Chapter Nine.

Chapter Nine.We leave the Fernan Vaz.Of course nothing of this was perceptible from my look-out in the crow’s-nest; the only thing of a suggestive character that came to my notice was that when, looking through my telescope, I saw the ship hove in stays, I observed that the operation of swinging the after yards seemed to be only partially performed, while the head sails remained aback for an unconscionable length of time, from which I concluded that at that precise moment events were happening on board her. When, some five minutes later, I saw her yards trimmed, and presently observed her come about again and bear away for the lagoon, instead of holding her luff down the river, I was able to make a pretty accurate guess as to what had happened. I remained aloft, however, until she slid through the narrow channel leading from the river into the lagoon, when I saw that she had all our boats towing astern of her in a string; whereupon I descended, for I knew that to betoken the fact that she was now in the possession of our people.She came along very fast, and as she drew nearer I saw that she was an exceedingly handsome vessel, by far the most handsome, indeed, that I had ever seen. She was frigate-built, seven hundred and forty tons measurement, her three masts accurately parallel, raking slightly aft, and stayed to a hair, while her snow-white canvas was more beautifully cut than that of many a yacht. She was painted black all over—hull, masts, and yards; and her royal yards hoisted close up under the trucks, like those of a man-o’-war. If she was anything like as good as she looked we had secured a prize that was indeed worth having.The skipper had instructed me that he might possibly bring the prize directly alongside the wharf, and that I was to make all the necessary preparations to assist in the operation. I accordingly turned out my contingent and mustered them on the wharf, at the next berth ahead of that occupied byLa Belle Estelle, with an ample supply of hawsers and heaving-lines at the bollards; and by the time that I was quite ready the ship was in sight, luffing round the point and hauling up for the anchorage. But instead of making a board across to the mainland, as all the others had done, the skipper kept his helm down until she was all a-shiver, when everything was let go at the same instant, the square canvas shrivelled up to the yards, the fore and aft canvas was brailed in, or hauled down, and then, as a strong party of men sprang aloft and laid out upon the yards, the beautiful craft came sliding along, with the way which she still had on her, straight for the wharf. The skipper had calculated his distance to a nicety, for her momentum was sufficient to bring her handsomely up to her berth, but not enough to impose any undue strain upon the hawsers in checking her and bringing her alongside; this part of the work being done by my gang, while the men who had captured her were still aloft busily furling the canvas.As soon as she was securely moored and a gangway plank rigged, I went aboard and had a good look at our latest acquisition. There could be no doubt as to the fact that she was a slaver; for her slave-decks were already fitted, and she carried all the requisites, including meal and water, for the transport of a very large cargo of slaves. She was, in fact, the largest slaver I ever saw, and had accommodation to—I had almost saidcomfortably—carry at least eight hundred slaves. She was Spanish; named theDoña Josefa; hailed from Havana; was oak-built, coppered, and copper-fastened; was a brand-new ship, worth half a dozenPsyches; and her cabin accommodation aft was the most spacious and elegantly fitted that I had ever seen. She was armed with eighteen twenty-four pounders, and carried a crew of ninety-eight, all told. She was, in short, a most formidable ship; and, but for the fact of our having taken her by surprise as we did, she might have bade defiance to the slave squadron for years, and paid for herself twenty times over.Naturally, the skipper was in high feather at so brilliant a series of successes as we had met with, for he had not been altogether without his anxious moments as to what might be the result of the inevitable court-martial that awaited us all for the loss of thePsyche; but he flattered himself that the authorities could not possibly be hard upon officers who brought in four such rich prizes as ours.And now there began to be general talk about leaving the river and reporting ourselves at Sierra Leone; for not only had we ships in plenty to accommodate all hands, but those among us who were most experienced felt that, after having made such a clean sweep as we had, it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any more chances to capture either slaves or ships in the Fernan Vaz for some time to come. Still, it would not be possible for us to go quite at once; for even now there remained several matters to be attended to, the most important being the disposal of the blacks whom we had captured from the slave-traders. Although these had come a long distance down from the interior, there was no doubt that they would be able to find their way back to their homes; whereas, if we carried them to Sierra Leone, the chances were that they would never see either home or relatives again. Therefore although, strictly speaking, it was our duty to take them to Sierra Leone with us, the skipper decided to strain a point, if necessary, and give the poor wretches the opportunity to decide for themselves which alternative should be adopted. Accordingly, the question was put to them, through Cupid, with the result that they decided, unanimously, to return by the way that they came rather than trust themselves to the tender mercies of the sea, which none of them had seen, and few had heard of, before. But they begged a few days longer in which to rest and recuperate before they were despatched on their long journey; and this the skipper cheerfully accorded them, although he was now all anxiety to get away.After the negroes had been given a full week in which to recover their health and strength, they were mustered early on a certain morning, given a good breakfast, allowed to load themselves up with as much meal as they chose to take, furnished with a few boarding-pikes and cutlasses from the prizes wherewith to defend themselves on the way, and transported across the harbour and fairly started upon their journey. Then, having already completed our own preparations for departure, our prisoners were apportioned out among the four prizes, put down in the holds on top of the ballast and made perfectly secure, and the officers and men then proceeded to take up their quarters on board the vessels to which they had severally been appointed by the skipper.The captain himself naturally took command of theJosefa, with Mr Purchase as his first lieutenant; Mr Hoskins was given the command of theDon Miguel, with Copplestone and Parkinson from our old midshipman’s berth to bear him company and keep him from becoming too completely satisfied with life; Mr Marline, the master, was placed in charge ofLa Belle Estelle, with the boatswain’s mate to assist him; and, lastly, the skipper was good enough to show his confidence in me by giving me the brigantine to navigate to Sierra Leone—our common destination—with the gunner’s mate and Jack Keene as my deck officers.As there was not very much room in the anchorage for manoeuvring, we got under way in succession, theJosefataking the lead, followed byDon Miguel, after which wentLa Belle Estelle, whileEl Caiman, with her canvas set, strained at the cable which secured her to the buoy, as though she were afraid of being left behind.ButIhad a duty to perform before I cast off from the buoy at which the brigantine was straining; therefore, while the other vessels got under way, I and my boat’s crew stood on the wharf and quietly watched them go. Then, as soon as the brig was fairly clear of the anchorage, I went, with two of my boat’s crew, to the leewardmost building of the settlement and set light to a little pile of combustibles that had been carefully arranged in each room, finally thrusting a blazing torch into the thatch upon quitting the building. And in the same way we proceeded to each building in turn, until the entire settlement, barracoons and all, was a roaring furnace of flame. Then, bidding my crew get down into the boat and stand by to shove off in a hurry, I proceeded to a certain spot and set fire to an end of slow match that was protruding from a box sunk into the ground near the wharf face, after which I picked up my heels and scampered off, best leg foremost, for the boat, into which I sprang, without much consideration for my dignity, and gave the word to shove off. The boat’s crew, who were fully aware of my reasons for haste, lost no time in obeying the order, and the next instant we were foaming away toward the brigantine, from the deck of which the hoarse voice of Tasker, the gunner’s mate, now reached us, bawling an order for those for’ard to “stand by to slip!” But before we were half-way across the intervening stretch of water a dull “boom” resounded astern of us, and a length of some fifty feet of wharf face suddenly leapt outward and fell with a heavy splash into the water, followed, about half a minute later, by a second “boom” and splash, then a third, fourth, fifth, and so on, until the entire wharf was completely destroyed and the whole place a ghastly, fire-swept ruin. Then we, too, turned our backs upon what, a short time before, had been one of the most extensive, important, and conveniently situated slave factories on the whole of the West Coast, and made sail to rejoin our companions. We overtook them about half a mile outside the bar; and when I had signalled the commodore that my mission of destruction was fulfilled, he hoisted a general signal setting a course of north-west by west for Cape Palmas; and, when this had been acknowledged, hoisted another to “try rate of sailing.” This, of course, was the same thing as giving the word for a race, and, the weather being moderate at the time, we each at once proceeded to pile upon our respective commands every rag of canvas that we could find a yard, boom, or stay for.The race proved an exceedingly interesting and exciting event, for all the vessels were fast. The wind being off the land, the water was smooth for the first three or four hours of the race; and during that time there was scarcely a pin to choose between theJosefaand the brigantine, first one and then the other contriving to get the lead by a length or two, while the brig and the barque also made a neck-and-neck race of it but very gradually dropped astern until, by the time that we had run the land out of sight, theJosefaand the brigantine were leading by nearly a mile, which lead we very gradually increased. By this time, however, the breeze had freshened up considerably, and the sea had got up, whereupon theJosefadisplayed so marked a superiority that she had to take in all three royals and her mizzen topgallantsail to avoid running away from the rest of us. But, contrary to my expectations,El Caiman, which was an exceedingly beamy, shallow vessel, behaved so well under the new conditions that we also could spare the barque and brig our royal and still keep ahead of them.The weather remained fine, and we made a very quick and pleasant passage to Sierra Leone, where our arrival under such unusual conditions, and the report of our doings and adventures, created quite a sensation. Also we happened to arrive at a most opportune moment; for there were three British men-o’-war in harbour at the time, and we were, therefore, able to undergo at once, and on the spot, our trial by court-martial for the loss of thePsyche, instead of being obliged to return to England for the ordeal.The trial took place on the fourth day after our arrival; and, as a matter of course, those of us who had been away in the boats at the time of the wreck were acquitted and exonerated from all blame. But poor Purchase, who had been left in charge of the ship, was not so fortunate, the Court finding that, in the first place, he had been negligent in that he had not maintained a sufficiently careful look-out to preserve the ship from being maliciously cut adrift; and that, in the second place, he had let go the two stream anchors prematurely and before the actual necessity for such a precaution arose, but for which act he would have had the stream anchors available to let go when he discovered that the ship was adrift, and might thus have checked her shoreward drift long enough to permit of other measures being taken for the safety of the ship, even if the streams had not brought her up altogether. For these acts of negligence the prisoner was sentenced to be reprimanded, to lose two years’ seniority, and to be dismissed his ship! Fortunately for Purchase, the sentence was not quite so severe as it sounded, for theOsprey—one of the men-o’-war in harbour—happened to have a vacancy for a lieutenant, and the Commodore, after hearing Purchase’s story of the disaster from his own lips, unhesitatingly gave him the appointment.The fact of the three ships being in port also suggested to me the possibility of getting through my examination, forthwith; I therefore ventured to speak to Captain Perry about it, who very kindly explained my desire to the Commodore. The Commodore, in turn, caused a few inquiries to be made, when it was ascertained that, among the three ships, there were sufficient midshipmen desirous of passing to justify the arrangement of an examination; and within the next fortnight I had the satisfaction of finding myself a full-blown lieutenant.Meanwhile, the Mixed Commission had condemned all four of our prizes—as indeed they could not avoid doing—and