It was within an hour of sunset when Purchase, who had been standing up in the stern-sheets of the boat, intently studying the shore of the right bank of the river for some ten minutes, gave the order to douse the canvas and stand by to ship the oars; and as he did so he waved his hand to the coxswain, who put down his helm and sheered the boat in toward what looked like an unbroken belt of mangroves stretching for miles along the bank. But as the launch, with plenty of way on her, surged forward, an opening gradually revealed itself; and presently we slid into a creek, or channel, some two hundred feet wide, the margins of which were heavily fringed with mangroves, and at once found ourselves winding along this narrow passage of oil-smooth, turbid water, in a stagnant atmosphere of roasting heat that was redolent of all the odours of foetid mud and decaying vegetation. This channel proved to be about a mile long, and curved round gradually from a north-easterly to a south-easterly direction, ending in a fine spacious lagoon about eight miles long by from three to four miles wide at its widest point, arrived in which we once more felt the breeze and the sails were again set, the boat heading about south-east, close-hauled on the port tack, toward what eventually proved to be an island of very fair size, fringed with the inevitable mangroves, but heavily timbered, as to its interior, with magnificent trees of several descriptions, among which I distinguished several very fine specimens of the bombax. Handsomely weathering this island, with a few fathoms to spare, and standing on until we could weather a small, low-lying island to windward of us on the next tack, we then hove about and stood for the northern shore of the lagoon, by that time some five miles distant, finally shooting in between the mainland and an island nearly two miles long, upon which stood the slave factory that our lads had captured earlier in the day. The whole surface of this island, except a narrow belt along its southern shore, had been completely cleared of vegetation; and upon the cleared space had been erected two enormous barracoons and, as Purchase had said, a regular village of well-constructed, stone-built houses raised on massive piers of masonry, and with broad galleries and verandahs all round them, evidently intended for the occupation of the slave-dealers and their dependants. A fine timber wharf extended along the entire northern side of the island, with massive bollards sunk into the soil at regular intervals for ships to make fast to; half a dozen trunk buoys occupied the middle of the fairway; and the whole settlement was completely screened from prying eyes by the heavy belt of standing timber that had been left undisturbed on the southern shore of the island. I had thought that the factory on the Camma Lagoon represented the last word in the construction of slave-dealing establishments; but this concern was quite twice as extensive, and more elaborately complete in every respect.
By the time that we invalids were landed it was close upon sunset, and under Purchase’s guidance we were all conducted up to the largest house in the place, where, in one of the rooms, Murdoch was still hard at work attending to the batch of patients that were the result of that day’s work. We, the new arrivals, however, were shepherded into another room, where fairly comfortable beds were arranged along the two sides, and into these beds the worst cases were at once put and turned over to Murdoch’s care, while Hutchinson promptly pulled off his coat and took up Murdoch’s work in what might be termed the operating-room. I, however, was not considered a bad case, and was accordingly placed in another smaller room, or ward, along with about half a dozen others in like condition with myself.
While these arrangements were proceeding, a fatigue-party had been busy at work in a secluded spot chosen by the skipper, at some distance from the houses; and before we, the wounded, had all been comfortably disposed of for the night, the dead Nugent included—were laid to rest with such honourable observance as the exigencies of the moment would permit.
The casualties in this last affair were, of course, by no means all on the British side; we had suffered pretty severely in the three affairs in which we had been involved since the departure of the boat expedition from the ship, our total amounting to eleven killed and twenty-six wounded; but the losses on the part of the enemy had been very considerably greater, their dead, in this last fight alone, numbering nineteen killed, while thirty-three wounded had been hurriedly bestowed in one of the houses, to be attended to by the surgeons as soon as our own people had been patched up; thus Hutchinson and Murdoch were kept busy the whole of that night, while Copplestone, Keene, and Parkinson—the three uninjured midshipmen—were impressed as ward-attendants to keep watch over our own wounded, and administer medicine, drink, and nourishment from time to time.
