Chapter Nineteen.
To the Congo again upon a Special Mission.
There was very great delight manifested fore and aft when I was able to announce that it was a British man-o’-war that was bearing down upon us; for all hands felt, like myself, that we had only to state our recent experiences to secure her protection at least until our arrival in safer waters. There was one exception to this, however, in the person of Simpson, who no sooner learned the true character of the strange sail, than he came aft and told me his story; which, in brief, was to the effect that he had originally belonged to our navy, but had deserted, out of affection for Mendouca—who had shown him great kindness—when that individual chose to shake off his allegiance and abjure his country. And now, of course, he dreaded nothing so much as recognition and seizure, for not only was he a deserter, but he had also been guilty of taking an active part in more than one deed of piracy perpetrated by his chief; he therefore implored me to let him keep below out of sight during the presence of the man-o’-war—which clearly meant to speak us—and also to omit all mention of or reference to him in the narrative of my own personal adventures. This I readily promised to do; for although I was fully conscious that, in making such a promise, I was screening an individual who had most seriously transgressed the laws of his country, I could not help feeling that he had also contributed in a very important degree toward the saving of the Bangalore, and all on board her; and I considered that this to a very great extent made amends for his past misdeeds, although it was quite probable that if he were arraigned for it, his judges might not take quite as lenient a view of the case. There it was, however; but for him I might never have succeeded in effecting my escape from the Francesca, and in that case the Bangalore and all on board her would have gone to the bottom. I therefore felt fully justified in promising to afford him all the protection that lay in my power.
When the brig was within a mile of us she hoisted British colours, and fired a gun for us to heave-to, which we of course at once did, displaying our ensign at the mizen-peak at the same time. The ladies and gentlemen in the cuddy, learning from the stewards what was happening, at once turned out to do honour to the occasion, so that when, a few minutes later, the Barracouta, with all her studding-sails collapsing and coming in together, rounded-to within biscuit-toss of our weather quarter, our poop must have presented quite an animated appearance.
As the beautiful craft swept gracefully yet with a rush up into the wind, a figure that I recognised with delight as that of Young, our beloved first luff, sprang on to the hammock-rail with a speaking-trumpet in his hand. The next moment he had raised it to his lips, and was hailing—
“Ho, the ship ahoy! What ship is that?”
“The Bangalore, eighty-two days out from Calcutta, bound to London; and plundered two days ago by a pirate. I hope you are none the worse for your boat adventure, Mr Young, in the attack upon that same pirate last week? I have news and to spare for you, so shall I lower a boat, or will you? If you can conveniently do so it will perhaps be better, for I am rather short-handed,” I replied.
I saw Young staring at me with all his eyes; evidently he had not as yet recognised me in the longshore rig with which I had been fitted by the kindness of one of the cuddy passengers.
He raised the trumpet to his lips, and began—
“Who in the name of —?” when I saw little Freddy Pierrepoint scramble up alongside him excitedly and utterly regardless of etiquette, and say something eagerly. Young lowered the trumpet, stared hard at me, raised it again, and roared through it—
“Can it be possible that you are Dugdale—the Harry Dugdale that we have all been mourning as lost?”
“Ay, ay, Mr Young, it is myself, sure enough, alive and well, I am thankful to say; and more glad than I can express to see the dear old Barracouta again!”
As I uttered these words the watch on deck gave a ringing cheer, which thrilled me to the heart, for it told me better than words how sincerely attached to me the honest fellows were, and how delighted to see me again; and although the outburst was by no means in accordance with strict discipline, Young—thoroughly good fellow that he was—never checked them, but, as their voices died away, simply waved his trumpet, and shouted, “I will come on board you!” and disappeared behind the brig’s high bulwarks.
A short pause now ensued, during which I suspected that the first luff was conferring with Captain Stopford, the Barracouta’s people gazing curiously at us meanwhile through the brig’s open ports; and then the sound of the boatswain’s pipe came floating to us from the brig across the tumbling waters, and we heard his gruff voice bellowing—“Gigs away!”
