CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
RE-APPEARANCE OF THE `FRANCESCA'.
While Maxwell stole forward to get his wire, I crept up on the poopagain, and carefully avoiding the skylight, so that my figure might notbe revealed by the coloured rays that streamed from it, found that theboat with Jose and his companions, and the last of the plunder, was justgoing alongside the brigantine. The first to scramble out of her wasJose; and there was light enough about the brigantine's decks to enableme to see that he went straight aft to the companion, which hedescended. He was absent from the deck but a very few minutes, however;and when he re-appeared I supposed that he had been below to make hisreport to Mendouca and to receive that individual's orders, for as hepassed along the deck I heard him shout to the crew--
"Now, then, look alive there with those bales, and get the deck clear asquickly as possible, so that we can get the niggers on deck and thesweeps at work once more. We've got all that we can take from theEnglishman, and now the sooner we are off the better, for she won'tfloat above two or three hours longer; and if a breeze was to spring up,and bring a cruiser along with it, it would be bad for us if we werefound in this neighbourhood. So bundle those bales down the hatchwayanyhow, men, and clear the decks at once. We must stow the goodsproperly afterwards."
This was excellent--very much better than I had expected; for a dreadfulidea had suggested itself to me, that Mendouca might take it into hishead to remain by the ship until she should show unmistakable signs ofsinking, in which case there would be nothing for us but another fight,which, short-handed as we were, would not suit our book at all.
The men on board the _Francesca_, woke up a little at Jose's order, andsoon had the last boat unloaded and the decks clear; the slaves werethen ordered on deck, the _Bangalore's_ boats cast adrift, the sweepsrigged out, and, with I think the most fervent emotion of gratitude anddelight that I had ever experienced, I at length had the satisfaction ofseeing the brigantine stir sluggishly against the background of thestar-spangled heavens, turn her bows slightly away from us, and finallyglide off, with a quiet, gentle, scarcely-perceptible motion, in awesterly direction.
While I was still watching her I caught sight of Maxwell creeping alongthe deck from forward, under the shelter of the bulwarks, so that thelight from the still burning lanterns that the pirates had left behindthem might not disclose his moving figure to any of the eyes on boardthe _Francesca_ that might be turned upon the ship; and making my waydown the companion, I joined him in the vestibule, and we entered thecabin together.
I led him straight to the door of the state-room with the occupant ofwhich I had previously held a short conversation, and directed Maxwellto open it, at the same time knocking upon the panel and saying--
"Sir, I am happy to inform you that the pirates have at length left us,and we are about to make an attempt to release you."
"Thank God for that!" fervently ejaculated a voice that I had not heardbefore. "Be as quick as you can, pray, for I fear that my poor husbandhere is dead or dying; and he should be attended to without a moment'sdelay."
"That's Mrs Maynard's voice!" exclaimed the carpenter, as he workedaway with his wire; "I know it well. Somebody told me that the colonelwas hurt--stabbed, I think they said, in protectin' his daughters fromthe ill-usage of some of them Spanish ruffians."
"Say you so, man?" I exclaimed. "Then never mind fiddling with thatwire any longer. Let us put our shoulders to the door and burst itopen!"
"Half a second, sir; I've got the thing now, and--there, that's allright! Now try the door, sir!"
As the man spoke I heard the click of the lock as it went back, and,turning the handle, the door opened, and I entered.
The cabin was a fine, roomy one, and of good height, as cabins went inthose days; it contained two standing bunks, one above the other, fittedwith brass rods and damask curtains, a sofa against the side of theship, a wash-stand in a recess between the bunks and the bulkheadadjoining the saloon, a framed mirror above it, a folding mahogany tableagainst the transverse bulkhead, brass pins upon which to hang clothing,a curtain to draw across the doorway, a handsome lamp with aground-glass globe hung in gimbals in the centre of the transversebulkhead, two large travelling trunks and three or four smaller cases,broken open and the contents strewn upon the carpeted deck, and proneamong them, bound hand and foot and lashed together, were the figures ofa man and woman, both evidently elderly, although their precise agescould hardly be guessed by the imperfect light that streamed in from thesaloon through the open door.
As I entered the apartment, noting these details in a singlecomprehensive glance, the woman moaned--
"Oh, sir, for the love of God pray release us from these cruel bonds asquickly as possible; they are bound so tightly that the circulation ofthe blood is stopped, and we have been suffering the most excruciatingagony for hours."
"I will cut you adrift at once, madam," said I, unsheathing the longknife which was attached to the belt that Simpson had lent me with theclothes. "Had I known that you were in this cruel plight, I would haverisked everything in the endeavour to release you when I first enteredthe cabin."
