"'Well, in the arternoon we'd just commenced squabbling aboard amongst ourselves, round the dreg water, or whether to board one o' the brigs and have a fair fight, when off come a bit of a breeze, betwixt the two high peaks on Fernandy Po, both the brigs set stensails, and begins slipping quietly off—our skipper gived orders to brace after them, and clear away the long gun amidships; but all on a suddent we made out a lump of a brig dropping down before it round the ileyand, which we knowed her well enough for a Bristol craft as had lost half her hands up the Callebar, in the gould an' iv'ry trade. Down she comed, wonderful fast for the light breeze, if there hadn't been one o' yer currents besides off the ileyand, till about half-a-mile away she braces up, seemingly to sheer across it and steer clear of us. Out went our boat, an' the skipper bids every man of her crew to shove a short cutlash inside his trousers. Says he, "I guess we'll first speak 'em fair, but if we don't ha' water enough, it'll be 'tarnall queer, that's all," says he—an' Job was a man never swore, but he looked mighty bad that time, I must say; so we outs oars and pulls right aboard the trader, without answerin' ever a hail, when up the side we bundled on deck, one arter the other, mad for a drink, and sees the master with five or six of a crew, all as white as ghostesses, and two or three Kroomen, besides a long-legged young feller a-sittin' and kicking his feet over the kimpanion hatch, with a tumblerful o' grog in his fist, as fresh to all seemin' as a fish, like a supper-cargo or some'at o' the sort, as them craft commonly has.
"'"What schooner's that?" axes the master, all abroad like; an' says Job—says he, out o' breath, "Never you mind; I guess you'll let 's have some water, for we wants it mighty keen!" "Well," says the other, shaking his head, "I'm afeared we're short ourselves—anyhow," says he, "we'll give ye a dipper the piece"—and accordingly they fists us along a dozen gulps, hand over hand. "'Twon't do, I guess, mister," says our skipper; "we wants a cask!" Here the master o' the brig shakes his head again, and guv a look to the young long-shore-like chap aft, which sings out as we couldn't have no more for love nor money—an' I see Captin Price commence for to look savitch again, and feel for the handle on his cutlash. "Rather you'd ax iv'ry or gould-dust!" sings out the supper-cargo; "hows'ever," says he, "as ye've tooken sich a fancy to it, short o' water as we is, why a fair exchange ain't no robbery," says he: "you wants water, an' we wants hands; haven't ye a couple o' niggers for to spare us, sir, by way of a barter now?" he says. "Well, mate, I'll be blowed if I ever see a man turn so wicked fur'ous as Job Price turns at this here, an says he, through his teeth, "If ye'd said a nigger's nail-parin', I couldn't done it, so it's no use talkin'." "Oh come, captin," says the young fellow, wonderful angshis-like, "say one, jist—it's all on the quiet, ye know. Bless me, captin," says he, "I'd do a deal for a man in a strait, 'tickerly for yerself—an' I think we'd manage with a single hand more. I'll give ye two casks and a bag o' gould dust for one black, and we'll send aboard for him just now, ourselves!" "No!" roars Job Price, walkin' close up to him; "ye've riz me, ye cussed Britisher ye, an' I tell ye we'll take what we wants!" "No jokes though, captin!" says the feller; "what's one to a whole raftful I heerd of ye shipping?" "Go an' ax the sharks, ye beggar!" says the skipper; "here, my lads!" says he, an' makes a grab at the other's throat, when slap comes a jug o' rum in his eye-lights, and the young chap ups fist in quick-sticks, and drops him like a cock, big as he was. By that time, though, in a twinklin' the master was flat on deck, and the brig's crew showed no fight—when, lo an' behold, my boy, up bundles a score o' strapping man-o'-war's-men out of the cabing. One or two on us got a cut about the head, an' my gentleman supper-cargo claps a pistol to my ear from aft, so we knocked under without more to-do. In five minutes' time every man jack of us had a seizing about his wrists and lower pins; and says Job Price, in a giving-up sort o' v'ice, "You're too cust spry for playin' jokes on, I calc'late, squire," he says. "Jokes!" says the young feller, "why, it's no joke—in course you knows me?" "Niver see'd ye atween the eyes afore," says Job, "but don't bear no malice, mister, now." "That's it," says the t'other, lookin' at the schooner again, "no more I does, so jist think a bit; ha'n't you really a nigger or so aboard o' ye—if it was jist one?" "Squash the one!" says Job, shakin' his head nellicholly like—an' "Sorry for it," says the chap, "'cause ye see I'm the leftenant belongin' to the Irish, an' I carn't titch yer schooner if so be ye ha'n't a slave aboard." "Lawk a'mighty!—no!" sings out Job Price, 'cause, bein' half-blinded he couldn't ha' noted the lot o' man-o'-war's-men sooner. "But I can," says the other, "for piratecy, ye see; an' what's more," he says, "there's no help for it now, I'm afeard, mister what-they-call-ye."
