The Pirate Slaver

by Harry Collingwood

  “Then I presume,” said he, with a sneer, “you still believe in the existence of God, and His power to work His will here on earth?”

  “Certainly,” I answered, without hesitation.

  “Do you believe that He is more potent than I am!”

  “I really must decline to answer so absurd a question,” said I, and turned away to leave him.

  “Stop!” he thundered, his eyes suddenly blazing with demoniac fury. “Answer me, yes or no, if you are not afraid! If your faith in Him is as perfect as you would have me believe, answer me!”

  I hesitated for a moment—I confess it with shame—for I felt convinced that in the man’s present mood a reply in the affirmative would assuredly provoke him to some dreadful act in proof of the contrary; the hesitation was but momentary, however, and, that moment past, I replied—

  “Yes; I believe Him to be omnipotent, both on earth and in heaven.”

  It was as I had expected—my reply had provoked him to murder; for as the words left my lips he, for the second time, drew his pistol from his belt, cocked it, and deliberately pressed the muzzle of the barrel to my temple, exclaiming, as he did so—

  “Very well. Then let us see whether He has the power to save you from my bullet!”

  And, glaring like a madman straight into my eyes, he held it there while one might perhaps have slowly counted ten, and then pulled the trigger. There was a sharp click and a little shower of sparks as the flint-lock fell, and—that was all.

  “Missed fire, by all the furies!” he exclaimed, dashing the weapon violently to the deck, where it instantly exploded. “Well, you have proved your faith, at all events, and have escaped with your life by the mere accident of my pistol having missed fire, and there is an end of it for the present. Here, take my hand; you are a plucky young dog and no mistake, but you did wrong to provoke me; take my advice and don’t do it again, lest worse befall you.”

  “No,” said I, “I will not take your hand. You saved—or rather, spared—my life once, it is true, but you have threatened it twice, and it is no thanks to you that I am alive at this moment. We are now quits, for this last act of yours has wiped out whatever obligation I may have owed you for your former clemency. I will not take your hand; and I warn you that I will leave your ship on the first opportunity that presents itself.”

  And I turned away and left him.

  Shortly afterwards Mendouca went below; and a few minutes after his disappearance the steward came up to me and informed me that “supper”—as the evening meal is called at sea—was ready.

  “I shall not go below, steward,” I said. “If Captain Mendouca will allow you to do so, I should like you to bring me a cup of coffee and a biscuit up here.”

  “Very well, señor,” the man answered. “I will bring them.”

  He disappeared, but returned, after an interval of a minute or two, and handed me a note scrawled on a small slip of paper. It was written in English, and read as follows—

  “You are the last fellow I should ever have suspected of so contemptible a weakness as sulking. Come below, like a sensible lad; I have that to say to you which I do not choose to say on deck in the presence of the men.

  “Mendouca.”

  “Oh!” thought I, “so he has returned to his right mind, has he? Very well, I will go below and hear what he has to say; for it would certainly be unpleasant to be in a ship for any length of time with the captain of which one is not on speaking terms.”

  Accordingly I descended the companion, and as I entered the cabin Mendouca rose from a sofa-locker upon which he had flung himself, and again stretched forth his hand.

  “I want you to forgive me, Dugdale,” said he, with great earnestness. “Nay, but you must; I will take no denial. I am not prone to feel ashamed of anything that I do, but I frankly confess that I am ashamed of my behaviour to you this afternoon, and I ask your pardon for it. To tell you the whole truth, I believe that there is a taint of madness in my blood, for there have been occasions when I have felt myself irresistibly impelled to actions for which I have afterwards been sorry, and that of this afternoon was one of them.”

  I believed him; I really believed that, as he had said, there was a touch of madness in his composition, and that he was not always fully accountable for his actions. I therefore somewhat reluctantly accepted his proffered hand and the reconciliation that went with it, and with a suggestion that perhaps it would be as well henceforth to avoid theological arguments, took my accustomed seat at the cabin table.

