“So far Captain Wilson quite flabbergasted me with his compliments and made me feel as proud as Punch; but his next words lowered me down a peg, I can tell you!
“‘I’m sorry, however, I sha’n’t be able to take you with me, Campion,’ he went on, ‘to see the end of this other affair; for now that I have to start off in chase of the other slaver, which will take me off the station, where some of the little Mtpe dhows will be trying to make runs from the mainland, thinking the coast unguarded, I intend leaving the pinnace behind to cruise about the Comoro Islands until I get back with the Dolphin, and, as you are the only responsible man I could trust to take charge of the boat and crew, you must remain here. Pass the word at once for the boatswain to pipe away the pinnace and see that she is properly stowed and provisioned.’
“This was a good deal more than I had bargained for. I thought I should have been allowed to remain as prize-master of the Fatima and sail her up to Zanzibar, as that was what the captain had hinted the night before. However, of course I put the best face I could on the matter, and contented myself with seeing that the water barricoes and stores were properly put on board the pinnace, while all the other men who had not to remain behind with me and the boat were in high glee getting ready for the fresh chase, the news being already whispered about in the messes—hoping that they would have just such another scrimmage again as they had had the day before at the capture of the Fatima.
“Captain Wilson did not ‘let the grass grow under his feet,’ as the saying goes—though it’s rather a queer one for a seaman to use—in carrying out what he had decided on.
“Before the blazing African sun was an hour old, by which time too the rain had stopped falling, the second lieutenant of the Dolphin was transferred to the command of the captured dhow, our ‘First Swab’ having been wounded, taking with him all the prisoners that had been previously removed to our vessel for safety, although they were now bound securely with ropes and had a guard set over them to prevent their doing mischief, besides some additional hands to navigate the Fatima—which, hoisting her big lugs on the jury-masts we had rigged up the previous evening, and casting off the Dolphin’s tow-rope, was soon standing up the coast on her way to Zanzibar, keeping well inshore now, as that course was safest since the wind had changed.
“Hardly had the dhow got well off than the pinnace was lowered into the water alongside the steamer, her crew dropping in one by one, and I, of course, descending last. We had provisions and water on board to last us for six weeks, the usual time that boats are sent away from the vessels to which they belong on the east coast when cruising independently, as they all take it in turn to do; and Captain Wilson told me I was to hover about between Madagascar and the mainland in the Mozambique Channel until we might expect him back, which would be a month at farthest, even making allowances for his being detained at Zanzibar about the condemning of the slave-dhows which we had already captured and the one which he now hoped to get hold of.
“The Dolphin then took us in tow till we were abreast of the Comoro Isles, when she cast us adrift, starting off up the channel full speed and steering north-east and by north, so as to get well out to sea before stretching in to the land towards Mafiyah, where she expected to pick up the slaver; while we, hoisting the sails of the pinnace, and taking it easy under the boat’s awning that was spread fore and aft, bore away for Madagascar. Ah! sir, that was the commencement of an unfortunate voyage, for it was months before some of those that formed the pinnace’s crew ever met their old shipmates again on board the Dolphin; the majority of those with me in the boat never met the hands we left on board the steamer again at all, nor will they till that great last day of all when the sea gives up its dead!”
“I suppose you refer to that time when you said you were capsized off the coast of Madagascar, eh?” said I, noticing that Ben Campion paused at this point.
“Aye,” he replied; “but I’m afraid it’ll take a precious long time to reel off the yarn concerning that period of the story!”
“Never mind, please go on,” I replied. “Now you’ve begun and got so far, I’m sure I should like to hear the end of it.”