The Pirate Slaver

by Harry Collingwood

  Not so with the skipper of the barque. It was, of course, impossible for us to know whether he had observed the capture of the Conquistador—we hoped and believed not; but, however that may have been, it was certain that he had been keeping his eyes sufficiently open to promptly become aware of the fact that the schooner had altered her course and was standing after him under a very heavy press of sail, and if our surmises as to his character were anywhere near the truth, that circumstance alone would be quite sufficient to fully arouse his easily-awakened apprehensions and to urge him to keep us at arm’s-length at all risks. Be that as it may, we had just made it noon when the quarter-master called our attention to the fact that the barque’s people had loosed their main-topgallant-sail and were sheeting it home over the double-reefed topsail. It was an imprudent thing to do, however, for the sail had scarcely been set ten minutes when the topgallant-mast went over the side, snapped short off by the cap. Her skipper instantly availed himself of the pretext afforded by this accident to bear away three or four points while clearing the wreck, his object doubtless being to determine beyond all question whether we really were after him or not; and if this was his purpose, we did not leave him long in doubt upon the point, our own helm being put up the instant that we saw what he was about. Realising, by this move on our part, the true state of affairs, he now squared dead away before the wind, shook out all his reefs, and set his fore-topgallant-sail, as well as topmast and lower studding-sails. This was piling on the canvas with a vengeance, but Ryan was not the man to be bluffed by any such move as that; every glass we had was now levelled at the barque, and no sooner were her people seen in the rigging than away went our own, and so much smarter were our people than those belonging to the barque, that our own studding-sails were set and dragging like cart-horses while theirs were still being sent aloft. This experiment was tried for about half-an-hour, by which time it became evident that the schooner was fully as good off the wind as was the barque, if not a trifle better; she seemed to fairly fly, while at times, when the breeze happened to freshen a trifle, it really seemed as though she would be lifted out of the water altogether; and I am quite persuaded that but for the preventers we had rigged for the purpose of relieving the masts when she was rolling so heavily during the preceding calm—and which still remained aloft and were doing splendid service—we must have lost both our sticks and been reduced to a sheer hulk long before the half-hour had expired.

  I have said that we were doing quite as well as, if not a trifle better than, the barque; for while we held our own with her, so that she was unable to appreciably alter her bearing from us, we were steadily edging up toward her, our gain in this respect being so great that ere the next manoeuvre was at tempted we had risen her high enough to get a momentary glimpse of the whole length of her rail when she floated up on the crest of a sea. It was clear, therefore, that the barque had gained nothing by running off the wind; on the contrary, we had neared her fully a mile; her skipper, therefore, having given the unsuccessful experiment a fair trial, suddenly took in all his studding-sails again, reduced his canvas once more to a couple of reefs, and braced sharp up to the wind, as before. But here again we had the advantage of him through the superior smartness of our own crew, for he no sooner began to shorten sail than we did the same, handling our canvas so quickly that we were ready nearly five minutes before him, the result being that we had gained another half-mile upon him and had placed ourselves a good quarter of a mile upon his weather quarter by the time that he had sweated up his top sail-halliards. We now felt that, barring accidents, the barque was ours; she could escape us neither to leeward nor to windward. Instead, therefore, of continuing to jam the schooner as close into the wind’s eye as she would sail, with the object of weathering out on the barque, we pointed the little vixen’s jib-boom fair and square at the chase, checked the sheets and braces a few inches fore and aft, and put her along for all that she was worth.

  It is astonishing to note the advantageous effect that is produced upon the sailing of a ship when it becomes possible to check the sheets and braces even a few paltry inches; it was distinctly noticeable in the case of the schooner; her movements were perceptibly freer and easier, she no longer drove her keen cut-water into the heart of the seas, receiving their blows upon the rounding of her weather bow with a force sufficient to shake her from stem to stern and almost to stop her way for an appreciable instant of time; she now slid smoothly up the breast of the wave, taking its stroke fairly in the wake of the fore-rigging, where it had little or no retarding effect upon her, surmounted its crest with a long, easy roll, and then sank with equal smoothness down into the trough, along which she sped lightly and swiftly as a petrel. It added a good half-a-knot to her speed.

  It was soon apparent that even this comparatively trifling advantage on our part had not escaped the notice of our wary friend the skipper of the barque; it suggested to him yet one more experiment, and he was not slow to make it, keeping his ship away about a point and a half and checking his braces accordingly. This proved very much more satisfactory so far as he was concerned; for by four bells in the afternoon watch we had lost sight of the barque’s hull again, and it was unmistakably evident that she was increasing her distance from us. We held on, however, straight after her, as before; for although it was undeniable that she was now drawing away from us, it was but slowly; it would take her a good many hours to run us out of sight at that rate, and we felt pretty confident that when the weather moderated—which we hoped would be before long, as the glass indicated a slight rising tendency—we should have her at our mercy. Meanwhile, however, we felt that we must not count our chickens before they were hatched; for there would be nearly an hour and a half of darkness between sunset and moonrise, and in that time our crafty friend would be pretty certain to attempt some new trickery if there seemed a ghost of a chance of its proving successful.