the crews were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment with hard labour in chains upon the roads. Then there arose the question of replacing thePsycheon the station; and at the earnest representation of Captain Perry the Commodore was induced to take upon himself the responsibility of purchasing theJosefainto the service, rechristening her theEros, and commissioning her under the command of Captain Perry, who at once arranged for the whole of the officers and crew of thePsycheto accompany him.Then, arising out of the loss of thePsyche, another matter was brought to the fore which was destined to exercise a very important influence upon my fortunes. This matter had reference to the dearth of shallow-draught vessels in the slave squadron vessels capable of following the slavers in over the bars of the African rivers and fighting them upon equal terms. At the moment in question we had not a ship in the squadron drawing less than fourteen feet of water; consequently, when a slaver entered a shallow river, or a river with a shallow bar, such a course of procedure as that which had led up to the loss of thePsychewas imperative; and it was very strongly felt that the time had arrived for an improvement in the conditions. The result was thatEl Caimanalso was purchased into the service, rechristened theDolphin, and placed under my command with a crew of sixty, all told; of whom, however, Jack Keene, midshipman, and Tasker, the gunner’s mate—who in his new ship held the rank of gunner—were the only individuals with whom I had already been shipmate; the rest were a motley crowd indeed, collected out of the gutters and slums of Freetown. TheDolphin, it was arranged, was to act in the first instance as tender to theEros; but, later, might perhaps be detached for certain special work which was just then beginning to attract the attention of the authorities.There was, however, still another matter that was at that moment forcing itself upon the attention of the Commodore; and that was the doings of two craft which were pursuing the nefarious business of slavers, with a measure of audacity that was only equalled by the impunity with which they worked. They were said to be sister ships, undoubtedly built from the same model, most probably launched from the same stocks, and made to resemble each other so absolutely in every respect, down to the most insignificant detail, that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other, excepting at close quarters. But one was an American—named theVirginia, hailing from New Orleans, and manned by a Yankee crew—while the other—thePreciosa—sailed under the Spanish flag, and was manned by Spaniards. They were phenomenally fast vessels, and simply laughed at the efforts of ships of the squadron to overtake them; but they had been caught in calms on three or four occasions, and boarded by means of boats; when, by a curious freak of fortune, if the boarding party happened to be British, it always proved to be the American that they had boarded; while, if the boarders happened to be American, it was the Spaniard that they found themselves meddling with. Thus, as there was no treaty existing between Spain and the United States of America on the one hand, and England and the United States on the other, conferring mutual rights of search and capture, the vessels had thus far escaped. But now, with two such speedy craft as theErosand theDolphin, it was confidently hoped that the Spaniard at least would soon be brought to book; when, there being no possibility of further confusion, it was believed that the Americans—who, in consequence of repeated disappointments, had manifested a disposition to leave both craft severely alone—might be induced to renew their interest and speedily capture theVirginia.As soon as Captain Perry learned that his special mission was to put a stop to the operations of these notorious vessels, he made it his business to institute exhaustive inquiries in every direction, with the object of acquiring the fullest possible information relative to their movements. Although he had been unable to learn anything very definite he had finally come to the conclusion that at least one of them—which one he could not be certain—was now well on her way to the other side of the Atlantic; so he reasoned that if we proceeded with all despatch to the West Indies, and maintained a careful watch upon the mouth of the Old Bahama Channel, we should be almost certain to fall in with one or the other of them upon her next eastward trip.Accordingly, on a certain day, theErosand theDolphinsailed in company from Sierra Leone, and, having made a good offing, caught the trade-wind, blowing fresh, to which we in theDolphinshowed every rag of canvas we could set, while theEroskept us company by furling her royals and letting run the topgallant halliards from time to time when she manifested a disposition to creep away from us. We did the run across in the quickest time on record, up to that date, making the Sombrero in a fortnight, almost to the hour, from the moment of leaving Sierra Leone, without starting tack, sheet, or halliard—so far as theDolphinwas concerned—during the entire passage.But now, with the Sombrero in sight and Anegada only about one hundred miles ahead, we felt that we were practically on our cruising ground; theErostherefore shortened sail to her three topsails and jib and signalling to theDolphinto do the like in proportion and to close, requested me to proceed on board for fresh orders. I was glad enough to obey these instructions, particularly the one relative to shortening sail, for the past fortnight of “carrying on” had been a distinctly anxious time for me; moreover it was a pleasant change to find myself on the comparatively spacious deck of theEros, and once more surrounded by the familiar faces of my former shipmates. There was scant time, however, for the interchange of greetings, for Captain Perry was in a perfect fever of anxiety to complete his arrangements, and I was no sooner through the gangway than he hustled me off to his handsome and delightfully cool cabin under the poop, where, over a large-scale chart of the West Indies, he explained to me in much detail the course of action that he had planned for the two craft. This, in brief, consisted in the adoption of measures which enabled us, while remaining within signalling distance of each other all day, to keep an effective watch upon a stretch of sea some forty miles wide—over which we felt certain the vessel of which we were in search must sooner or later pass—while at sunset we were to close and remain in touch all night. This, of course, was an excellent plan so far as it went, but it was open to the objection that the craft for which we were on the look-out might slip past us unobserved during the night. That, however, was something that could not be helped; moreover, there was a moon coming which would help us, and according to Captain Perry’s calculations one or the other of the two craft was almost certain to turn up ere that waxing moon had materially waned.And turn up she did, shortly after midnight on the fifth night following our arrival upon our cruising ground. The moon was by that time approaching her second quarter, was well above the horizon by sunset, and was affording enough light to enable us to distinguish the rig and chief characteristics of a vessel eight miles away. To my very great gratification it was the look-out aboard theDolphinwho first sighted her, she being at that time hull-down in the south-western quarter and reaching athwart our hawse on the starboard tack; thus as theErosand ourselves were hove-to, also on the starboard tack, she rapidly neared us. At first the only thing that we could clearly distinguish was that she was a full-rigged ship—as were theVirginiaand thePreciosa—but, even so, there were certain details connected with her rig which, while not being exactly peculiar, corresponded with similar details referred to in the description of the two notorious slavers, as ascertained by Captain Perry; I therefore made a lantern signal to theEros—under the shelter of our mainsail, so that the stranger to leeward might not see our lights and take the alarm—calling attention to the fact that there was a suspicious sail in sight to the south-west; and this signal was simply acknowledged without comment. But I saw that almost immediately afterwards theErosswung her main-yard, boarded her fore and main tacks, and hauled to the wind with the object, of course, of preventing the strange sail from working out to windward of us; and a few minutes later I got a signal from the commodore instructing me to remain hove-to for the present, and, later, to act as circumstances might require.The stranger was under all plain sail, to topgallantsails, and was slipping through the water like a witch; but I had very little fear of her outsailing theEros, for, fast as that ship had been when she first fell into our hands, the skipper had improved her speed on a wind nearly a knot, merely by a careful readjustment of the ballast; and now she fully justified my faith in her by handsomely holding her own, and perhaps rather more, but this I could scarcely judge, for since we remained hove-to, the others rapidly drew away from us.I waited with what patience I could muster until the stranger had worked out to a position some five miles ahead of us, and two points on our lee bow, and then I determined to wait no longer, for I felt that if, perchance, anything were to happen aboard theEros- if, for example, she were to carry away or even spring a spar—and the trade-wind was piping up strongly—our unknown friend might very easily give us the slip; I therefore gave orders to swing the foreyard and make sail, piling on the brigantine everything we could show, even to the royal and flying-jib. And it was well that we did so, for half an hour later, strangely enough, my fears with regard to theEroswere realised, an extra heavy puff of wind snapping our consort’s fore-topgallant-mast short off at the cap, and causing her to luff sharply into the wind with her big flying-jib dragging in the water under her forefoot.That the stranger was not anxious to make our closer acquaintance at once became apparent, for no sooner did her people perceive the accident that had befallen theEros—which was within a minute of its occurrence—than they put down their helm, tacked, and endeavoured to slip away out to windward clear of us both. TheDolphin, however, was doing exceptionally well just then, the combination of wind and sea seemed to exactly suit her, and I felt that, although I had perhaps unduly delayed taking action, we could more than hold our own with the stranger provided that it blew no harder—and I therefore held on grimly, presently receiving a signal from theErosto take up the chase, which she would resume as soon as she had repaired damages.Shortly afterward the stranger reached out across the bows of theEros, beyond cannon-shot, and although the skipper fired two blank charges and a shotted gun to bring her to she took no notice, a fact which made me more determined than ever, if possible, to get within speaking distance of her.TheEros, meanwhile, having cleared away her wreckage, had stowed her mizen topgallantsail, brailed up her spanker, and filled away again; and when we passed her, some three-quarters of an hour later, and about a mile to windward, they had already sent down the stump of her topgallant-mast and had prepared the topgallant rigging for the reception of the new spar.The moment that we arrived in the wake of the stranger we tacked and stood directly after her; and we had not been on the new tack more than ten minutes when I found, to my great gratification, that theDolphin, despite the exceeding shallowness of her hull, was quite as weatherly a vessel as the chase, which was now nearly four miles ahead of us. But it was not until we had been in direct pursuit of her for a full hour that I was able to assure myself that we were undoubtedly gaining on her.Yes, we were gaining on her, but it wassoslowly that it was not until sunrise next morning that we were within gun-shot of her; and now, in response to our first shot, she let fly her royal and topgallant halliards, flowed her jib-sheet, and backed her main-yard to allow us to come up with her.As, still carrying on, we rapidly approached the handsome craft, I was busily engaged, with the aid of my glass, in discovering, one after the other, the various points of resemblance between her and the vessels that had been described to us, and I could have kicked myself with vexation when, in answer to the hoisting of our ensign, we saw the Stars and Stripes of the United States flutter out over her taffrail and go soaring aloft to her gaff-end. And almost at the same instant, she now being out of the dazzle of the sun, I was able to read, legibly inscribed on her stern, the words “Virginia. New Orleans!” With the usual perverse luck that had attended the efforts of the British, we had dropped upon the wrong ship of the pair; theVirginiawas American, and we had no power to interfere with her. Nevertheless, having gone so far in the matter as to bring her to, I was determined to board her and get a sight of her papers; a Spanish vessel might hoist American colours if she happened to find herself in a tight corner and believed that she might thereby escape. While, as for the name—ah! that certainly was a difficulty not to be easily got over; a ship could scarcely change the name painted on her stern as easily as a chameleon changes his colour, without affording some indication that the change had been made. Still, the slavers were up to all sorts of extraordinary dodges, and—well, I would at least inspect theVirginia’spapers, and satisfy myself that they were in order.