It was a most fortunate circumstance for all hands that this last factory had been discovered and captured; for we were thus provided with cool, comfortable living quarters, instead of being compelled to camp out on the exposed beach opposite the wreck; and to this circumstance alone may be attributed the saving of several of the more severely wounded, to say nothing of the fact that we now occupied a position which could be effectually defended from such attacks as that to which we had been exposed on the spit during the previous night. Moreover, it relieved the captain of a very heavy load of anxiety, since, but for the fortunate circumstance of this capture, he would have had no alternative but to have continued in the occupation of our makeshift camp on the spit, it being impossible for him to undertake a boat voyage to Sierra Leone with so many wounded on his hands. It is true that he might have sent away the launch, with an officer and half a dozen hands, to Sierra Leone to summon assistance; but his ambition was not to be so easily satisfied. We had done splendid service in capturing two factories and destroying one of them—the second would also, of course, be destroyed when we abandoned it—but the loss of the Psyche was a very serious matter, which must be atoned for in some shape or another; and he soon allowed it to be understood that he was in no particular hurry to quit our present quarters, where the wounded were making admirable progress, and the sound were comfortably housed, while provisions of all kinds were plentiful and the water was good. But this, excellent as it was in itself, was by no means all; with two such perfectly equipped factories as we had found upon the river it was certain that the slave traffic on the Fernan Vaz must have assumed quite formidable proportions; and it was the skipper’s idea that before our wounded should be lit to be moved, one or more slavers would certainly enter the river, when it would be our own fault if we did not capture them.
The most careful dispositions were accordingly made, with this object in view; the gig, in charge of an officer, was daily dispatched to the entrance of the lagoon in order that, herself concealed, her crew might maintain a watch upon the river and report the passage of any vessels upward-bound for the Camma Lagoon, while, so far as our own quarters were concerned, everything was allowed to remain as nearly as possible as it was before it fell into our hands, in order that, should a slaver arrive at the factory, there should be nothing about the place to give the alarm until it should be too late for her to effect her escape. As a final precaution, a sort of crow’s-nest arrangement was rigged up in a lofty silk-cotton tree which had been left standing in the screening belt of timber along the southern shore of the island, in order that a look-out might be maintained upon the approach channel during the hours of daylight, and timely notice given to us of the approach of slavers to the factory of which we were in occupation.
A full week elapsed from the date of our desperate fight on the sand spit, with no occurrence of any moment save that, thanks to the skill and indefatigable exertions of Hutchinson and Murdoch, all our wounded were doing remarkably well, two or three of them, indeed, having so far recovered that they were actually able to perform such light duty as that of hospital ward-attendants; while the unwounded had been kept perpetually busy at the scene of the wreck, salving such matters as were washed ashore, and transferring everything of any value to our quarters. Meanwhile, the ship had parted amidships, and was fast going to pieces, so that our labours in that direction were coming to an end, and in the course of another week or two there would be nothing more than a rib showing here and there above water, and a few trifles of wreckage scattered along the beach to tell to strangers the story of our disaster. The enemy’s wounded also, who were sharing with us the attentions of the surgeon and his mate, were doing well upon the whole, although there had been some half a dozen deaths among them, and there were a few more, whose hurts were of an exceptionally severe character, with whom the issue still remained doubtful.
It chanced that among these last there was a negro who seemed gradually to be sinking, despite the utmost efforts of Hutchinson to save him; and this individual, named M’Pandala, had latterly evinced a disposition to be friendly and communicative to Cupid, our Krooboy, who had been told off for hospital duty in the house occupied by the enemy’s wounded; and at length—it was on the tenth day of our occupation of the island, and I was by this time well enough to be out and about again, although still unable to do much on account of my disabled arm—this negro made a certain communication to Cupid which the latter deemed it his duty to pass on to me without loss of time. Accordingly, on the evening of that day, after Cupid had been relieved—he was on day duty—he sought me out and began—
“Mr Fortescue, sar, you know dem M’Pandala, in dere?” pointing with his chin toward the house in which the wounded man was lodged.
“No, Cupid,” I answered. “I cannot truthfully say that I enjoy the honour of the gentleman’s acquaintance. Who and what is he?”