  * * *

  Chapter Seven.

  The Slaver’s Ruse.

  The sun set that night in a broad bank of horizontal, mottled grey cloud, through which his beams darted in golden splendour at brief intervals for nearly half-an-hour after we had lost sight of the great luminary himself; and just about the time that the spars and canvas of the distant barque began to grow indistinct in the fast-gathering dusk of evening, there occurred a noticeable decrease in the strength of the wind, with every prospect of a tolerably fine night. Of course our glasses were never off the chase for more than five minutes at a time, but up to the moment when it became impossible to any longer distinguish the movements of those on board, no attempt to increase her spread of canvas had been observed. Whether by this apparent apathy her people hoped to lull us into a condition of equal carelessness, it is of course impossible for me to say; but, if so, they signally failed, for immediately that the barque’s outline faded into an indistinct blur in the growing darkness, we went to work and shook out a reef all round, never doubting but that they were at that moment doing precisely the same thing. And our supposition was most probably correct—Ryan, indeed, who had sent for his night-glass and brought it to bear upon her, declared that he could detect an increase in the area of her shadowy canvas—for even after we had made sail we could not perceive that we were in any wise decreasing the distance between the two vessels.

  As the swift, tropical night shut down upon us every eye in the ship became strained to its utmost power in the effort to keep sight of the chase, for now that there could no longer be any doubt in the minds of her people that we were after them, we felt convinced that should an opportunity present itself for them to elude us in the darkness they would assuredly embrace it; and, being new to the coast and to the service, as most of us were, we had yet to learn by vexatious experience the fertility of resource which had been developed in the slave-trafficking fraternity by the unflagging pursuit to which they were subjected by the slave-squadron, and of which they never missed a chance to avail themselves. We had heard many an amusing story of the extraordinarily
clever devices that these gentry had resorted to—very often successfully—in their endeavours to elude pursuit, and while we had laughed heartily at the recital of them, or commented admiringly upon their ingenuity, as the case might be, we had no fancy for further illustrating in our own persons their superiority in the art of mystification. And we were rendered all the more anxious by the fact that with nightfall the sky became overspread with a thin canopy of cloud that, while not sufficiently dense to wholly obscure the stars, so dimmed their lustre that it became difficult to distinguish, even through our night-glasses, the forms of the waves at a greater distance than half-a-mile; while as for the chase, we were at length reluctantly compelled to admit to each other that we had lost sight of her altogether, or at least that we could not be absolutely certain whether we could still see her or not; sometimes we were confident that we could, at other times we utterly failed to make her out.

  It was while we were in this painful condition of uncertainty that Ryan—who like myself had remained on deck, diligently working away with his glass, and utterly deaf to the more than once repeated statement of the steward that the dinner was on the cabin table—turned quickly to me and said—

  “Do you see that greenish-looking star just glimmering through the clouds right over our jib-boom end? Here, stand exactly where I am, and when she pitches you will see it showing about ten degrees above the horizon. There! do you see the star I mean?”

  “Yes,” said I, catching sight of the pale green glimmer as he placed me in position. “Yes, I see it. What of it?”

  “Just carry your eye from it down to the horizon at an angle of about forty-five degrees in an easterly direction, and tell me if you see anything particular.”

  I did so, and after two or three attempts thought I caught a faint gleam like the light of a lamp shining through a red curtain.

  “Yes,” I answered, “I fancy I can just make out a dim something.” And I described what I saw.

  “Precisely!” exclaimed Ryan delightedly. “There! now I have it in my glass—no, it is gone again—this jump of a sea renders it almost impossible to use one’s telescope on the deck of such a lively little hooker as this—not that I’ve a word to say against her, God bless her, she’s a beauty, every inch of her, but I wish she’d remain steady for a second or two. There, I have it again! Yes, it’s a light in the barque’s after-cabin. They’ve drawn the curtains, never suspecting that the light would show through. Yes, there’s no mistake about it, I can see it quite plainly now; upon my word I believe we are overhauling her now that the breeze has dropped a bit. Mr Pierrepoint, d’ye see that light?”

  “Where away, sir?”

  It was pointed out to the lad, and after some searching and prying—for it was so very dim that it was almost impossible to distinguish it with the naked eye—he caught sight of it.

  “Very well, then,” remarked Ryan, with a return to his old, humorous manner that showed how great a relief to him was the appearance of the faint ruddy gleam, “keep your eye upon it, my bhoy, until I give ye a shpell. Mr Dugdale and Oi are now goin’ below to dinner, and if ye lose soight of that loight, bedad I’ll—I’ll keelhaul ye, ye shpalpeen. He’s edgin’ away off the wind, d’ye see, the blagguard! I wouldn’t be surprised if he was to up helm and shquare away before it in a minute or two, hopin’ to run us out of soight before the moon rises, so don’t let your oye go off that light for a single inshtant if ye value your shkin. Keep her away a bit”—to the man at the helm—“let her go off a point! So! steady as you go! There, Masther Freddy, the light is right forninst your jib-boom end now. Mind that ye kape it there. We’re certainly gaining on her.” And, patting the lad affectionately on the shoulder, the warm-hearted Irishman turned and beckoned me to follow him down into the cabin.

