The Pirate Slaver

by Harry Collingwood

  This silence prevailed for fully an hour, during which no sign of life was visible on board the ship; then arose the sound of hilarious shouts and drunken laughter; there was a sudden stir and commotion about the decks; a crowd of men gathered on the poop, many of them with their hands bound behind them—as I could see with the aid of a telescope—while others had their heads swathed in blood-stained bandages; a long plank was rigged out over the taffrail; and then Mendouca appeared to be making some sort of a speech. If such was the case the speech was a very brief one; and when it terminated a short pause ensued, and I saw that a few of the prisoners—perhaps three or four, as nearly as I could make out—were being released from their bonds. Then occurred another short pause, at the expiration of which a man was led forward, blindfolded, and guided to the inner extremity of the plank, along which I could see that they were urging him to walk. He advanced a few paces, paused, as though he had been addressed, and I distinctly saw him shake his head. As though this movement of the head were a prearranged signal, the inner end of the plank suddenly tilted up, and the unfortunate man, with a staggering movement as though to save himself fell with a resounding splash into the sea, where for a few seconds he seemed to struggle desperately. Not for long, however; the sharks that had been haunting us for so many days heard the splash, and after a few restless movements, as though unwilling to leave us, darted off toward the ship. I saw the horrid triangular fins cleaving the surface of the glassy water, each leaving its own delicate wedge-shaped wake spreading astern as it went, until the small ripples of the different wakes met and crossed each other; then, as the distance between them and their prey lessened, there was a sudden increase of speed which soon became a rush, the black fins merged toward each other, the water swirled round the drowning man, there was a single ear-piercing shriek of agony, and the poor wretch had disappeared.

  This dreadful spectacle appeared to have had its desired effect, for I saw that several more of the prisoners were now being released from their bonds, the released men, one and all, slinking down off the poop and away forward toward the forecastle. There were others, however—fifteen in all, for I counted them—whose courage was not to be shaken even by this awful ordeal, and one after the other they boldly trod the fatal plank, and went to meet their dreadful doom! All honour to them, say I, for the lofty courage that enabled them to choose death rather than an ignoble and crime-stained life.

  Then there was another long pause, during which, as I afterwards learned, the Francesca’s crew were rummaging the ship—a homeward-bound Indiaman, named the Bangalore—and loading her decks with booty of every imaginable description, preparatory to its transfer to the brigantine. Mendouca, I must mention, had already compelled the Bangalore’s surgeon to dress his wound for him; and now, having given his orders to one of the men whom he considered the most reliable and trustworthy of his crew, he returned to the Francesca, and, with the aid of his son Pedro, was got into his bunk, where I could hear him from time to time grinding his teeth in agony, although, such was the spirit of the man, not a groan would he permit to escape him.

  The sun had set, and the velvet dusk of the tropics was closing down upon the scene, when at length the Bangalore’s boats were hoisted out, and the work of transhipping the booty began. Mendouca must have felt himself a second Kidd, for the ship was almost as rich a prize as one of the old Acapulco galleons; there were bales of rich silks and shawls, spices, caskets of gems, ingots of gold, exquisite embroidered muslins, and I know not what beside—goods of a value sufficient, it seemed to me, to make every rascal on the books of the Francesca rich for the remainder of his life, although they were of course unable to take more than a comparatively small quantity of the Bangalore’s entire cargo. Nevertheless, they contrived to find room for a goodly proportion of the most costly and valuable contents of the vessel’s hold, the transfer of which, and of as much food and water as they deemed necessary to their requirements, occupied the crew until midnight; for in Mendouca’s absence, as may be supposed, they did not trouble to exert themselves overmuch. Moreover, a large proportion of them were in such a state of intoxication they scarcely knew what they were doing—my especial bête-noir the boatswain among the number, he having seized an early opportunity to board the ship after Mendouca had been safely bestowed in his own cabin. I did not know this until told so by Simpson, the English man whom I have already mentioned as having been left on board the Francesca that afternoon with the boatswain and myself, who added to his information—

  “Better keep your weather-eye liftin’, Mr Dugdale, sir; that José’s full of spite as an egg’s full of meat; he have never forgiven you for knockin’ him down, and have swore over and over again to put his knife into you. And now that he’s full of drink, and the skipper’s on his beam-ends, he’s just as likely as not to try it.”

  “Yes, I suppose he is. Thank you for the warning, Simpson,” said I. The man put his finger to his forehead in acknowledgment of my thanks, but continued to linger near me; and presently it dawned upon me that he had something further to say. So I turned to him and inquired—

  “Is there anything particular that you wish to say to me, Simpson?”