The call was followed by a slight, muffled scurrying of feet, and the gig’s crew were seen leaping, light as figures of india-rubber, into the elegantly-moulded craft that hung at the brig’s davits, the falls were eased away, and in a moment the boat, light as a bubble, was dancing upon the sparkling blue tumble at the brig’s lee gangway. Then the first lieutenant and Freddy Pierrepoint appeared at the head of the side-ladder, the latter descending first and the lieutenant instantly following, the boat’s bow was borne off from the ship’s side, the oars dropped with a clean cut into the water, the men bent their backs as they gave way, and the dancing craft came bounding over the long surges towards us.
Meanwhile, on board the Bangalore I had caused the side-ladder to be shipped and the ropes rove in readiness for the lieutenant’s arrival; and in a few minutes he and Freddy were standing on the Indiaman’s broad deck and greeting me with a hand grip the heartiness of which there was no mistaking.
I told my story as briefly as possible, and at its conclusion Young said—
“Well, we must of course let you have a few men; but it will be a few only that we shall be able to spare, for I am sorry to say that our loss was terribly heavy in our boat attack upon your friend Mendouca, no less than eight killed and twenty-three wounded, only four of the latter having as yet been able to return to duty. You must, however, lay your case before Captain Stopford—who, by the way, hopes you will take breakfast with him—and I dare say that when he learns how very short-handed you are, he will strain a point to spare you a dozen men to take the ship to Sierra Leone. And now, suppose you introduce us to your passengers, who, judging from what I have been able to see of them from here, appear to be a very pleasant lot of people.”
Upon this hint I led the way to the poop, where by this time nearly the entire cuddy party had assembled, and introduced my companions in due form, and in a few minutes Young and Freddy were each surrounded by a large party, Master Freddy’s, I noticed, being mainly composed of the younger members of the gentler sex, who petted and made much of the juvenile warrior, to that young gentleman’s entire content.
In due time I proceeded on board my old ship; and on reaching the deck was fully repaid for all that I had gone through by the heartiness of the greeting that I received from my shipmates, one and all of whom seemed sincerely delighted at finding that I was still in the land of the living. For, as fate would have it, the Barracouta had fallen in with the Felicidad with the French schooner Mouette in company as a prize—the latter vessel having pursued the Felicidad out of the creek, only to find that she had caught a Tartar, which captured her after a short but determined struggle—and from her the Barracouta’s people had learned all particulars of our somewhat disastrous enterprise, including the news that I was missing, and was believed to have been killed in the unsuccessful attack upon the schooner in the creek.
Captain Stopford was kindness itself in his reception of me, commiserating with me upon all the hardships of my late adventure, and heartily congratulating me upon my escape from the Francesca, and the saving of the Indiaman, the latter of which, he assured me, he would take care to report in the proper quarter in such a way as should further my advancement in the service. With regard to supplying me with men, he promised to do the best that he could; and at Young’s suggestion—he being one of the rather large party that the captain had invited to meet me at breakfast—it was arranged that I should have a dozen; and as he fully agreed with me that there was just a chance that the Francesca, might be at no great distance to the northward, still actively pursuing her search for us, it was further arranged that I should crowd sail for Sierra Leone, in the hope of turning the tables upon Mendouca by overtaking him, in which case we were to do our best to detain him until the arrival of the Barracouta upon the scene, it being the captain’s plan to follow us at a distance of some fifteen or twenty miles. As an incentive to expedition—and no doubt, incidentally, to the promotion of the capture of the Francesca—the captain informed me that if we managed to accomplish a quick run to Sierra Leone, I should probably be in time to rejoin the Felicidad, which schooner was then at that port, refitting after her engagement with the Mouette. I was very grieved to learn that poor Ryan, although not nearly so severely wounded as I had believed, was lying in the hospital at Sierra Leone, prostrate with a bad attack of fever, from which, when the Barracouta left, it was greatly feared that he would not recover.
