Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fourteen.We rejoin the “Daphne.”The people in the cabin, finding that no good result followed their violent pounding upon the inside of the companion doors, soon abandoned so unprofitable an amusement, and I was just beginning to hope that they had philosophically made up their minds to submit with a good grace to the inevitable, whencrashcame a bullet through the teak doors and past my head in most uncomfortable proximity to my starboard ear.Smellie looked round at the sound.“Any damage done, Hawkesley?” he hailed.“None so far, I thank you,” replied I; and as I spoke there was another report, and another bullet went whizzing past, well to port this time for a change. A minute or two passed, and then came a regular fusillade from quite half a dozen pistols discharged simultaneously I should say, one of the bullets knocking off the worsted cap I wore and grazing the skin of my right temple sufficiently to send a thin stream of blood trickling down into the corner of my right eye.“You seem to be in a warm corner there,” hailed Smellie; “but if you can hold on until we round this point I’ll come and relieve you.”“No, thanks, I would very much rather you would continue to con the ship,” I replied.A minute or two later we rounded the point referred to, and, the creek widening out considerably, we began to feel the true breeze, when the schooner, even under the short and ill-set canvas we had been able to give her, at once increased her speed to about six knots. At the same time, however, she began to “gripe” most villainously, and with the helm hard a-weather it was as much as I could possibly do to keep her from running ashore among the bushes on our starboard hand. The people in the cabin were still pertinaciously blazing away through the companion doors at me, and doing some remarkably good shooting, too, taking into consideration the fact that they could only guess at my whereabouts; but I was just then far too busy to pay much attention to them. At length, fearing that, when we got a little lower down and felt the full strength of the breeze, the schooner would, in spite of all my efforts, fairly run away with me, I hailed Smellie, and, briefly explaining the situation to him, asked him to either give her the fore staysail or else come aft and trice up the tack of the mainsail. He chose the latter alternative, as leaving the craft under canvas easily manageable by one hand, and came aft to effect the alteration, hurriedly explaining that he would relieve me as soon as possible; but that there was still some difficult navigation ahead which he wanted to see the schooner safely through.He triced the tack of the sail close up to the throat of the gaff, and was about to hurry forward again, when the schooner sheering round a bend into a new reach, my attention was suddenly attracted by something ahead and on our lee bow at a distance of perhaps half a mile.“What is that away there on our lee bow, sir?” I exclaimed; “is it not a craft of some sort?”Smellie jumped up on the rail to get a better view, and at the same moment a pistol shot rang out from the skylight, the bullet evidently flying close past him. He took not the slightest notice of the shot, but stood there on the rail with his hand shading his eyes, intently examining the object we were rapidly nearing.“It is a brig,” said he, “and unless I am very greatly mistaken—but no, it can’t be—and yet itmustbe too—it surelyistheVestale.”“It looks remarkably like her; but I can’t make out—confound those fellows! I wish they would stop firing.—I can’t make out the white ribbon round her sides,” said I.“No, nor can I. And yet it is scarcely possible we can be mistaken. Luff you may—a little—do not shave hertooclose. She has no pennant flying, by the way, whoever she may be. Ah! the rascals have pinked me after all,” as a rattling volley was discharged at him through the glazed top of the skylight, and I saw him clap his hand to his side.We were by this time close to the strange brig, on board which lights were burning in the cabin, whilst several persons were visible on deck. As we swept down toward her, hugging her pretty closely, a man sprang into the main rigging and hailed in Spanish:“Josefaahoy! What’s the matter on board? Why are you going to sea without a full cargo? Have matters gone wrong at the head of the creek?”“No, no,” replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia’s assistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel’s roof—“no, everything is all right; our cargo—”Unfortunately he was here interrupted by another volley from the cabin, and at the same time a voice yelled from the schooner’s stern windows:“We are captured; a prize to the accursed Ingleses.”The words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth when three or four muskets were popped at us from the brig, fortunately without effect. We were, however, by that time past her, and her crew, who seemed thoroughly mystified at the whole affair, made no further effort to molest us. Of one thing, however, we were amply assured, she was not theVestale. The craft we had just passed—whilst thedoubleof the French gun-brig in every other respect—was painted black down to her copper, and she carried under the heel of her bowsprit a life-size figure of a negress with a scarf striped in various colours round her waist.A negress? Ah! there could not be a doubt of it. “Mr Smellie,” said I, “do you know that craft?”“N–n–no, I can’t say I do, Hawkesley, under her present disguise.”“Disguise, my dear sir; she is not disguised at all. That is the pirate-brig which destroyed poor Richards’ vessel—theJuliet. And—yes—there can scarcely be a doubt about it—she must be the notoriousBlack Venusof which the Yankee skipper told us.”Smellie looked at me in great surprise and perplexity for a moment.“Upon my word, Hawkesley, I verily believe you are right!” he exclaimed at last. “TheBlack Venus—a negress for a figure-head—ha! are you hurt?”“Not much, I think,” stammered I, as I braced myself resolutely against the wheel, determined that I wouldnotgive in. The fact was, that whilst we were talking another shot had been fired through the companion doors, and had struck me fairly in the right shoulder, inflicting such severe pain that for the moment I felt quite incapable of using my right arm. Fortunately the schooner now steered pretty easily, and I could manage the wheel with one hand.“We must stop this somehow,” said Smellie, again jumping on the rail and taking a long look ahead.“Do you see that very tall tree shooting up above the rest, almost directly ahead?” he continued, pointing out the object as he turned to me.I replied that I did.“Well, steer straight for it then, and I will fetch aft some hatch-covers—there are several forward—and place them against the doors; I think I can perhaps contrive to rig up a bullet-proof screen for you.”