“All safe, but we don’t hang women for piracy, so I don’t know what the old man’ll do with her. No, Sam, we won’t put him in the brig,” he said, addressing one of the men. “It’s too hot, too much like the hold of a slaver to suit him. I’ve always noticed these fellows are mighty particular about themselves. You can stow yourself there in that hammock to-night, my friend, and here’s some togs for you,” he continued to me, “and here’s a nip of grog for you. Stand by for a call to come aft and be sentenced.”
His tone was kindly, but so cool withal, when discussing my probable end, that I hated the fellow. Hadn’t I gone through enough? Must I be goaded and hung, after all? I changed my dripping clothes, with the help of a couple of men who loosed my hands for a few minutes, and then the order was passed to bring me aft to the captain for examination.
Tired and exhausted as I was, I was hustled aft between two sailors, and brought to the poop, where sat the captain of the cruiser in a chair. He was only partly dressed, on account of the heat, and he smoked a long cigar of the kind rolled in Cuba. Richards had passed a word for me, and he looked less dangerous than I expected.
He was an intelligent officer, and, as I told my story, beginning at the time I was tricked into signing into the barque, he became interested, and I could see he believed much I told. While I talked, Jones was brought up, and, without hearing what I had already said, corroborated me in all details. Then we were allowed to go below and turn in, and for twelve blessed hours I knew nothing. Ernest was too far gone to talk that night, but the next day his story was found to be in the main like ours.
As for Miss Allen, she was unable to leave her room for several days, but when she could tell of the affair, her testimony did much to save our lives.
We were paroled and given the liberty of the ship while she cruised to the eastward along the coast of the Guinea Gulf and Bight of Benin.
Soon I found the cruiser, which proved to be the Hornet, was looking for a brig commanded by a fellow named Shannon, who had made a reputation on the coast for being a most desperate pirate and slaver. When the bos’n came aboard, they immediately gave chase to the barque. Then I explained the affair that happened in Funchal, and the encounter with the brig to the southward of that place. It was evident from my description of the fellow that it was the same man they were hunting, and they finally had enough confidence in my testimony to bear away again to the westward and start up the coast.
After two weeks’ cruising under the hot sun, we raised the topsails of a peculiar-looking craft that was heading down toward the slave coast. Her foretopmast was remarkably short, and, as we overhauled her, I had no difficulty in recognizing Captain Shannon’s vessel.
She saw us and stood inshore close-hauled, and when within a mile of the beach, backed her foresail and waited for us to come up. The brig fired a shot or two across her, and then called away three of her boats, which were filled with armed men, to go in and take possession.
We were to leeward, and the odour that came down the wind told plainly her occupation. Had it been night, Brannigan would have dumped the blacks he had aboard into the sea, for he was capable of anything, but the sun was shining now, and it was no use, for he had failed to recognize the Hornet as a man-of-war until she was close enough to see any such manœuvre from her tops. There was nothing to do but either get rid of the cargo, or get out of his vessel, and, as we could now see her deck plainly, Brannigan chose the only course to keep clear of the hangman’s noose. He lowered down his boats, and, as ours started in for him, he started for the beach, keeping up a rapid and well-directed fire from muskets until he struck the surf. His brig, which had been named the Black Jewel, after the manner customary among facetious slave-ship owners, was scuttled where she lay as soon as the blacks were taken out of her.