Of course nothing of this was perceptible from my look-out in the crow’s-nest; the only thing of a suggestive character that came to my notice was that when, looking through my telescope, I saw the ship hove in stays, I observed that the operation of swinging the after yards seemed to be only partially performed, while the head sails remained aback for an unconscionable length of time, from which I concluded that at that precise moment events were happening on board her. When, some five minutes later, I saw her yards trimmed, and presently observed her come about again and bear away for the lagoon, instead of holding her luff down the river, I was able to make a pretty accurate guess as to what had happened. I remained aloft, however, until she slid through the narrow channel leading from the river into the lagoon, when I saw that she had all our boats towing astern of her in a string; whereupon I descended, for I knew that to betoken the fact that she was now in the possession of our people.

She came along very fast, and as she drew nearer I saw that she was an exceedingly handsome vessel, by far the most handsome, indeed, that I had ever seen. She was frigate-built, seven hundred and forty tons measurement, her three masts accurately parallel, raking slightly aft, and stayed to a hair, while her snow-white canvas was more beautifully cut than that of many a yacht. She was painted black all over—hull, masts, and yards; and her royal yards hoisted close up under the trucks, like those of a man-o’-war. If she was anything like as good as she looked we had secured a prize that was indeed worth having.

The skipper had instructed me that he might possibly bring the prize directly alongside the wharf, and that I was to make all the necessary preparations to assist in the operation. I accordingly turned out my contingent and mustered them on the wharf, at the next berth ahead of that occupied byLa Belle Estelle, with an ample supply of hawsers and heaving-lines at the bollards; and by the time that I was quite ready the ship was in sight, luffing round the point and hauling up for the anchorage. But instead of making a board across to the mainland, as all the others had done, the skipper kept his helm down until she was all a-shiver, when everything was let go at the same instant, the square canvas shrivelled up to the yards, the fore and aft canvas was brailed in, or hauled down, and then, as a strong party of men sprang aloft and laid out upon the yards, the beautiful craft came sliding along, with the way which she still had on her, straight for the wharf. The skipper had calculated his distance to a nicety, for her momentum was sufficient to bring her handsomely up to her berth, but not enough to impose any undue strain upon the hawsers in checking her and bringing her alongside; this part of the work being done by my gang, while the men who had captured her were still aloft busily furling the canvas.

As soon as she was securely moored and a gangway plank rigged, I went aboard and had a good look at our latest acquisition. There could be no doubt as to the fact that she was a slaver; for her slave-decks were already fitted, and she carried all the requisites, including meal and water, for the transport of a very large cargo of slaves. She was, in fact, the largest slaver I ever saw, and had accommodation to—I had almost saidcomfortably—carry at least eight hundred slaves. She was Spanish; named theDoña Josefa; hailed from Havana; was oak-built, coppered, and copper-fastened; was a brand-new ship, worth half a dozenPsyches; and her cabin accommodation aft was the most spacious and elegantly fitted that I had ever seen. She was armed with eighteen twenty-four pounders, and carried a crew of ninety-eight, all told. She was, in short, a most formidable ship; and, but for the fact of our having taken her by surprise as we did, she might have bade defiance to the slave squadron for years, and paid for herself twenty times over.

Naturally, the skipper was in high feather at so brilliant a series of successes as we had met with, for he had not been altogether without his anxious moments as to what might be the result of the inevitable court-martial that awaited us all for the loss of thePsyche; but he flattered himself that the authorities could not possibly be hard upon officers who brought in four such rich prizes as ours.

And now there began to be general talk about leaving the river and reporting ourselves at Sierra Leone; for not only had we ships in plenty to accommodate all hands, but those among us who were most experienced felt that, after having made such a clean sweep as we had, it was exceedingly unlikely that there would be any more chances to capture either slaves or ships in the Fernan Vaz for some time to come. Still, it would not be possible for us to go quite at once; for even now there remained several matters to be attended to, the most important being the disposal of the blacks whom we had captured from the slave-traders. Although these had come a long distance down from the interior, there was no doubt that they would be able to find their way back to their homes; whereas, if we carried them to Sierra Leone, the chances were that they would never see either home or relatives again. Therefore although, strictly speaking, it was our duty to take them to Sierra Leone with us, the skipper decided to strain a point, if necessary, and give the poor wretches the opportunity to decide for themselves which alternative should be adopted. Accordingly, the question was put to them, through Cupid, with the result that they decided, unanimously, to return by the way that they came rather than trust themselves to the tender mercies of the sea, which none of them had seen, and few had heard of, before. But they begged a few days longer in which to rest and recuperate before they were despatched on their long journey; and this the skipper cheerfully accorded them, although he was now all anxiety to get away.

After the negroes had been given a full week in which to recover their health and strength, they were mustered early on a certain morning, given a good breakfast, allowed to load themselves up with as much meal as they chose to take, furnished with a few boarding-pikes and cutlasses from the prizes wherewith to defend themselves on the way, and transported across the harbour and fairly started upon their journey. Then, having already completed our own preparations for departure, our prisoners were apportioned out among the four prizes, put down in the holds on top of the ballast and made perfectly secure, and the officers and men then proceeded to take up their quarters on board the vessels to which they had severally been appointed by the skipper.

The captain himself naturally took command of theJosefa, with Mr Purchase as his first lieutenant; Mr Hoskins was given the command of theDon Miguel, with Copplestone and Parkinson from our old midshipman’s berth to bear him company and keep him from becoming too completely satisfied with life; Mr Marline, the master, was placed in charge ofLa Belle Estelle, with the boatswain’s mate to assist him; and, lastly, the skipper was good enough to show his confidence in me by giving me the brigantine to navigate to Sierra Leone—our common destination—with the gunner’s mate and Jack Keene as my deck officers.

As there was not very much room in the anchorage for manoeuvring, we got under way in succession, theJosefataking the lead, followed byDon Miguel, after which wentLa Belle Estelle, whileEl Caiman, with her canvas set, strained at the cable which secured her to the buoy, as though she were afraid of being left behind.

ButIhad a duty to perform before I cast off from the buoy at which the brigantine was straining; therefore, while the other vessels got under way, I and my boat’s crew stood on the wharf and quietly watched them go. Then, as soon as the brig was fairly clear of the anchorage, I went, with two of my boat’s crew, to the leewardmost building of the settlement and set light to a little pile of combustibles that had been carefully arranged in each room, finally thrusting a blazing torch into the thatch upon quitting the building. And in the same way we proceeded to each building in turn, until the entire settlement, barracoons and all, was a roaring furnace of flame. Then, bidding my crew get down into the boat and stand by to shove off in a hurry, I proceeded to a certain spot and set fire to an end of slow match that was protruding from a box sunk into the ground near the wharf face, after which I picked up my heels and scampered off, best leg foremost, for the boat, into which I sprang, without much consideration for my dignity, and gave the word to shove off. The boat’s crew, who were fully aware of my reasons for haste, lost no time in obeying the order, and the next instant we were foaming away toward the brigantine, from the deck of which the hoarse voice of Tasker, the gunner’s mate, now reached us, bawling an order for those for’ard to “stand by to slip!” But before we were half-way across the intervening stretch of water a dull “boom” resounded astern of us, and a length of some fifty feet of wharf face suddenly leapt outward and fell with a heavy splash into the water, followed, about half a minute later, by a second “boom” and splash, then a third, fourth, fifth, and so on, until the entire wharf was completely destroyed and the whole place a ghastly, fire-swept ruin. Then we, too, turned our backs upon what, a short time before, had been one of the most extensive, important, and conveniently situated slave factories on the whole of the West Coast, and made sail to rejoin our companions. We overtook them about half a mile outside the bar; and when I had signalled the commodore that my mission of destruction was fulfilled, he hoisted a general signal setting a course of north-west by west for Cape Palmas; and, when this had been acknowledged, hoisted another to “try rate of sailing.” This, of course, was the same thing as giving the word for a race, and, the weather being moderate at the time, we each at once proceeded to pile upon our respective commands every rag of canvas that we could find a yard, boom, or stay for.

The race proved an exceedingly interesting and exciting event, for all the vessels were fast. The wind being off the land, the water was smooth for the first three or four hours of the race; and during that time there was scarcely a pin to choose between theJosefaand the brigantine, first one and then the other contriving to get the lead by a length or two, while the brig and the barque also made a neck-and-neck race of it but very gradually dropped astern until, by the time that we had run the land out of sight, theJosefaand the brigantine were leading by nearly a mile, which lead we very gradually increased. By this time, however, the breeze had freshened up considerably, and the sea had got up, whereupon theJosefadisplayed so marked a superiority that she had to take in all three royals and her mizzen topgallantsail to avoid running away from the rest of us. But, contrary to my expectations,El Caiman, which was an exceedingly beamy, shallow vessel, behaved so well under the new conditions that we also could spare the barque and brig our royal and still keep ahead of them.

The weather remained fine, and we made a very quick and pleasant passage to Sierra Leone, where our arrival under such unusual conditions, and the report of our doings and adventures, created quite a sensation. Also we happened to arrive at a most opportune moment; for there were three British men-o’-war in harbour at the time, and we were, therefore, able to undergo at once, and on the spot, our trial by court-martial for the loss of thePsyche, instead of being obliged to return to England for the ordeal.

The trial took place on the fourth day after our arrival; and, as a matter of course, those of us who had been away in the boats at the time of the wreck were acquitted and exonerated from all blame. But poor Purchase, who had been left in charge of the ship, was not so fortunate, the Court finding that, in the first place, he had been negligent in that he had not maintained a sufficiently careful look-out to preserve the ship from being maliciously cut adrift; and that, in the second place, he had let go the two stream anchors prematurely and before the actual necessity for such a precaution arose, but for which act he would have had the stream anchors available to let go when he discovered that the ship was adrift, and might thus have checked her shoreward drift long enough to permit of other measures being taken for the safety of the ship, even if the streams had not brought her up altogether. For these acts of negligence the prisoner was sentenced to be reprimanded, to lose two years’ seniority, and to be dismissed his ship! Fortunately for Purchase, the sentence was not quite so severe as it sounded, for theOsprey—one of the men-o’-war in harbour—happened to have a vacancy for a lieutenant, and the Commodore, after hearing Purchase’s story of the disaster from his own lips, unhesitatingly gave him the appointment.

The fact of the three ships being in port also suggested to me the possibility of getting through my examination, forthwith; I therefore ventured to speak to Captain Perry about it, who very kindly explained my desire to the Commodore. The Commodore, in turn, caused a few inquiries to be made, when it was ascertained that, among the three ships, there were sufficient midshipmen desirous of passing to justify the arrangement of an examination; and within the next fortnight I had the satisfaction of finding myself a full-blown lieutenant.

Meanwhile, the Mixed Commission had condemned all four of our prizes—as indeed they could not avoid doing—and the crews were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment with hard labour in chains upon the roads. Then there arose the question of replacing thePsycheon the station; and at the earnest representation of Captain Perry the Commodore was induced to take upon himself the responsibility of purchasing theJosefainto the service, rechristening her theEros, and commissioning her under the command of Captain Perry, who at once arranged for the whole of the officers and crew of thePsycheto accompany him.

Then, arising out of the loss of thePsyche, another matter was brought to the fore which was destined to exercise a very important influence upon my fortunes. This matter had reference to the dearth of shallow-draught vessels in the slave squadron vessels capable of following the slavers in over the bars of the African rivers and fighting them upon equal terms. At the moment in question we had not a ship in the squadron drawing less than fourteen feet of water; consequently, when a slaver entered a shallow river, or a river with a shallow bar, such a course of procedure as that which had led up to the loss of thePsychewas imperative; and it was very strongly felt that the time had arrived for an improvement in the conditions. The result was thatEl Caimanalso was purchased into the service, rechristened theDolphin, and placed under my command with a crew of sixty, all told; of whom, however, Jack Keene, midshipman, and Tasker, the gunner’s mate—who in his new ship held the rank of gunner—were the only individuals with whom I had already been shipmate; the rest were a motley crowd indeed, collected out of the gutters and slums of Freetown. TheDolphin, it was arranged, was to act in the first instance as tender to theEros; but, later, might perhaps be detached for certain special work which was just then beginning to attract the attention of the authorities.

