The Penang Pirate / and, The Lost Pinnace

by John C. Hutcheson

“He didn’t require to fire a second shot this time.

“No sooner had the report sounded and the roaring rumbling thunder of the discharge died away in the distance, rolling in towards the coast—the smoke being blown away, too, as quickly by the wind—than we could see the dhow dismasted before us, swaying about in the trough of the sea.

“She was a hopeless wreck, for both her masts had been snapped off short by the shot, and the yards to which the sails had been attached were lying athwart the deck. The Dolphin now ranged up alongside her on the leeward bow, and the captain hailed her to know if she surrendered, when one of the Arabs on board, who must have been the skipper, waved a red handkerchief or cloth of some kind in token of truce. He was a tall, swarthy chap, with a turban instead of a fez, which the others wore, on his head; and the belt round his body, as we could see from looking down on to the deck of the dhow, which was much below the level of our vessel, was filled choke-full with long-barrelled pistols and dirks, and a round-shaped scimitar-like sword without a sheath that seemed as if it could give a fellow a very tidy cut.

“The sea was rough and both the dhow and the Dolphin were rolling about terribly, we dipping our foreyard-arms as we lay-to; but Captain Wilson at once ordered the first cutter to be piped away, with one of the lieutenants in charge; while nothing would suit him also but to have his own gig manned. He said he mistrusted the slaver and would board her also himself, as she had a number of Arab rascals on her deck who would probably show fight.

“The boats were soon in the water, under our lee, the men shinning down into them by the falls, each chap with his cutlass tucked into his waistband; and, in another moment, rounding under the stem of the Dolphin, and getting nearly swamped as we breasted the sea, we made for the dhow, that now lay about half a cable’s-length from our vessel, which had drifted a bit astern.

“‘Put your backs into the stroke!’ sang out Captain Wilson from his gig—for I was in the cutter; and with grim earnestness we stretched out as hard as we could, gripping the water firmly and then pulling with all our strength. It was hard work against such a sea as was then running and in the face of the wind, which was still rising and more gusty than before; but we were soon alongside the chase, both the boats boarding her of course to leeward, although the captain in his gig dashed at the high poop astern, while we in the cutter made for her bows, which lay lower in the water and would thus enable us to get more easily on board.

“Captain Wilson was right in his suspicions about the Arab skipper’s surrender. Although he had waved that red rag of his to make-believe that he had given in, so that we might not give him a broadside as he probably expected—for of course he didn’t know that we would not fire the big guns for fear of killing the poor slaves in the hold—no sooner had we got alongside than the beggars showed fight.

“I and another chap managed to grab hold of the bowsprit gear to haul ourselves up by into the fo’c’sle of the dhow, when chop came a cut that severed the ropes we had clutched, causing us to let go and drop back again into the bottom of the cutter with a thump that nearly knocked the bottom out of her, while another Arab shoved out the muzzle of a long matchlock right amongst us and fired it off so closely that the charge singed my whiskers. That did one good job, however, for it made us pretty angry, as you might imagine, and the whole cutter’s crew tumbled aboard in a way that astonished them, I can tell you. They fought pluckily though, but they were more like mad cats than men, screaming and tearing us with their nails when we had knocked their long knives out of their hands and disarmed them. As for the skipper of the dhow, he was a perfect demon, and would have settled Captain Wilson had it not been for the coxswain of the gig giving him a drive through with his cutlass just as he had got our captain down and, kneeling on his chest, was preparing coolly to cut his throat with the keen curving scimitar that we had seen in his belt. Captain Wilson looked, sir, as pale as a ghost when he got on his feet again; for although he was as brave an officer as ever stepped, it does give a fellow a bit of a turn sometimes to be face to face with death, as he was then, and know that nothing, probably, can save you!

“When we had got the better hand of the slave crew, in which we did not quite get off scot-free, five of our men being killed outright and several wounded with ugly gashes from the sharp knives of the Arabs, we set about opening the hatches to release the slaves, who had all this while been kicking up a thundering row below, yelling and hollering as if they were all being murdered.

“Well, bless you! why, there were no less than three hundred and fifty crammed in the hold fore and aft on the two decks that were underneath the main one, and which had not four feet of space between them; the people, men, women, and children, being packed together so close that you couldn’t have got a sheet of paper edgeways between them. As for the smell; well, sir, I think you’d prefer that of a gas main just opened, or the foulest scent you could think of, to what we all smelt in the hold of that there dhow; for it seemed to smother us and make the strongest men aboard turn faint just like a girl does when she cuts her finger and sees the blood.