When the chocolate caravans reached the mouths of the Zambesi sales were held, both public and private, at which the slave-dealers bought from the slave-catchers as many negroes as they thought they could handle. The blacks were placed in pens or stockades and kept there until the coast was clear and a dhow ready to sail, when, chained together by the neck in batches of six, they were driven on board and stowed away under the hatches, from two hundred to four hundred constituting a shipload. The average price of these slaves in Madagascar was one hundred dollars, but when, on account of the watchfulness of the warships, they had been kept long in the pens and were fat and strong, they brought considerably more,—sometimes twice as much.
In the guise of a peaceful trader, with nothing about us to arouse suspicion, we loafed along the slave coast until we had a good line on the manner in which the Arabs conducted their operations and knew the general routine of the movements of the watching warships. With a satisfactory understanding of the general situation we signed on, at Mozambique, seventy-five additional men, who were ready for any service, equipped ourselves with such paraphernalia as we required, and launched out into the business of snatching slaves. Our ordinary method was to cruise along the Madagascar coast until we sighted a dhow sailing along in a light breeze, or, better still, becalmed. We would just keep her in sight until nightfall. If she was becalmed we would close in on her, with our lights doused, until we were two or three miles away; if she was under slow way we would get the same distance in advance of her. Then we would lower five or six boats, each carrying ten or twelve well-armed men, and attack her from as many different directions. Norton or I always went along in command of the expedition. We tried to surprise the Arabs, and on some very dark nights we succeeded, but most frequently they surprised us by being prepared for our visit. There was always a fight and sometimes, with the larger dhows, a full-fledged battle. We could not use large guns without danger of killing the cargo, so it was altogether revolver and cutlass work on our side. The Arabs used long rifles with beautifully inlaid handles, which really were deadly weapons in spite of their fanciful appearance, and curved swords, in the use of which they were artists. They fought hard enough, viciously, in fact, but we generally had as many men as they carried, or more, and when we did not catch them napping we confused them by attacking them simultaneously at five or six points. We had a man killed now and then and had a number put out of commission with more or less serious wounds, but we suffered little in comparison with the damages we inflicted.
With the fight over we would transfer the Arabs to the “Leckwith,” where we put them in irons or somewhere else, and place a crew on the dhow to navigate her to the coast and sell the slaves. Our attacks were always made close inshore to minimize the danger of being ourselves surprised and overhauled by a warship. We would follow the captured dhow in with the “Leckwith” and stand off and on two or three miles offshore, watching for interference and waiting for the transaction to be closed, when we would send boats in and pick up our crew, which invariably was in charge of Norton or I or Lorensen. The dhow was sold or presented to the purchaser of the slaves.
The activity was continuous, for we were always scurrying around in search of slaves, yet the excitement of it was not so thrilling as I had anticipated. We had been following this new, and I must admit somewhat revolting occupation only a few weeks when the crew of a small dhow set their ship on fire as we were closing in on it one night and took to the boats before a shot had been fired. By the time we got on board the whole afterpart of the vessel was in flames and we had all we could do to keep it from spreading forward far enough to reach the slaves, who were in a panic and were making the night melodious with the wildest yells I had ever heard. As soon as the blaze was made out from the “Leckwith,” Norton brought her alongside and we succeeded in transferring all of the negroes to her, but with great difficulty, for they were almost helpless from fear and, chained together as they were, it was hard to handle them quickly. However, it was a small shipment, and all of our men who could be spared from fighting the fire eventually got them below decks on the “Leckwith,” after which we let the dhow burn, and made fast time away from her for fear the flames would attract some passing ship. It was several days before we got rid of the slaves, for the first port we visited was overstocked, and in that time they filled the ship with an indescribable stench that it was impossible to eradicate, and in the end it proved her undoing.
One evening not long after that, just at dusk, as we came around Cape St. Andrew, we ran right into a British gunboat—I think it was the old “Penelope.” She at once changed her course, came alongside and hailed us:
“What ship is that?”
“The ‘Jane Meredith,’ from Delagoa Bay to Suez,” I shouted back, and I had the papers to prove it.
We were ordered to heave to and a lieutenant came aboard us. His manner, as he came over the rail, indicated that he was suspicious of us. He first examined our papers and passed them.
“You’re damned light to be going north,” he said, as he looked over the manifest, which showed only the small cargo of skins and palm nuts that we always carried.
“That’s so,” I admitted, “but we’ve been out East for three years and I’m anxious to get back to England. I came around this way thinking we might pick up a cargo, but there’s not much doing.”