I cut the unfortunate couple adrift, and, having first taken theprecaution to draw the curtain of the side-light, lighted the lamp, and,with Maxwell's assistance, raised the lady into a sitting position;after which we lifted her husband and placed him on the bed in the lowerberth. He was a very fine, handsome man of about fifty years of age,with that indescribable and unmistakable look of the soldier about himthat seems to set its mark upon every military man. His wife wasperhaps seven or eight years his junior, still exceedingly good-looking,and must, at her best, have been a singularly lovely woman.
The colonel, it appeared, had, in common with the other passengers whohad any womankind on board, locked his wife and daughters into theircabins when it was foreseen that an attack upon the ship was inevitable;and it was after the fight was over that he was severely stabbed inresisting an attempt on the part of one of the _Francesca's_ crew toforce open his daughters' cabin. Probably the poor man would have beenmurdered outright but for the opportune appearance of Mendouca, whosternly ordered every one of his men out of the cabin, except two, whomhe personally supervised as they executed his order to bind all thesurvivors hand and foot and confine them in the cabins. Luckily for theunfortunate passengers, the first thought of the men had been drink, andthe second, plunder; and by the time that these two appetites had beensatisfied, all thought of further violence had passed out of theirheads.
The first thing now to be done was to find the ship's surgeon--if hewere still alive; so, leaving Maxwell in the cuddy to continue hislock-picking operations, I sallied out on deck and, first softly callingto the men aloft that they might now venture to come down, hunted up thesteward, and inquired of him whether he knew where the surgeon was to befound. He answered that the surgeon, purser, and three mates were allberthed in the after-house, between the main-mast and the main-hatch,and that probably the man I wanted would be found there, adding that, ashe believed the pirates had flung all the keys overboard, he would takethe liberty of going into poor Captain Mason's cabin, and bringing me abunch of spare keys that he knew were always kept there. This he did,and, finding the key of the after-house, we entered it together, to findthe unhappy surgeon and purser bound hand and foot, and lashed togetherin such a manner that neither of them could move, upon the floor of thecabin. To release the pair was but the work of a moment; after which,having directed the doctor to hasten to the cuddy and attend to thecolonel's injuries, I made a survey of the decks with the result thatfourteen more of the _Bangalore's_ crew were found, of whom six weredead, and eight more or less seriously wounded; the latter were removedto their bunks in the forecastle forthwith and attended to by Mr Grant,the surgeon, as soon as he had dressed the wounds of Colonel Maynard andtwo other passengers. I may as well say here, to save time, that,thanks to Grant's skill and unremitting attention, all the wounded werereported to be doing well and, with
the exception of Colonel Maynard,out of danger.
The keys of all the cabins having been found, and the doors unlocked bythe steward, Maxwell's services were no longer required in the cuddy; astherefore the brigantine had by this time reached the tolerably safedistance of a mile from us, I sent him down into the run again to drivethe plugs well home and make them perfectly secure, and set to work withthe steward to release the remaining passengers from their exceedinglyuncomfortable condition. This was not a long task, and when it wascompleted I found that we mustered nine gentlemen, of whom three werewounded, eleven ladies, three children--two boys and a girl--sevenmaids, and an Indian ayah or nurse. One family, consisting of a ladyand her daughter, were in a dreadful state of distress, the husband andfather--a Mr Richard Temple, resident magistrate of one of theup-country districts--having been shot dead while gallantly fighting indefence of the ship. The rest were in fairly good spirits, now thatthey found that there was a hope of ultimate escape from the perils thathad so unexpectedly beset them; for I learned that although theirpersonal baggage had been rifled and all money and jewellery taken, theyhad been spared any further outrage than that of being bound withunnecessary and cruel rigour and confined to their cabins.
The poor souls had been without food or drink since tiffin. I thoughttherefore that it would not be amiss to set them down to a good meal,and with that object directed the steward to find his mates and also thecook, if possible, it appearing that none of the individuals named hadbeen seen either during or since the attack, which gave rise to thesuspicion that they had contrived to conceal themselves somewhere aboutthe ship. This proved to be the case, the cook, with his mates, and thethree under-stewards being eventually discovered in a disused pig-styunder the topgallant-forecastle, carefully concealed beneath a lot oflumber that they had dragged over themselves. From this secludedretreat they were speedily routed out, and, being solemnly assured thatall danger was now past, were at length prevailed upon to resume theirduty and to prepare a long-delayed dinner--or supper, as it might bemore appropriately called--for the cuddy occupants.