  Later in the evening, while Mendouca was reading in his cabin, my friend Pedro joined me on deck, and, with many expressions of poignant distress at his father’s behaviour to me, endeavoured to excuse it upon the plea of irresponsibility already urged by Mendouca himself; the poor lad assuring me that even he was not always safe from the consequences of his father’s violence. And during the half-hour’s chat that ensued I learnt enough to convince me that Mendouca was in very truth afflicted with paroxysmal attacks of genuine, undoubted madness; and that, in my future dealings with him, I should have to bear that exceedingly alarming and disconcerting fact in mind.

  * * *

  Chapter Thirteen.

  How Mendouca replenished his “Cargo.”

  I could see that Mendouca was pretty thoroughly ashamed of himself, for despite his utmost efforts, there was a perceptible shrinking and embarrassment of manner apparent in him during the progress of the meal. Nevertheless, he exerted himself manfully to obliterate the exceedingly disagreeable impression that he knew had been made upon me by his late conduct; and it was evident that he was sincerely desirous of re-establishing friendly relations between us, whether from any selfish motive or not I cannot of course say, but I think not—I believe his pride was hurt at his late lamentable exhibition of weakness, and he was chiefly anxious to recover his own self-respect. Whatever his motive may have been, his demeanour was a perfect blending of politeness and cordiality that won upon me in spite of myself; and before the meal was over I had determined to render him the small amount of assistance that he had asked of me, reserving to myself the right to withdraw it at any moment that I might deem fit. He seemed sincerely grateful for my offer, and accepted it frankly and cordially with the reservation that I had attached to it; and having accompanied me on deck and turned the hands up, he informed them that I had offered to temporarily perform the duties of chief mate, and that they were to obey my orders as implicitly as they would those from his own lips; after which, as I had offered to take charge until midnight, he said that he was tired and would try to get a little sleep, and so retired below to his own cabin.

  The breeze continued easterly, and very moderate, frequently dropping almost calm, on which occasion we were almost invariably treated to deluges of rain, with occasional thunder and lightning. Our progress to the eastward was therefore slow, and for three whole days and nights nothing occurred to break the monotony of the voyage. On the morning of the fourth day, however, when I went on deck just before eight bells—it having been my eight hours in, that night—I found the brigantine once more before the wind, with a slashing breeze blowing after her, and she with every rag of canvas packed upon her that could be induced to draw. But, to my exceeding surprise, we were heading to the westward, and, hull-down about ten miles distant, was another craft dead ahead of us, also carrying a press of canvas.

  I turned to Mendouca for an explanation; and in answer to my look of inquiry he said—

  “Yes, I want to overtake that brig, if I can. I am ashamed to say that among us we let her slip past in the darkness of the early part of the last watch, and so I missed the opportunity of speaking her. But I believe I know her; and if my surmise as to her identity proves correct, I think I shall have no difficulty in persuading her skipper to transfer his cargo to me, and so save me the trouble and risk of returning to the coast for one—a risk which was every day growing greater as we drew nearer to the ground haunted by your lynx-eyed cruisers, to fall in with on
e of which just now, with those niggers down in the hold, would mean our inevitable condemnation, as I need scarcely tell you.”

  “Quite so,” I assented. “But should you fail to overtake yonder craft, you will lose a good deal of ground, will you not?”

  “Oh, we shall overhaul her, if she be the brig I believe her to be, and I have very little doubt upon that point,” answered Mendouca. “She is a smart craft, I admit, but the Francesca can beat her upon any point of sailing, and in any breeze that blows; and, that being the case, the distance that we may have to run to leeward before getting alongside her is a matter of indifference to me, since it will be so much of our voyage accomplished.”

  “Have you gained anything on her since you bore up in chase?” I asked.

  “About a couple of miles, I should think. But then the wind has been light with us until within the last hour. If this breeze holds I expect to be alongside her about four bells in the afternoon watch.”

  “By which time we shall have run close upon seventy miles to leeward,” I remarked.

  “Nearer eighty,” observed Mendouca. “We are going close upon thirteen now. But, as I said before, that does not trouble me in the least, since we shall be that much nearer Cuba.”

