When we boarded the slaver, we left on board our vessel the helmsman Peter Mangrave, the black quarter-master Pearl, five negroes who were on board as passengers, little Reefpoint, who was wounded, and Bangs, Gelid, and Wagtail. At the moment when I had given up all as lost, honest Pearl sprang on deck, his cutlass in his hand, accompanied by the five blacks and Peter Mangrave, whilst behind him came no less a person than Aaron Bangs, with the three negro servants, whom he had armed with pikes.
“Now Pearl, my beauty,” cried Bangs, waving his cutlass, “give them a touch of their own lingo.”
Immediately the black quarter-master called out:
“Coramantee Sheik Cowloo kokemoni pepulorum fir.”
Which I afterwards found out meant, “See the Sultan Cowloo, the great ostrich, with a feather on his back as big as a palm leaf; fight for him, you dogs.”
Immediately the blacks joined Bangs’ party, and commenced so fierce an attack on their former masters, that they soon drove them down the hatchway, leaving half their number on the bloody deck, dead or dangerously wounded. But, driven to desperation, they still resisted, firing up the hatchway, and paying no attention to my repeated demands to them to surrender.
“God in Heaven!” cried Jigmaree, “that is the sound of hammers; they are freeing the blacks.”
“If you unchain the negroes,” cried I, in the Spanish language, “by the Heaven above us, I will blow you into the air, if I have to go with you. Stop, Spanairds! think madmen, what you are doing.”
“Cover the hatches,” cried Tailtackle.