When at length the meal was served, I took the liberty of occupying thepoor murdered captain's seat at the table; and while we were eating anddrinking, I managed to gain a pretty clear idea of the incidents of theattack upon the _Bangalore_ each one having passed through some more orless trying experience which he or she was anxious to relate to therest; and when the meal was over Mr Molyneux, a Calcutta merchant, roseto his feet and, while formally thanking me on behalf of himself and hisfellow-passengers for what I had already done, expressed their perfectconcurrence in the wish of the surviving crew that I should take commandof the ship, merely suggesting the great desirability of navigating herforthwith to the nearest civilised port. This, of course, was my ownfixed intention, and I suggested Sierra Leone as the most suitable spotfor which to make, it being as near as any other, with the advantagethat the necessary officers to navigate the ship home, and a sufficientnumber of men to make up the full complement of the crew, might almostcertainly be reckoned upon being found there.
The brigantine had left us, and with her departure everybody appeared toconsider the danger as past. This, however, was an opinion which I byno means shared; for, knowing Mendouca so well as I did, I felt that itwas by no means unlikely that, having reached an offing of some ten ortwelve miles, he might order the sweeps to be laid in until daylight, inorder that he might remain in our neighbourhood and assure himself bythe actual demonstration of his own--or Pedro's--eyesight that the_Bangalore_ had foundered, taking with her to the bottom all evidence ofthe atrocious crime of which he and his crew had been guilty. And, evenshould no uncomfortable doubts on this point assail him, he _must_learn, ere the lapse of many hours, that I and others were missing; andthen, guessing, as he would at once, at the explanation of our absence,nothing would prevent him from returning and taking, or attempting totake, such measures as would insure our eternal silence.
I therefore considered it a singular if not an actually providentialoccurrence that when I went out on deck after dinner--or supper--the skyshould have become overcast, with scarcely a star to be seen, with everyappearance of both wind and rain ere long. It had become exceedinglydark, so much so that no sign of the brigantine was to be discovered,but by listening intently the roll and clatter of her sweeps were stillto be caught; and it was with very deep and fervent thankfulness that,after listening intently for several minutes, I felt convinced that shewas still receding from us. I had given strict orders that the lanternsshould be allowed to remain burning on deck, just as the pirates hadleft them, that no other lights should be kindled anywhere about theship except where it was possible to effectually mask their light, andthat no one should show anything of himself above the level of thetopgallant-rail upon any consideration; but now, the brigantine havingbeen gone from us rather more than two hours, I gave instructions thatall the lanterns on deck and all lights of every kind visible fromoutside the ship might be simultaneously extinguished, so that, shouldanybody happen to be watching our lights, they might come to theconclusion that the ship had filled and we were gone to the bottom.This done, I mustered my entire crew and, first hoisting in thelong-boat, sent them aloft to stow all the lighter sails, so that wemight not be wholly unprepared should the change of weather that nowseemed impending be ushered in with a squall. This occupied the men afull hour and a half, at the end of which, having brought the ship intotolerably manageable condition, I gave them permission to lie down andsnatch a nap if they could, but to hold themselves ready for anyemergency that might arise.
It was by this time long past midnight, and so pitchy dark that, alllights having been extinguished, it was impossible to see one end of thepoop from the other. The stars had all vanished, and the silence was soprofound as to be quite oppressive, not even the sound of the pirate'ssweeps now being audible; though whether they had been laid in, orwhether the vessel had increased her distance so greatly as to havepassed beyond the range of sound, I knew not, but I strongly suspectedthe former contingency. This profound silence was maintained for nearlyan hour, and then my hearing--rendered unusually acute no doubt by theintense darkness that enveloped me--once more became conscious of aregular, measured, rhythmical sound, the sound of sweeps again beingplied, and, without doubt, on board the _Francesca_. What did it mean?Had Mendouca, in his feverish and painful condition, grown impatient ofdelay and ordered the sweeps to be again manned, after having giveninstructions for them to be laid in? Or, as my forebodings whispered tome, had the absence of myself and others been already discovered, andwas the brigantine returning in search of us? For the first quarter ofan hour or so after the sounds had once again broken in upon the silencethis was a question very difficult to decide; but when half-an-hour hadpassed the fact was indisputable that the pirates _were returning_, forthe sounds had become distinctly clearer and stronger than they had atfirst been.