As soon as breakfast was over the crew were mustered, and Young picked out for me twelve good, stout men, who were ordered to pass their bags down into the boat and go on board the Bangalore with me; and, this most welcome addition to our crew having been received, I made sail, packing upon the good ship every rag that would draw, the Barracouta remaining hove-to until we had placed a sufficient distance between her and ourselves. But although we carried on day and night—the Indiaman proving such a flyer that the Barracouta’s people had their hands full to keep us in sight—nothing more was seen of the Francesca, and we were at length driven to the conclusion that, failing to find us, Mendouca had resumed his voyage at a much earlier period than we had anticipated. We reached Sierra Leone on the afternoon of the third day after falling in with the Barracouta; and there I left the Indiaman, which, after a detention of four days, sailed for England with a full complement, made up of the officers and men of a large barque that had been wrecked upon the coast only a week or two before, supplemented by a few out of the many white seamen who had been left behind in hospital when their ships were ready to sail for home, and who, contrary to the general rule, had recovered from, instead of succumbing to, the deadly malaria of the coast.
As for me, I found that I had arrived most opportunely, so far as the Felicidad was concerned, for the repairs to that small hooker were completed, as it happened, on the very day of our arrival; and Captain Stopford very generously offered me the command of her, asserting that my conduct with regard to the Indiaman had conclusively demonstrated my entire fitness for the post, and that if I chose to accept it he should have no anxiety whatever, either on the score of my courage or my discretion. Ryan, poor fellow, was, contrary to expectation, still alive, and hopes were now entertained that he might ultimately recover; but he was still so weak that when I went to the hospital to see him, he was so overcome with emotion at the sight of me—although he had been carefully prepared for the meeting—that he burst into tears and was seized with a fit of hysterical sobbing so violent that I had to retire again at once without exchanging a word with him; and, to my very deep regret, I had not another opportunity to see him. I grieve to say that although, when I paid him that unfortunate visit, he appeared to be making slow but sure progress toward recovery, he suffered a relapse a few days afterwards, from which he never rallied; and his ashes now repose, with those of many another gallant spirit, in the spot that is known throughout the world as “The White Man’s Grave.”
The repairs to the Felicidad being completed, her final preparations for sea were vigorously pushed forward, and on the third day after our arrival, having first visited the Bangalore and bade farewell to her passengers—each and every one of whom insisted that he (or she) owed his (or her) life to me, and that henceforward I must regard myself as a dearly cherished friend—I joined the little hooker as her commander, and sailed the same afternoon for the Congo; my especial mission being to test the truth, or otherwise, of Mendouca’s statement respecting the fate of the Sapphire’s boats’ crews, and—in the event of its being true—to attempt the rescue of any of the unfortunate people who might perchance be still alive.
We made the high land to the northward of the river mouth about midnight, after a rather long and uneventful passage; and, the wind being light, and the river current strong, even at a considerable distance from the entrance, we then reached in toward the land, and anchored in fourteen fathoms, at about as many miles from the shore, where we remained, rolling and tumbling about on the heavy swell, until the sea-breeze set in, about eight o’clock the next morning. We then hove up our mud-hook, and ran in, anchoring in Banana Creek, opposite Lobo’s factory, about six bells in the forenoon. There was only one other vessel in the creek at the time, a Portuguese brig; and her build and general appearance so unmistakably proclaimed her honest, that I never gave her a second thought. Besides, I had a special mission to accomplish—namely, the discovery and deliverance, if possible, of between thirty and forty of my own countrymen, languishing in a bitter captivity, and in daily, if not hourly, peril of death by torture as cruel and protracted as the fiendish malignity of merciless savages can possibly devise.
Now, I was as well equipped for such an expedition as I could possibly wish, save in one particular. I had a smart, light-draught vessel, capable of “going anywhere where a duck can swim,” as we say at sea; we were well armed, had plenty of ammunition, mustered a crew of twenty-six prime seamen, the pick of the Barracouta’s crew—men who would go anywhere, and face anything—we carried an ample supply of blankets, beads, brass wire, old muskets, and tawdry finery of various descriptions, priceless in the eyes of savages, for the purpose of peaceable ransom, if such could be accomplished; but we lacked an interpreter, a man acquainted with the barbaric language of the up-river natives, through whom we should be able to communicate with them and carry on the necessary negotiations. And such a man it was now my first duty and anxiety to secure. I had given this matter a great deal of careful consideration during our passage, and had at length determined upon the course of action that seemed to promise the most successful results; and it was in accordance with this determination that I anchored in Banana Creek instead of proceeding forthwith up the river to the spot named by Mendouca as the scene of the captivity of the Sapphire’s boats’ crews.
