We had scarcely pulled half a dozen strokes when the report of a musket rang out from the bank on our starboard hand; and at the same instant a line of tiny sparks of fire appeared on either hand through the thick haze, rapidly increasing in size and luminosity until they stood revealed as huge fires of dry brushwood. They were twelve in number, six on either bank of the channel, and were spaced about three hundred yards apart. So large were they that they rendered the fog quite luminous; and it seemed pretty evident that they had been built and lighted for the express purpose of illuminating the channel and revealing our exact whereabouts. I was congratulating myself upon the circumstance that the dense fog would to a considerable extent defeat their purpose, when, in an instant, as though we had passed out through a solid wall, we emerged from the fog, and there lay the three slave-craft before us, moored with springs on their cables, boarding-nettings triced up, and guns run out, evidently quite ready to receive us.
The three craft were moored athwart the channel in a slightly curved line, with their bows pointing to the eastward, the brig being ahead, the schooner next, and the brigantine the sternmost of the line. Thus moored, their broadsides commanded the whole channel in the direction of our advance, and could, if required, be concentrated upon any one point in it.
“Hurrah!” shouted Smellie, rising to his feet and drawing his sword; “hurrah, lads, there is our game! Give way and go at them. I’ll take the brig, Armitage; you tackle the brigantine, and leave Williams to deal with the schooner. Now bend your backs, launches; there is a glass of grog all round waiting for you if we are alongside first.”
“Hurroo! pull, bhoys, and let’s shecure that grog annyhow,” exclaimed the irrepressible Flanaghan; and with another cheer and a hearty laugh the men stretched themselves out and plied the stout ashen oars until the water fairly buzzed again under the launch’s bows, and it almost seemed as though they would lift her bodily out of the water.
As for Armitage and Williams, they were evidently quite determined not to be beaten in the race if they could help it. Both were on their feet, their drawn swords in their right hands, pistols in their left, and their bodies bobbing energetically forward, in approved racing fashion, at every stroke of the oars; whilst the voice of first one and then the other could be heard encouraging their respective crews with such exclamations as:
“Pull now! pull hard! There she lifts! Now she travels! There we draw ahead. Well pulled; again so,” and so on, she men all the while straining at the oars with a zeal and energy which left in the wake of each boat a long line of swirling, foamy whirlpools.
We were within about eighty yards of the slavers—the launch leading by a good half length—when a voice on board the brig uttered some word of command, and that same instant—crash! came a broadside at us, fired simultaneously from the three ships. The guns were well-aimed, the shot flying close over and all round us, tearing and thrashing up the placid surface of the water about the boats, and sprinkling us to such an extent that, for the moment, we seemed to be passing through a heavy shower; yet, strange to say, no damage was done.
Before the guns could be again loaded we were alongside, and then ensued—so far at least as the launch was concerned—a few minutes of such desperate hand-to-hand fighting as I have never since witnessed. We dashed alongside the brig in the wake of her larboard main rigging, and as the boat’s side touched that of the slaver every man dropped his oar, seized his cutlass, and sprang for the main channels. Here, however, we were received so warmly that it was found utterly impossible to make good our footing, the men springing up only to fall back again into the boat wounded with pike-thrust, pistol-bullet, or cutlass-gash. Smellie and I happened to make a dash for the same spot, but being the lighter of the two I was jostled aside by him and narrowly avoided tumbling overboard. He succeeded in gaining a temporary footing on the chain-plate, and was evidently about to scramble thence upon the sheer-pole, when I saw a pike thrust out at him from over the topgallant bulwarks. The point struck him in the right shoulder, passing completely through it; the thrust upset his balance, and down he came by the run into the boat. Our lads meanwhile were cutting and hacking most desperately at the boarding netting, endeavouring to make a passage-way through it, but unfortunately they had emptied their pistols in the first rush, and, unable to reach their enemies through the netting, were completely at their mercy. In less than three minutes all hands were back in the boat, every one of us more or less hurt, and no nearer to getting on board than we had been before the beginning of the attack.
The cutters had evidently fared no better, for they were already hauling off, discomfited; seeing which, Smellie, who seemed scarcely conscious of his wound, reluctantly gave the order for us to follow their example, which we promptly did. Poor Smellie! I pitied him, for I could see he was deeply mortified at our defeat. The three boats converged toward each other as they hauled off, and as soon as we were within speaking distance of them the second lieutenant inquired of Armitage and Williams whether they had suffered much.
“We have one man killed, and I think none of us have escaped quite scot-free,” was Armitage’s reply; whilst Williams reported that two of his men were seriously hurt and seven others slightly wounded.