What was now to be done? There was but one course for us; namely, totake every possible measure for the defence of the ship to our lastgasp, for I felt assured that, should Mendouca recover possession ofher, his fury at the trick that we had played him would be sated bynothing short of our absolute destruction. Having quickly made up mymind upon this point, I was in the act of groping my way along the poop,with the object of calling the men, when I thought I felt a faintstirring of the air, and, pausing for a moment, I moistened the back ofmy hand and held it up, turning it this way and that until I felt adistinct sensation of coolness. Yes, there was no doubt about it, I hadfelt a cat's-paw, and it seemed to be coming over our starboard quarter;while the sound of the sweeps was away broad on our port bow. I couldscarcely restrain a cheer as the hope of a breeze thus came to encourageme at the very moment when a new and terrible danger was threatening us.I paused for an instant and reflected; and my thoughts took somewhatthis shape: "If Mendouca is returning--and he undoubtedly is--it isbecause through some unfortunate combination of circumstances my absencehas already been di
scovered, and he has at once jumped to the correctconclusion that I have somehow contrived to escape from the brigantineto the ship. And he knows me well enough to feel assured that, oncehere, I shall not tamely allow the Indiaman to go down under my feet;or, if that should prove unpreventible, that I shall at least releasethe prisoners and concoct with them some plan of escape, such as takingto the boats, or constructing a raft. And he also knows that, in eithercase, should we succeed in preserving our lives until we are fallen inwith, or picked up, his atrocious act of piracy and murder will beproclaimed, and every craft in the squadron will be specially ordered tokeep a look-out for him and effect his capture at all hazards.Therefore he will spare no effort to find the ship and destroy her.Now--ah, there is another little breath of wind, I felt it distinctlythat time!--should he fail to find us, what course will he pursue? Why,he will certainly expect us to make our way northward--for Sierra Leone,most probably, the port that we have already determined to steer for--and he will do his best to overtake and recapture us. Therefore ourbest course will obviously be to head to the _southward_, and thusincrease the distance between the two craft as rapidly as possible, sothat they may be out of sight of each other at daybreak; and then toproceed upon our proper course under easy sail."
This seemed to me to be a very fair and sound line of reasoning, and Idetermined to act upon it forthwith. I accordingly made my way forward,routed out the men, told them there was a breeze coming, and orderedthem to brace up the yards and trim the sheets aft for a close-hauledstretch on the port tack, at the same time cautioning them to worksilently, as I had only too much reason to fear that the pirates werereturning to search for the ship. This news, confirmed as it was by thenow perfectly audible sound of the sweeps, was enough for them, and theywent about the decks so silently, speaking in whispers, and carefullytaking each rope off its belaying-pin, and _laying_ it down on deck,instead of flinging it down with clatter enough to wake the SevenSleepers, that I am certain no one in the cabins, even had they beenawake, could possibly have been aware of what was happening.
By the time that we had got our canvas trimmed the breeze had becomequite perceptible, and the ship had gathered steerage-way; we thereforewore her round, and presently had the ineffable satisfaction of hearinga slight but distinct tinkling and gurgle of water under the bows.
With the springing up of this most welcome little breeze the sound ofthe sweeps first became by imperceptible degrees less audible and thenwas lost altogether, but whether this arose from the fact that the windcarried the sound away from us, or whether it was that they had laid inthe sweeps, and were making sail upon the brigantine, it was impossibleto tell, nor did I greatly care, provided that the breeze freshenedsufficiently to carry us out of sight before daybreak, this now being mygreat anxiety. Maxwell assured me that the _Bangalore_ was a realclipper, easily beating everything that they had fallen in with, both onthe passage out and on their homeward voyage. But no ship can sail fastwithout a fair amount of wind, and so far this breeze that had come tous was a mere breathing, just enough perhaps to waft us along at a speedof about two knots, or two and a half, maybe, whereas what I wanted wasat least a seven-knot breeze, that would take us clean out of sight ofour starting-point before dawn. For I knew that, if the _Bangalore_ wasa clipper, so too was the _Francesca_; and if her people once caughtsight of so much as the heads of our royals from their own royal-yard,they would chase us as long as there was the slightest hope ofoverhauling us. And the knowledge of this fact made me wonder whether Ihad not acted rather imprudently in stowing all the lighter sails,instead of leaving them abroad to give us all the help of which theywere capable. I was just inwardly debating this point, and had arrivedat the conclusion that we ought to set them again, when the atmosphereseemed suddenly to grow more dense, and in a moment down came the rainin a regular tropical deluge, like the bursting of a waterspout, thesails flapped to the masts, and we were becalmed again. This washorribly vexatious, not to say disheartening; but, happily for our peaceof mind, it was a state of things that did not last long; it merelymeant a shift of wind, for presently, when the shower had ceased asabruptly as it had begun, the breeze sprang up again, this time comingout from the northward, and with gay and thankful hearts we squared awaybefore it, or rather, headed just far enough to the eastward of south topermit everything set to draw properly. Moreover, the breeze graduallybut steadily freshened, until in about an hour from the time when theship first began to move we were going seven knots at the very least.