  This was serious news to me, for Cuba was about the last place that I desired to visit, at least on board the Francesca, for I foresaw that if once we got over there the difficulty of effecting my escape from the accursed craft would be very greatly increased; indeed, I had quite reckoned upon her being fallen in with and captured by one of our cruisers, either while standing in for a fresh cargo of slaves, or when coming out again with them on board, to which chance alone could I look with any reason for the prospect of deliverance from my present embarrassing and disagreeable situation. True, there was just a possibility of our being picked up by one of the West Indian squadron; but I had not much hope of that, our vessels on that station being mostly slow, deep-draught craft, altogether unsuited for the pursuit and capture of the swift, light-draught slavers, who, unless caught at advantage in open water, could laugh us to scorn by the simple expedient of taking short cuts across shoals, or seeking refuge among the shallow lagoons that abound among the islands, and are especially plentiful and spacious along the northern coast of Cuba. However, there was no use in worrying over a state of things that I had no power to mend; I therefore assumed charge of the deck, and allowed matters to take their course—since I needs must.

  The breeze continued to freshen as the sun increased his distance above the horizon, and we went bowling along at a most exhilarating pace, overhauling the brig ahead, slowly but surely; and when at one o’clock the steward summoned me to the cabin to dinner, a space of barely two miles separated the two craft. She had just hoisted Portuguese colours, of which, however, Mendouca took no notice, somewhat to my surprise, since he reiterated the statement that she was the craft he had believed her to be, and that the captain of her and he were old friends. It was my afternoon watch below; so when I rose from the dinner-table I said—

  “Captain Mendouca, I have no wish to identify myself in any way with the transaction you are about to negotiate; you must excuse me therefore if, it being my watch below, I retire to my cabin.”

  “Very well, Dugdale,” he answered, quite good-humouredly, “I can manage the business perfectly well without you; if therefore your conscience”—with just the faintest suggestion of a sneer—“will not permit you to take an active part in it, you are quite welcome to stay below until the affair is at an end, when I will call you.”

  I even thought that he spoke with an air of relief, as though my withdrawal had smoothed away a difficulty. About an hour later I was awakened from a nap by the sound of hailing in a language which I did not understand, but which, from its decided resemblance to Spanish, I concluded to be Portuguese. I could not hear what passed, nor did I attempt to do so, being of opinion that the less prominently I was mixed up with the affair, and the less I knew about it, the better. The hailing soon ceased, and then the brigantine was hove-to, as I could tell by the difference in her movements. I had the curiosity to rise from my bunk and take a peep through the scuttle at the sea, but it was bare as far as my eye could reach; so, as my state-room was to windward as the Francesca then lay, I came to the conclusion that the brig was hove-to to leeward of us. The moment that our topsail was backed I heard the creaking of davit blocks, and the other sounds of a boat being lowered; and a few minutes later I heard the roll of the oars in the rowlocks as she was pulled away from the ship. Then the hatches were taken off fore and aft, and in about half-an-hour from the time of our having hove-to I became aware that the first boat-load of slaves had arrived alongside and were being driven down into the hold. The boats now began to arrive in rapid succession, and there was a good deal of bustle and confusion on deck, which lasted until close upon sunset, and in the midst of it I laid down and went to sleep again, for want of something better to do. When I awoke the dusk was thick upon the glass of my scuttle, the steward was lighting the lamp in the main cabin, and I could feel that we were once more under way again; concluding, therefore, that the exchange had been completed, I rolled out of my bunk and, slipping my feet into my shoes, left my state-room and went on deck, where I found Mendouca in jubilant spirits, but rather disconcerted, I thought, at my appearance.

  “Hillo!” he exclaimed in English, “where the deuce did you come from, and how long have you been on deck?”

  “I came from my state-room, and have but this moment emerged from the companion. Why do you ask?” said I.

  “Because,” he answered, “to tell you the truth you startled me, making your appearance in that quiet manner. I thought you were going to stay below until I called you?”

  “It was you who said that, not I,” answered I. “And, to tell you the truth, I felt tired of being below, and so—finding that you were under way again—came on deck.”

  The brig was about five miles astern, and, as far as I could see in the fast-gathering darkness, still hove-to, which struck me as being so peculiar that I made some remark to that effect.

