Chapter Fifty Three.
The Captain’s last blow up.
Murray proved to be right, for the distant reports which came from somewhere on the far side of the island proved to be the last fired by the man-o’-war, which, shorthanded though she was, and desperately attacked by the powerful well-manned schooners, had kept up a continuous fight, so cleverly carried on that it had at last ended by the running ashore of one of the big slaving craft, and the pounding of the other till in desperation the skipper, who proved to be the cunning Yankee hero of the lugger trick,—the twin brother of the scoundrel Huggins who had met his fate in the explosion,—set his swift craft on fire before taking, with the remnants of the crew, to the woods.
It was not until a couple of days later that, after extinguishing the fire on board the second schooner and setting sail with her for the harbour, Captain Kingsberry commenced firing signal guns to recall his scattered crew, and communication was made by the help of Caesar.
“Yes, Massa Murray Frank,” he said eagerly; “Caesar soon show um way to where big gun go off.”
He, too, it was who gave signals which resulted in the collection of as many of the plantation slaves as were wanted to bear the wounded men in palanquins through the maze-like cane brakes and down to the shore, where a shady hospital was started in which Dr Reston could rule supreme, his patients chuckling to one another as they luxuriated in the plantation coffee, sugar, molasses, fruit and tobacco, and thoroughly enjoyed themselves—so they said—in the jolliest quarters that had ever fallen to their lot.
Caesar, too, in his actions was certainly one of the greatest of the Caesars, for in spite of a terribly scorched face, and burned and wounded arms and hands, he worked almost without ceasing. Scores of his fellow-slaves flocked to help, and under his guidance the captain and crew of the Seafowl were perfectly astounded by the extent of the plantation buildings, and the arrangements that existed for carrying on the horrible trade and keeping up the supply from the far-off African coast.
It was a busy time for the Seafowls, as they called themselves, but they had the prisoners to deal with, for those left alive of the crews of the two schooners had managed to reach the familiar shelter of the dense shores, from which they did not wait to be hunted out, but utilised some of the light boats of whose existence they were well aware, and sickened by the terrible lesson they had received, made sail for one of the neighbouring bays.