"'Well, mate, after that ye may fancy our skipper turns terrible down in the mouth; so without a word more they parbuckles us all down below into the cabin—an' what does this here leftenant do but he strips the whole lot, rigs out as many of his men in our duds, hoists out a big cask o' water on the brig's far side, and pulls round for the schooner—hisself togged out like the skipper, and his odd hands laid down in the boat's bottom.' You won't wonder at my being highly amused with the fellow's yarn, since the fact was that it happened to be one of my own adventures in the days of the Iris, two or three years before, when we saw a good many scenes together, far more wild and stirring, of course, in the thick of the slave trade; but really the ugly rascal described it wonderfully well.
"'Well,' said Harry, 'I gets my chin shoved up in the starn-windy, where I seed the whole thing, and tould the skipper accordently. The schooner's crew looked out for the water like so many oysters in a tub; the leftenant jumps up the side with his men after him, an' not so much as the cross of two cutlashes did we hear afore the onion-jack flew out a-peak over her mains'l. In five minutes more, the schooner fills away before the breeze, and begins to slide off in fine style after the pair o' brigs, as was nigh half-hull down to seaward by this time. There we was, left neck and heel below in the trader, and he hauled up seemin'ly for the land; an' arter a bit, says the skipper to me, "Foster, my lad, I despise this way o' things," says he; "ain't there no way on gettin' clear?" "Never say die, captin!" I says; an' says he, "I calc'late they left considerable few hands aboard?" "None but them sleepy-like scum o' iv'ry men," I says, but be blowed if I see'd what better we was, till down comes a little nigger cabin-boy for some'at or other, with a knife in his hand. Job fixes his eye on him—I've heerd he'd a way in his eye with niggers as they couldn't stand—an' says he, soft-sawderin' like, "Come here, will ye, my lad, an' give us a drink," so the black come for'ard with a pannikin, one foot at a time, an' he houlds it out to the skipper's lips—for, d'ye see, all on us had our flippers lashed behind our backs. "Now," says he, "thankee, boy—look in atwixt my legs, and ye'll find a dollar." With that, jest as the boy stoops, Job Price ketches his neck fast betwixt his two knees, an' blowed if he didn't jam them harder, grinning all the time, till down drops the little black throttled on the deck. "That's for thankin' a nigger!" says he, lookin' as savitch as a fiend, and got the knife in his teeth, when he turned to and sawed through the seizing round my wrists—an' in course I sets every man clear in quick-sticks. "Now!" says Job, looking round, "the quicker the better—that cussed lubber-ratin' hound's got my schooner, but maybe, my lads, this here iv'ry man'll pay expenses: if I'm made out a pirate, I'll arn the name!"
"'Well, we squints up the hatchway, and see'd a young midshipman a-standing with his back to us, watching the brig's crew at the braces, an' a pistol in one hand—when all at once our skipper slips off his shoes, runs up the stair as quiet as a cat, an' caught the end of a capstan-bar as lay on the scuttle. With that down he comes crash on the poor fellow's scull from aft, and brained him in a moment. Every man of us got bloody-minded with the sight, so we scarce knowed what we did, ye know, mate, afore all hands o' them was gone—how, I ain't goin' for to say, nor the share as one had in it more nor another. The long an' the short on it was, we run the brig by sundown in amongst the creeks up the Camaroons river, thinkin' to lie stowed away close thereabouts till all wor cold. Hows'ever, they kicked up the devil's delight about a piratecy, and the sloop-o'-war comes back shortly, when night an' day there was that young shark of a leftenant huntin' arter us, as sharp as a marling-spike—we dursn't come down the river nohow, till what with a bad conscience, fogs, and sleepin' every night within stink o' them blasted muddy mangroves an' bulrushes together, why, mate, the whole ten hands died off one arter the other in the fever—leaving ownly me an' the skipper. Job Price was like a madman over the cargo, worth good knows how many thousand dollars, as he couldn't take out; but for my part, I gets the brig's punt one night and sculls myself ashore, and off like a hare into the bush by moonlight. No use, ye know, for to say what rum chances I meets with in the woods, livin' up trees and the like for fear o' illiphants, sarpents, an' high-annies; but, blow me, if I didn't think the farther ye went aloft, the more monkeys an' parrykeets you roused out, jabberin' all night so as a feller couldn't close an eye—an' as for the sky, be blowed if I ever once sighted it. So, d' ye see, it puts all notions o' fruits an' flowers out o' my head, an' all them jimmy-jessamy sort o' happy-go-lucky yarns about barbers' ileyands and shipherdresses what they used for to spell out o' dicshinars at school—all gammon, mate!'