“But you are hurt yourself, sir,” I protested.“A mere graze after all, I believe,” he replied lightly, and forthwith set about the work of dragging aft the hatch-covers, six of which he soon piled in front of the companion.“There,” he said, as he placed the last one in position, “I think you are reasonably safe now; it was a pity we did not think of that before. Shall I bind up your shoulder for you? You are bleeding, I see.”“No, thank you,” I replied; “it is only a trifling scratch, I think, not worth troubling about now. I would much rather you would go forward and look out; it would never do to plump the schooner ashore now that we have come so far. Besides, there are the men down forward; they ought to be watched, or perhaps they may succeed in breaking out after all.”Smellie looked at me rather doubtfully for almost a full minute. “I believe you are suffering a great deal of pain, Hawkesley,” he said; “but you are a thoroughly plucky fellow; and if you can only keep up until we get clear of this confounded creek I will then relieve you. And I will take care, too, to let Captain Vernon know how admirably you have conducted yourself, not only to-night, but from the moment that we left theDaphnetogether. Now I am going forward to see that all is right there. If you want help give me a timely hail.”And he turned and walked forward.The navigation of the creek still continued to be exceedingly intricate and difficult; the creek itself being winding, and the deep-water channel very much more winding still, running now on one side of the creek, now on the other, besides being studded here and there with shoals, sand-banks, and tiny islets. This, whilst it made the navigation very difficult for strangers, added greatly to the value of the creek as a safe and snug resort for slavers; the multitudinous twists in the channel serving to mask it most artfully, and giving it an appearance of terminating at a point beyond which in reality a long stretch of deep water extended.At length we luffed sharply round a low sandy spit thickly covered with mangroves, kept broad away again directly afterwards, and abruptly found ourselves in the main stream of the Congo. Here the true channel was easily discernible by the long regular run of the sea which had been lashed up by the gale; and I had therefore nothing to do but keep the schooner where the sea ran most regularly, and I should be certain to be right. Smellie now gave a little much-needed attention to the party in the forecastle, who had latterly been very noisy and clamourous in their demonstrations of disapproval. Luckily they did not appear to possess any fire-arms: the only fear from them, therefore, was that they would find means to break out; and this the second lieutenant provided against pretty effectually by placing a large wash-deck tub on the cover and coiling down therein the end of one of the mooring hawsers which stood on the deck near the windlass.Having done this, he came aft to relieve me at the wheel, a relief for which I was by no means sorry.The party in the cabin had, shortly before this, given up their amusement of popping at me through the closed doors of the companion, having doubtless heard Smellie dragging along the hatch-covers and placing them in position, and having also formed a very shrewd guess that further mischief on their part was thus effectually frustrated. Unfortunately, however, they had made the discovery that my head could be seen over the companion from the fore end of the skylight, and they had thereupon begun to pop at me from this new position. They had grazed me twice when Smellie came aft, and he had scarcely opened his lips to speak to me when another shot came whizzing past us close enough to him to prove that the fellows still had it in their power to undo all our work by a single lucky hit.“Why, Hawkesley,” he exclaimed, “this will never do; wemustput a stop to this somehow. We cannot afford to be hard hit, either of us, for another hour and a half at least. What is to be done? How does your shoulder feel? Can you use your right arm?”“I am afraid I cannot,” I replied; “my shoulder is dreadfully painful, and my arm seems to have no strength in it. But I can steer easily with one hand now?”“How many people do you think there are in the cabin?” was Smellie’s next question.“I can scarcely say,” I replied; “but I have only been able to distinguishthreevoices so far.”“Three, eh? The skipper and two mates, I suppose.” He ruminated a little, stepped forward, and presently returned with a rather formidable-looking iron bar he had evidently noticed some time before; and coolly remarked as he began to drag away the hatch-covers from before the companion:“I am going down below to give those fellows theirquietus. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the—what was it those fellows called her?—ah! theJosefa—before we get theJosefaunder theDaphne’sguns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try to draw their fire and then rush down upon them.”With that he removed his jacket and threw it loosely over the iron bar, which he laid aside for the moment whilst he cleared away the obstructions from before the doors. Then, taking up the coat and holding it well in front of the opening so as to produce in the uncertain light the appearance of a figure standing there, he suddenly flung back the slide and threw open the doors.The immediate results were a couple of pistol shots and a rush up the companion-ladder, the latter of which Smellie promptly stopped by swinging his somewhat bulky carcass into the opening and letting himself drop plump down upon the individuals who were making it. There was a scuffle at the bottom of the ladder, another pistol shot, two or three dull crushing blows, another brief scuffle, and then Smellie reappeared, with blood flowing freely from his left arm, and a truculent-looking Spaniard in tow. This fellow he dragged on deck, and unceremoniously kicking his feet from under him, lashed him securely with the end of the topgallant brace. This done, he once more dived below, and in due time two more Spaniards, senseless and bleeding, were brought up out of the cabin and secured.