There was, however, still another matter that was at that moment forcing itself upon the attention of the Commodore; and that was the doings of two craft which were pursuing the nefarious business of slavers, with a measure of audacity that was only equalled by the impunity with which they worked. They were said to be sister ships, undoubtedly built from the same model, most probably launched from the same stocks, and made to resemble each other so absolutely in every respect, down to the most insignificant detail, that it was impossible to distinguish one from the other, excepting at close quarters. But one was an American—named theVirginia, hailing from New Orleans, and manned by a Yankee crew—while the other—thePreciosa—sailed under the Spanish flag, and was manned by Spaniards. They were phenomenally fast vessels, and simply laughed at the efforts of ships of the squadron to overtake them; but they had been caught in calms on three or four occasions, and boarded by means of boats; when, by a curious freak of fortune, if the boarding party happened to be British, it always proved to be the American that they had boarded; while, if the boarders happened to be American, it was the Spaniard that they found themselves meddling with. Thus, as there was no treaty existing between Spain and the United States of America on the one hand, and England and the United States on the other, conferring mutual rights of search and capture, the vessels had thus far escaped. But now, with two such speedy craft as theErosand theDolphin, it was confidently hoped that the Spaniard at least would soon be brought to book; when, there being no possibility of further confusion, it was believed that the Americans—who, in consequence of repeated disappointments, had manifested a disposition to leave both craft severely alone—might be induced to renew their interest and speedily capture theVirginia.

As soon as Captain Perry learned that his special mission was to put a stop to the operations of these notorious vessels, he made it his business to institute exhaustive inquiries in every direction, with the object of acquiring the fullest possible information relative to their movements. Although he had been unable to learn anything very definite he had finally come to the conclusion that at least one of them—which one he could not be certain—was now well on her way to the other side of the Atlantic; so he reasoned that if we proceeded with all despatch to the West Indies, and maintained a careful watch upon the mouth of the Old Bahama Channel, we should be almost certain to fall in with one or the other of them upon her next eastward trip.

Accordingly, on a certain day, theErosand theDolphinsailed in company from Sierra Leone, and, having made a good offing, caught the trade-wind, blowing fresh, to which we in theDolphinshowed every rag of canvas we could set, while theEroskept us company by furling her royals and letting run the topgallant halliards from time to time when she manifested a disposition to creep away from us. We did the run across in the quickest time on record, up to that date, making the Sombrero in a fortnight, almost to the hour, from the moment of leaving Sierra Leone, without starting tack, sheet, or halliard—so far as theDolphinwas concerned—during the entire passage.

But now, with the Sombrero in sight and Anegada only about one hundred miles ahead, we felt that we were practically on our cruising ground; theErostherefore shortened sail to her three topsails and jib and signalling to theDolphinto do the like in proportion and to close, requested me to proceed on board for fresh orders. I was glad enough to obey these instructions, particularly the one relative to shortening sail, for the past fortnight of “carrying on” had been a distinctly anxious time for me; moreover it was a pleasant change to find myself on the comparatively spacious deck of theEros, and once more surrounded by the familiar faces of my former shipmates. There was scant time, however, for the interchange of greetings, for Captain Perry was in a perfect fever of anxiety to complete his arrangements, and I was no sooner through the gangway than he hustled me off to his handsome and delightfully cool cabin under the poop, where, over a large-scale chart of the West Indies, he explained to me in much detail the course of action that he had planned for the two craft. This, in brief, consisted in the adoption of measures which enabled us, while remaining within signalling distance of each other all day, to keep an effective watch upon a stretch of sea some forty miles wide—over which we felt certain the vessel of which we were in search must sooner or later pass—while at sunset we were to close and remain in touch all night. This, of course, was an excellent plan so far as it went, but it was open to the objection that the craft for which we were on the look-out might slip past us unobserved during the night. That, however, was something that could not be helped; moreover, there was a moon coming which would help us, and according to Captain Perry’s calculations one or the other of the two craft was almost certain to turn up ere that waxing moon had materially waned.

And turn up she did, shortly after midnight on the fifth night following our arrival upon our cruising ground. The moon was by that time approaching her second quarter, was well above the horizon by sunset, and was affording enough light to enable us to distinguish the rig and chief characteristics of a vessel eight miles away. To my very great gratification it was the look-out aboard theDolphinwho first sighted her, she being at that time hull-down in the south-western quarter and reaching athwart our hawse on the starboard tack; thus as theErosand ourselves were hove-to, also on the starboard tack, she rapidly neared us. At first the only thing that we could clearly distinguish was that she was a full-rigged ship—as were theVirginiaand thePreciosa—but, even so, there were certain details connected with her rig which, while not being exactly peculiar, corresponded with similar details referred to in the description of the two notorious slavers, as ascertained by Captain Perry; I therefore made a lantern signal to theEros—under the shelter of our mainsail, so that the stranger to leeward might not see our lights and take the alarm—calling attention to the fact that there was a suspicious sail in sight to the south-west; and this signal was simply acknowledged without comment. But I saw that almost immediately afterwards theErosswung her main-yard, boarded her fore and main tacks, and hauled to the wind with the object, of course, of preventing the strange sail from working out to windward of us; and a few minutes later I got a signal from the commodore instructing me to remain hove-to for the present, and, later, to act as circumstances might require.

The stranger was under all plain sail, to topgallantsails, and was slipping through the water like a witch; but I had very little fear of her outsailing theEros, for, fast as that ship had been when she first fell into our hands, the skipper had improved her speed on a wind nearly a knot, merely by a careful readjustment of the ballast; and now she fully justified my faith in her by handsomely holding her own, and perhaps rather more, but this I could scarcely judge, for since we remained hove-to, the others rapidly drew away from us.

I waited with what patience I could muster until the stranger had worked out to a position some five miles ahead of us, and two points on our lee bow, and then I determined to wait no longer, for I felt that if, perchance, anything were to happen aboard theEros- if, for example, she were to carry away or even spring a spar—and the trade-wind was piping up strongly—our unknown friend might very easily give us the slip; I therefore gave orders to swing the foreyard and make sail, piling on the brigantine everything we could show, even to the royal and flying-jib. And it was well that we did so, for half an hour later, strangely enough, my fears with regard to theEroswere realised, an extra heavy puff of wind snapping our consort’s fore-topgallant-mast short off at the cap, and causing her to luff sharply into the wind with her big flying-jib dragging in the water under her forefoot.

That the stranger was not anxious to make our closer acquaintance at once became apparent, for no sooner did her people perceive the accident that had befallen theEros—which was within a minute of its occurrence—than they put down their helm, tacked, and endeavoured to slip away out to windward clear of us both. TheDolphin, however, was doing exceptionally well just then, the combination of wind and sea seemed to exactly suit her, and I felt that, although I had perhaps unduly delayed taking action, we could more than hold our own with the stranger provided that it blew no harder—and I therefore held on grimly, presently receiving a signal from theErosto take up the chase, which she would resume as soon as she had repaired damages.

Shortly afterward the stranger reached out across the bows of theEros, beyond cannon-shot, and although the skipper fired two blank charges and a shotted gun to bring her to she took no notice, a fact which made me more determined than ever, if possible, to get within speaking distance of her.

TheEros, meanwhile, having cleared away her wreckage, had stowed her mizen topgallantsail, brailed up her spanker, and filled away again; and when we passed her, some three-quarters of an hour later, and about a mile to windward, they had already sent down the stump of her topgallant-mast and had prepared the topgallant rigging for the reception of the new spar.

The moment that we arrived in the wake of the stranger we tacked and stood directly after her; and we had not been on the new tack more than ten minutes when I found, to my great gratification, that theDolphin, despite the exceeding shallowness of her hull, was quite as weatherly a vessel as the chase, which was now nearly four miles ahead of us. But it was not until we had been in direct pursuit of her for a full hour that I was able to assure myself that we were undoubtedly gaining on her.

Yes, we were gaining on her, but it wassoslowly that it was not until sunrise next morning that we were within gun-shot of her; and now, in response to our first shot, she let fly her royal and topgallant halliards, flowed her jib-sheet, and backed her main-yard to allow us to come up with her.

As, still carrying on, we rapidly approached the handsome craft, I was busily engaged, with the aid of my glass, in discovering, one after the other, the various points of resemblance between her and the vessels that had been described to us, and I could have kicked myself with vexation when, in answer to the hoisting of our ensign, we saw the Stars and Stripes of the United States flutter out over her taffrail and go soaring aloft to her gaff-end. And almost at the same instant, she now being out of the dazzle of the sun, I was able to read, legibly inscribed on her stern, the words “Virginia. New Orleans!” With the usual perverse luck that had attended the efforts of the British, we had dropped upon the wrong ship of the pair; theVirginiawas American, and we had no power to interfere with her. Nevertheless, having gone so far in the matter as to bring her to, I was determined to board her and get a sight of her papers; a Spanish vessel might hoist American colours if she happened to find herself in a tight corner and believed that she might thereby escape. While, as for the name—ah! that certainly was a difficulty not to be easily got over; a ship could scarcely change the name painted on her stern as easily as a chameleon changes his colour, without affording some indication that the change had been made. Still, the slavers were up to all sorts of extraordinary dodges, and—well, I would at least inspect theVirginia’spapers, and satisfy myself that they were in order.

