“In chase of a band of black miscreants who have committed murder and piracy on the high seas!” he ejaculated in broken accents. “The blood of a number of white men massacred by treacherous negroes calls for vengeance, the safety of a young girl and the lives of your brother sailors still on board the ship calls to you for help and rescue! Great Heaven! Will you stand idly by and not render the aid you can? Think, captain, a little girl like your own daughter—my Elsie, my little one! Yes, and white men, your brothers, and sailors, too, like yourselves, at the mercy of a gang of black ruffians! Sir, will you help them or not?”
Chapter Fifteen.
We start in Chase of the Ship.
The effect of this appeal was electrical, not only on the skipper, but on all of us standing by.
“Great heavens, man!” cried the captain, staring at the other in wild astonishment. “What do you mean? I cannot understand you, sir. Your ship, you say—”
“My words are plain enough, captain,” said the stranger, interrupting the skipper. “Our ship, the Saint Pierre, is in the possession of a gang of Haytian negroes who rose on us while we were on the high seas and murdered most of the officers and the crew. They then threw poor Captain Alphonse, who commanded her, overboard, after they had half killed him, and the rest of the unfortunate sailors and passengers, amongst them my little daughter, are now at the mercy of the black devils!”
“My God!” exclaimed the skipper, confounded by this lucid statement. “And you, sir?”
“I am an American!” said the other with a proud air, drawing himself up to his full height of six feet and more and with his eyes flashing, while a red flush mounted to his cheeks, which had formerly been deadly pale. “I’m a white man, captain, and it’s not likely I would stand by and see people of my own colour butchered! Of course, sir, I went to the poor captain’s assistance, but then the murderers served me almost as badly as they did him, chucking me overboard after him.”