“Fore-yard, there!” sang out the first lieutenant, “can you see the chase?”
“I did a moment ago, sir;—no, sir, I can see her nowhere.”
A similar answer was returned from the other lookouts. She was nowhere visible.
The Slaver.
The “Black Slaver” well deserved her name. Her hull was black, without the usual relief of a coloured ribbon; her masts and spars were of the same ebon hue, her cargo was black, and surely her decks were dark as the darkest night. She was a very large vessel, certainly upwards of three hundred tons, and also heavily armed with a long brass gun amidships, and ten long nines in battery, besides small brass swivel-guns mounted on her quarter, to aid in defending her against an attack in boats.
Her crew was composed of every nation under the sun, for crime makes all men brothers, but brothers who, Cainlike, were ready any moment to imbrue their hands in each other’s blood; and their costume was as varied as their language—a mixture of that of many nations. A mongrel Spanish, however, was the language in which all orders were issued, as being that spoken by the greater number of the people. She was a very beautiful and powerful vessel, and all the arrangements on board betokened strict attention to nautical discipline. For more than two years she had run her evil career with undeserved success, and her captain and owner was reputed to be a wealthy man, already in possession of several estates in Cuba. Slaving was his most profitable and safe occupation, mixed up with a little piracy, as occasion offered, without fear of detection. Several slavers had unaccountably disappeared, which had certainly not been taken by English cruisers, and others had returned to the coast complaining that they had been robbed of their slaves by a large armed schooner, which had put on board a few bales of coloured cottons, with an order to them to go back and take in a fresh cargo of human beings. The “Espanto” was more than suspected of being the culprit; but she was always so disguised that it was difficult to bring the accusation home to her, while they themselves being illegally employed, could obtain no redress in a court of law.
She had for some time been cruising, as usual, in the hopes of picking up a cargo without taking the trouble of looking into the coast for it, when, weary of waiting, and being short of water and provisions, the captain determined to run the risk of procuring one by the usual method.
From the ruse practised by the “Sylph,” she was not seen by his lookouts till he was nearly close up to her. He was in no way alarmed, however, for he recognised the British man-of-war, and knowing the respective rate of sailing of the two vessels, felt certain, if the wind held, to be able to walk away from her. To make certain what she was, he had stood on some time after he had first seen her, a circumstance which had, as we mentioned, somewhat surprised Captain Staunton and his officers. Having ascertained that the sail inside of him was the “Sylph,” he hauled his wind, and making all sail, before an hour of the first watch had passed, aided by the darkness, he had completely run her out of sight. When he stood in he had been making for the Pongos River; but being prevented from getting in there, he determined to run for the Coanza River, some forty miles further to the south, before daybreak, and as the mouth is narrow, and entirely concealed by trees, he had many chances in his favour of remaining concealed there while the British man-of-war passed by. A slave-agent, also, of his resided in the neighbourhood, who would be able to supply him at the shortest notice, and at moderate prices, with a cargo of his fellow-beings. At this rendezvous he knew there would be a look-out for him, and that there were pilots ready to assist him in entering the river.
“Square the yards and keep her away, Antonio,” he sung out to his first mate, a ferocious-looking mulatto, who was conning the vessel. “We are just abreast of — Point, and Diogo, if he has his eyes open, ought to see us.”
The helm was kept up, the yards were squared, and the vessel stood stem on towards the shore.