“There,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, “I think we shall now manage to make the rest of our trip unmolested, and without having constantly before our eyes the fear of being blown clear across the Congo. Let me take the wheel; I am sure you must be sadly in need of a spell. But before you do anything else I will get you to clap a bandage of some sort round my arm here; I am bleeding so profusely that I think the bullet must have severed an artery. Here is my handkerchief, clap it round the arm and haul it as taut as you can; the great thing just now is to stop the bleeding; Doctor Burnett will do all that is necessary for us when we reach the sloop.”I bound up his arm after a fashion, making a good enough job of it to stop the bleeding, and then went forward to keep a look-out. We were foaming down the river at a tremendous pace, the gale being almost dead fair for us, and having the additional impetus of a red-hot tide under foot we swept down past the land as though we had been a steamer. Sooth to say, however, I scarcely felt in cue just then either to admire theJosefa’spaces or to take much note of the wonderful picture presented by the river, with its brown mud-tinted waters lashed into fury by the breath of the tropical tempest and chequered here and there with the shadows of the scurrying clouds, or lighted up by the phosphorescence which tipped each wave with a crest of scintillating silvery stars. The wound in my shoulder was every moment becoming more excruciatingly painful and more exacting in its demands upon my attention; my interest seemed to centre itself upon theDaphneand her surgeon; and it was with a feeling of ineffable relief that, on jibing round Shark Point, about an hour and a half after clearing the creek, I saw at a distance of about seven miles away an indistinct object off Padron Point which I knew must be theDaphneat anchor.“Do you see the sloop, sir?” I hailed.“No,” returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering straight into the darkness. “I cannot make her out from here. Do you see her?”“Yes, sir,” I replied joyously; “there she is, broad on our port bow. Luff, sir, you may.”“Luff,” I heard Smellie return; and the schooner’s bows swept round until they pointed fair for the distant object. “Steady, sir!”“Steady it is,” replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards, and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had but just emerged from the dockyard.The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our jib-sheet to windward.As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in the skipper’s cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-heads, and Armitage’s voice rang out across the water with the hail of:“Schooner ahoy!”“Hillo!” responded Smellie.A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then—“What schooner is that?”“TheJosefa, slave schooner. Is that Mr Armitage?”“Ay, ay, it is. Who may you be, pray?”I had by this time gone aft and was standing by Smellie’s side. The schooner was just jibing over and darting along on theDaphne’sstarboard side.“Armitage evidently has not recognised my voice as yet,” remarked Smellie, “or else,” he added, “they have given us up on board as dead, and he is unable so suddenly to realise the fact of our being still alive.”Then, as we finally rounded-to under theDaphne’squarter, Armitage reappeared aft, and the confab was renewed, Smellie this time taking the lead.“Daphneahoy!” he hailed, “has Captain Vernon yet retired for the night?”“I think not,” was the reply. “What do you want?”“Kindly pass the word to him that Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley are alongside in a captured slaver: and say we shall feel greatly obliged if he will send a prize crew on board us to take possession.”“Ay, ay! I will.”Armitage thereupon disappeared, and, we being at the time to leeward of the sloop, a slight but distinct commotion became perceptible on board her. Presently a figure appeared in the fore-rigging, and a deep, gruff, hoarse voice hailed:“Schooner ahoy! Did you say as Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley was on board you?”“Yes I did. Do you not recognise my voice, Collins?”“Ay, ay, sir! in course I doesnow,” was the boatswain’s hearty response. Then there followed, in lower tones, certain remarks of which we could only catch such fragments as:”—lieutenant hisself, by—reefer, too;—man—rigging, you sea-dogs—give—sailors’ welcome.”Then in an instant the lower rigging became black with the figures of the men, and, with Collins as fugleman, they greeted our unexpected return with three as hearty cheers as ever pealed from the throats of British seamen.For the life of me I could not just then have spoken a word had it been ever so necessary. That hearty ringing British cheer gave me the first convincing assurance that I was once moresafeand among friends, and, at the same time, enabled me tofullyrealise, as I never had before, the extreme peril to which I had been exposed since I last saw the craft that lay there rolling gracefully upon the ground-swell, within a biscuit toss of us.The men were just clearing the rigging when a small slight figure appeared on the sloop’s quarter, and Captain Vernon’s voice hailed us through the speaking-trumpet:“Schooner ahoy! How many hands shall I send you?”“A dozen men will be sufficient, sir,” replied Smellie. “And I shall feel obliged if you will send with them the necessary officers to relieve us. We are both hurt, and in need of the doctor’s services.”“You shall have the men at once,” was the reply. “Shall I send Burnett to you, or can you come on board the sloop?”“We will rejoin the sloop, sir, thank you. Our injuries are not very serious,” replied Smellie.“Very well, be it so,” returned the skipper; and there the conversation ended.The next moment the cleartee-tee-tweetle-tweetle-weetle-wee-e-eof the boatswain’s whistle came floating down to us, followed by his gruff “Cutters away!” and presently we saw the boat glide down the ship’s side, and, after a very brief delay, shove off and come sweeping down toward us.Five minutes later the prize crew, under Williams, the master’s mate, with young Peters, a fellow mid of mine, as his second in command, stood upon the schooner’s deck, and Mr Austin, who had accompanied them, was wringing our hands as though he would wring them off.Smellie saw the exquisite agony which our warm-hearted “first luff” was unconsciously inflicting uponmeby his effusive greeting, and thoughtfully interposed with a—“Gently, Edgar, old fellow. I am afraid you are handling poor Hawkesley a little roughly. He has received rather a bad hurt in the right shoulder to-night in our fight with the schooner’s people.”“Fight!—schooner’s people! I beg your pardon, Hawkesley; I hope I haven’t hurt you. Why, you never mean to say you have had tofightfor the schooner?” Austin interrupted, aghast. “Well, wetookher by surprise; but her people proved very troublesome, and very pertinacious in their efforts to get her back again,” Smellie replied. “But, come, let us get on board the oldDaphneonce more. I long to set foot on her planks again; and, like Hawkesley here, I shall not be sorry to renew my acquaintance with Burnett.”So said, so done. We made our way into the boat, leaving the prize crew to secure the prisoners, and a few minutes later stood once more safe, if not altogether sound, on the deck of the dear oldDaphne.