Chapter Ten.The Virginia of New Orleans.Having arrived within pistol-shot of the chase, we hove-to to windward of her, lowered a boat, and I proceeded to board her. As we swept round under her stern, in order to reach her lee gangway, I took a good look at the name on her counter. Yes; there was nothing of pretence or fraud about it, so far as I could see; the words were not only painted upon the wood, but were actually cut deep into it as well; and, furthermore, the paint had all the appearance of having been applied at the same time as that on the rest of her hull.Upon our arrival alongside I was somewhat surprised to observe that the crew had not taken the trouble to throw open the gangway, or put over a side ladder; I had therefore to watch my opportunity and scramble aboard by way of the main chains. TheVirginiawas a very fine craft indeed, measuring quite eight hundred tons, and carrying a fine, lofty, full poop, by the rail of which stood a typical Yankee, eyeing me with even greater malevolence than the Yankee of that day was wont to exhibit toward the Britisher. He was tall, lean, and cadaverous, with long, straight, colourless hair reaching almost to his shoulders, and a scanty goatee beard adorning his otherwise clean-shaven face. His outer garments, consisting of blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons and white kerseymere waistcoat and trousers—the former also trimmed with brass buttons—seemed to have been made for a man many sizes smaller than himself; for the coat was distinctly short at the waist, while the sleeves terminated some four inches above the wrist; his waistcoat revealed some two inches of soiled shirt between its lower hem and the top of his trousers; and the latter garments did not reach his bony ankles by quite three inches. He wore an enormous stick-up collar reaching almost to the level of his eyes; his head was graced by an old white beaver hat of the pattern worn by the postboys at that period, and the nap looked as though it had never been brushed the right way since it had been worked up into a hat. On his feet he wore white cotton stockings or socks and low-cut slippers; he carried both hands in his trousers pockets, and his left cheek was distended by a huge plug of tobacco, upon which he was chewing vigorously when I scrambled in over the rail and leaped down on the deck. As I did so I raised my hat and courteously bade him good-morning.Instead of returning my greeting, he ejected a copious stream of tobacco-juice in my direction so dexterously that I had some difficulty in avoiding it, and then remarked—“Waal, my noble Britisher, what the tarnation mischief do yew mean by firin’ them brass popguns of yourn at me, eh? What right have yew to shoot at a ship flyin’ the galorious Stars and Stripes? D’ye see them handsome barkers of mine?”—pointing to a fine display of eighteen-pounders, six of a side, mounted in the ship’s main-deck battery. “Waal, I was in more’n half a mind to give ye a dose from them in answer to your shot; and yew may thank my mate here, Mr Silas Jenkins, for persuadin’ me outer the notion! And what d’ye want, anyway, now that yew’re here, and be hanged to ye?”“I have taken the liberty to board your ship for the purpose of getting a sight of your papers,” I answered. “Our information is that there are two sister ships—this vessel, and a Spanish craft named thePreciosawhich are doing a roaring trade in carrying slaves across the Atlantic; and it is part of my duty to lay hands on thePreciosaif I can. Your vessel answers to her description in every particular save that of name and the flag she flies; and therefore, having fallen in with you, I felt that I should not be doing my duty unless I boarded you and inspected your papers.”“Waal, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed the skipper, turning to his mate. “Hear that, Silas? I’ll bet yew ten dollars the critter calls hisself a sailor, and yet he can’t tell the difference between theVirginiaand thePreciosawithout lookin’ at their papers! I’ll tell ye, stranger, where the difference is between them two vessels. One on ’em has V-i-r-g-i-n-i-a, N-e-w O-r-l-e-a-n-s cut—cut, mind you—and painted on her starn, and she flies that galorious flag that’s floatin’ up thar,” pointing to the American ensign fluttering from the gaff-end—“while t’other has the words P-r-e-c-i-o-s-a, H-a-v-a-n-a cut and painted on hern, and she flies a yaller flag with two red bars. I know, because I’ve seen her—ay, most as often as I’ve seen the’Ginia! Now, sonny, d’ye think ye’ll be able to remember that little lesson in sailormanship that a free-born American citizen has been obliged to give ye?”I laughed. “Thank you for nothing,” said I. “And now I will trouble you for a sight of those papers that we were speaking of.”“I’ll be darned if yew will, though, stranger!” he snapped. “No, sirree; not much, I don’t think! Why, yew’re even more ignorant than I thought yew was, and I must teach ye another little bit of yewr business. Why, yew goldarned Britisher, d’ye know that yew haven’t got no right at all to stop me from pursooin’ my v’yage, or to demand a sight o’ my papers? Supposin’ I was to report this outrage to my Gover’ment, what d’ye suppose would happen? Why, our men-o’-war would just up and sink every stinkin’ Britisher that they comed across!”“Ah, indeed!” I retorted sarcastically. “Very well; now we’ll have a look at those papers; after which you may take whatever steps you deem fit.”“And supposin’ I refuse?”—began the skipper. But the mate, seeing, I imagine, that I would take no denial, seized his irate superior by the arm and, leading him right aft, conversed with him in low tones for nearly five minutes, at the end of which time they both came forward to the break of the poop, and the skipper, descending the poop ladder, remarked ungraciously:“Waal, since nothin’ less than seein’ my papers ’ll satisfy ye, ye’d better come into my cabin, and I’ll show ’em to yew.”Whereupon I followed him in through a passage which gave access to a fine, airy poop cabin, plainly but comfortably fitted up, and seated myself, uninvited, upon a cushioned locker while my companion went alone into his state-room, returning, a minute or two later, with a large tin box, the contents of which he laid upon the table.“Thar they are,” he exclaimed, pushing them toward me; “look at ’em as long as yew like! I guess yew won’t find nothin’ wrong with ’em.”Nor did I. I inspected them with the utmost care, and ultimately came to the conclusion that they were genuine, and that the ship was undoubtedly theVirginia, and American.“Waal,” exclaimed the Yankee skipper, when I at length refolded and handed the papers back to him, “are ye satisfied, stranger?”I intimated that I was.“Then git out o’ here, ye darned galoot, as quick as you knows how,” he snarled, “and thank your lucky stars that I don’t freshen yewr way wi’ a rope’s end!” Then, suddenly changing his tune, as he followed me out on deck and saw me glance round, he remarked:“Purty ship, ain’t she? and roomy for her size. Guess I can stow away all of seven hundred niggers down below, and not lose more’n twenty per cent of ’em on an ordinary average passage. And thePreciosais the very spit of this here craft—built in the same yard, she was, and from the same lines; there ain’t a pin to choose atween ’em. Now, if yew was only lucky enough to fall in withher, stranger, I guess she’d be a prize worth havin’, eh?”“She would!” I agreed. “And, what’s more, my friend, we mean to have her, sooner or later.”“Yew don’t say!” he jeered. “Waal, I guess yew’ll have to fight for her afore you git her. And yew’ll have to find her afore yew can fight for her, won’t yew, sonny? And p’rhaps that won’t be so very difficult, a’ter all, for when I next see my friend Rodriguez—that’s the cap’n of thePreciosa—I’ll tell him that yew’re out arter him, and maybe he’ll lay for yew; for Rodriguez hates the Britishers ’most as bad as I do, and I’m sure he’d enjy blowin’El Caimanouter the water now that she’s fallen into yewr hands. He and Morillo was great friends; and I reckon he’ll feel bound to avenge Morillo’s loss. Yes; I’ll tell him, for sure. And I’ll also tell all the others on the Coast to keep a bright look-out for the brigantine. Waal, so long, stranger. I’m bound for the Congo, if yew’re anyways anxious to know.”The foregoing remarks were made as he followed me to the waist and watched my progress over the rail and from the main chains into my boat; and the last item of information was yelled after me when we had put about twenty fathoms of blue water between the boat and the ship. As I flourished my hand by way of reply to his jeers, he turned away and I heard his harsh, nasal accents uplifted in an order to his crew to “Swing the main-yard; haul aft the jib-sheet; and sway away them t’gallan’ and r’yal yards.”Profoundly disappointed at my non-success, and bitterly mortified at the insults to which I had been subjected by boarding the Yankee, I moodily returned to theDolphinand, upon mounting to the deck, ordered the gig to be hoisted and the helm to be put up in order that we might return to theEros, the royals of which were now just rising above the horizon to the westward. Three-quarters of an hour later we were again hove-to, and I was once more in the gig, on my way to report to Captain Perry the result of my pursuit.To say that the commodore was also deeply disappointed is only stating the bare truth; yet I was not more than half-way through my narrative before I saw that some scheme was taking shape in the back of his mind. He questioned me very closely indeed upon certain points, one of his questions having reference to the point of the possibility of effecting a change in the name of the ship displayed upon her stern, it being evident that a suspicion had arisen in his mind that the two ships might, after all, be one and the same craft, sailing under different flags as circumstances might require. To speak the truth the same suspicion had once or twice crossed my own mind, but had been completely dissipated by my visit to theVirginia; I was quite convinced there could be no possible tampering with the name on the stern, while the papers were undoubtedly genuine, and the crew were as undoubtedly genuine Yankee as were the papers. Yet, despite all this, the fact that such a suspicion had arisen in Captain Perry’s mind caused it to recur in my own; I was therefore very glad when he finally said:“Thank you, Mr Fortescue. You appear to have executed your mission very effectively, and to have done everything that I should have done, had I been there. Of course I should have preferred to have been there myself; but—well, I have no doubt the result would have been precisely the same. Now, having found theVirginia, I am minded to send you after her, to keep an eye upon her and also to drop a friendly hint to any Yankee cruiser that you may happen to fall in with; for, although you cannot touch her, they can; and they ought to be exceedingly grateful for a hint that will ensure them against making any further mistakes. Yes; you shall follow her up, every inch of the way; go into the Congo with her, and, unless there is some very strong reason against it, come out again with her and follow her right across the Atlantic to her destination, wherever it may be. And while you are doing that, I—confident that you are keeping theVirginiaunder observation—will look out for thePreciosa, and endeavour to nab her. Go and have a yarn with Mr Hoskins while I prepare your written instructions.”The skipper was much longer than I had anticipated over the job of drafting his written instructions to me, and Hoskins and I therefore had an opportunity to discuss the situation at some length. I ventured to voice the suspicion that, for some inexplicable reason, so persistently suggested itself to me that theVirginiaand thePreciosamight possibly be one and the same vessel, despite the weighty evidence against such a supposition, but the first lieutenant laughed at the notion, which he pronounced in the highest degree fantastic.“No,” said he, “I do not think you need worry about that, Fortescue. But, all the same, you will have to keep your weather eye lifting, on this expedition upon which the captain is about to despatch you. For, from your account of him, I judge the skipper of theVirginiato be an exceptionally vindictive individual, with a very strong animus against us ‘Britishers,’ as he calls us, and such men are apt to be dangerous when provoked, as he will pretty certainly be when he discovers that you are following and watching him. Therefore, be on your guard against him, or he may play you one of those ghastly tricks that the slavers are apt to play upon the slave-hunters when the latter chance to fall into their hands. In my opinion you are rather too young and inexperienced to be sent alone upon such a job.”