I entered the river without any disguise of any sort, showing British colours and the man-o’-war’s pennant; and, as I had expected, our old friend Lobo soon came alongside in his gig, with his usual stereotyped smiles and bows, and offers to supply us with anything and everything that we might happen to want. I took care to be below when he boarded us; and, in accordance with previous arrangements, Gowland, who met the fellow upon his arrival, proposed that he should go down into the cabin and see me personally upon the business of his visit. He at once assented, willingly, Gowland following him down, and when the two had entered, the sentry at the cabin-door closed it after them.
“Ah, good-morning, sar,” exclaimed Lobo to me, as he entered. “Glad to see you back in the river, sar! I hope dat de capitan and officers of de beautiful Barracouta are all well? Ah, gentlemen, dat was a ver’ fine bit of vork, dat attack of yours upon Chango Creek; ver’ fine and ver’ successful. I ’ave alvays been proud of my share in dat exploit. But, gentlemen, you mus’ please never so much as vhisper dat I, Joaquin Miguel Lobo, had anything to do vid it. My vord, if you did, de rascal slavers vould cut my t’roat for me, and de man-o’-war gentlemen vould lose a fait’ful ally.”
“No doubt, Señor Lobo,” agreed I genially. “But, never fear, you are perfectly safe from betrayal to the slavers, so far as we are concerned; you shall find us as faithful to you as you have been to us. But sit down, man, and let me offer you a glass of wine.”
With many bows and wreathed smiles, and deprecating elevations of the shoulders, Lobo took the seat to which I pointed him, and I touched a bell.
“Steward, put the wine and some glasses on the table, will you; and also a box of cigars that you will find on the shelf in my cabin.”
The wine and cigars were brought; we helped ourselves; and I began—
“I am very much obliged to you for coming aboard, Señor Lobo, for you are the very man that I most desired to see. I require some assistance of a rather peculiar kind, and I believe that you, above all others, are the one who can best help me to it.”
Lobo bowed and smiled, sipped his wine, and assured us that he was in all things our very obedient, humble servant, and that nothing pleased him so much as to be of assistance to the man-o’-war gentlemen, who honoured the river by paying it an occasional visit. At the same time—he pointed out—his friendly relations with those same man-o’-war gentlemen, and the services that he had been so glad to render them from time to time were, if not well known, at least very strongly suspected by the slavers and slave-dealing fraternity generally who used the Congo for their nefarious purposes; and in incurring this suspicion he also incurred a very serious risk, both to property and life, for which he considered that he was justly entitled to be remunerated on a generous scale.
“Most assuredly,” I agreed. “And I may tell you at once, Señor Lobo, that I am prepared to reward you very munificently for the efficient and faithful performance of the service that I require of you; I am prepared, in fact, to offer you no less a reward than your life. Ah, you turn pale, I see; and well you may when I inform you that your true character is by this time known to probably every British commander on the coast; you are known as a bare-faced traitor to the cause that you have pretended so zealously to serve, and I don’t mind mentioning to you, in confidence, that, if this ship had happened to be the Barracouta instead of the Felicidad you would now in all probability have been dangling from one of that ship’s yard-arms, as a wholesome warning and example to all betrayers— Nay, keep your seat, man; there is a sentry outside the door, and you are a prisoner beyond all possibility of escape. But you have no cause for fear on that account, provided that you can prevail upon yourself to act honestly for once. I require a certain service from you, and I promise you that if you render that service faithfully I will set you free at the termination of the adventure, with full liberty to seek safety by flight elsewhere. But until the adventure of which I speak is brought to a favourable conclusion, you are my prisoner; and I give you my word of honour that upon the first attempt to escape which you may be ill-advised enough to make, I will put you in irons and chain you to the deck. If, therefore, you are wise, you will submit to your present predicament with a good grace, rather than tempt a worse one. And now, tell me everything you know with regard to the fate of the crews of the Sapphire’s boats.”
