From the mingled tongues upon the brig's deck, in several of which we were hailed, we judged her crew to be composed chiefly of Spaniards and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of English or Americans.
The boat was manned with armed sailors, and as she came up to us, one of her hands, who acted as spokesman in English for the others, commanded Jack and Abe to get on board of her. The poor terrified fellows refused; but the ruffians pricked them with their bayonets, and threatened them with instant death in case of further hesitation.
"We want nothing of the rest of you," said the hard-featured villain who had first spoken; "your ship will pick you up by-and-by, and we can't be bothered with saving a parcel of blubber-hunters; but we take wool and ivory wherever we can find them."
The feeble resistance of the two colored men was speedily overcome, and, wounded and bleeding, they were dragged into the boat, Mr. Gale and the rest of us expostulating vainly as we lay helpless on the floating boards.
Poor Abe! poor Jack! we saw them forced up the gangway of the sharp, saucy brig, and driven upon her deck. It was a spectacle at which Mr. Gale shed tears of grief and rage, while the indignation of his remaining crew equalled his own. We thought of the families of the kidnapped men—the simple wives and the little dark children who would be looking for the two stout colored tars when the Hector should get home.
"That brig," said the mate, "I think, is the Dom Pedro. I would rather have lost all I shall make on this voyage than have had such a thing happen. The miserable, cowardly villains!"
A few hours later a boat from the Hector picked us up; but when we reached our vessel, the slaver was out of sight. With a freshening breeze, she had stood along the coast, the tall tree-tops of which were barely discernible from aloft, and would doubtless enter some neighboring inlet or river's mouth, where her living freight might be in waiting.
For three days on board the Hector little was talked of but our two hapless shipmates and their wretched fate. In the mean while, however, remaining upon the same cruising ground, we secured the amount of oil required to fill the vessel.
The last of our blubber was boiled out in the night; and at daybreak next morning we heard the report of guns, as if some vessel were pursued and fired upon by another.
As the sky lighted up, we made out a brig under full sail, standing directly toward us, and presently saw that she was chased by a ship. The firing, however, had now ceased; probably from the fact that the fugitive had widened the distance between herself and her pursuer. We were standing easily along under short sail, and the two strangers were rapidly coming up astern of us, each crowding all his canvas in the exciting trial of speed.