The people in the cabin, finding that no good result followed their violent pounding upon the inside of the companion doors, soon abandoned so unprofitable an amusement, and I was just beginning to hope that they had philosophically made up their minds to submit with a good grace to the inevitable, whencrashcame a bullet through the teak doors and past my head in most uncomfortable proximity to my starboard ear.

Smellie looked round at the sound.

“Any damage done, Hawkesley?” he hailed.

“None so far, I thank you,” replied I; and as I spoke there was another report, and another bullet went whizzing past, well to port this time for a change. A minute or two passed, and then came a regular fusillade from quite half a dozen pistols discharged simultaneously I should say, one of the bullets knocking off the worsted cap I wore and grazing the skin of my right temple sufficiently to send a thin stream of blood trickling down into the corner of my right eye.

“You seem to be in a warm corner there,” hailed Smellie; “but if you can hold on until we round this point I’ll come and relieve you.”

“No, thanks, I would very much rather you would continue to con the ship,” I replied.

A minute or two later we rounded the point referred to, and, the creek widening out considerably, we began to feel the true breeze, when the schooner, even under the short and ill-set canvas we had been able to give her, at once increased her speed to about six knots. At the same time, however, she began to “gripe” most villainously, and with the helm hard a-weather it was as much as I could possibly do to keep her from running ashore among the bushes on our starboard hand. The people in the cabin were still pertinaciously blazing away through the companion doors at me, and doing some remarkably good shooting, too, taking into consideration the fact that they could only guess at my whereabouts; but I was just then far too busy to pay much attention to them. At length, fearing that, when we got a little lower down and felt the full strength of the breeze, the schooner would, in spite of all my efforts, fairly run away with me, I hailed Smellie, and, briefly explaining the situation to him, asked him to either give her the fore staysail or else come aft and trice up the tack of the mainsail. He chose the latter alternative, as leaving the craft under canvas easily manageable by one hand, and came aft to effect the alteration, hurriedly explaining that he would relieve me as soon as possible; but that there was still some difficult navigation ahead which he wanted to see the schooner safely through.

He triced the tack of the sail close up to the throat of the gaff, and was about to hurry forward again, when the schooner sheering round a bend into a new reach, my attention was suddenly attracted by something ahead and on our lee bow at a distance of perhaps half a mile.

“What is that away there on our lee bow, sir?” I exclaimed; “is it not a craft of some sort?”

Smellie jumped up on the rail to get a better view, and at the same moment a pistol shot rang out from the skylight, the bullet evidently flying close past him. He took not the slightest notice of the shot, but stood there on the rail with his hand shading his eyes, intently examining the object we were rapidly nearing.

“It is a brig,” said he, “and unless I am very greatly mistaken—but no, it can’t be—and yet itmustbe too—it surelyistheVestale.”

“It looks remarkably like her; but I can’t make out—confound those fellows! I wish they would stop firing.—I can’t make out the white ribbon round her sides,” said I.

“No, nor can I. And yet it is scarcely possible we can be mistaken. Luff you may—a little—do not shave hertooclose. She has no pennant flying, by the way, whoever she may be. Ah! the rascals have pinked me after all,” as a rattling volley was discharged at him through the glazed top of the skylight, and I saw him clap his hand to his side.

We were by this time close to the strange brig, on board which lights were burning in the cabin, whilst several persons were visible on deck. As we swept down toward her, hugging her pretty closely, a man sprang into the main rigging and hailed in Spanish:

“Josefaahoy! What’s the matter on board? Why are you going to sea without a full cargo? Have matters gone wrong at the head of the creek?”

“No, no,” replied Smellie in the same language, which by the way he had been diligently studying with Antonia’s assistance during our sojourn under Don Manuel’s roof—“no, everything is all right; our cargo—”

Unfortunately he was here interrupted by another volley from the cabin, and at the same time a voice yelled from the schooner’s stern windows:

“We are captured; a prize to the accursed Ingleses.”

