The Pirate Slaver: A Story of the West African Coast

by Harry Collingwood

The brig was about five miles astern, and, as far as I could see in the fast-gathering darkness, still hove-to, which struck me as being so peculiar that I made some remark to that effect.

“Oh no; nothing strange about it at all,” answered Mendouca carelessly. “Her people are getting their supper, probably, and are too lazy to start tack or sheet until they have finished their meal. Bless you, you have no idea what lazy rascals the Portuguese are; their laziness is absolutely phenomenal; they are positively too lazy to live long, and so most of them die early. More over, I expect her skipper is still below poring over his charts and trying to make up what he is pleased to call his mind what spot to steer for in order to get another cargo.”

“Very possibly,” I assented, with a laugh. “By the way, it is curious, but I could almost fancy her deeper in the water than she was; does it not strike you so?”

“Deeper in the water?” he exclaimed sharply. “No, I cannot say that it does; and even were such a thing possible, it would need an uncommonly sharp eye to discern it in such a light as this. She may be, however, for that rascal José wrung enough good Spanish dollars out of me, for his rubbish, to sink her to her waterways. But come, here is the steward, so I suppose supper is ready, and if so we may as well go below and get it, for I must plead guilty to being most ravenously hungry.”

Notwithstanding which statement I could not avoid noticing that he toyed a great deal with his food and ate very little; which was not to be wondered at under the circumstances, for I afterwards learned that while I was below in my berth, suspecting nothing worse than the purchase and transfer of a cargo of slaves from one ship to another, a most atrocious and cold-blooded act of piracy had been committed, and that, too, under the shadow and disguise of the British flag; Mendouca having coolly hoisted British colours the moment that I left the deck, and, in the guise of a British cruiser, compelled the Portuguese brig to heave-to and disgorge her cargo; after which he had confined the crew below, bound hand and foot, and had scuttled their ship, leaving them to perish in her when she went down! But of this I had not the faintest suspicion until the tale was told me some time afterwards by one of the Francesca’s own crew.

With the setting of the sun the wind evinced a very decided tendency to drop, growing steadily lighter all through the first watch, until when Mendouca relieved me at midnight the ship was moving at a rate of barely five knots, although she was carrying studding-sails on both sides; and when I went on deck again at four o’clock next morning it was a flat calm, and the ship was lying motionless upon the water, with her head swung round to the south-east; the swell, too, had gone down, and there was every appearance of the calm lasting for several hours at least. The appearance of the sun, as he rose, also confirmed this impression, the sky being—for a wonder in that latitude—perfectly cloudless, and of a clear, pure, soft, crystalline blue, into which the great luminary leapt in dazzling splendour, palpitating with breathless heat that promised to soon become almost unendurable. It was my custom to indulge in a saltwater bath every morning in the ship’s head, one of the men playing the hose upon me for a quarter of an hour or so, and never did that bath seem a greater luxury to me than on this particular morning, for the heat came with the sun, and I envied the fish their ability to escape it by sinking deep into the cool, blue, crystalline depths; indeed I should most probably have been tempted to imitate them as far as possible by plunging overboard and swimming twice or thrice round the ship, had I not happened to have noticed a large shark under her counter, when, to test the clearness of the water, I happened to lean over the taffrail to look at the rudder and stern-post. Even the men dawdled over the job of washing decks that morning, using a much greater quantity of water than usual, and placing themselves where there was a chance to get the hose played upon their bare feet and legs. And if it was hot on deck, what must it have been down in the crowded hold? It was Mendouca’s habit to have the gratings put on the hatchways and secured every night—when the weather would permit of the use of them instead of the solid hatches—in order to prevent anything in the shape of a rising on the part of the negroes; and all night long a thin, pungent vapour had been rising through them, telling an eloquent tale of the frightful closeness and heat of the atmosphere down there, while at frequent intervals could be heard the sound of a restless stirring on the part of the living cargo, accompanied by a long-drawn, gasping sigh, as if for breath. There was usually a good deal of carelessness and remissness manifested by the men in the removal of the gratings in the morning. I have frequently gone on deck at seven bells—when it was my eight hours in—and found them still on, although it was well understood that they were to be taken off at four bells. I was always very particular, when it was my morning watch on deck, to have the gratings removed prompt to time; on this particular morning, however, I did not wait until four bells, but took it upon myself to have the hatches thrown open as soon as there was daylight enough to enable us to see, clearly, and I am sure that the poor wretches below were grateful for even so small a measure of relief.

As the day advanced the heat grew intolerable, and the consequent suffering of the blacks more intense. It is the custom on board slavers, I believe—at least it was so on board the Francesca—to feed the slaves twice a day, the food consisting of a fairly liberal quantity of boiled rice, farina, or calavance beans—these latter being used on account of their great fattening powers, whereby the slaves are maintained in a tolerably good condition of body—with a pint of water at each meal. Mendouca made it a rule to vary the diet of the slaves as much as possible on these three articles, one or the other of which was given every third day, he having found that the poor wretches thus thrived better, and took their food with more enjoyment than when fed during the entire voyage upon one kind of food only; and whenever the weather was sufficiently moderate to permit of it, he always had one-half of the slaves on deck for an airing during the time that the other half were being fed below, thus allowing room for the men who dispensed the food and water to move about, and also for the slaves to use their hands in the process of feeding; and on the particular morning of which I am now writing it was unspeakably moving and pathetic to note, as I did, the feverish eagerness and longing with which the unhappy creatures waited and watched for the arrival of the moment when they might come on deck and breathe for a few brief minutes the pure and—to them—cool and refreshing outer atmosphere. My heart ached with pity for them, and I determined that I would utilise my presence on board this accursed ship by doing everything in my power to ameliorate as far as possible the condition of the unfortunates that were imprisoned within her. And I made up my mind to begin on that very morning, if, when Mendouca made his appearance, he seemed to be in a temper amenable to persuasion.

When he came on deck, however, the conditions appeared anything but promising, for he was in a frightfully bad humour at the calm, cursing the weather, his own ill-luck, and everything else that he could think of to execrate. I allowed him to give unrestrained vent to his ill-humour for some minutes, and when at length he had calmed down somewhat I said—

“And yet it appears to me that this calm, about which you are complaining so bitterly, may be made excellent use of, if you will, to benefit and increase the value of your property.”

“Indeed? in what way, pray?” he demanded.