"'Lor' love ye, no, surely,' said Jack; 'it's in the Bible!'
"'Ay, ay,' said Harry, 'that's arter ye've gone to Davy Jones, no doubt; but I've been in the Southsy ileyands since, myself, an' be blowed if it's much better there! Hows'ever, still anon, I took a new fancy, an' away I makes for the river, in sarch of a nigger villache, as they calls 'em; and sure enough it warn't long ere right I plumps in the midst on a lot o' cane huts amongst trees. But sich a shine and a nitty as I kicks up, ye see, bein' half-naked, for all the world like a wild man o' the woods, an' for a full hour I has the town to myself, so I hoists my shirt on a stick over the hut I took, by way of a flag o' truce, an' at last they all begins for to swarm in again. Well, ye see, I knowed the ways o' the natifs thereabouts pretty well, an' what does I do but I'd laid myself flat afore an ugly divvle of a wooden himmache, as stood on the flour, an' I wriggles and twists myself, and groans like a chap in a fit—what they calls fittish, thereaway—an' in course, with that they logs me down at once for a rig'lar holy 'possel from Jerusalem. The long an' the short on it was, the fittish-man takes me under charge, and sets me to tell fortins or the like with an ould quadrant they got somewheres—gives me a hut an' two black wives, begad! and there I lives for two or three weeks on end, no doubt, as proud as Tommy; when, one fine morning, what does I see off shore in the river but that confounded man-o'-war tender, all ship-shape an' ataunto again. So, my boy, I gives 'em to understand as how, bein' over vallible at home with the king of England, in course he'd sent for to puckalow me away—an' no sooner said, but the whole town gets in a fluster—the fittish-man, which a knowin' chap he was, takes and rubs me from heel to truck with ile out on a sartin nut as turned me coal-black in half-an-hour, an' as soon as I looks in the creek, mate, be blowed if I'd a knewn myself from a nigger, somehow!'
"To tell the truth, as I thought to myself, it was no wonder, as Master Harry's nose and lips were by no means in the classic style, and his skin, as it was, didn't appear of the whitest.
"'So there, ye know, I sits before a hut grindin' away at maize, with nothink else but a waist-cloth round me, and my two legs stuck out, till such a time as the leftenant an' two boats' crews had sarched the villache, havin' heerd, no doubt, of a white man thereabouts—an' at last off they went. Well, in course, at first this here affair gives the fittish-man a lift in the niggers' eyes, by reason o' havin' turned a white man black—'cause, ye see, them fittish-men has a rig'lar-bred knowledge on plants and sich-like. But hows'ever, in a day or two I begins for to get rayther oneasy, seein' it didn't wash off, an' accordently I made beknown as much to the fittish-man, when, my boy, if he doesn't shake his mop-head, and rubs noses, as much as to say, "We ain't agoin' to part." 'Twas no use, and thinks I, "Ye man-eating scum, be blowed if I don't put your neck out, then!" So I turns too with my knife on a log o' wood, carves a himmache twice as big an' ugly as his'n, and builds a hut over it, where I plays all the conjerin' tricks I could mind on—till, be hanged if the niggers didn't begin to leave the fittish-man pretty fast, and make a blessed sight more o' me. I takes a couple more wives, gets drunk every day on palm-wine and toddy juice—as for the hogs an' the yams they brought me, why I couldn't stow 'em away; an' in place o' wanting myself white again, I rubs myself over and over with that 'ere nut, let alone palm-ile, till the ould fittish-man looks brown alongside o' me. At last the king o' the niggers thereaway—King Chimbey they called him, or some'at o' that sort—he sends for to see me, an' away to his town they takes me, a mile or two up the country, where I see'd him; but I'm blowed, Jack, if he'd got a crown on at all, ownly a ould red marine's coat, an' a pair o' top-boots, what was laid away when he warn't in state. Hows'ever, he gives me two white beans an' a red un in sign o' high favour, and gives me to know as I wor to stay there. But one thing I couldn't make out, why the black king's hut an' the josst-house as they calls it, was all stuck round with bones an' dead men's skulls!