The words were hardly out of the speaker’s mouth when three or four muskets were popped at us from the brig, fortunately without effect. We were, however, by that time past her, and her crew, who seemed thoroughly mystified at the whole affair, made no further effort to molest us. Of one thing, however, we were amply assured, she was not theVestale. The craft we had just passed—whilst thedoubleof the French gun-brig in every other respect—was painted black down to her copper, and she carried under the heel of her bowsprit a life-size figure of a negress with a scarf striped in various colours round her waist.A negress? Ah! there could not be a doubt of it. “Mr Smellie,” said I, “do you know that craft?”

“N–n–no, I can’t say I do, Hawkesley, under her present disguise.”

“Disguise, my dear sir; she is not disguised at all. That is the pirate-brig which destroyed poor Richards’ vessel—theJuliet. And—yes—there can scarcely be a doubt about it—she must be the notoriousBlack Venusof which the Yankee skipper told us.”

Smellie looked at me in great surprise and perplexity for a moment.

“Upon my word, Hawkesley, I verily believe you are right!” he exclaimed at last. “TheBlack Venus—a negress for a figure-head—ha! are you hurt?”

“Not much, I think,” stammered I, as I braced myself resolutely against the wheel, determined that I wouldnotgive in. The fact was, that whilst we were talking another shot had been fired through the companion doors, and had struck me fairly in the right shoulder, inflicting such severe pain that for the moment I felt quite incapable of using my right arm. Fortunately the schooner now steered pretty easily, and I could manage the wheel with one hand.

“We must stop this somehow,” said Smellie, again jumping on the rail and taking a long look ahead.

“Do you see that very tall tree shooting up above the rest, almost directly ahead?” he continued, pointing out the object as he turned to me.

I replied that I did.

“Well, steer straight for it then, and I will fetch aft some hatch-covers—there are several forward—and place them against the doors; I think I can perhaps contrive to rig up a bullet-proof screen for you.”

“But you are hurt yourself, sir,” I protested.

“A mere graze after all, I believe,” he replied lightly, and forthwith set about the work of dragging aft the hatch-covers, six of which he soon piled in front of the companion.

“There,” he said, as he placed the last one in position, “I think you are reasonably safe now; it was a pity we did not think of that before. Shall I bind up your shoulder for you? You are bleeding, I see.”

“No, thank you,” I replied; “it is only a trifling scratch, I think, not worth troubling about now. I would much rather you would go forward and look out; it would never do to plump the schooner ashore now that we have come so far. Besides, there are the men down forward; they ought to be watched, or perhaps they may succeed in breaking out after all.”

Smellie looked at me rather doubtfully for almost a full minute. “I believe you are suffering a great deal of pain, Hawkesley,” he said; “but you are a thoroughly plucky fellow; and if you can only keep up until we get clear of this confounded creek I will then relieve you. And I will take care, too, to let Captain Vernon know how admirably you have conducted yourself, not only to-night, but from the moment that we left theDaphnetogether. Now I am going forward to see that all is right there. If you want help give me a timely hail.”

And he turned and walked forward.

The navigation of the creek still continued to be exceedingly intricate and difficult; the creek itself being winding, and the deep-water channel very much more winding still, running now on one side of the creek, now on the other, besides being studded here and there with shoals, sand-banks, and tiny islets. This, whilst it made the navigation very difficult for strangers, added greatly to the value of the creek as a safe and snug resort for slavers; the multitudinous twists in the channel serving to mask it most artfully, and giving it an appearance of terminating at a point beyond which in reality a long stretch of deep water extended.

At length we luffed sharply round a low sandy spit thickly covered with mangroves, kept broad away again directly afterwards, and abruptly found ourselves in the main stream of the Congo. Here the true channel was easily discernible by the long regular run of the sea which had been lashed up by the gale; and I had therefore nothing to do but keep the schooner where the sea ran most regularly, and I should be certain to be right. Smellie now gave a little much-needed attention to the party in the forecastle, who had latterly been very noisy and clamourous in their demonstrations of disapproval. Luckily they did not appear to possess any fire-arms: the only fear from them, therefore, was that they would find means to break out; and this the second lieutenant provided against pretty effectually by placing a large wash-deck tub on the cover and coiling down therein the end of one of the mooring hawsers which stood on the deck near the windlass.

Having done this, he came aft to relieve me at the wheel, a relief for which I was by no means sorry.

The party in the cabin had, shortly before this, given up their amusement of popping at me through the closed doors of the companion, having doubtless heard Smellie dragging along the hatch-covers and placing them in position, and having also formed a very shrewd guess that further mischief on their part was thus effectually frustrated. Unfortunately, however, they had made the discovery that my head could be seen over the companion from the fore end of the skylight, and they had thereupon begun to pop at me from this new position. They had grazed me twice when Smellie came aft, and he had scarcely opened his lips to speak to me when another shot came whizzing past us close enough to him to prove that the fellows still had it in their power to undo all our work by a single lucky hit.

