Chapter Four.
The “Barbara” on Fire.
We had got our decks caulked, our rigging set up, and other repairs finished, when, one forenoon, O’Carroll, who had at length ventured on shore, returned in a great hurry with the information that there was much bustle on board the Mignonne, and that her people were evidently hurrying to the utmost to get ready for sea. Had Captain Hassall followed his own inclinations, he would have given the piratical Frenchman the opportunity of trying his strength with the Barbara; but as that would have been decidedly objected to by Garrard, Janrin and Company, we, with the whaler and her prize, and another English vessel, cleared out as secretly as we could, and, with a fair breeze, put to sea. We had to lay to for the other vessels, and after they had joined us Captain Brown hailed us, to say that the look-out from his main-topgallant mast-head had seen a large ship coming out of the harbour under all sail, and that he thought it possible she might be the Mignonne. As, however, a mist had soon afterwards arisen, she was concealed from sight. We promised, however, to stand to the northward with Captain Brown during the night, and in the morning, should no enemy be in sight, let him and his consorts proceed on their voyage homewards, while we kept on our course for the Cape of Good Hope. Nothing could have given our people greater satisfaction than to have found the Frenchman close to us at daybreak. I spent most of the night in writing letters home, to send by the whaler. When morning dawned, not a sail, except our own little squadron, was to be seen. We kept company till noon, and then, with mutual good wishes, stood away on our respective courses. We hoped that the Mignonne would follow the Barbara rather than our friends, should she really have sailed in chase of any of us. The possibility of our being pursued created much excitement on board. At early dawn, till the evening threw its mantle over the ocean, we had volunteers at the mastheads looking out for a strange sail. At the end of four or five days all expectation of again meeting with the Mignonne ceased, somewhat to the disappointment of most of the crew, who were wonderfully full of fight. Having beaten the Frenchman once, they were very sure that they could beat him again. We had other good reasons for having our eyes about us—first, to avoid in time any foe too big to tackle; and then, as we had the right to capture any Spanish vessels we might fall in with, to keep a look-out for them. However, the ocean is very broad, and though we chased several vessels, they all proved to be Portuguese. After sighting the little rocky and then uninhabited island of Tristan da Cunha, we made the Cape of Good Hope, and, entering Table Bay, dropped our anchor off Capetown.
The colony had lately been recaptured from the Dutch by Sir David Baird and Sir Home Popham, with a well-appointed force of 5,000 men. The two armies met on the plain at the foot of Table Mountain; but scarcely had the action been commenced by General Ferguson, at the head of the Highland brigade, than the wise Hollanders, considering that the English were likely to prove as good masters as the French, retreated, and soon after offered to capitulate, which they were allowed to do with all the honours of war. The Dutch, French, and English were now living on very friendly terms with each other. The Cape colony, with its clean, well-laid-out English capital, its Table Mountain and Table Cloth, its vineyards, its industrious and sturdy Boers, its Hottentot slaves, and its warlike Kaffirs, is too well-known to require a description. I did a good deal of trading—a matter of private interest to Garrard, Janrin and Company, so I will not speak of it. The ship was put to rights, we enjoyed ourselves very much on shore, and were once more at sea. Strong easterly winds drove us again into the Atlantic, and when we had succeeded in beating back to the latitude of Capetown, the weather, instead of improving, looked more threatening than ever. I had heard of the peculiar swell off the Cape, but I had formed no conception of the immense undulations I now beheld. They came rolling on slow and majestically, solid-looking, like mountains of malachite, heaving up our stout ship as if she were a mere chip of deal cast on the face of the ocean. We were alone on the waste of waters, no other objects in sight besides these huge green masses, which, as the clouds gathered, were every instant becoming of a darker and more leaden hue.
“We shall get a breeze soon, and I hope that it will be from the right quarter for us,” I remarked to Benjie Stubbs, the second mate, who had charge of the deck.
“We shall have a breeze, and more than we want, Pusser,” (intended for Purser, a name Benjie always persisted in giving me), he answered, glancing round the horizon. “You’ve not seen anything like this before, eh? A man must come to sea to know what’s what. There are strange sights on the ocean.”
“So I have always heard,” I remarked.
“Yes, you’d have said so if you had been on deck last night in the middle watch,” he observed, in a low tone.