“Nevertheless,” said I, “one must acquire one’s experience in some way before one can possess it; and I suppose there is no way in which a young officer can learn so quickly as by being placed in a position of responsibility. After all, there is no danger in this forthcoming expedition, so far as I can see; it is but to follow and keep an eye upon a certain ship, and do what I can to promote her capture. But I will keep your warning in mind, never fear. And now I suppose I must say good-bye; for here comes Parkinson, the captain’s steward, doubtless to say that my instructions are ready.”It was even as I had anticipated; Parkinson was the bearer of a message summoning me to the skipper’s cabin, where my written instructions, having first been read over to me, in order that I might be afforded an opportunity to seek explanation of any doubtful points, were placed in my hands, and I was dismissed; the skipper’s final order to me being to carry on and, if possible, overtake theVirginia, thereafter keeping her in sight at all costs until the remainder of my instructions had been carried out. Ten minutes later I was once more on the deck of theDolphin, and giving orders to make sail, the signal to part company having been hoisted aboard theErosthe moment that my boat left her side.Having braced up on the same course as that steered by theVirginiawhen last seen, and crowded upon the brigantine every square inch of canvas that her spars would bear, I sent a hand aloft to the royal yard to take a look round and see whether he could discover any sign of the chase; but, as I had more than suspected, she had completely vanished; and my first task was now to find her again. To do this, two things were necessary; the first being that we should follow precisely the same course that she had done; and the second, that we should sail fast enough to overtake her. I therefore ordered the boatswain at once to get up preventer backstays, fore and aft, to enable our spars to carry a heavy press of sail; and then went to my cabin, where, with a chart of the Atlantic spread open before us upon the cabin table, Jack Keene and I discussed the knotty question of the course that should be steered to enable us once more to bring theVirginiawithin the range of our own horizon.The point that we had to consider was whether our Yankee friend would or would not anticipate pursuit. If he did, he would probably resort to some expedient to dodge us; but if he did not there was little doubt that he would make the best of his way to his port of destination, which, if he spoke the truth, was the Congo. Now, we were well within the limits of the north-east trade-winds, the wind at the moment blowing, as nearly as might be, due north-east, and piping up strong enough to make us think twice before setting our topgallantsail; it was therefore perfectly ideal weather for so powerful a craft as theVirginia, which might dare not only to show all three of her topgallantsails but also, perhaps, her main-royal. We therefore ultimately came to the conclusion that, the weather being what it was, our friend the Yankee would shape a straight course for Cape Palmas, with the intention of then availing himself of the alternate sea and land-breezes to slip along the coast as far as the Congo—that being the plan very largely followed by slavers on the eastward passage—and that he would only be likely to deviate from that plan in the event of his actually discovering that he was pursued. Consequently we determined to do the same; and I issued the necessary orders to that effect. We were not very long in getting our preventers rigged, after which we not only set our royal and flying-jib, but also shifted our gaff-topsail, hauling down Number 3, a jib-headed affair, and setting Number 2 in its place, a sail nearly twice as big as the other, with its lofty, tapering head laced to a yard very nearly as long as the topmast. Then, with her lee rail awash—and, in fact, dipping deeply sometimes, on a lee roll—and the lee scuppers breast-deep in water, theDolphinbegan to show us what she really could do in the matter of sailing when called upon; reeling off a steady eleven knots, hour after hour, upon a taut bowline; the smother of froth under her bows boiling up at times to the level of her lee cat-head, and her foresail wet with spray to the height of its reef-band. It was grand sailing, exhilarating as a draught of wine, maddening in the feeling of recklessness that it begot; but, all the same, I did not believe that we were doing more than perhaps just holding our own with theVirginia; it was not under such conditions as those that we were likely to overhaul her; our chance would come when, as we gradually neared the equator, the wind grew more shy and fitful. Nevertheless, I kept a look-out in the fore-topmast cross-trees throughout the hours of daylight, to make sure that we should not overtake her unexpectedly.We carried on all through that night, and the next day, and the next, with the breeze still holding strong, yet there was no sign of the chase; and, meanwhile, the carpenter informed me we were straining the ship all to pieces and opening her seams to such an extent that the pumps had to be tended for half an hour at a time twice in each watch; while the boatswain was kept in a perpetual state of anxiety lest his rigging should give way under the strain.At length, on the afternoon of the fourth day after parting from theEros, the wind began to moderate somewhat rapidly, with the result that by sunset our lee scuppers were dry, although we still had all our flying kites aloft; and that night the watch below were able to bring their mattresses on deck and sleep on the forecastle, a luxury which had hitherto been impossible during our headlong race across the Atlantic. And now I began to feel sanguine that before many hours were over we should see the mastheads of theVirginiacreeping above the horizon somewhere ahead of us; for I felt convinced that, in the moderate weather which we were then experiencing, we had the heels of her.But when the next morning dawned, with the trade-wind breathing no more than a gentle zephyr, the look-out, upon going aloft, reported that the horizon was still bare; which, however, was not to say that the chase might not be within a dozen miles of us, for the atmosphere was exceedingly hazy, and heavy with damp heat which was very oppressive and relaxing, to such an extent, indeed, that the mere act of breathing seemed to demand quite an effort. After taking my usual morning bath under the head pump, I made my way below to my state-room to dress, and found Keene sitting in the main cabin, on one of the sofa lockers, attired only in shirt and trousers, perspiring freely, and in a general state of limpness that was pitiable to behold.“Morning, skipper!” he gasped. “I say, isn’t this heat awful? Worse, even, than that on the Coast, I think! And what has become of all the wind? I say, I suppose we haven’t made a mistake in our reckoning, and run down on to the Line unbeknownst, have we?”“If we have,” said I severely, “the mistake is yours Master Jack; for, as you are very well aware, I have been entrusting the navigation of this ship to you.”Which, by the way, was only true in a certain sense; for while I had given the young man to understand that, for his own benefit and advantage, I intended to make him perform the duty of master, and hold him responsible for the navigation, I had taken care to maintain a strict check upon his calculations and assure myself that he was making no mistakes. Of which fact he was of course quite aware. Wherefore his reply to my retort was simply to change the subject with some celerity.“I say, old chap,” he remarked, “you look awfully cool and comfy. Been under the head pump, as usual, I suppose. Upon my word, if it were not for the possibility—not to say the extreme probability—of being snapped up by a shark, I should like to go overboard in a bowline and be towed for half an hour. And—talking of sharks—have you noticed how often we have seen the beggars following us since we have been in this ship? I suppose her timbers have become saturated, as it were, with the odour of the slaves she has carried, and so—but, hillo! what has happened to the barometer?”I glanced at the instrument, which, together with a tell-tale compass, swung from the skylight transoms, and saw that the mercury had sunk in the tube to the extent of nearly an inch since the last setting of the vernier; and, as it was our custom in the Slave Squadron at that time to set the instrument at 8 o’clock a.m. and 8 o’clock p.m., it meant that the mercury had fallen to that extent during the night! What was about to happen? I had observed nothing portentous in the aspect of the weather, while on deck, unless, indeed, the softening away of the trade-wind and the hazy condition of the atmosphere might be regarded as portents. Yet that could hardly be, for I had observed the same phenomena before, yet nothing particular had come of it. I decided to have a talk with Tasker, the gunner’s mate, and get his views on the matter; he was a man of very considerable experience, having been a sailor before I was born; I therefore at once entered my cabin, and proceeded to dress; after which I returned to the deck, where Tasker was officer of the watch. I found him sitting aft on the stern grating, replacing his socks and shoes, which he had removed from his feet at four bells in order to take a leading part in the matutinal ceremony of washing decks. I had already seen him a little earlier that morning, and exchanged greetings with him; I therefore at once, and without any circumlocution, plunged into the subject by asking:“What do you think of the look of the weather, Mr Tasker; is there anything unusual about it, in your opinion?”Tasker rose to his feet and cast a prolonged glance at the sky before replying. Then he said slowly:“I can’t say as I sees anything much out of the common about it, so far, Mr Fortescue. The wind’s dropped a bit more than’s quite usual, certainly; but I don’t know as there’s very mich in that. And then there’s this here thickness o’ the hatmosphere—well, that may or may not mean somethin’, but I don’t see anything alarmin’ about it just yet. Why d’ye ask the question, sir? Is the glass droppin’ at all?”“It has dropped nearly an inch since it was set last night,” I answered.“Phew! Nearly an inch since eight bells last night!” ejaculated the old salt, with an air of concern. “That means, sir, that it have fallen that little lot since midnight; for I looked at it then, when Mr Keene relieved me, and it hadn’t dropped nothin’ then.”“Then what is going to happen?” I demanded. “Are we going to have a hurricane?”“I should say yes, Mr Fortescue, most decidedly,” answered Tasker. “And yet,” he continued, again carefully scanning the sky, “I must confess I don’t see nothin’ very alarmin’ up there at present. I s’pose the mercury bag haven’t sprung a leak, by no chance, have it? This here sudden drop reminds me of a yarn a shipmate of mine once told me about a scare he had when he was in the sloopPyramusin the Indian Ocean, outward bound to the China station. The scare started with a sudden fall of the barometer, just as it might be in this here present case, and it went on droppin’ until the skipper began to think he was booked for the biggest blow as ever come away out o’ the ’eavens. He started by sendin’ down royal and t’gallan’ yards and housin’ the t’gallan’ masts. Then, as the mercury still went on droppin’, he shortened sail to close-reefed fore and main taups’ls, sent the t’gallan’ masts down on deck, and housed the topmasts. While this work was goin’ on the mercury kept fallin’ until it sank out o’ sight altogether; and the skipper had actually given the order to furl the taups’ls and send the yards and masts down when the cabin steward happened to make the discovery that the mercury bag had busted and the mercury from the barometer was rollin’ in little balls all over the cabin floor! My mate told me that the time in which they got that therePyramusataunto again, that day, and the royals upon her, was never a’terwards beaten!”I could not avoid a good hearty laugh at this quaint story of a phenomenal fall of the mercury in a barometer; for it was easy to conjure up a picture of the rapidly growing alarm and dismay of the captain as he watched the steady and speedy shrinkage of the metallic column, and of the feverish anxiety and haste with which he would proceed with his preparations to meet the swoop of the supposedly approaching typhoon, as also of his disgust at the discovery that all his alarm and anxiety had been brought about by the unsuspected leakage of a leather bag! But the story served as a hint to me; what had happened once might happen again; and I forthwith retired to the cabin and carefully examined our own instrument to discover whether, haply, such an accident had occurred in our case. But no, the bag into which the base of the glass tube was plunged was perfectly sound and intact; and, meanwhile, during my brief colloquy with Tasker a further fall of a full tenth had occurred. I lost no time in returning to the deck.“The scare is quite genuine this time, Mr Tasker,” I said; “there is no leakage in our mercury bag to account for the heavy drop; moreover, the drop has increased by a full tenth. Therefore, although the present aspect of the weather may not be precisely alarming, we will proceed to snug down at once, if you please, in view of the fact that the crew we carry is not precisely what might be called efficient, and will probably take an unconscionably long time over the work.”“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Tasker. “I expect the mercury ain’t droppin’ exactly for nothin’, therefore, as you says, we’d better be makin’ ready for what’s in store for us.” Then, facing forward, he gave the order:“Clew up your royal and t’garns’l, furl ’em, and then get the yards down on deck. Hurry, you scallywags; the more work you does now, the more time for play will you have a’ter breakfast.”The “snugging down” process occupied us until nearly four bells of the forenoon watch; but when at length it was completed we felt that we were prepared to face anything, our royal and topgallant-mast and all our yards being down on deck, the fore and main-topmasts and the jib-boom housed, the great mainsail snugly stowed and the heavy boom securely supported in a strong crutch, and the ship under fore and main storm staysails only.

