“Then git out o’ here, ye darned galoot, as quick as you knows how,” he snarled, “and thank your lucky stars that I don’t freshen yewr way wi’ a rope’s end!” Then, suddenly changing his tune, as he followed me out on deck and saw me glance round, he remarked:
“Purty ship, ain’t she? and roomy for her size. Guess I can stow away all of seven hundred niggers down below, and not lose more’n twenty per cent of ’em on an ordinary average passage. And the Preciosa is the very spit of this here craft—built in the same yard, she was, and from the same lines; there ain’t a pin to choose atween ’em. Now, if yew was only lucky enough to fall in with her, stranger, I guess she’d be a prize worth havin’, eh?”
“She would!” I agreed. “And, what’s more, my friend, we mean to have her, sooner or later.”
“Yew don’t say!” he jeered. “Waal, I guess yew’ll have to fight for her afore you git her. And yew’ll have to find her afore yew can fight for her, won’t yew, sonny? And p’rhaps that won’t be so very difficult, a’ter all, for when I next see my friend Rodriguez—that’s the cap’n of the Preciosa—I’ll tell him that yew’re out arter him, and maybe he’ll lay for yew; for Rodriguez hates the Britishers ’most as bad as I do, and I’m sure he’d enjy blowin’ El Caiman outer the water now that she’s fallen into yewr hands. He and Morillo was great friends; and I reckon he’ll feel bound to avenge Morillo’s loss. Yes; I’ll tell him, for sure. And I’ll also tell all the others on the Coast to keep a bright look-out for the brigantine. Waal, so long, stranger. I’m bound for the Congo, if yew’re anyways anxious to know.”
The foregoing remarks were made as he followed me to the waist and watched my progress over the rail and from the main chains into my boat; and the last item of information was yelled after me when we had put about twenty fathoms of blue water between the boat and the ship. As I flourished my hand by way of reply to his jeers, he turned away and I heard his harsh, nasal accents uplifted in an order to his crew to “Swing the main-yard; haul aft the jib-sheet; and sway away them t’gallan’ and r’yal yards.”
Profoundly disappointed at my non-success, and bitterly mortified at the insults to which I had been subjected by boarding the Yankee, I moodily returned to the Dolphin and, upon mounting to the deck, ordered the gig to be hoisted and the helm to be put up in order that we might return to the Eros, the royals of which were now just rising above the horizon to the westward. Three-quarters of an hour later we were again hove-to, and I was once more in the gig, on my way to report to Captain Perry the result of my pursuit.
To say that the commodore was also deeply disappointed is only stating the bare truth; yet I was not more than half-way through my narrative before I saw that some scheme was taking shape in the back of his mind. He questioned me very closely indeed upon certain points, one of his questions having reference to the point of the possibility of effecting a change in the name of the ship displayed upon her stern, it being evident that a suspicion had arisen in his mind that the two ships might, after all, be one and the same craft, sailing under different flags as circumstances might require. To speak the truth the same suspicion had once or twice crossed my own mind, but had been completely dissipated by my visit to the Virginia; I was quite convinced there could be no possible tampering with the name on the stern, while the papers were undoubtedly genuine, and the crew were as undoubtedly genuine Yankee as were the papers. Yet, despite all this, the fact that such a suspicion had arisen in Captain Perry’s mind caused it to recur in my own; I was therefore very glad when he finally said:
“Thank you, Mr Fortescue. You appear to have executed your mission very effectively, and to have done everything that I should have done, had I been there. Of course I should have preferred to have been there myself; but—well, I have no doubt the result would have been precisely the same. Now, having found the Virginia, I am minded to send you after her, to keep an eye upon her and also to drop a friendly hint to any Yankee cruiser that you may happen to fall in with; for, although you cannot touch her, they can; and they ought to be exceedingly grateful for a hint that will ensure them against making any further mistakes. Yes; you shall follow her up, every inch of the way; go into the Congo with her, and, unless there is some very strong reason against it, come out again with her and follow her right across the Atlantic to her destination, wherever it may be. And while you are doing that, I—confident that you are keeping the Virginia under observation—will look out for the Preciosa, and endeavour to nab her. Go and have a yarn with Mr Hoskins while I prepare your written instructions.”
The skipper was much longer than I had anticipated over the job of drafting his written instructions to me, and Hoskins and I therefore had an opportunity to discuss the situation at some length. I ventured to voice the suspicion that, for some inexplicable reason, so persistently suggested itself to me that the Virginia and the Preciosa might possibly be one and the same vessel, despite the weighty evidence against such a supposition, but the first lieutenant laughed at the notion, which he pronounced in the highest degree fantastic.
“No,” said he, “I do not think you need worry about that, Fortescue. But, all the same, you will have to keep your weather eye lifting, on this expedition upon which the captain is about to despatch you. For, from your account of him, I judge the skipper of the Virginia to be an exceptionally vindictive individual, with a very strong animus against us ‘Britishers,’ as he calls us, and such men are apt to be dangerous when provoked, as he will pretty certainly be when he discovers that you are following and watching him. Therefore, be on your guard against him, or he may play you one of those ghastly tricks that the slavers are apt to play upon the slave-hunters when the latter chance to fall into their hands. In my opinion you are rather too young and inexperienced to be sent alone upon such a job.”