The Pirate Slaver

by Harry Collingwood

  The Barracouta and the Felicidad sailed together on the evening of the eighteenth of December, and, the captain having given Ryan a pretty free hand, parted company off the shoals of Saint Ann; the schooner keeping her luff and heading about south-south-west, while the brig bore away on a south-east-by-south course for Cape Palmas; the idea being that we should do better apart than together. We were to cruise for six weeks, and at the end of that time, if unsuccessful, to rendezvous on the parallel of six degrees south latitude and the meridian of twelve degrees east longitude; or, in other words, some eighteen miles off the mouth of the Congo. We were to remain on this spot twenty-four hours; and if at the end of that time the brig had not appeared, we were to proceed on a further cruise of six weeks, and then return to Sierra Leone to replenish our stores and await further orders.

  It was a glorious evening when we sailed; a moderate breeze was blowing from the westward, pure, refreshing, and cool compared with the furnace-like atmosphere in which we had been stewing for the previous three weeks. The sky was without a cloud; the sea a delicate blue, necked here and there with miniature foam-caps of purest white; while, broad on our lee quarter, the high land about the settlement of Sierra Leone, just dipping beneath the horizon, glowed rosy red in the light of the sinking sun. It was an evening to make one’s heart rejoice; such an evening as can only be met with in the tropics; and, just starting as we were upon what all hands regarded as a holiday cruise, it is but small wonder that we experienced and enjoyed its exhilarating influence to an almost intoxicating extent. Jocularity and laughter pervaded the little craft from end to end; and throughout the second dog-watch dancing, singing, and skylarking—all, of course, within the limits of proper discipline—were the order of the evening. As the sun disappeared in the west, the full, round orb of the moon floated majestically up over the purple rim of the horizon to leeward; and the swift yet imperceptible change from the golden glory of sunset to the silvery radiance of a clear, moonlit night was a sight of beauty that must be left to the imagination, for no mortal pen could possibly do justice to it.

  “Now, Harry, me bhoy,” exclaimed Ryan, speaking in the broad brogue that always sprang to his lips when he was excited or exhilarated, and slapping me upon the back as we emerged from the companion after dinner that evening, and stood for a moment contemplating the glory of the night, “from this moment we’re slavers, we’re pirates, we’re cut-throats of the first wather, to be hail-fellow-well-met with every dirty blagguard that sails the says—until we can get them within rache of these pretty little barkers,” affectionately tapping the breech of one of our long nines as he spoke; “and thin see if we won’t give thim such a surprise as they haven’t met with for manny a day!”

  And he quite looked the character, too—for he was of very powerful, athletic build, though not very tall, swarthy in complexion, and burnt as dark as a mulatto by the sun; with a thick, bushy black beard, and a most ferocious-looking moustache that he had been assiduously cultivating ever since he had known that he was to have the command of the schooner—as he stepped out on deck at eight bells on the following morning, attired in white drill jacket and long flowing trousers of the same, girt about the waist with a gaudy silken sash glowing in all the colours of the rain bow, the costume being topped off with a broad-brimmed Panama hat swathed round with a white puggaree. He was indeed the beau-ideal of a dandy pirate skipper, and I was not a very bad imitation of him—barring the whiskers. The only things perhaps that a too captious critic might have objected to were the spotless purity of our clothing, and an utter absence of that ruffianly manner which distinguishes the genuine pirate; but, as Ryan observed, the first of these objections would grow less noticeable with every day that we wore the clothes, while the other was not necessary, or, if it should become so, must be assumed as successfully as our talents in that direction would permit. As for the crew, they had by Ryan’s orders discarded their usual clothing for jumpers and trousers of blue dungaree, with soft felt hats, cloth caps, or knitted worsted nightcaps by way of head-covering, so that, viewed through a telescope, we might present as slovenly and un-man-o’-war-like an appearance as possible. This effect was further heightened by Ryan having very wisely insisted that not a spar or rope of the schooner should be altered or interfered with in any way, saving of course where it needed refitting; those therefore who happened to know the Felicidad would recognise her at once; and it was our business so to conduct ourselves that they should not suspect her change of ownership until too late to effect an escape. Her capture was of course by this time known to many of the craft frequenting the Congo; but that we could not help; our plans were based mostly upon the hope that there were still many who did not know it, and also, to some extent, upon a belief that, even to those who were aware of it, we might by judicious behaviour convey an impression that her people had cleverly effected their own and her escape, and were once more boldly pursuing their lawless trade.