Having arrived within pistol-shot of the chase, we hove-to to windward of her, lowered a boat, and I proceeded to board her. As we swept round under her stern, in order to reach her lee gangway, I took a good look at the name on her counter. Yes; there was nothing of pretence or fraud about it, so far as I could see; the words were not only painted upon the wood, but were actually cut deep into it as well; and, furthermore, the paint had all the appearance of having been applied at the same time as that on the rest of her hull.

Upon our arrival alongside I was somewhat surprised to observe that the crew had not taken the trouble to throw open the gangway, or put over a side ladder; I had therefore to watch my opportunity and scramble aboard by way of the main chains. TheVirginiawas a very fine craft indeed, measuring quite eight hundred tons, and carrying a fine, lofty, full poop, by the rail of which stood a typical Yankee, eyeing me with even greater malevolence than the Yankee of that day was wont to exhibit toward the Britisher. He was tall, lean, and cadaverous, with long, straight, colourless hair reaching almost to his shoulders, and a scanty goatee beard adorning his otherwise clean-shaven face. His outer garments, consisting of blue swallow-tail coat with brass buttons and white kerseymere waistcoat and trousers—the former also trimmed with brass buttons—seemed to have been made for a man many sizes smaller than himself; for the coat was distinctly short at the waist, while the sleeves terminated some four inches above the wrist; his waistcoat revealed some two inches of soiled shirt between its lower hem and the top of his trousers; and the latter garments did not reach his bony ankles by quite three inches. He wore an enormous stick-up collar reaching almost to the level of his eyes; his head was graced by an old white beaver hat of the pattern worn by the postboys at that period, and the nap looked as though it had never been brushed the right way since it had been worked up into a hat. On his feet he wore white cotton stockings or socks and low-cut slippers; he carried both hands in his trousers pockets, and his left cheek was distended by a huge plug of tobacco, upon which he was chewing vigorously when I scrambled in over the rail and leaped down on the deck. As I did so I raised my hat and courteously bade him good-morning.

Instead of returning my greeting, he ejected a copious stream of tobacco-juice in my direction so dexterously that I had some difficulty in avoiding it, and then remarked—

“Waal, my noble Britisher, what the tarnation mischief do yew mean by firin’ them brass popguns of yourn at me, eh? What right have yew to shoot at a ship flyin’ the galorious Stars and Stripes? D’ye see them handsome barkers of mine?”—pointing to a fine display of eighteen-pounders, six of a side, mounted in the ship’s main-deck battery. “Waal, I was in more’n half a mind to give ye a dose from them in answer to your shot; and yew may thank my mate here, Mr Silas Jenkins, for persuadin’ me outer the notion! And what d’ye want, anyway, now that yew’re here, and be hanged to ye?”

“I have taken the liberty to board your ship for the purpose of getting a sight of your papers,” I answered. “Our information is that there are two sister ships—this vessel, and a Spanish craft named thePreciosawhich are doing a roaring trade in carrying slaves across the Atlantic; and it is part of my duty to lay hands on thePreciosaif I can. Your vessel answers to her description in every particular save that of name and the flag she flies; and therefore, having fallen in with you, I felt that I should not be doing my duty unless I boarded you and inspected your papers.”

“Waal, I’ll be jiggered!” exclaimed the skipper, turning to his mate. “Hear that, Silas? I’ll bet yew ten dollars the critter calls hisself a sailor, and yet he can’t tell the difference between theVirginiaand thePreciosawithout lookin’ at their papers! I’ll tell ye, stranger, where the difference is between them two vessels. One on ’em has V-i-r-g-i-n-i-a, N-e-w O-r-l-e-a-n-s cut—cut, mind you—and painted on her starn, and she flies that galorious flag that’s floatin’ up thar,” pointing to the American ensign fluttering from the gaff-end—“while t’other has the words P-r-e-c-i-o-s-a, H-a-v-a-n-a cut and painted on hern, and she flies a yaller flag with two red bars. I know, because I’ve seen her—ay, most as often as I’ve seen the’Ginia! Now, sonny, d’ye think ye’ll be able to remember that little lesson in sailormanship that a free-born American citizen has been obliged to give ye?”

I laughed. “Thank you for nothing,” said I. “And now I will trouble you for a sight of those papers that we were speaking of.”

“I’ll be darned if yew will, though, stranger!” he snapped. “No, sirree; not much, I don’t think! Why, yew’re even more ignorant than I thought yew was, and I must teach ye another little bit of yewr business. Why, yew goldarned Britisher, d’ye know that yew haven’t got no right at all to stop me from pursooin’ my v’yage, or to demand a sight o’ my papers? Supposin’ I was to report this outrage to my Gover’ment, what d’ye suppose would happen? Why, our men-o’-war would just up and sink every stinkin’ Britisher that they comed across!”

“Ah, indeed!” I retorted sarcastically. “Very well; now we’ll have a look at those papers; after which you may take whatever steps you deem fit.”

“And supposin’ I refuse?”—began the skipper. But the mate, seeing, I imagine, that I would take no denial, seized his irate superior by the arm and, leading him right aft, conversed with him in low tones for nearly five minutes, at the end of which time they both came forward to the break of the poop, and the skipper, descending the poop ladder, remarked ungraciously:

“Waal, since nothin’ less than seein’ my papers ’ll satisfy ye, ye’d better come into my cabin, and I’ll show ’em to yew.”

Whereupon I followed him in through a passage which gave access to a fine, airy poop cabin, plainly but comfortably fitted up, and seated myself, uninvited, upon a cushioned locker while my companion went alone into his state-room, returning, a minute or two later, with a large tin box, the contents of which he laid upon the table.

“Thar they are,” he exclaimed, pushing them toward me; “look at ’em as long as yew like! I guess yew won’t find nothin’ wrong with ’em.”

Nor did I. I inspected them with the utmost care, and ultimately came to the conclusion that they were genuine, and that the ship was undoubtedly theVirginia, and American.

“Waal,” exclaimed the Yankee skipper, when I at length refolded and handed the papers back to him, “are ye satisfied, stranger?”

I intimated that I was.

“Then git out o’ here, ye darned galoot, as quick as you knows how,” he snarled, “and thank your lucky stars that I don’t freshen yewr way wi’ a rope’s end!” Then, suddenly changing his tune, as he followed me out on deck and saw me glance round, he remarked:

“Purty ship, ain’t she? and roomy for her size. Guess I can stow away all of seven hundred niggers down below, and not lose more’n twenty per cent of ’em on an ordinary average passage. And thePreciosais the very spit of this here craft—built in the same yard, she was, and from the same lines; there ain’t a pin to choose atween ’em. Now, if yew was only lucky enough to fall in withher, stranger, I guess she’d be a prize worth havin’, eh?”

“She would!” I agreed. “And, what’s more, my friend, we mean to have her, sooner or later.”

“Yew don’t say!” he jeered. “Waal, I guess yew’ll have to fight for her afore you git her. And yew’ll have to find her afore yew can fight for her, won’t yew, sonny? And p’rhaps that won’t be so very difficult, a’ter all, for when I next see my friend Rodriguez—that’s the cap’n of thePreciosa—I’ll tell him that yew’re out arter him, and maybe he’ll lay for yew; for Rodriguez hates the Britishers ’most as bad as I do, and I’m sure he’d enjy blowin’El Caimanouter the water now that she’s fallen into yewr hands. He and Morillo was great friends; and I reckon he’ll feel bound to avenge Morillo’s loss. Yes; I’ll tell him, for sure. And I’ll also tell all the others on the Coast to keep a bright look-out for the brigantine. Waal, so long, stranger. I’m bound for the Congo, if yew’re anyways anxious to know.”

The foregoing remarks were made as he followed me to the waist and watched my progress over the rail and from the main chains into my boat; and the last item of information was yelled after me when we had put about twenty fathoms of blue water between the boat and the ship. As I flourished my hand by way of reply to his jeers, he turned away and I heard his harsh, nasal accents uplifted in an order to his crew to “Swing the main-yard; haul aft the jib-sheet; and sway away them t’gallan’ and r’yal yards.”

Profoundly disappointed at my non-success, and bitterly mortified at the insults to which I had been subjected by boarding the Yankee, I moodily returned to theDolphinand, upon mounting to the deck, ordered the gig to be hoisted and the helm to be put up in order that we might return to theEros, the royals of which were now just rising above the horizon to the westward. Three-quarters of an hour later we were again hove-to, and I was once more in the gig, on my way to report to Captain Perry the result of my pursuit.

To say that the commodore was also deeply disappointed is only stating the bare truth; yet I was not more than half-way through my narrative before I saw that some scheme was taking shape in the back of his mind. He questioned me very closely indeed upon certain points, one of his questions having reference to the point of the possibility of effecting a change in the name of the ship displayed upon her stern, it being evident that a suspicion had arisen in his mind that the two ships might, after all, be one and the same craft, sailing under different flags as circumstances might require. To speak the truth the same suspicion had once or twice crossed my own mind, but had been completely dissipated by my visit to theVirginia; I was quite convinced there could be no possible tampering with the name on the stern, while the papers were undoubtedly genuine, and the crew were as undoubtedly genuine Yankee as were the papers. Yet, despite all this, the fact that such a suspicion had arisen in Captain Perry’s mind caused it to recur in my own; I was therefore very glad when he finally said:

“Thank you, Mr Fortescue. You appear to have executed your mission very effectively, and to have done everything that I should have done, had I been there. Of course I should have preferred to have been there myself; but—well, I have no doubt the result would have been precisely the same. Now, having found theVirginia, I am minded to send you after her, to keep an eye upon her and also to drop a friendly hint to any Yankee cruiser that you may happen to fall in with; for, although you cannot touch her, they can; and they ought to be exceedingly grateful for a hint that will ensure them against making any further mistakes. Yes; you shall follow her up, every inch of the way; go into the Congo with her, and, unless there is some very strong reason against it, come out again with her and follow her right across the Atlantic to her destination, wherever it may be. And while you are doing that, I—confident that you are keeping theVirginiaunder observation—will look out for thePreciosa, and endeavour to nab her. Go and have a yarn with Mr Hoskins while I prepare your written instructions.”

The skipper was much longer than I had anticipated over the job of drafting his written instructions to me, and Hoskins and I therefore had an opportunity to discuss the situation at some length. I ventured to voice the suspicion that, for some inexplicable reason, so persistently suggested itself to me that theVirginiaand thePreciosamight possibly be one and the same vessel, despite the weighty evidence against such a supposition, but the first lieutenant laughed at the notion, which he pronounced in the highest degree fantastic.

“No,” said he, “I do not think you need worry about that, Fortescue. But, all the same, you will have to keep your weather eye lifting, on this expedition upon which the captain is about to despatch you. For, from your account of him, I judge the skipper of theVirginiato be an exceptionally vindictive individual, with a very strong animus against us ‘Britishers,’ as he calls us, and such men are apt to be dangerous when provoked, as he will pretty certainly be when he discovers that you are following and watching him. Therefore, be on your guard against him, or he may play you one of those ghastly tricks that the slavers are apt to play upon the slave-hunters when the latter chance to fall into their hands. In my opinion you are rather too young and inexperienced to be sent alone upon such a job.”

“Nevertheless,” said I, “one must acquire one’s experience in some way before one can possess it; and I suppose there is no way in which a young officer can learn so quickly as by being placed in a position of responsibility. After all, there is no danger in this forthcoming expedition, so far as I can see; it is but to follow and keep an eye upon a certain ship, and do what I can to promote her capture. But I will keep your warning in mind, never fear. And now I suppose I must say good-bye; for here comes Parkinson, the captain’s steward, doubtless to say that my instructions are ready.”

It was even as I had anticipated; Parkinson was the bearer of a message summoning me to the skipper’s cabin, where my written instructions, having first been read over to me, in order that I might be afforded an opportunity to seek explanation of any doubtful points, were placed in my hands, and I was dismissed; the skipper’s final order to me being to carry on and, if possible, overtake theVirginia, thereafter keeping her in sight at all costs until the remainder of my instructions had been carried out. Ten minutes later I was once more on the deck of theDolphin, and giving orders to make sail, the signal to part company having been hoisted aboard theErosthe moment that my boat left her side.