“The Sapphire’s boats?” ejaculated the now thoroughly terrified wretch. “I swear to Gad, sar, dat I had not’ing to do vid dat! I know not’ing about dem; not’ing whatever! But I can tell you de name of de man who had; ay, and I can put him into your power, if you like; he is a villain, and it would be only doing a good action to betray him to justice. I vill do it, too, if you vill release me at vonce; I vill tell you all about him, vhere he is to be found vhen he visits de river, de name of his cheep, and—and—all dat is necessairey for you to know.”
“Yes; no doubt,” I answered. “But you will have to purchase your release in some other way, señor; unfortunately for you we know all about Don Fernando de Mendouca, captain of the brigantine Francesca and have every confidence in our ability to get hold of him without your assistance. And I may tell you that, up to the present, no charge has been made against you in connection with the disappearance of the Sapphire’s boats; you have therefore nothing to fear from us just now on that score. Now, will you tell us what you know about those unfortunate missing men?”
“Yes; yes, I vill, gentlemen; I vill tell you all dat I know; but it is not much,” answered Lobo, with evident relief. “I only know dat de scoundrel Mendouca managed to trap de two boats in some vay—how, I know not—and dat he gave dem de choice of being massacred, dere and den, or of surrendering and having dheir lives spared. And vhen dhey had surrendered he exchanged dhem to Matadi for slaves—t’ree slaves for every white man—so dat Matadi might have plenty of victims—white victims dhey consider very good—for de annual—de annual—what you call it, eh? festa.”
“Festival, I suppose you mean,” said I, with an involuntary shudder. “And, pray, Señor Lobo, do you happen to know the date of this festival?”
“No, I cannot say dat I do; but I t’ink about one week from now,” was the answer.
“Then, thank God, we are still in time!” I ejaculated. “Now, Señor Lobo, I presume you are acquainted with this chief, Matadi, are you not? You have probably had dealings with him, eh? Do not be afraid to give a truthful answer, because by so doing you cannot betray anything about yourself that we do not know already. We are fully aware, for instance, that you are a slave-dealer—among other things—and I have very little doubt that, if I chose to land a party, we should find a choice lot of negroes in that barracoon of yours in the bush, yonder—you look surprised, but, you see, I know all about you; so your best plan will be to answer my questions truthfully and unreservedly. Now, as to this Matadi, who is he, and what is he?”
“Sair,” said Lobo, in great perturbation, “I see dat you know all about me, so I will be perfectly open and frank wid you. I do know Matadi. He is a very powerful chief, de head of a tribe numbering quite t’ree t’ousand warriors; and his chief town is far up de river—four, five days’ journey in a canoe. It lies on de sout’ bank of de river ’bout eight miles below de first—what you call?—where de water runs very furious over de rocks, boiling like—like de water in a pot.”
“Ah, rapids, you mean, I suppose?” suggested I.
“Yes, yes; rapids; dat is de word,” agreed Lobo. “His town is near de first rapids; and he is very powerful, very dangerous, very fierce. What do you want wid him, señor?”
“I want those white men that he holds in captivity; and I mean to have them, by fair means or foul!” said I. “I will buy them of him, if he is willing to part with them in that way; and if not, I intend to take them from him by force, for have them I must and will And I require your assistance in this matter, señor, as an interpreter, through whom I can treat with the fellow and carry on the necessary negotiations; and if those negotiations are successful, you will be released on our return here, and allowed thirty days to complete your arrangements for removal elsewhere. But if we fail you will be retained as a prisoner, and taken to Sierra Leone, to be dealt with as your past treacheries deserve. Now, do you quite understand the position?”
“Yes, señor, I understand,” answered Lobo, in great distress. “But, oh, gentlemen, I beg, I pray you, do not take me away from my business; it will all go wrong widout me, and I shall lose hundreds, t’ousands of dollars, all my property will be gone before I can get back! I shall be ruin’!”