“Why, Hawkesley,” he exclaimed, “this will never do; wemustput a stop to this somehow. We cannot afford to be hard hit, either of us, for another hour and a half at least. What is to be done? How does your shoulder feel? Can you use your right arm?”

“I am afraid I cannot,” I replied; “my shoulder is dreadfully painful, and my arm seems to have no strength in it. But I can steer easily with one hand now?”

“How many people do you think there are in the cabin?” was Smellie’s next question.

“I can scarcely say,” I replied; “but I have only been able to distinguishthreevoices so far.”

“Three, eh? The skipper and two mates, I suppose.” He ruminated a little, stepped forward, and presently returned with a rather formidable-looking iron bar he had evidently noticed some time before; and coolly remarked as he began to drag away the hatch-covers from before the companion:

“I am going down below to give those fellows theirquietus. If I do not, there is no knowing what mischief they may yet perpetrate before we get the—what was it those fellows called her?—ah! theJosefa—before we get theJosefaunder theDaphne’sguns. Now, choose a star to steer by before I remove any more of this lumber, and then sit down on deck as much on one side as you can get; I shall try to draw their fire and then rush down upon them.”

With that he removed his jacket and threw it loosely over the iron bar, which he laid aside for the moment whilst he cleared away the obstructions from before the doors. Then, taking up the coat and holding it well in front of the opening so as to produce in the uncertain light the appearance of a figure standing there, he suddenly flung back the slide and threw open the doors.

The immediate results were a couple of pistol shots and a rush up the companion-ladder, the latter of which Smellie promptly stopped by swinging his somewhat bulky carcass into the opening and letting himself drop plump down upon the individuals who were making it. There was a scuffle at the bottom of the ladder, another pistol shot, two or three dull crushing blows, another brief scuffle, and then Smellie reappeared, with blood flowing freely from his left arm, and a truculent-looking Spaniard in tow. This fellow he dragged on deck, and unceremoniously kicking his feet from under him, lashed him securely with the end of the topgallant brace. This done, he once more dived below, and in due time two more Spaniards, senseless and bleeding, were brought up out of the cabin and secured.

“There,” he said, wiping the perspiration from his forehead, “I think we shall now manage to make the rest of our trip unmolested, and without having constantly before our eyes the fear of being blown clear across the Congo. Let me take the wheel; I am sure you must be sadly in need of a spell. But before you do anything else I will get you to clap a bandage of some sort round my arm here; I am bleeding so profusely that I think the bullet must have severed an artery. Here is my handkerchief, clap it round the arm and haul it as taut as you can; the great thing just now is to stop the bleeding; Doctor Burnett will do all that is necessary for us when we reach the sloop.”

I bound up his arm after a fashion, making a good enough job of it to stop the bleeding, and then went forward to keep a look-out. We were foaming down the river at a tremendous pace, the gale being almost dead fair for us, and having the additional impetus of a red-hot tide under foot we swept down past the land as though we had been a steamer. Sooth to say, however, I scarcely felt in cue just then either to admire theJosefa’spaces or to take much note of the wonderful picture presented by the river, with its brown mud-tinted waters lashed into fury by the breath of the tropical tempest and chequered here and there with the shadows of the scurrying clouds, or lighted up by the phosphorescence which tipped each wave with a crest of scintillating silvery stars. The wound in my shoulder was every moment becoming more excruciatingly painful and more exacting in its demands upon my attention; my interest seemed to centre itself upon theDaphneand her surgeon; and it was with a feeling of ineffable relief that, on jibing round Shark Point, about an hour and a half after clearing the creek, I saw at a distance of about seven miles away an indistinct object off Padron Point which I knew must be theDaphneat anchor.

“Do you see the sloop, sir?” I hailed.

“No,” returned Smellie from his post at the wheel, stooping and peering straight into the darkness. “I cannot make her out from here. Do you see her?”

“Yes, sir,” I replied joyously; “there she is, broad on our port bow. Luff, sir, you may.”

“Luff,” I heard Smellie return; and the schooner’s bows swept round until they pointed fair for the distant object. “Steady, sir!”

“Steady it is,” replied Smellie, his voice sounding weird and mournful above the roar of the wind and the wash of the sea. I managed to trim over the jib-sheet without assistance, and then leaned over the bulwarks watching the gradual way in which the small dark blot on the horizon swelled and developed into a stately ship with lofty masts, long yards, and a delicate maze of rigging all as neat and trig as though she had but just emerged from the dockyard.

The sea being quite smooth after we had once rounded Shark Point, we made the run down to the sloop in about an hour, passing to windward of her, and then jibing over and rounding-to on her lee quarter, with our jib-sheet to windward.

As we approached the sloop I noticed that lights were still burning in the skipper’s cabin, and I thought I could detect a human face or two peering curiously out at us from the ports. The dear old hooker was of course riding head to wind, and as we swept down across her bows within easy hailing distance a figure suddenly appeared standing on the knight-heads, and Armitage’s voice rang out across the water with the hail of:

“Schooner ahoy!”

“Hillo!” responded Smellie.

A slight and barely perceptible pause; and then—

“What schooner is that?”

“TheJosefa, slave schooner. Is that Mr Armitage?”

“Ay, ay, it is. Who may you be, pray?”