  “Oh no; nothing strange about it at all,” answered Mendouca carelessly. “Her people are getting their supper, probably, and are too lazy to start tack or sheet until they have finished their meal. Bless you, you have no idea what lazy rascals the Portuguese are; their laziness is absolutely phenomenal; they are positively too lazy to live long, and so most of them die early. More over, I expect her skipper is still below poring over his charts and trying to make up what he is pleased to call his mind what spot to steer for in order to get another cargo.”

  “Very possibly,” I assented, with a laugh. “By the way, it is curious, but I could almost fancy her deeper in the water than she was; does it not strike you so?”

  “Deeper in the water?” he exclaimed sharply. “No, I cannot say that it does; and even were such a thing possible, it would need an uncommonly sharp eye to discern it in such a light as this. She may be, however, for that rascal José wrung enough good Spanish dollars out of me, for his rubbish, to sink her to her waterways. But come, here is the steward, so I suppose supper is ready, and if so we may as well go below and get it, for I must plead guilty to being most ravenously hungry.”

  Notwithstanding which statement I could not avoid noticing that he toyed a great deal with his food and ate very little; which was not to be wondered at under the circumstances, for I afterwards learned that while I was below in my berth, suspecting nothing worse than the purchase and transfer of a cargo of slaves from one ship to another, a most atrocious and cold-blooded act of piracy had been committed, and that, too, under the shadow and disguise of the British flag; Mendouca having coolly hoisted British colours the moment that I left the deck, and, in the guise of a British cruiser, compelled the Portuguese brig to heave-to and disgorge her cargo; after which he had confined the crew below, bound hand and foot, and had scuttled their ship, leaving them to perish in her when she went down! But of this I had n
ot the faintest suspicion until the tale was told me some time afterwards by one of the Francesca’s own crew.

  With the setting of the sun the wind evinced a very decided tendency to drop, growing steadily lighter all through the first watch, until when Mendouca relieved me at midnight the ship was moving at a rate of barely five knots, although she was carrying studding-sails on both sides; and when I went on deck again at four o’clock next morning it was a flat calm, and the ship was lying motionless upon the water, with her head swung round to the south-east; the swell, too, had gone down, and there was every appearance of the calm lasting for several hours at least. The appearance of the sun, as he rose, also confirmed this impression, the sky being—for a wonder in that latitude—perfectly cloudless, and of a clear, pure, soft, crystalline blue, into which the great luminary leapt in dazzling splendour, palpitating with breathless heat that promised to soon become almost unendurable. It was my custom to indulge in a saltwater bath every morning in the ship’s head, one of the men playing the hose upon me for a quarter of an hour or so, and never did that bath seem a greater luxury to me than on this particular morning, for the heat came with the sun, and I envied the fish their ability to escape it by sinking deep into the cool, blue, crystalline depths; indeed I should most probably have been tempted to imitate them as far as possible by plunging overboard and swimming twice or thrice round the ship, had I not happened to have noticed a large shark under her counter, when, to test the clearness of the water, I happened to lean over the taffrail to look at the rudder and stern-post. Even the men dawdled over the job of washing decks that morning, using a much greater quantity of water than usual, and placing themselves where there was a chance to get the hose played upon their bare feet and legs. And if it was hot on deck, what must it have been down in the crowded hold? It was Mendouca’s habit to have the gratings put on the hatchways and secured every night—when the weather would permit of the use of them instead of the solid hatches—in order to prevent anything in the shape of a rising on the part of the negroes; and all night long a thin, pungent vapour had been rising through them, telling an eloquent tale of the frightful closeness and heat of the atmosphere down there, while at frequent intervals could be heard the sound of a restless stirring on the part of the living cargo, accompanied by a long-drawn, gasping sigh, as if for breath. There was usually a good deal of carelessness and remissness manifested by the men in the removal of the gratings in the morning. I have frequently gone on deck at seven bells—when it was my eight hours in—and found them still on, although it was well understood that they were to be taken off at four bells. I was always very particular, when it was my morning watch on deck, to have the gratings removed prompt to time; on this particular morning, however, I did not wait until four bells, but took it upon myself to have the hatches thrown open as soon as there was daylight enough to enable us to see, clearly, and I am sure that the poor wretches below were grateful for even so small a measure of relief.