“Now, Mr Bang,” cried I, “for the love of Heaven”—and may Heaven forgive me for the ill-placed exclamation—“mark these two men—down with them?”
Bang turned towards me with all the coolness in the world “What, those chaps on the end of the long stick?”
“Yes—yes,” (I here spoke of the larboard foreyard-arm,) “yes, down with them.”
He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck shooting.
“I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost.”
“Ah!” quoth Paul. They fired—and down dropped both men, and squattered for a moment in the water, like wounded waterfowl, and then sank for ever, leaving two small puddles of blood on the surface.
“Now, master,” shouted I, “put the helm up and lay him alongside—there stand by with the grapplings—one round the backstay the other through the chainplate there—so,—you have it.” As we ranged under his counter “Mainchains are your chance, men—boarders, follow me.” And in the enthusiasm of the moment I jumped into the slaver’s main channel, followed by twenty-eight men. We were in the act of getting over the netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, which sent four out of the twenty-eight to their account, and wounded three more. We gained the quarterdeck, where the Spanish captain, and about forty of his crew, shewed a determined front, cutlass and pistol in hand we charged them—they stood their ground. Tailtackle (who, the moment he heard the boarders called, had jumped out of the magazine, and followed me) at a blow clove the Spanish captain to the chine; the lieutenant, or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by a sabre-cut on the sword-arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot me through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a sharp pinch, and then a cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my neck.
Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding-pike, and our fellows were fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British sailors. For a moment the battle was poised in equal scales. At length our antagonists gave way, when about fifteen of the slaves, naked barbarians, who had been ranged with muskets in their hands on the forecastle, suddenly jumped down into the waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the Spanish part of the crew.
I thought we were lost. Our people, all but Tailtackle, poor Handlead, and Jigmaree, held back. The Spaniards rallied, and fought with renewed courage, and it was now, not for glory, but for dear life, as all retreat was cut off by the parting of the grapplings and warps, that had lashed the schooner alongside of the slaver, for the Wave had by this time forged a-head, and lay across the brig’s bows, in place of being on her quarter, with her foremast jammed against the slaver’s bowsprit, whose spritsail-yard crossed our deck between the masts. We could not therefore retreat to our own vessel if we had wished it, as the Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle; all at once, however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the bridleport of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxiliaries before mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the next moment an unexpected ally appeared on the field. When we boarded, the Wave had been left with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the Captain’s gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang, Paul Gelid, and Wagtail. But this Pearl without price, at the very moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped on deck through the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the five black carpenters and Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared no less a personage than Aaron Bang himself and the three blackamoor valets, armed with boarding-pikes. Bang flourished his cutlass for an instant.
“Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee—shout;” and forthwith the black quartermaster sung out, “Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo, kockemony populorum fiz;” which, as I afterwards learned, being interpreted, is, “Behold the Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of female dogs.” In an instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with Pearl, and Bang, and the negroes, and joined in charging the white Spaniards, who were speedily driven down the main hatchway, leaving one half of their number dead, or badly wounded, on the blood slippery deck. But they still made a desperate defence, by firing up the hatchway. I hailed them to surrender.