I had by this time gone aft and was standing by Smellie’s side. The schooner was just jibing over and darting along on theDaphne’sstarboard side.

“Armitage evidently has not recognised my voice as yet,” remarked Smellie, “or else,” he added, “they have given us up on board as dead, and he is unable so suddenly to realise the fact of our being still alive.”

Then, as we finally rounded-to under theDaphne’squarter, Armitage reappeared aft, and the confab was renewed, Smellie this time taking the lead.

“Daphneahoy!” he hailed, “has Captain Vernon yet retired for the night?”

“I think not,” was the reply. “What do you want?”

“Kindly pass the word to him that Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley are alongside in a captured slaver: and say we shall feel greatly obliged if he will send a prize crew on board us to take possession.”

“Ay, ay! I will.”

Armitage thereupon disappeared, and, we being at the time to leeward of the sloop, a slight but distinct commotion became perceptible on board her. Presently a figure appeared in the fore-rigging, and a deep, gruff, hoarse voice hailed:

“Schooner ahoy! Did you say as Mr Smellie and Mr Hawkesley was on board you?”

“Yes I did. Do you not recognise my voice, Collins?”

“Ay, ay, sir! in course I doesnow,” was the boatswain’s hearty response. Then there followed, in lower tones, certain remarks of which we could only catch such fragments as:

”—lieutenant hisself, by—reefer, too;—man—rigging, you sea-dogs—give—sailors’ welcome.”

Then in an instant the lower rigging became black with the figures of the men, and, with Collins as fugleman, they greeted our unexpected return with three as hearty cheers as ever pealed from the throats of British seamen.

For the life of me I could not just then have spoken a word had it been ever so necessary. That hearty ringing British cheer gave me the first convincing assurance that I was once moresafeand among friends, and, at the same time, enabled me tofullyrealise, as I never had before, the extreme peril to which I had been exposed since I last saw the craft that lay there rolling gracefully upon the ground-swell, within a biscuit toss of us.

The men were just clearing the rigging when a small slight figure appeared on the sloop’s quarter, and Captain Vernon’s voice hailed us through the speaking-trumpet:

“Schooner ahoy! How many hands shall I send you?”

“A dozen men will be sufficient, sir,” replied Smellie. “And I shall feel obliged if you will send with them the necessary officers to relieve us. We are both hurt, and in need of the doctor’s services.”

“You shall have the men at once,” was the reply. “Shall I send Burnett to you, or can you come on board the sloop?”

“We will rejoin the sloop, sir, thank you. Our injuries are not very serious,” replied Smellie.

“Very well, be it so,” returned the skipper; and there the conversation ended.

The next moment the cleartee-tee-tweetle-tweetle-weetle-wee-e-eof the boatswain’s whistle came floating down to us, followed by his gruff “Cutters away!” and presently we saw the boat glide down the ship’s side, and, after a very brief delay, shove off and come sweeping down toward us.

Five minutes later the prize crew, under Williams, the master’s mate, with young Peters, a fellow mid of mine, as his second in command, stood upon the schooner’s deck, and Mr Austin, who had accompanied them, was wringing our hands as though he would wring them off.

Smellie saw the exquisite agony which our warm-hearted “first luff” was unconsciously inflicting uponmeby his effusive greeting, and thoughtfully interposed with a—

“Gently, Edgar, old fellow. I am afraid you are handling poor Hawkesley a little roughly. He has received rather a bad hurt in the right shoulder to-night in our fight with the schooner’s people.”

“Fight!—schooner’s people! I beg your pardon, Hawkesley; I hope I haven’t hurt you. Why, you never mean to say you have had tofightfor the schooner?” Austin interrupted, aghast. “Well, wetookher by surprise; but her people proved very troublesome, and very pertinacious in their efforts to get her back again,” Smellie replied. “But, come, let us get on board the oldDaphneonce more. I long to set foot on her planks again; and, like Hawkesley here, I shall not be sorry to renew my acquaintance with Burnett.”

So said, so done. We made our way into the boat, leaving the prize crew to secure the prisoners, and a few minutes later stood once more safe, if not altogether sound, on the deck of the dear oldDaphne.