—'twan't long, though, ere I finds it out, mate! That 'ere fittish-man, d 'ye see, wor a right-down imp to look at, and wicked enough he eyed me; but still anon I sends over for my wives, turns out a black feller out on his hut, an' slings a hammock in it, when the next day or so I meets the first fittish-man in the woods, an' the poor divvle looks wonderful friendly-like, makin' me all kinds o' woful signs, and seemin'ly as much as to say for to keep a bright look-out on the other one. All on a suddent what does he do, but he runs a bit as far as a tree, picks up a sort of a red mushroom, an' he rubs with it across the back o' my hand, gives a wink, and scuttles off. What it meaned I couldn't make out, till I gets back to the town, when I chanced to look at my flipper, and there I see a clean white streak alongst it! Well, I thinks, liberty's sweet, an' I'm blessed if a man's able to cruise much to windward o' right-down slavery, thinks I, if he's black! Howsomever, thinks I, I'll jest hold on a bit longer.
"'Well, next day, the black king had the blue-devils with drinking rum, an' he couldn't sleep nohow, 'cause, as I made out, he'd killed his uncle, they said—I doesn't know but he'd eaten him, too—anyhow, I see'd him eat as much of a fat hog, raw, as ud sarve out half the watch—so the fittish-man tells him there's nought for it but to please the fittish. What that wor, blowed if I knew; but no sooner sundown nor they hauls me out o' my hut, claps me in a stinking hole as dark as pitch, and leaves me till mornin', as I thought. Jist about the end o' the mid-watch, there kicks up a rumpus like close-reef taups'ls in a hurricane—smash goes the sticks over me; I seed the stars, and a whole lot o' strange blacks with long spears, a-fightin', yellin', tramplin', an' twistin' in the midst of the huts—and off I'm hoisted in the gang, on some feller's back or other, at five knots the hour, through the woods—till down we all comes in a drove, plash amongst the very swamps close by the river, where, lo an' behold! I makes out a schooner afloat at her anchor. The next thing I feels a red-hot iron come hiss across my shoulders, so I jumped up and sang out like blazes, in course. But, my flippers bein' all fast, 'twas no use; I got one shove as sent me head-foremost into a long canoe, with thirty or forty niggers stowed away like cattle, and out the men pulls for the schooner. A big bright fire there was ashore, astarn of us, I mind, where they heated the irons, with a chap in a straw hat sarvin' out rum to the wild blacks from a cask; and ye saw the pitch-black woods behind, with the branches shoved out red in the light on it, and a bloody-like patch on the water under a clump o' sooty mangroves. An', Jack, if I didn't feel the life sick in me, that time—for, d' ye see, I hears nothin' spoke round me but cussed French, Portingeese, an' nigger tongue—'specially when it jist lighthens on me what sort on a case I were in; an' thinks I, "I'm took for a slave, arter all!—an' be hanged, but I left that 'ere 'farnal mushroom a-lying under that there tree yonder!" I begins for to think o' matters an' things, an' about Bristol quay, an' my old mother, an' my sister as was at school—mind ye, mate, all atwixt shovin' off the mangroves an' coming bump agen the schooner's side—an' blow me if I doesn't turn to, an' nigh-hand commences for to blubber—when jist then what does I catch sight on, by the lantern over the side, but that 'ere villain of a fittish-man, an' what's more, King Chimbey hisself, both hauled in the net. And with that I gives a chuckle, as ye may suppose, an' no mistake; for thinks I, so far as consarns myself, this here can't last long, blow me, for sooner or later I'll find some un to speak to, even an I nivver gets rid o' this here outer darkness—be blowed if I han't got a white mind, any ways, an' free I'll be, my boy! But I laughs, in course, when I see'd the fittish-man grin at me—for thinks I, "My cocks, you're logged down for a pretty long spell of it!"