  We did not much expect to fall in with anything worthy of our attention until we were pretty close up with the Line; we therefore carried on all through the first night and the whole of the next day, arriving by sunset upon the northern boundary of what we considered our cruising ground proper. And then, as ill-luck would have it, the wind died away, and left us rolling helplessly upon a long, glassy swell, without steerage-way, the schooner’s head boxing the compass. This period of calm lasted all through the night and the whole of the next day, varied only by an occasional cat’s-paw of scarcely sufficient strength or duration to enable us to get the schooner’s jib-boom pointed in the right direction. But this did not trouble Ryan in the least, for, as he reminded me for my consolation, we were now just where we wanted to be, and the first breeze that sprang up might bring with it one of the gentry that we were so anxiously on the look-out for. Meanwhile, he availed himself of the opportunity to prepare a certain piece of apparatus that he had employed his leisure in devising, and which he thought might possibly prove useful on occasion. “I’ve been thinking,” said he to me on the morning after the calm had set in, “that it mayn’t always be convanient for the schooner to go through the wather at her best speed, so I’ve devised a thriflin’ arrangement that’ll modherate her paces widhout annyone out of the craft bein’ anny the wiser.” And therewith he ordered a good stout hawser to be roused up on deck; and from this he had a length of some fifteen fathoms cut off, all along the middle part of which he caused a dozen pigs of ballast to be securely lashed. This done, he ordered the bight, with the pigs attached, to be passed under the ship’s bottom, and the two ends of the hawser to be passed inboard through the port and starboard midship ports and well secured, when we had a drag underneath the schooner that would certainly exercise a very marked effect upon her sailing, without making a sufficient disturbance in the water to reveal the fact that trickery was being resorted to.

  Towards the close of the afternoon the aspect of the sky seemed to promise that ere long we might hope for a welcome change of weather; the deep, brilliant blue of the unclouded dome became blurred as though it were gradually being overspread by a thin and semi-transparent curtain of mist, which gradually resolved itself into that streaky, feathery appearance called by seamen “mare’s-tails”; and a bank of horizontal grey cloud gathered in the western quarter, into which the sun at length plunged in a glare of fiery crimson and smoky purple that had all the appearance of a great atmospheric conflagration. A short, steep swell, too, gathered from the westward, causing the inert schooner to roll and wallow until she was shipping water over both gunwales, and her masts were working and grinding so furiously in the partners that we had to lift the coats and drive the wedges home afresh, as well as to get up preventer-backstays and rolling tackles.

  “There is a breeze, and a strong one too, behind all this,” remarked Ryan to me, “and it will give us an opportunity to test the little hooker’s mettle. I wish it would come and be done with it, for by the powers I’m gettin’ mighty toired of this stoyle of thing,”
as the schooner’s counter squattered down with a thud and a splash into a deep hollow, and then rolled so heavily and so suddenly to starboard that we both gathered way and went with a run into the scuppers just in time to be drenched to the waist by the heavy fall of water that she dished in over her rail. This sort of thing soon gave us a taste of the Felicidad’s quality, for so lightly was she framed that the heavy rolling strained her tremendously, and she began to make so much water that we were obliged to set the pumps going every two hours, while the creaking and complaining of her timbers and bulkheads raised a din that might have been heard half-a-mile away.

