At a table opposite mine was a fine-looking sailorly man, dressed in a white duck suit and a broad-brimmed Panama hat. While he sipped his coffee, and lazily smoked his long, black Cuban cigar, he appeared to take considerable notice of me. When I was ready to depart he called me to him, and asked the name of the ship I belonged to, the treatment and wages I received, and so on. He seemed so friendly and interested that I made free to tell him of my troubles, and stated that I longed for the termination of the voyage. At this he said:
"It seems, my boy, that Providence has sent me to deliver you. I am Captain of a fine ship, and am in need of a cabin-boy on account of mine having met with an accident that will keep him on shore for some time. What do you say to shipping with me? I will promise you good treatment and much better wages than the Flying Scud pays you."
Here was a golden avenue of escape for me. I was young and trustful, and Captain Ward of the Dragon—for such he told me were the names of himself and vessel—seemed so sympathetic and kindly that I gladly signified my willingness to desert to him.
"Very well," he answered, seemingly well pleased; "I am going on board now, for we are to sail immediately, and you can come right along with me."
As we made our way to the landing-stage through the fast growing darkness, Captain Ward kept up an easy, friendly flow of talk, and by the time that we were seated in the handsome long boat belonging to the Dragon I had, in the impulsiveness of youth, become strongly attached to him. When we reached the latter vessel it was too dark to observe anything more about her than the fact that she was fore-and-aft rigged, with a long yard on her foremast for bending a big square sail to when running before the wind, and had a broad, clean sweep of deck, with high bulwarks, through whose port-holes several cannon looked out. The Captain was received at the gangway by his chief mate, to whom I was pointed out with the half-laughing remark, "this is our new cabin-boy, who had the good taste to prefer the Dragon to the big ship over yonder." I went below with him, and he pointed out a tidy little state-room, which he told me I was to occupy, and said that whatever clothes I might need would be supplied to me out of the stock kept in the slop-chest. Immediately after this Captain Ward went on deck, and we lifted the anchor and put to sea.
Well, to make a shorter story of it, I will explain right here that I soon learned I had shipped on board of the most notorious slaver in the trade, and that she was commanded by a man who was acknowledged to have no rival in the way of daring and success. I heard some time later that he had been a buccaneer in the Gulf of Mexico before going into the slave trade, and that the Dragon had once flown from her masthead the fearful black flag. All this may have been, and probably was true; but this I claim freely, that during the month that I served on board I received the kindest treatment from him. It fretted me, however, to think of serving on such a vessel, and I determined to leave as soon as we returned to Cuba. But I was not to wait even that length of time, as you will soon learn.
Several days later, in a river on the African coast, we loaded the Dragon with four hundred poor wretches, who had been captured to serve as slaves to the civilized Christian white men across the wide Atlantic. Our lading had been much hurried, owing to a report that the American man-of-war Dale had been seen cruising off the mouth of the river the day before we arrived. Her cutters had a habit very distasteful to the slave-traders of pulling up the river at unexpected times in search of contraband cargoes. The penalty that the officers and crews of slave-ships were obliged to pay in the way of death or lengthy imprisonment, and the confiscation of their vessel and effects, often drove the slavers to open warfare with the naval forces when in tight corners. If they were captured, after warlike resistance or with slaves on board, they were considered as pirates, and suffered accordingly.
The slaves had been fed and chained securely between decks, and everything made ready for slipping out to sea by sunset, as the lookout reported the coast clear; but Captain Ward waited until the off-shore wind began to blow, about eight o'clock, before getting up his anchor. At that time, under the jib and mainsail, the Dragon commenced to work slowly down the river, the negro pilot standing on the forecastle and conning the vessel through the channel. We had almost reached the mouth of the stream. I heard the Captain say to his mate that by daylight the land would be leagues astern, and all danger from station cruisers would be at an end.
Just as we approached the last turn, where the river narrowed to about one hundred feet, the Dragon stopped suddenly, brought up against a stout hawser stretched from tree to tree on either bank, then swung around until she lay directly across the stream, and at the same instant two boats dashed alongside filled with naval sailors, who were prepared to sweep down all resistance with their cutlasses, drove the crew into the forecastle, and secured the door. I had been standing on the quarter-deck when the schooner was captured, and as the men-of-war's men forced the Captain and mate below the former picked me up in passing and carried me into the cabin with him. No sooner had we entered this than the companion-way slide was pulled over and we were prisoners, while overhead sounded the tramp of many feet as the sails were lowered and the vessel brought to an anchor.
"Quick, open one of the stern-ports!" said the Captain to the mate; then he ran into his room, from which he reappeared almost immediately and thrust a sheet of paper into my hand, exclaiming, "Show this to the naval officer when he comes below."