This was so far satisfactory, especially as the sky remained overcastand the night intensely dark, rendering it utterly impossible to seeanything beyond a distance of three or four of the ship's lengths oneither hand, and I now had good hopes of running the brigantine out ofsight before daylight. That she was still engaged in the search for us,however, soon became evident; for about three-quarters of an hour afterthe springing up of the true breeze our attention was suddenly attractedby the outburst of a brilliant glare of bluish-white light on ourport-quarter, which was nothing less than the brigantine burningport-fires, probably in an attempt to discover our whereabouts by thereflection of the light on our sails, or possibly in the expectation ofcatching sight, by means of the light, either of our boats, or a raft,or perhaps a hen-coop and grating or two floating about as evidence ofour having gone down. However, she was about five miles distant from usat that time, and although the light of the port-fires rendered herperfectly visible to us, I had little or no fear that it would betrayour whereabouts to her people. She remained dodging about andoccasionally burning port-fires for fully another hour--by which time wehad sunk her to her foreyard below the horizon, as viewed from ourdeck--and then, as she discontinued her pyrotechnic display, we lostsight of her. At daybreak I sent a man right up to the main-royal-yard,where he remained until the light was thoroughly strong, and then camedown with the report that the horizon was clear.
This was highly satisfactory, inasmuch as it confirmed my hope that ifMendouca was still prosecuting a search for us--as I felt sure he was,he having of course failed to discover any evidence of the ship havingfoundered--he was looking for us in a northerly direction, very probablycracking on in the belief that we had gone that way and that there wasstill a chance of overtaking us.
At eight bells in the morning watch we brought the ship to the wind onthe larboard tack, with her head about east-north-east, and I thendivided my scanty crew into two watches, with Joe Maxwell, thecarpenter, as my chief mate, and a very smart A.B., named Tom Sutcliffe,as second. This done, the watch was set, and put to the job ofstraightening-up generally and pumping out the ship, this latter jobbeing accomplished and the pumps sucking in just under the ten minutesthat Maxwell had allowed for it. It was clear, therefore, that our hullwas sound, and that in that respect, at all events, with the best--orrather the worst--intentions in the world, the pirates had done uslittle or no harm.
Our most serious difficulty was the want of water, Mendouca havingliterally cleared the ship of every drop she possessed, save some eightor ten gallons in the scuttle-butt, which they had either overlooked, orperhaps had considered not worth taking. But here again it appeared asthough God in His infinite mercy had taken compassion on us; for aboutnoon the wind died away, and I had only just time to take my meridianobservation for the latitude when the heavens clouded over, and towardthe close of the afternoon we were visited by a terrific thunderstormaccompanied by a perfect deluge of rain, during which, by looselyspreading all the awnings fore and aft, we were enabled to catch asufficient quantity of water to carry us without stint as far at leastas Sierra Leone.
It remained calm until about midnight, when a little breeze sprang upfrom the eastward which enabled us to lay our course nicely while itfanned us along at a speed of about five knots. The next morning brokebright and clear; and with the first of the light the look-out reporteda sail broad on our weather bow. Maxwell, fearing that it might be ourold enemy, the _Francesca_ showing up again, came down at once
andcalled me, stating his fears, and causing me to rush up on the poop justas I had sprung from my cot, quite regardless of appearances, although Icould scarcely believe that Mendouca, if indeed we should be sounfortunate as to fall in with him again, would make his appearance inthe eastern board. I must confess, however, that when I first reachedthe deck and beheld the stranger, I experienced a slight qualm ofapprehension, for the craft was undoubtedly square-rigged, forward atleast, and she was steering as straight as a hair for us, withstudding-sails set on both sides, and coming down very fast. A fewminutes' work with the telescope, however, sufficed to remove ourapprehensions, so far at least as the _Francesca_ was concerned, for asthe light grew brighter we were enabled to discern that the stranger wasa brig, and as I continued working away with the glass the vessel seemedto assume a familiar aspect, as though I had seen her before. At firstI thought that it might possibly prove to be the Spanish brig that hadbeen anchored just ahead of us off Banana Peninsula; but as she drewnearer I recognised with intense delight that it was none other than thedear old _Barracouta_ herself. "And with her appearance," thought I,"all my troubles are ended; for doubtless Captain Stopford will not onlylend me men enough to carry the ship to Sierra Leone, but will alsoescort me thither."
The Pirate Slaver: A Story of the West African Coast Page 18