Having braced up on the same course as that steered by theVirginiawhen last seen, and crowded upon the brigantine every square inch of canvas that her spars would bear, I sent a hand aloft to the royal yard to take a look round and see whether he could discover any sign of the chase; but, as I had more than suspected, she had completely vanished; and my first task was now to find her again. To do this, two things were necessary; the first being that we should follow precisely the same course that she had done; and the second, that we should sail fast enough to overtake her. I therefore ordered the boatswain at once to get up preventer backstays, fore and aft, to enable our spars to carry a heavy press of sail; and then went to my cabin, where, with a chart of the Atlantic spread open before us upon the cabin table, Jack Keene and I discussed the knotty question of the course that should be steered to enable us once more to bring theVirginiawithin the range of our own horizon.

The point that we had to consider was whether our Yankee friend would or would not anticipate pursuit. If he did, he would probably resort to some expedient to dodge us; but if he did not there was little doubt that he would make the best of his way to his port of destination, which, if he spoke the truth, was the Congo. Now, we were well within the limits of the north-east trade-winds, the wind at the moment blowing, as nearly as might be, due north-east, and piping up strong enough to make us think twice before setting our topgallantsail; it was therefore perfectly ideal weather for so powerful a craft as theVirginia, which might dare not only to show all three of her topgallantsails but also, perhaps, her main-royal. We therefore ultimately came to the conclusion that, the weather being what it was, our friend the Yankee would shape a straight course for Cape Palmas, with the intention of then availing himself of the alternate sea and land-breezes to slip along the coast as far as the Congo—that being the plan very largely followed by slavers on the eastward passage—and that he would only be likely to deviate from that plan in the event of his actually discovering that he was pursued. Consequently we determined to do the same; and I issued the necessary orders to that effect. We were not very long in getting our preventers rigged, after which we not only set our royal and flying-jib, but also shifted our gaff-topsail, hauling down Number 3, a jib-headed affair, and setting Number 2 in its place, a sail nearly twice as big as the other, with its lofty, tapering head laced to a yard very nearly as long as the topmast. Then, with her lee rail awash—and, in fact, dipping deeply sometimes, on a lee roll—and the lee scuppers breast-deep in water, theDolphinbegan to show us what she really could do in the matter of sailing when called upon; reeling off a steady eleven knots, hour after hour, upon a taut bowline; the smother of froth under her bows boiling up at times to the level of her lee cat-head, and her foresail wet with spray to the height of its reef-band. It was grand sailing, exhilarating as a draught of wine, maddening in the feeling of recklessness that it begot; but, all the same, I did not believe that we were doing more than perhaps just holding our own with theVirginia; it was not under such conditions as those that we were likely to overhaul her; our chance would come when, as we gradually neared the equator, the wind grew more shy and fitful. Nevertheless, I kept a look-out in the fore-topmast cross-trees throughout the hours of daylight, to make sure that we should not overtake her unexpectedly.

We carried on all through that night, and the next day, and the next, with the breeze still holding strong, yet there was no sign of the chase; and, meanwhile, the carpenter informed me we were straining the ship all to pieces and opening her seams to such an extent that the pumps had to be tended for half an hour at a time twice in each watch; while the boatswain was kept in a perpetual state of anxiety lest his rigging should give way under the strain.

At length, on the afternoon of the fourth day after parting from theEros, the wind began to moderate somewhat rapidly, with the result that by sunset our lee scuppers were dry, although we still had all our flying kites aloft; and that night the watch below were able to bring their mattresses on deck and sleep on the forecastle, a luxury which had hitherto been impossible during our headlong race across the Atlantic. And now I began to feel sanguine that before many hours were over we should see the mastheads of theVirginiacreeping above the horizon somewhere ahead of us; for I felt convinced that, in the moderate weather which we were then experiencing, we had the heels of her.

But when the next morning dawned, with the trade-wind breathing no more than a gentle zephyr, the look-out, upon going aloft, reported that the horizon was still bare; which, however, was not to say that the chase might not be within a dozen miles of us, for the atmosphere was exceedingly hazy, and heavy with damp heat which was very oppressive and relaxing, to such an extent, indeed, that the mere act of breathing seemed to demand quite an effort. After taking my usual morning bath under the head pump, I made my way below to my state-room to dress, and found Keene sitting in the main cabin, on one of the sofa lockers, attired only in shirt and trousers, perspiring freely, and in a general state of limpness that was pitiable to behold.

“Morning, skipper!” he gasped. “I say, isn’t this heat awful? Worse, even, than that on the Coast, I think! And what has become of all the wind? I say, I suppose we haven’t made a mistake in our reckoning, and run down on to the Line unbeknownst, have we?”

“If we have,” said I severely, “the mistake is yours Master Jack; for, as you are very well aware, I have been entrusting the navigation of this ship to you.”

Which, by the way, was only true in a certain sense; for while I had given the young man to understand that, for his own benefit and advantage, I intended to make him perform the duty of master, and hold him responsible for the navigation, I had taken care to maintain a strict check upon his calculations and assure myself that he was making no mistakes. Of which fact he was of course quite aware. Wherefore his reply to my retort was simply to change the subject with some celerity.

“I say, old chap,” he remarked, “you look awfully cool and comfy. Been under the head pump, as usual, I suppose. Upon my word, if it were not for the possibility—not to say the extreme probability—of being snapped up by a shark, I should like to go overboard in a bowline and be towed for half an hour. And—talking of sharks—have you noticed how often we have seen the beggars following us since we have been in this ship? I suppose her timbers have become saturated, as it were, with the odour of the slaves she has carried, and so—but, hillo! what has happened to the barometer?”

I glanced at the instrument, which, together with a tell-tale compass, swung from the skylight transoms, and saw that the mercury had sunk in the tube to the extent of nearly an inch since the last setting of the vernier; and, as it was our custom in the Slave Squadron at that time to set the instrument at 8 o’clock a.m. and 8 o’clock p.m., it meant that the mercury had fallen to that extent during the night! What was about to happen? I had observed nothing portentous in the aspect of the weather, while on deck, unless, indeed, the softening away of the trade-wind and the hazy condition of the atmosphere might be regarded as portents. Yet that could hardly be, for I had observed the same phenomena before, yet nothing particular had come of it. I decided to have a talk with Tasker, the gunner’s mate, and get his views on the matter; he was a man of very considerable experience, having been a sailor before I was born; I therefore at once entered my cabin, and proceeded to dress; after which I returned to the deck, where Tasker was officer of the watch. I found him sitting aft on the stern grating, replacing his socks and shoes, which he had removed from his feet at four bells in order to take a leading part in the matutinal ceremony of washing decks. I had already seen him a little earlier that morning, and exchanged greetings with him; I therefore at once, and without any circumlocution, plunged into the subject by asking:

“What do you think of the look of the weather, Mr Tasker; is there anything unusual about it, in your opinion?”

Tasker rose to his feet and cast a prolonged glance at the sky before replying. Then he said slowly:

“I can’t say as I sees anything much out of the common about it, so far, Mr Fortescue. The wind’s dropped a bit more than’s quite usual, certainly; but I don’t know as there’s very mich in that. And then there’s this here thickness o’ the hatmosphere—well, that may or may not mean somethin’, but I don’t see anything alarmin’ about it just yet. Why d’ye ask the question, sir? Is the glass droppin’ at all?”

“It has dropped nearly an inch since it was set last night,” I answered.

“Phew! Nearly an inch since eight bells last night!” ejaculated the old salt, with an air of concern. “That means, sir, that it have fallen that little lot since midnight; for I looked at it then, when Mr Keene relieved me, and it hadn’t dropped nothin’ then.”

“Then what is going to happen?” I demanded. “Are we going to have a hurricane?”

“I should say yes, Mr Fortescue, most decidedly,” answered Tasker. “And yet,” he continued, again carefully scanning the sky, “I must confess I don’t see nothin’ very alarmin’ up there at present. I s’pose the mercury bag haven’t sprung a leak, by no chance, have it? This here sudden drop reminds me of a yarn a shipmate of mine once told me about a scare he had when he was in the sloopPyramusin the Indian Ocean, outward bound to the China station. The scare started with a sudden fall of the barometer, just as it might be in this here present case, and it went on droppin’ until the skipper began to think he was booked for the biggest blow as ever come away out o’ the ’eavens. He started by sendin’ down royal and t’gallan’ yards and housin’ the t’gallan’ masts. Then, as the mercury still went on droppin’, he shortened sail to close-reefed fore and main taups’ls, sent the t’gallan’ masts down on deck, and housed the topmasts. While this work was goin’ on the mercury kept fallin’ until it sank out o’ sight altogether; and the skipper had actually given the order to furl the taups’ls and send the yards and masts down when the cabin steward happened to make the discovery that the mercury bag had busted and the mercury from the barometer was rollin’ in little balls all over the cabin floor! My mate told me that the time in which they got that therePyramusataunto again, that day, and the royals upon her, was never a’terwards beaten!”

I could not avoid a good hearty laugh at this quaint story of a phenomenal fall of the mercury in a barometer; for it was easy to conjure up a picture of the rapidly growing alarm and dismay of the captain as he watched the steady and speedy shrinkage of the metallic column, and of the feverish anxiety and haste with which he would proceed with his preparations to meet the swoop of the supposedly approaching typhoon, as also of his disgust at the discovery that all his alarm and anxiety had been brought about by the unsuspected leakage of a leather bag! But the story served as a hint to me; what had happened once might happen again; and I forthwith retired to the cabin and carefully examined our own instrument to discover whether, haply, such an accident had occurred in our case. But no, the bag into which the base of the glass tube was plunged was perfectly sound and intact; and, meanwhile, during my brief colloquy with Tasker a further fall of a full tenth had occurred. I lost no time in returning to the deck.

“The scare is quite genuine this time, Mr Tasker,” I said; “there is no leakage in our mercury bag to account for the heavy drop; moreover, the drop has increased by a full tenth. Therefore, although the present aspect of the weather may not be precisely alarming, we will proceed to snug down at once, if you please, in view of the fact that the crew we carry is not precisely what might be called efficient, and will probably take an unconscionably long time over the work.”

“Ay, ay, sir,” answered Tasker. “I expect the mercury ain’t droppin’ exactly for nothin’, therefore, as you says, we’d better be makin’ ready for what’s in store for us.” Then, facing forward, he gave the order:

“Clew up your royal and t’garns’l, furl ’em, and then get the yards down on deck. Hurry, you scallywags; the more work you does now, the more time for play will you have a’ter breakfast.”

The “snugging down” process occupied us until nearly four bells of the forenoon watch; but when at length it was completed we felt that we were prepared to face anything, our royal and topgallant-mast and all our yards being down on deck, the fore and main-topmasts and the jib-boom housed, the great mainsail snugly stowed and the heavy boom securely supported in a strong crutch, and the ship under fore and main storm staysails only.

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