My father gave the word to fill and reach up close to the Empress, and shortening sail, anchored a short distance to windward of her. Then having selected such medicines as might be useful, he went on board the Empress to see what he could do for the fever-stricken crew.
He came back in an hour and said he had found that the captain and officers were new to the coast, and had neglected many precautions, but that, as there were enough Krumen on board to work the ship properly, he had advised the captain to get under way and beat slowly to windward, which would soon blow the fever out of the ship. The bark and quinine he had been able to leave with them would, he had no doubt, set most of her English crew on their feet again.
As soon as he came on board he gave orders to weigh and make sail; and then leaving Mr. Pentlea in charge of the deck, he told Willie and myself to come into the cabin, as he wished to speak with us about what he had seen on board the Empress.
As soon as we were in the cabin he said, “My boys, I wish now at once, while it is fresh in my mind, to tell you of the state of that ship, and how it could have been avoided. Her captain is a smart young fellow, but he has never been on this coast before, and he thought that he could manage here as he had done in other parts of the world, and has not followed out the rules laid down for him by his owners. When his men got down and dispirited from the climate and fever, he thought he would pull them up by giving them more rum than the usual allowance, and the consequences have been fatal.”
Having said this, our father gave us a regular lecture on keeping the ship and men clean, avoiding chills and night-dews, and opened out to us all the knowledge he had gained during an experience of the West Coast of Africa of over thirty years. When he had finished this he said: “I have other and perhaps more immediately important matters to speak to you about. Frank knows something of it, for he told me what Jack Adams said to him on the subject, and was also here when Black Bill told me that he had seen the mate on board the ship in which he was taken from his native country. I am afraid that we shall have to watch Mr. Pentlea very carefully; for though I did not think much of what Jack Adams said, and even if Black Bill had seen him on board the slaver it might have happened without much loss of character to him—for I am sorry to say many of our traders do not mind having dealings with the Spaniards and Portuguese who form the crews of most of the slavers—still I am now afraid that he has actually been a slaver himself. For the captain of the Empress, who recognized him through his glass, said that the reason he left Liverpool and did not get a ship there was that though he had done very well in the British Queen, there were stories afloat about him with regard to his having been a regular slaver before he sailed in her; indeed, even whilst he was in her he was supposed to have been in communication with some of his old companions, and to have furnished them with information as to the whereabouts of British men-of-war, and otherwise to have made himself useful to them. Now I cannot say that there is any truth in this, but as we shall visit some very little frequented places where usually the only vessels seen are slavers, he may play us some trick with them, and we must watch him very closely. I can’t get rid of him now—and even if I could, I have no one to take his place—so you must both help me to watch him carefully. Mind, you must neither of you say a word of this to any one—not even to Jack Adams or Black Bill.”
“All right, father,” we both answered at once; and then saying good-night, we went off to our berths to turn in for the night.
CHAPTER IV.
ROBBERY AND DESERTION.
Breezes and current both favouring us, we soon arrived off Cape Palmas, where we were to ship our Kruboys. The advent of the brig flying my father’s flag (black with a red diamond in the middle) was the signal for the whole sea to be covered with Kru canoes paddling off in the hopes that their occupants might be engaged on board. How the little narrow craft managed to come across the surf which we saw rolling in on the beach was a wonder to me. It was curious to see the way in which the black fellows managed their tiny canoes. If in their struggle to get alongside these were capsized, they managed instantly to right them and empty the water out of them; and all the time they kept on crying out that they were the right men, and those who had already managed to clamber on board were “bad mans, tiefs, and niggers,”—the last term being the most opprobrious of all the epithets comprised in their vocabulary.
At first they overran the whole upper deck, shouting and bawling and finding out their old friends among the crew, and begging odds and ends from Black Bill in the galley. On my father recognizing one of the men who had sailed with him before, he called to him and asked where his old head-man Frying Pan was.
“Frying Pan, sah, lib for make country; yam time, sah.”