A Roving Commission; Or, Through the Black Insurrection at Hayti

by G. A. Henty

That evening the girls appeared on deck in snowy-white dresses, simply made, but fitting admirably. "We have always been accustomed to cut out our own dresses," Valerie said, laughing, when Nat complimented her on the work. "The slaves did the sewing, but we fitted each other. Of course at Cape François we had our dresses made for us, but on the plantation we were obliged to trust to ourselves."

One morning, three days later, as they were at breakfast, Nat stopped as he was raising a cup to his lips. "That is a gun!" he exclaimed. "There is another!" and with the two middies he ran up on deck. "There is a fight going on somewhere," he said as the sound of firing was again heard. "It must be six or seven miles away, somewhere beyond that headland. At any rate we will hold on and have a look at them. With this light wind it will take us from an hour and a half to two hours before we are up with them, so we may as well finish our breakfast in comfort."

"What is it, Monsieur Glover! Are those noises really the sound of guns?"

"There is no doubt about it. There is a fight going on seven or eight miles away. We should hear the sound more plainly were it not that there is a headland between us and the vessels engaged."

"Who can they be?" Madame Pickard said.

"A pirate and a merchantman, no doubt. None of the European nations are at war, but the seas swarm with piratical craft of one kind or another. The small ones content themselves with plundering native coasting vessels, the larger ones attack ships from or to Europe. The Orpheus, to which I belonged at that time, last year rooted out one of their worst nests. They had no fewer than four ships. We were lucky enough to catch one of them, and learned where the rendezvous was, and fortunately found the other three at home, and destroyed them and their storehouses."

"Are you going on in that direction now?" Valerie asked.

"Yes, we are going to have a look at them. If the trader is making a good fight of it, our arrival may turn the scale; if we arrive too late and find the enemy too big for us, we can run away; in a light wind like this there are very few vessels that could catch us. It is probable that we should not interfere were it not for the possibility that we may be in time to save some of the passengers and crew of the merchantman. She must be a vessel of some size, judging from the sound of her guns. Even if she has surrendered before we get there, and we find that we are in any way a match for the pirate, we might, after defeating her, save at least some of the captives. As a rule, these scoundrels, when all opposition has ceased, confine the prisoners in the hold, and after emptying the prize of everything valuable, scuttle her, and of course drown all on board. In that way all traces of their crime are lost, whereas if they killed them some of the bodies might float inshore, or if they burnt the ship the smoke might bring down any cruiser that happened to be in the neighborhood.

"I am sorry that you are on board, ladies."

"Oh, do not think of us!" Madame Pickard exclaimed. "After the wonderful deliverance that we have had, I am sure that none of us would mind any risk if there is a chance of saving others in as dire peril as we were."