  “Well, yes, sir, there is, if I only knowed how to say it,” answered the man, in a low, cautious tone of voice and with a somewhat hesitating manner. He paused for a second or two, as though in consideration, and then, looking me full in the face, said—

  “I hopes you’ll excuse me askin’ of you the question, Mr Dugdale, but might you be a-thinkin’ of gettin’ away out o’ this here brigantine, supposin’ that you sees a good chance for to do so? I ain’t askin’ out of any impertinence or curiosity, sir, I beg you to believe; but my meanin’ is this here, if so be as it happens that you was thinkin’ of any such thing, I was wonderin’ whether we mightn’t be able to go together, and be of sarvice to one another in a manner of speakin’.”

  “Oh,” said I, “that is your idea, is it? Are you not satisfied with your present berth then, Simpson?”

  “No, sir, I’m not, to tell the truth of it,” answered the man. “I know that it’s rather a risky thing to say aboard of this here wessel; but the truth is that I ain’t satisfied at all, and haven’t been for a long while; not since Mr Arrowsmith—or Señor Mendouca, as he now calls hisself—took up to the piratin’ business. So long as it was just a matter of runnin’ a cargo of slaves across the Atlantic, I didn’t mind so much, for there was plenty of dollars goin’, and I didn’t see that there was much harm in it, for I don’t suppose the poor beggars is any worse off on the sugar and ’baccy plantations than they are in their own country. But when it comes to work like what’s been done to-day, I wants to be out of it; and I don’t mind sayin’ so to you straight out, Mr Dugdale, because you’re a naval hofficer, you are, sir, and of course as such you’re bound to be dead against such things as has happened since you’ve been aboard here. Besides, I’ve been a-watchin’ of you, sir—askin’ your pardon for the same, Mr Dugdale—and I’ve seen that this ship and her doin’s ain’t no more to your taste than they are to mine.”

  “You are right, Simpson, they are not,” said I; “and since you have been so frank with me, I will be equally so with you. You have rightly guessed that I would gladly make my escape from this accursed brigantine, if I could; and I had quite made up my mind that if, as I fully expected, Captain Mendouca had run alongside that ship this afternoon, I would board with the rest, and then join the British crew in their defence of their own ship.”

  “It’s perhaps just as well then for you, sir, and for me too, that matters was arranged different,” answered Simpson; “because, if the thing had come off as you planned it, I don’t suppose that your joinin’ of the other side would have made that much difference that they’d have beat off the skipper and his lot; and if they hadn’t, and you’d fallen alive into the hands of the skipper, he’d have—well, I don’t know what he wouldn’t have done to you; but I’m mortal sure that you wouldn’t have been ali
ve now. But perhaps, sir, you’ve been thinkin’, as I have, that even now it mayn’t be too late to do somethin’.”

  “Yes,” said I, “I have. While you have been talking to me a multitude of ideas have thronged through my mind, disconnected and vague, certainly, but still capable perhaps of being worked into shape. And I do not mind admitting to you, Simpson, that your proposal to join me in any attempt that I may be disposed to make simplifies matters a great deal. The most important factor in the problem before us is: How will yonder ship be dealt with when the Francesca’s people have done with her? Will she be destroyed, or will she be left, with those unfortunate passengers—most probably with no knowledge whatever of nautical matters—to drift about at the mercy of wind and sea, to take her chance of being fallen in with, or to founder in the first gale of wind that happens to come her way?”

  “No, sir, no,” answered Simpson. “You may take your oath that Captain Mendouca won’t run the risk of leavin’ her afloat to be picked up and took into port, where her passengers could tell what tales they liked about him and his doin’s. She’ll be scuttled, sir, and left to go down with all them passengers in her, the same as that unfortunit’ Portugee brig was that we took the slaves out of. But I’ve been thinkin’, sir, that, even so, two sailor-men, like you and me, might do a good deal, with the help of the gentlemen passengers, to put together some sort of a raft that would hold all hands of us and keep us above water until somethin’ comes along and picks us up. Of course I knows quite well that it’ll be a mighty poor look-out for the strongest of us, and a dreadful bad time for the poor women-folk, to be obliged to take to a raft; but I expect they’d rather do that and take their chance of bein’ picked up than go down with the ship; and if you’re willin’ to face the job, I am too, sir, and there’s my hand on it.”

  I took the fellow’s proffered hand and grasped it warmly.

  “You are a good fellow, Simpson, and a true British seaman, whatever your past may have been,” said I, “and I accept your proposal, which I can see is made in perfect good faith. Now, it seems to me that all that we have to do, in the first place, is to get on board yonder ship. The question is: How is it to be done without the knowledge of any of the Francesca’s people?”

  “Well, sir,” said Simpson, “I don’t think as there’ll be any great difficulty about that, so far as I’m concerned; and I don’t think there need be much with you neither, if you wouldn’t mind changing your rig and shiftin’ into some togs of mine, so as these chaps of the Francesca, won’t recognise you. Then, when the next boat comes from the ship, we’ll tumble down into her and offer to give two of the others a spell; they’ll be only too glad of the chance to get a little relief from the job of pullin’ backwards and for’ards and the handlin’ of a lot of stuff, and, once aboard the ship, we can stow ourselves out of sight until they leave her for good and all.”

