a figure appeared in the fore-rigging, and a deep, gruff, hoarse voice hailed:
“Schooner ahoy! Did you say as Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley was on board you?”
“Yes I did. Do you not recognise my voice, Collins?”
“Ay, ay, sir! in course I does now,” was the boatswain’s hearty response. Then there followed, in lower tones, certain remarks of which we could only catch such fragments as:
”—lieutenant hisself, by—reefer, too;—man—rigging, you sea-dogs—give—sailors’ welcome.”
Then in an instant the lower rigging became black with the figures of the men, and, with Collins as fugleman, they greeted our unexpected return with three as hearty cheers as ever pealed from the throats of British seamen.
For the life of me I could not just then have spoken a word had it been ever so necessary. That hearty ringing British cheer gave me the first convincing assurance that I was once more safe and among friends, and, at the same time, enabled me to fully realise, as I never had before, the extreme peril to which I had been exposed since I last saw the craft that lay there rolling gracefully upon the ground-swell, within a biscuit toss of us.
The men were just clearing the rigging when a small slight figure appeared on the sloop’s quarter, and Captain Vernon’s voice hailed us through the speaking-trumpet:
“Schooner ahoy! How many hands shall I send you?”
“A dozen men will be sufficient, sir,” replied Smellie. “And I shall feel obliged if you will send with them the necessary officers to relieve us. We are both hurt, and in need of the doctor’s services.”
“You shall have the men at once,” was the reply. “Shall I send Burnett to you, or can you come on board the sloop?”
“We will rejoin the sloop, sir, thank you. Our injuries are not very serious,” replied Smellie.
“Very well, be it so,” returned the skipper; and there the conversation ended.
The next moment the clear tee-tee-tweetle-tweetle-weetle-wee-e-e of the boatswain’s whistle came floating down to us, followed by his gruff “Cutters away!” and presently we saw the boat glide down the ship’s side, and, after a very brief delay, shove off and come sweeping down toward us.
Five minutes later the prize crew, under Williams, the master’s mate, with young Peters, a fellow mid of mine, as his second in command, stood upon the schooner’s deck, and Mr Austin, who had accompanied them, was wringing our hands as though he would wring them off.
Smellie saw the exquisite agony which our warm-hearted “first luff” was unconsciously inflicting upon me by his effusive greeting, and thoughtfully interposed with a—
“Gently, Edgar, old fellow. I am afraid you are handling poor Hawkesley a little roughly. He has received rather a bad hurt in the right shoulder to-night in our fight with the schooner’s people.”
“Fight!—schooner’s people! I beg your pardon, Hawkesley; I hope I haven’t hurt you. Why, you never mean to say you have had to fight for the schooner?” Austin interrupted, aghast. “Well, we took her by surprise; but her people proved very troublesome, and very pertinacious in their efforts to get her back again,” Smellie replied. “But, come, let us get on board the old Daphne once more. I long to set foot on her planks again; and, like Hawkesley here, I shall not be sorry to renew my acquaintance with Burnett.”
So said, so done. We made our way into the boat, leaving the prize crew to secure the prisoners, and a few minutes later stood once more safe, if not altogether sound, on the deck of the dear old Daphne.