“All slavy, slavy,” answered Pango. “Dey jus’ dress up, an’ when I tell cap’n dat trick no do, he cut me down an’ try to kill me.”
“There is no time to be lost; take him up on deck, and we will soon show the skipper that you speak the truth,” said Tom.
The Arab captain looked very much taken aback, while he cast savage glances at poor Pango; he saw, however, that the game was up, and that it was useless any longer to attempt deceiving the English officer.
Tom immediately ordered him and several of his crew to get into the boat, which conveyed them on board the Bellona, under charge of Alick. Another boat being lowered, Pango was taken on board, with the remainder of the Arab crew, that the surgeon might look to him. Tom then returned to the Bellona.
Jack decided on taking all the supposed passengers on board. As soon as Pango was sufficiently recovered to act as interpreter, they were examined, when they said that they had been forced to dress up, and threatened that should they not do so they would be thrown overboard. It was ascertained that most of them had been carried away from the coast not many days before, and that they had come a long journey from the interior. Pango had been picked up from a canoe while fishing off the shore, and carried away.
The evidence was so clear that Jack, without hesitation, destroyed the dhow, which could not be towed all the way to Zanzibar, resolving to risk all the consequences.
During the passage several other dhows were met with, but although there were blacks on board, there was not sufficient evidence to prove that they were slaves. It convinced Jack, however, that the abominable trade was still carried on, that thousands of Africans were carried off to Arabia, Persia, and other parts of Asia, to toil in hopeless slavery for the remainder of their lives, and that it would be necessary to make yet more strenuous efforts than before if it was to be effectually put down. He remembered, too, all the horrors he had witnessed and heard of in connection with the slave trade in the interior, when whole villages and districts were depopulated, and numbers were killed or perished from hunger, besides those captured by the Arabs.
Pango was of assistance in enabling him to condemn two dhows, besides those he was compelled to let escape. The black improved rapidly in English, or rather recovered what he had lost. Jack asked where he wished to be put on shore.
“Me no go shore ’gain,” answered Pango. “May be slave fellow take me ’gain. Me go where ship go. Me stay board. Pango now sailor man.”
He was accordingly entered as one of the crew, greatly to his delight.