“I am sorry to hear that,” I remarked; “but even supposing that matters go as badly with you as you seem to fear, that will be better than hanging, will it not? And, you see, I must have somebody with me, as interpreter, whose interest it will be that I shall be successful in my mission; and I know of no one whose interests can be made more completely identical with my own than yourself, señor. Therefore I shall take you with me, regardless of consequences. But if you have any assistants ashore to whom you would like to send a very brief message to the effect that you are taking a little business-trip up the river with me for a few days, and that they must do the best they can for you during your absence, I have no objection to your sending it. Otherwise, I will dismiss your boat; for we must not miss this fine sea-breeze, which ought to take us a good many miles up-stream before it dies away.”
“Well, gentlemen, if you are quite determined, I must submit,” answered Lobo, with a very disconsolate air. “But I protest against being thus carried off against my will; I protest against it as a—an—a—what do you call him?—yes, an outrage—an outrage, gentlemen; and the Portuguese Government will inquire into the matter.”
“All right,” said I cheerfully; “there can be no objection to that, so far as we are concerned. And now that we have arranged this little matter, shall I dismiss your boat?”
“No, no; not yet, not yet,” hastily answered Lobo. “Give me one littl’ piece of paper, if you please, and I will write a few words to Diego, my manager, telling him what to do in my absence.”
“No,” said I determinedly, “I can permit no written messages; a verbal one, if you like, but nothing more.”
“Ver’ well,” answered Lobo resignedly. “Then I will go up and speak to my boatmen.”
“No need for that,” said I. “Tell us which of your men you wish to see, and I will send for him to come here.”
Poor Lobo made a gesture of impatience, but saw that I had quite determined to afford him no shadow of an opportunity to make any secret communication whatever; so he submitted to the inevitable, and sent for one of his men, to whom he delivered such a message as I suggested, adding a request that a small supply of clothing might be sent off to him at once. This ended the matter, so far as the obtaining of an efficient interpreter was concerned; the clothes were brought off; and shortly after noon we weighed and, with a brisk breeze, stood out of the creek on our way up the river.
For the first twelve miles or so our course was the same as that which we had followed in our memorable expedition to attack Chango Creek; the river being, up to that point, about three miles wide, with a fine deep channel averaging perhaps a quarter of that width up as far as abreast the southern extremity of Monpanga island, where this deep channel terminates, and the average depth of the entire stream dwindles to about six fathoms for the next fourteen miles, the channel at the same time narrowing down to a width varying from about two miles to less than half-a-mile in some parts, notably at the spot where it begins to thread its devious way among the islands that cumber the stream for a length of fully thirty miles, at a distance of about twenty-eight miles from Shark Point.
By carrying a press of sail, and hugging the northern bank, keeping as close to the shore as our little draught of water would permit, thus to a great extent cheating the current, we contrived to get as far as the spot where the above-mentioned chain of islands commences; and there, the wind failing us toward sunset, we came to an anchor close to the southern shore, on a sand-bank, in three fathoms, under the lee of a large island that sheltered us from the rush of the main current; and there we remained all night, a strict anchor-watch of course being kept not only to see that the schooner did not drive from her berth, but also to guard against possible attack on the part of the natives. In this spot, to my inexpressible chagrin, we were compelled to spend the following two days, the wind blowing down the river, when it blew at all, a little variety being infused into the weather by the outburst of a most terrific thunderstorm which brought with it a perfect hurricane of wind and a deluge of rain; after which we again got a fair wind and were able to pursue our way for a time, getting ashore occasionally upon unsuspected sand-banks, but always contriving to heave off again, undamaged, thanks to the fact that we were proceeding up-stream against the current instead of down-stream with it. And—not to dwell unduly upon incidents that were exciting enough to us, although the recital of them would prove of but little interest to the reader—in this way we contrived to creep up the river the hundred and twelve miles or so that were necessary to bring us to Matadi’s town—having passed, and with some difficulty avoided, two whirlpools on the way, reaching our destination about two bells in the afternoon watch on the fifth day after leaving Banana Creek.