  “As soon as the breeze comes,” said Ryan, as we descended the companion-ladder to shift into dry clothes, “we will bear up and jog quietly in for Cape Lopez, which will give us a chance of being overhauled by something running in for either the Gaboon or the Ogowé, or of blundherin’ up against something coming out from one or the other of those same rivers. If we don’t fall in with annything by the time that we make the land, we will just stand on and take a look in here and there, beginning with the Ogowé and working our way northward gradually until we’ve thoroughly overhauled the whole of the Bight.”

  By the time that we were summoned below to dinner, the sky had become entirely overcast with heavy, black, thunderous-looking clouds that entirely-obscured the stars, and only allowed the light of the moon to sift feebly through; yet there was light enough to enable us to see our way about the deck, or to reveal to a sharp eye a sail as far away as seven or eight miles, had anything been within that distance. As we left the deck a quivering gleam of sheet-lightning flashed up along the western horizon, and Ryan gave Pierrepoint—who was taking the deck for me while I got my dinner—instructions to keep a sharp eye upon the weather, as there was no knowing how it might turn out. While we sat at table the lightning became more vivid and frequent; and after a while the dull, deep rumble of distant thunder was heard. Presently we heard Pierrepoint singing out to one of the boys to jump below and fetch up his oil-skins for him; and a minute or two later the sound of a heavy shower advancing over the water became audible, rapidly increasing in volume until it reached us, when in a moment we were almost deafened by the loud pelting of the rain upon the deck overhead as the overladen clouds discharged their burden with all the fierce vehemence of a truly tropical downpour.

  At the first crash of the rain upon the deck Ryan and I both with one accord glanced hastily at the barometer that was hanging suspended in gimbals in the skylight; the mercury had dropped slightly, but not sufficient to arouse any uneasiness, and we therefore went quietly on with our dinner, although Ryan shouted across the table to me—

  “When the rain comes before the wind,

  Halliards, sheets, and braces mind.”

  There was little danger, however, of our being caught unawares, for we had long ago clewed up and hauled down everything, except the boom-foresail and jib, to save the sails from thrashing themselves threadbare with the rolling of the ship; we consequently awaited the development of events with perfect equanimity. The downpour lasted perhaps three minutes, and then ceased with startling abruptness, leaving us in absolute silence save for the rush and splash of the water athwart the flooded decks with the now greatly diminished rolling of the schooner, the gurgle of the spouting scuppers, the kicking of the rudder upon its gudgeons, the groaning and complaining of the timbers, or the voices of the people on deck, and the soft patter of their bare feet upon the wet planks as they moved here and there. The shower had knocked the swell down very considerably, rendering the movements of the schooner much more easy than they had been, and we were able to finish our meal in peace and comfort without the continued necessity to steady the plate with one hand and the tumbler with the other, keeping a wary eye upon the viands meanwhile, in readiness to dodge any of them that might happen to fetch away in our direction, and snatching a mouthful or a sip in the brief intervals when the ship became comparatively steady.

  When we again went on deck the sky presented a really magnificent spectacle, the vast masses of heavy, electrically-charged cloud being piled one above the other in a fashion that resembled, to me, nothing so much as a chaos of titanic rocks of every conceivable shape and colour, the forms and hues of the clouds being rendered distinctly visible by the incessant play of the sheet-lightning among their masses. Not only the whole sky, but the entire atmosphere seemed to be a-quiver with the silent electric discharges, and the effect was indescribably beautiful as the quick, tremulous flashes blazed out, now here, now there, strongly illumining one portion of the piled-up masses and the reflection in the glassy water with its transient radiance, while the rest of the scene was by contrast thrown into the deepest, blackest, most opaque shadow. Meanwhile the mutterings of the distant thunder had gradually grown louder and drawn nearer, while sudden, vivid flashes of forked or chain-lightning, golden, violet, or delicate rose-tinted, darted at ever-lessening intervals from the lowering masses of intensely black cloud heaped up along the western horizon.

