Tales of the Sea, and of Our Jack Tars

by William Henry Giles Kingston

from the lantern on board the Gadfly, when I fancied I heard the loud flapping of a sail near us. I looked earnestly into the darkness.

“There she is, sir,” sung out the coxswain.

“You’re right. Give way, my boys,” I cried; and in a few minutes we were alongside the schooner.

Not a rope was thrown to us, nor was any assistance offered, so we had to scramble on board as best we could. It was fortunate that we met with no resistance, from which we afterwards found we had had a narrow escape, when all our lives would have been sacrificed. As we leaped down on board over the bulwarks we found only one man on deck, on the after-part of which he was walking by himself, evidently in a furious rage, by the manner in which he cursed and gesticulated. As the light of the lantern fell on his countenance I thought I had never seen one with a more diabolical expression. He was a little man, slightly built, with dark weather-beaten, and sharp features, excessively ugly. His eyes were small, but black as jet, and I fancied that I could see them twinkling even in the dark. The crew had all been sent below, but we soon roused them up, twenty in number; fierce, cut-throat-looking villains most of them were. The between-decks we found crowded with slaves; and we found, when we came to count them, that there were three hundred men, women, and children, so closely packed that they could not lie down even to rest. They had suffered dreadfully during the chase, with the fright and heat, and from having the hatches battened down. Our first business was to shorten sail, which we made the Spaniards and Portuguese who formed the crew go aloft to do; and we then edged the schooner down to where the brig was, and lay-to close to her.

The master of the slaver, when at length he became convinced that there was no help for what had occurred, grew more calm, and he then told me that everything he had in the world was embarked on board that craft, that he had set his canvas and made every sheet and tack fast, when, sending all his people below, the hatches being battened down, he himself had taken the helm, determined to weather us or to run his vessel under water.

“I should have escaped, too,” he continued, “if your cursed shot had not carried away my topsails while all the hands were below. A quarter of an hour more and you might have looked for me in vain.”

I did not tell him how nearly we were missing him after all; indeed I had enough to do to watch him and his crew, and to see that they did not play us any trick. All the men I confined in the fore peak, after securing all the arms I could find, while I allowed him to turn into his own berth, where he slept, or pretended to sleep. I never passed a more anxious night, what with the stench and the groans of the wretched slaves, and the risk of a crew of desperadoes rising on us. We kept, however, as close to the Gadfly as we could, and hailed every time the bell was struck, to say all was right. Towards morning the wind moderated and the sea went down, and at daylight a prize crew came on board to set the schooner to rights. This we were not long in doing, as her damages were slight, and such as, had the slaver’s people been more determined, they might without difficulty have repaired. There was by that time merely a light breeze, and as soon as we got the canvas on the schooner we found that we could sail round and round the brig, so that it was fortunate we had managed to wing her before the sea went down, or we should have had no chance with her.

While the slave captain was still asleep, and the rest of his crew were below, one of the fellows shoved his head up the fore hatchway, and asked to speak with me. I told him to come aft, and I recognised him as a Portuguese whom I had taken once before in the West Indies. With an affrighted look he glanced towards the round-house on deck, where the captain was sleeping, and motioned me to come as far from it as possible.

“I have run every risk, senhor, to come and warn you of danger, in the hope that you will be lenient to us,” he began. “That man in there, senhor, is the very devil. Don’t you recollect him? You took him in the Andorinha, off the Havannah. He was really her master, though he pretended to be the mate.”

It had struck me from the first that I had seen the fellow’s face before, but I could not recollect where.