  We had been below about half-an-hour, and were getting well forward with our dinner, when we heard the voices of Pierrepoint and the quarter-master in earnest conversation over the open skylight, and an occasional word or two that reached us seemed to indicate that they were in doubt about something. We both pricked up our ears a little; and presently we heard Pierrepoint ejaculate in a tone of impatience and with a stamp of his foot on the deck—

  “I’ll be shot if I can understand it at all, Somers; I shall call the captain.”

  “I really think I would, sir, if I was you. I don’t believe that’s the barque at all; it’s some circumwenting trick that they’ve been playing us, that’s my opinion!”

  At this Ryan started to his feet and, hailing through the skylight, asked—

  “What is the matter, Mr Pierrepoint; have you lost sight of the light?”

  “No, sir,” answered poor Freddy, in a tone of distress; “the light is still straight ahead of us, and we seem to be nearing it fast, but I can’t make out anything like the loom of the sails or hull of the barque, and if she is there I think we ought to see her by this time. The red light shows quite plainly in the glass.”

  “I will join you on deck and have a look at it,” exclaimed Ryan; and, rising from the table, he sprang up the companion-ladder three steps at a time, I following close at his heels.

  Yes; there was the light, sure enough, right ahead of us; and a glance aloft as well as the feel of the breeze on our faces told us in an instant that the schooner had been further kept away, and was now running well off the wind, although the change had been so gradual that we had not noticed it while sitting in the cabin. Ryan took the glass from Pierrepoint and brought it to bear on the light.

  “Yes,” he remarked, with the telescope still at his eye, “that is the light, beyond a doubt; but, as you say, Mr Pierrepoint, I can see no sign of the barque herself. Yet she must be there, for that light is obviously moving, and I observe that you have, very properly, kept away to follow it. Surely,” he continued, with an accent of impatience and perplexity, “we have not been following some other craft that has hove above the horizon since the darkness set in? And, even so, I can see nothing of the craft herself. Obviously, however, we are nearing the light—whatever it is—fast, for I can see it quite distinctly in the glass, I even fancy that I can see it rising and falling. Take the glass, Dugdale, and tell me what you can make of it.”

  I took the glass, and, after a long and patient scrutiny of the mysterious light, pronounced my opinion.

  “To me, sir,” said I, “it has the appearance of an ordinary ship’s lantern wrapped in a strip of red bunting and hung from a pole, or something of that sort. For, if you will look at it closely, you will notice that it sways with the wash of the sea, and now and then seems to swing for an instant behind a slender object like a light spar. But I could almost take my oath that there is no barque or any other kind of craft there.”

  Once again Ryan took the telescope, and after a further prolonged scrutiny, he exclaimed—

  “By the powers, but I believe you are right, and if so we have been done! It certainly has very much the appearance that you describe. But what in the world can it be? It is a moving object, beyond all doubt, for see how we have been obliged to run off the wind in chase of it! However, we are close to it now, for I can make out the swinging of the lantern—and a lantern it is—with the naked eye. It is some confounded contrivance for leading us astray, that is what it is! But since we are so close to it, we may as well ascertain its character, if only to be awake to the trick if it ever happens to be played upon us a second time. Hands by the braces here, and stand by to back the topsail. And get two or three lanterns ready to swing over the side, so that we may see just exactly what the thing is.”

  We had by this time approached the mysterious object so nearly that another three or four minutes sufficed to bring it within a couple of hundred feet of the schooner’s weather bow, when the topsail was laid to the mast, and our way checked sufficiently to permit of a careful examination of the thing, whatever it was. By the time that we had forged ahead far enough to bring it on our weather beam it was close aboard of us, and then the light of our lanterns disclo
sed the nature of the contrivance by which we had been so cleverly tricked. It was in fact nothing more than a raft composed of five nine-inch planks laid parallel to each other with a space of about a foot between each, and firmly secured together by a couple of stout cross-pieces nailed athwart the whole concern. The fore-ends of the planks had been sawn away to the shape of a sharp wedge to facilitate the movement of the raft through the water, and on the foremost cross-piece had been rigged an oar for a mast, upon which was set a hastily-contrived squaresail, made out of a piece of old tarpaulin. To the head of the mast was securely lashed an old lantern with a short length of candle, still burning, in it; the lantern being cunningly draped in red bunting to represent the appearance of a lamp shining through a curtain. And the whole contrivance was rendered self-steering by the attachment of a few fathoms of line to the after-end of the middle plank, at the other extremity of which a drogue, consisting of a short length of plank, was attached. This drogue had the effect of keeping the raft running dead before the wind, and it travelled at a very respectable pace, too—quite five knots an hour, we estimated its speed at—for the sail was quite a big one for so small an affair; and since we had been steering for it for just about an hour, it meant that we had been decoyed some five miles to leeward of our proper course.