  We had been on deck perhaps half-an-hour, when a delicious coolness and freshness began by almost insensible degrees to pervade the hitherto intolerable closeness of the hot and enervating atmosphere, and, looking away to the westward, we saw, by the quick, flickering illumination of the lightning, a few transient cat’s-paws playing here and there upon the surface of the water. Gradually and erratically these evanescent movements in the inert air stole down to the schooner, lightly rippling the water round her for an instant, just stirring the canvas with a faint rustle for a moment, and then dying away again. They were succeeded by others, however, with rapidly increasing frequency, and presently a faint blurr upon the glassy surface of the water to the westward marked the approach of the true breeze.

  “Sheet home your topsail, and hoist away!” shouted Ryan. “Up with your helm, my man”—to the man at the tiller—“and let her go off east-south-east. Sheet home your topgallant-sail, and man the halliards. Lay aft here, some of you, to the braces, and lay the yards square. Well there, belay! Main throat and peak-halliards hoist away. Ease off the mainsheet. Rouse up the squaresail, Mr Dugdale, and set it, if you please. Well there with the throat-halliards; well with the peak; belay! Away aloft, one hand, and loose the gaff-topsail! Give her everything but the studding-sails while you are about it, Mr Dugdale; it will save the canvas from mildew if it does little else.”

  The breeze—a light air from about west—had by this time crept up to us, and under its vivifying influence the schooner had gathered way, and was soon creeping along at a speed of barely two and a half knots, which, however, rose to three and finally to five as the wind freshened, the sky meanwhile clearing as the heavy thunder-clouds drove away to leeward before the welcome breeze, until the sky was once more cloudless save for the mare’s-tails that thickly overspread the blue, through which the stars blinked dimly, and the moon, with a big halo round her, poured her chastened radiance.

  “By the powers,” exclaimed Ryan, as we paced the deck together after the operation of making sail had been completed—“By the powers, but that dhrag of mine is a wondherful invention entirely! Do ye notice, Harry, me bhoy, how it’s modherated the little huzzy’s paces? Bedad, she’s goin’ along as sober as a Quaker girl to meetin’ instead of waltzin’ away like a ballet-dancer! But wait until one of those light-heeled picaroons comes along, and then won’t we surprise thim above a bit! If it’s not blowing too hard when ye come on deck in the middle watch ye may give her the stunsails; it’ll look more ship-shape, and as if we were in a hurry to make the coast and get our cargo aboard, if we happen to be overhauled by anybody in the same line of business, and the deuce of a fear have I now of outsailing any of them that may happen to be in the neighbourhood. Keep a sharp look-out, Mr Pierrepoint, and if anything heaves in sight, either ahead or astern, during your watch, give me a call. I’m going below to turn in now.”

  I followed suit a minute or two later and, with my cabin-door wide open to freely admit the coo
l, welcome breeze that poured down through the open skylight, soon fell into a deep, refreshing sleep.

  * * *

  Chapter Six.

  A Capture and a Chase.

  When I went on deck at midnight I found that there was no occasion to set the studding-sails, for the breeze had freshened to more than half a gale, and the little hooker was staggering along before it and a fast-rising sea at a tremendous pace—considering the drag—with her royal clewed up and furled, and the gaff-topsail hauled down. Even thus she was being greatly over-driven; so, as there was no need for too much hurry, and as the sky astern had a hard, windy look, I took in the topgallant-sail, and hauled down and stowed the mainsail, letting her go along easily and comfortably for the remainder of the night. I had half a mind to further relieve her by getting the drag inboard, but did not like to do so without first consulting Ryan—since the thing was of his contrivance—so, as the matter was by no means sufficiently urgent to justify me in disturbing him, I let it remain, and very glad was I afterwards that I had done so; for when I went on deck again at seven bells, there, away about a point on our weather quarter, gleamed in the bright morning sunshine the white upper sails of a large craft that had been sighted at daybreak and that was now coming up to us fast. Ryan was already on deck, having been called immediately that the stranger was made out, and was in a state of high glee at the success of his stratagem, for he informed me that he had been up on the topsail-yard, and had pretty well satisfied himself, both by the look of the craft and the course she was steering, that she was a slaver running in upon the coast to pick up a cargo.