Six months had passed away, and Jack Rogers had disposed of the liberated blacks, and had since been the means of setting many others free, though unhappily also the innocent cause of sending not a few to destruction, who might have otherwise drawn out a weary existence in abject slavery. Often had he to console himself with the reflection that their death truly lay at the door of the accursed slave-dealing Arabs. “It is the only way of putting down slavery that I can see, though a rough one,” said Jack to himself, “till English missionaries and English merchants take possession of the country, and we can drive the Arabs and Portuguese out of it, and induce the natives themselves to rise and aid us in the glorious work; however, I shall not see those days, I fear; and in the meantime we must do what we can to catch the villains at sea.”
The Gauntlet was slowly proceeding southward when she fell in with the commodore. Jack, going on board to receive orders, was directed to look out for the Opal and Romp, which were to proceed to Zanzibar, and thence to the Cape of Good Hope. “That means that they are to be sent home, I suspect,” observed Jack to Higson, when he returned on board; “the commodore ought to be going there too—he looks very ill; and the ship’s company have suffered much from sickness.”
“I hope that we shall soon follow,” observed Higson; “this slave-hunting is all very well in its way, but it’s a style of work one might get easily tired of.” Jack agreed with him; but as the ship had not yet been her full time on the station, there was every probability of her having to remain some months longer.
She had proceeded some way down the coast, when she fell in with one of the Opal’s boats, of which Jos Green had the command. He had captured one full slaver, but said that the ship had taken none. “Nor will she,” he added; “steamers or boats are the only craft suited for this sort of work.” He was very thankful to have his boat hoisted on board; and the next day the Opal was fallen in with. The news that there was a prospect of her returning to England was received on board the Opal with immense satisfaction, by no one more than by her commander.
Jack paid Murray a short visit, but, having a cargo of liberated slaves on board, he had to continue his voyage to Zanzibar. The Opal, meantime, sailed in search of her missing boats. Two days afterwards, as Jack was running down the coast, a bright look-out being kept for the Romp, the weather, which had been threatening for some days, became rapidly worse; the wind shifted to the south-east, then to the eastward, blowing furiously on the coast. A headland had just been doubled, forming the northern side of a deep bay, and Jack was about to put the ship’s head to the eastward to gain a safe offing, when a sail was sighted on the quarter, some way up the bay. He turned his glass towards her; “What do you make of her?” he asked of Higson.
“I have little doubt that she is the Romp, and, if so, I wish that she were well out of her present position,” he answered. “See, she has just gone about, she’s carrying on in the hopes of beating out of the bay, but it’s as much, I fear, as she will do; and, as far as I know, there isn’t a place in which she can anchor—while the shore all round the bay is as wild and rocky as can be.”
“We must stand in and help her!” exclaimed Jack.
“We should only run the risk of losing the ship if we attempt it,” said Higson, “for it will be as much as we can do to hold our own in the teeth of this gale; and as to towing her off, that will be impossible.”
Jack took a turn on deck. “I cannot bear the thoughts of leaving you, Terence, to your fate,” he said to himself. He knew, as well as Higson, the danger that would be run, for even a steamer embayed in such a place, with the full force of the gale blowing into it, would have hard work to get out. He took another turn on deck. “We must try it, notwithstanding!” he exclaimed; “should the wind moderate ever so little, we may carry her out; and if we are compelled to cast her off, she may still have a chance of escaping by bringing up and riding out the gale.”
Higson was not convinced, though almost as anxious as his commander to assist the brig, which was heeling over to the blast, rushing at headlong speed towards the southern side of the bay. She appeared already close upon the rocks, when about she came, and, her sails flattened in, she began racing back through a mass of foam towards the point from which she had come. Again she went about; but the slightest change of wind at the moment, or any want of seamanship, might allow her in a few seconds to be sent, by the furious seas rolling in, on to the black rocks under her lee.