The Congo Rovers: A Story of the Slave Squadron

by Harry Collingwood

Chapter Twenty One.

An Awful Catastrophe.

Meanwhile the Spaniards were still lying perdu on board the hulk as they had remained from the moment of our driving them out the battery. During the discussion of our much-needed meal the question of what steps we should take with regard to them had been canvassed; and, our appetites at length satisfied, Armitage and I walked across the island to make a closer inspection of the position of the craft.

I had wondered greatly, at odd times during our protracted struggle with the savages, how the Spaniards had managed to transfer so rapidly from the barrack to the hulk the large number of slaves which the former must have contained, and now the riddle was solved. On arriving abreast of the hulk we found that a small timber jetty had been constructed from the shore to a point within fifty yards of the hulk, and we could see in a moment that by easing off the moorings of the hulk, the current would carry her fairly alongside this jetty, where, without doubt, she must have been lying when we first hove in sight. The slaves had evidently been marched straight on board her over the jetty, and her bow and stern moorings then hove in until she had been hauled far enough away from the jetty to render her capture by its means impossible.

After a little further conversation with Armitage it was agreed that the Spaniards should be hailed and ordered to surrender, and this was accordingly done. We had no very great hope of success, as we felt sure the Spaniards must be fully aware of the difficulty we should experience in capturing the hulk. As before stated, she towered so high out of the water and her sides were so bare that the Spaniards, small as was their number, could effectually resist all our efforts to capture her by boarding; to fire into and sink her would only result in the destruction of all the slaves on board her; and as she was moored with heavy chains, instead of hemp hawsers, to cut her adrift and let her ground upon the island was quite as impracticable as would have been any attempt to board her.

We were therefore very agreeably surprised when the Spaniards, in response to our hail, at once consented to abandon the hulk, provided we would allow them to depart unmolested in their boat. This arrangement suited us very well, we being just then anything but anxious to hamper ourselves with prisoners, and the required promise was unhesitatingly made. The Spaniards thereupon provisioned their boat, lowered her into the water, and half an hour later disappeared round a bend of the river on their way down stream. Taking immediate possession of the hulk, we dropped her in alongside the jetty once more, and landed the slaves upon the island. They were all, for a wonder, in fairly good condition, having evidently been well taken care of, with the view of fitting them as thoroughly as possible to withstand the terrible hardships of the notorious Middle Passage.

Having at length cleared the hulk we next transferred the slaves in batches to the boats, by which they were conveyed across the stream to the mainland, where they were freed and left to shift for themselves, the provisions found on board the hulk being distributed as evenly as possible among them. Landed thus in a possibly hostile country—for they were evidently a different race of people from those with whom we had recently had so desperate a struggle—unarmed, and with only a small supply of provisions, their situation was perhaps not very much better than it had been when they lay prisoners on board the hulk, but it was all we had it in our power to do for them under the circumstances, and we could only hope that their wit would prove equal to the task of steering them clear of the many dangers to which they were exposed, and conducting them safely back to their own country. There were rather more than eight hundred of them altogether, counting in the piccaninnies, and the transfer of them to the mainland fully occupied us until within half an hour of sunset. As we were by that time pretty well fagged out, and as it was manifestly too late to make any progress worth speaking of on our way back to the creek that night, we resolved to remain until daylight upon the island, which we did without receiving molestation or annoyance of any kind from anybody.

At eight o’clock on the following morning, having previously breakfasted, we started down the river, keeping a bright look-out for the French boat all the way down, and exploring all the most likely creeks and indentations on the south bank of the river, without discovering any trace of her. This protracted search so seriously delayed our progress that we were two whole days making the passage back to the creek, and on our arrival there we discovered that three survivors of the French party had turned up on board the Vestale the previous day, reporting the capture of the boat by the natives, and the massacre of all hands except the three who had managed somehow to slip their bonds and make good their escape in a canoe. They had reported that their capture was due to our abandonment of them, it appeared, and the insinuation, which Captain Vernon had indignantly repudiated, had occasioned a very serious outbreak of ill-feeling between the two ships, so much so indeed that the commander of the Vestale had left the river in high dudgeon on the morning of the day of our arrival, refusing absolutely to co-operate with us any further. I was, of course, subjected to a very severe cross-examination by Captain Vernon on the subject; but my detailed narrative of the affair, which was confirmed in every particular by poor old Mildmay, soon satisfied him that the fault, if fault there was, rested not with us; and both Mildmay and myself were fully exonerated from all blame. Nay more—the master generously represented my defence of the battery in such a light that I received the skipper’s highest commendations and renewed promises of support and assistance in my career.

At sunrise next morning we weighed and stood out to sea, bound on a cruise to the westward.

The next two months passed away in the most drearily uneventful manner, the ship being at sea the whole time. At the end of that period, being in latitude 4 degrees south and longitude 5 degrees east on our way back to the Congo, the ship standing to the northward and eastward at the time, under all plain sail, with light baffling south-easterly airs, the look-out aloft, just before being relieved at noon, reported two sail, close together, hove-to broad on our lee bow. The usual form of questions being duly put by Armitage, who happened to be the officer of the watch, the further information was elicited that one of them was a brig and the other a full-rigged ship, but of what nationality they were it was difficult to say, nothing but the heads of their topgallant-sails being visible above the horizon from our fore-topmast crosstrees. The matter being reported to Captain Vernon, orders were given for our course to be so altered as to allow of our edging down upon the strangers; the fact of their being hove-to so close together having a somewhat suspicious appearance.