  “Very well,” said I, “that seems as good a plan as any, and we will try it. Let me have some of your old clothes, Simpson—a flannel shirt and a pair of canvas trousers will do—and I will shift into them at once. And there is another thing that occurs to me. If we could manage to secure a little further help it would be so much the better. Now, if I am not mistaken, a good many of the crew of yonder ship joined the Francesca this afternoon as the only means of saving their lives. We must get hold of a few of them, if we can, and, by means of a few judicious questions, find out whether they would be willing to throw in their lot with us and take their chance of ultimate escape, rather than become slavers and pirates. With only half-a-dozen stout, willing seamen a great deal might be done to better the state of affairs generally.”

  “You are right, sir, it would make a lot of difference, and I’ll see what can be done,” answered Simpson. “And now, sir, shall I go and get you the togs? I s’pose that whatever we do might as well be done at once?”

  “Certainly,” said I, “the sooner the better. I can see no object in delaying our movements, now that we have determined upon a definite plan.”

  “All right, sir, then here goes,” answered Simpson. “I’ll be back with the duds in a jiffey.”

  Simpson’s “jiffey” proved to be a pretty long one, for it was fully twenty minutes before he returned with the clothes—a thin flannel shirt that had seen its best days, and was so faded from its original colour and so thoroughly stained with tar and grease that it was difficult to say what that original colour had been, but was therefore so much the better suited to the purpose of a disguise—a pair of equally faded dungaree trousers, and a knitted worsted cap. But his delay had not been profitless, for happening to find in the forecastle two of the crew of the Bangalore, who had been compelled to join the Francesca, and who, from their dejected appearance, he conjectured were not altogether pleased or satisfied with the arrangement, he entered into conversation with them, and soon contrived to elicit from them that his conjecture was well founded. Thereupon, as there was no time to lose, he took the bold course of asking them outright whether, in the event of there being a scheme afoot on the part of others to escape from the brigantine to the ship, they would be disposed to join in it, to which they replied that they would gladly, and that indeed they had been discussing the possibilities of such an attempt when he interrupted them by his descent into the forecastle. This was enough for Simpson, who at once brought them aft to me, and I, finding them fully in earnest in their expressed desire to have nothing to do with the pirates, forthwith unfolded my plans to them, carefully directing their attention to the somewhat desperate aspect of the adventure, but at the same time pointing out to them that every additional seaman whose help we could secure added very materially to the chances of a successful issue. What I said seemed only to render them the more determined to sever their brief connection with the pirates at any cost, and they unhesitatingly declared their readiness to join me, and to implicitly obey my orders. More than this, they informed me that there were others of the Bangalore crew who, they were sure, would be equally ready with themselves, if permitted, to take part in the adventure, and they consented to hunt up as many of these men as possible at once, and to have them ready to meet me on the forecastle to discuss the matter in a quarter of an hour.

  My scheme, which, prior to my conversation with Simpson, had been of the most vague and nebulous character, had now taken shape and wore so promising an appearance that I felt sanguine of its ultimate success; so without further ado I retired right aft to the wheel grating—that part of the brigantine being now quite deserted, and wrapped in total darkness save for the dim and diffused light that issued from the cabin skylight—and there, unseen, shifted into the clothes that Simpson had brought me. They were not particularly comfortable nor quite so well-savoured as I could have wished; but it was no time for ultra-squeamishness, and I was soon transformed into a very colourable imitation of a fo’c’s’le hand. This done, I went forward, past the open hatchway down which the plunder from the Bangalore was being struck, noticing with bitter distress and anger the forlorn, dejected, worn-out, and despairing attitudes of the unfortunate blacks closely huddled together on the slave-deck, their forms faintly indicated in the yellow, smoky light of the lanterns which the men were working by, and noticing too, with keen satisfaction, that most of the crew had reached that stage of intoxication wherein the victim’s whole attention is required for the conduct of his own affairs, with none to spare for those of others. Many had gone considerably beyond this stage, and were staggering about, pulling and hauling aimlessly at the first object that they could lay their hands upon, and proving far more of a hindrance than a help to their less intoxicated comrades; while there were some who had reached the final stage of bestiality, and were lying about the decks in a helpless condition of drunken stupor. Nothing more favourable for our scheme than this condition of general intoxication could possibly have happened, unless it were that Pedro was below, fully occupied in attending to his father, and was therefore the less likely to discover my absence from the brigantine
until it should be too late to take any steps toward the investigation of the phenomenon; I therefore hurried to the rendezvous with a sudden feeling of elation and joyousness and confidence in the conviction that the time of release from my exceedingly uncongenial and disagreeable, if not absolutely hopeless, situation had at length arrived.