In fact everything was done, as sailors say, 'before you could look round you,' the man at the helm replaced by one of my men, the crew bundled down into the slave-hold to give them a taste of its horrors, and the sails trimmed for seaward instead of towards the land. The captain, who seemed a decent fellow, cried like a child. He said: 'If I had seen you five minutes before you would never have taken me. Now I am ruined.' I consoled him as well as I could and treated him well, as he really seemed half a gentleman, if not entirely one. I found about six hundred slaves, men and women and children, on board this vessel, who as they had made a very rapid and prosperous voyage, were in a somewhat better state than those on board the last capture. Still goodness knows their state was disgusting enough. Ophthalmia had got a terrible hold of the poor wretches. In many of the cases the patient was stone blind. I caught this painful disease myself, and for several days couldn't see a yard.
Shortly after, having despatched our prize into Rio in charge of a brother midshipman, we were joined by another man-of-war cruiser, which had been sent to assist us in our work. As the officer in command of this vessel was of senior rank to my commander, he naturally took upon himself to organise another boat expedition, placing one of his own officers in command. With this expedition I was allowed to go, taking with me my old boats and their crews, with orders to place myself under the direction of Lieutenant A.C., the officer chosen by the senior in command.
So we started with five boats provisioned and otherwise prepared for a cruise of twenty days. The lieutenant in charge did not think it wise to land, as a bad feeling towards us was known to exist among the inhabitants, who were all more or less slave-dealers, or interested in the success of the slave-vessels, so we had to live in our boats. Rather hard lines, sleeping on the boat's thwarts, &c. Still we had that 'balm of Gilead,' hope, to keep us alive, and our good spirits. Many a longing eye did I cast to the shore, where, in spite of the bloodhounds, I should like to have stretched my cramped limbs. Ten or twelve days passed in dodging about, doing nothing but keeping a good look-out, and we almost began to despair, when one fine morning we saw a large brig, evidently a slaver, running in towards the shore with a fresh breeze. Our boats were painted like fishing boats, and our men disguised as fishermen, as usual; so, apparently occupied with our pretended business, we gradually approached the slave-vessel. My orders were strictly to follow the movements or action of my superior. Then I witnessed a gallant act, such as I have not seen surpassed during forty years of active service that I have gone through since that time. Lieutenant A.C., who was in the leading boat, a large twelve-oared cutter, edged pretty near to the advancing vessel, and when quite close under her bows one man seemed to me to spring like a chamois on board. I saw the boat from which the man jumped make an ineffectual attempt to get alongside the vessel, that was going at the rate of six miles an hour, and then drop astern. I heard a pistol shot, and suddenly the vessel was thrown up in the wind with all her sails aback, thus entirely stopping her way (sailors will understand this). Not knowing precisely what had happened, we pulled like maniacs alongside of the slaver. To do this was, now that the vessel's way was stopped, comparatively easy. We dashed on board, and after a slight resistance on the part of the slaver's crew, in which two or three more men, myself among the number, were wounded, we took possession of the brig. There we found our lieutenant standing calmly at the helm, which was a long wooden tiller. He it was who had jumped on board alone, shot the man at the helm, put the said helm down with his leg, while in his hand he held his other pistol, with which he threatened to shoot any one who dared to touch him.
I fancy that his cool pluck had caused a panic among the undisciplined crew, a panic that our rapid approach tended much to increase. What astonished me was that nobody on board thought of shooting him before he got to the helm, in which case we never could have got on board the vessel, considering the speed she was going through the water. What he did was a glorious piece of pluck, that in these days would have been rewarded with the Victoria Cross as the least recompense they could have given to so gallant an officer. Poor fellow! all the reward he got, beyond the intense admiration of those who saw him, was a bad attack of small-pox from the diseased animals (there is no other name for negroes in the state they were in) on board the slave-vessel, which somewhat injured the face of one of the handsomest men I ever saw. He is now an admiral, has done many gallant acts since then, but none could beat what he did on that memorable morning.
I have said that I was among those who were wounded on this occasion. What my friend A.C. did so far outshone anything that I had accomplished, that it is hardly worth while speaking of my share in the fray. However, as I am writing sketches from my life, I will not omit to describe the way in which I was wounded. We were, as I have said, making a rush to assist our gallant leader, who was alone on board the slaver. The reader will have seen that our business was boarding and fighting our enemy hand to hand. As I was making a jump on board I saw the white of the eye of a great black man turned on me; he brandished a huge axe, which I had a sort of presentiment was intended for me. I sprang as it were straight at my destiny, for as I grasped the gunnel down came the axe, and I received the full edge of the beastly thing across the back of my hand. I fell into the water, but was picked up by my sailors, and managed to get on board again. Had it not been for a clever young assistant surgeon, who bound up the wound in a most scientific manner, I should probably have quite lost the use of my hand; the mark remains across my knuckles to this day.
CHAPTER VII.
LOVE AND MURDER.
I was once sent from Rio to Demerara, an English colony on the coast of Brazil, with a cargo of blacks that we had freed. Then it was that I had a good opportunity of studying the character of these people certainly in their primitive state, and if ever men and women resembled wild animals it was my swarthy charges. When I arrived at Demerara I handed them over to their new masters, to whom they were apprenticed for seven years, and from all I can understand they were, during their apprenticeship, treated pretty much as slaves in every respect.