Chapter Fifteen.A Stern Chase—and a fruitless one.“Welcome back to theDaphne, gentlemen!” exclaimed Captain Vernon as he met us at the gangway and extended his hand, first to Smellie and then to me. “This is indeed a pleasant surprise—for all hands, I will venture to say, though Armitage loses his step, at leastpro tem., in consequence of your reappearance, Mr Smellie. But he is a good-hearted fellow, and when he entered my cabin to report you alongside, though he seemed a trifle incredulous as to your personality, he was as delighted as a schoolboy at the prospect of a holiday.”Smellie took the skipper’s extended hand, and after replying suitably to his greeting, said:“I must beg you will excuse Hawkesley, sir, if he gives you his left instead of his right hand. His starboard shoulder has been disabled to-night by a pistol-bullet whilst supporting me most intrepidly in the task of bringing out the schooner.”The skipper seized my left hand with his right, and pressing it earnestly yet gently, said:“I am proud and pleased to hear so gratifying an account of you, Hawkesley. Mr Armitage has already borne witness to your gallantry during the night attack upon the slavers; and it was with deep and sincere sorrow that I received the news of your being, with Mr Smellie, missing. I fear, gentlemen, your friends at home will suffer a great deal of, happily unnecessary, sorrow at the news which I felt it my duty to send home; but that can all be repaired by your personally despatching to them the agreeable intelligence of your both being still in the land of the living. But what of your hurts? Are they too serious to be attended to in my cabin? They are not? I am glad to hear that. Then follow me, both of you, please; for I long to hear where you have been, what doing all this time, and how you happened to turn up so opportunely here to-night I will send for Burnett to bring his tools into my cabin; and you can satisfy my curiosity whilst he is doing the needful for you. Will you join us, Austin? I’ll be bound your ears are tingling to hear what has befallen these wandering knights.”Thereupon we filed down below in the skipper’s wake—I for one being most heartily thankful to find myself where I could once more sit down and rest my aching limbs. The skipper’s steward brought out some wine and glasses, and then at Burnett’s request—that individual having promptly turned up—went away to get ready some warm water.“I think,” said our genial medico, turning to me, “youlook in most urgent need of my services, so I will begin with you, young gentleman, if you please. Now whereabouts are your hurts?”I told him, and he straightway began to cut away the sleeve of my coat and shirt, preparatory to more serious operations; whilst Smellie, drawing his chair up to the table, helped himself to a glass of wine, and then said:“Before I begin my story, sir, will you permit me to ask what was the ultimate result of that most disastrous expedition against the slavers? I am naturally anxious to know, of course, seeing that upon my shoulders rests the odium of our failure.”Captain Vernon stared hard at the second lieutenant for a minute, and then said:“My dear Smellie, what in the world are you talking about? Disaster! Odium! Why, man, the expedition was asuccess, not a failure. I admit that there was, most unfortunately, a very serious loss of life among the unhappy slaves; but we took the brigantine and afterwards raised the schooner, with a loss to ourselves of only four killed—now that you two have turned up. It was a most dashing affair, and admirably conducted, when we take into consideration the elaborate preparations which had been evidently made for your reception; and theultimate resultabout which you inquire so anxiously will, I hope, be a nice little bit of prize-money to all hands, and richly deserved promotion to yourself, Armitage, and young Williams.”It was now Smellie’s turn to look surprised.“You astonish me, sir,” he said. “The last I remember of the affair is that, after a most stubborn and protracted fight, in which the schooner was sunk, we succeeded in gaining possession of the brig, only to be blown out of her a few minutes later, however; and my own impression—and Hawkesley’s too, for that matter, as I afterwards discovered on comparing notes with him—was that our losses must have amounted to at least half of the men composing the expedition.”“Well,” said Captain Vernon, “I am happy to tell you that you were mistaken. Our total loss over that affair amounts to four men killed; but the severity of the fight is amply testified to by the fact that not one man out of the whole number escaped without a wound of some kind, more or less serious. They have all recovered, however, I am happy to say, and we have not at present a sick man in the ship. There can be no doubt that the slavers somehow received timely notice of our presence in the river, through the instrumentality of your fair-speaking friend, the skipper of thePensacola, I strongly suspect, and that they made the best possible use of the time at their disposal. Had I been as wise then as I am now my arrangements would have been very different. However, it is easy to be wise after the event; and I am thankful that matters turned out so well. And now, I think we are fairly entitled to hear your story.”Thereupon Smellie launched out into a detailed recital of all that had befallen us from the moment of the explosion on board the brig up to our unexpected arrival that same night alongside theDaphne. He was interrupted by countless exclamations of astonishment and sympathy; and when he had finished there seemed to be no end to the questions which one and another was anxious to put to him. In the midst of it all, however, Burnett broke in with the announcement that, having finished with me, he was ready to attend to the second lieutenant.The worthy medico’s attentions to me had been, as may be gathered from the fact that they outlasted Smellie’s story, of somewhat protracted duration, and that they were of an exceedingly painful character I can abundantly testify, the ball having broken my shoulder-blade and then buried itself among the muscles of the shoulder, whence Burnett insisted on extracting it, in spite of my protestations that I was quite willing to postpone that operation to a more convenient season. After much groping and probing about, however, utterly regardless of the excruciating agony he thus inflicted upon me, the conscientious Burnett had at last succeeded in extracting the ball, which he kindly presented to me as a memento, and then the rest of the work was, comparatively speaking, plain sailing. My wound was washed, dressed, and made comfortable; and I was dismissed with a strict injunction to turn-in at once.To this the skipper moved, as an amendment, that I be permitted to drink a single glass of wine before retiring; and whilst I was sipping this they turned upon me with their questions, with the result that I soon forgot all about my hammock. At length Captain Vernon said:“By-the-by, Hawkesley, what sort of a young lady is this Doña Antonia whom Mr Smellie has mentioned once or twice?”“She is simply the most lovely creature I have ever seen, sir,” I replied enthusiastically.”—And my promised wife,” jerked in Smellie, in a tone which warned all hands that there must be no jocularity in connection with the mention of the doña’s name.“Ho, ho!” ejaculated the skipper with a whistle of surprise. “That is how the wind blows, is it? Upon my word, Smellie, I heartily congratulate you upon your conquest. Quite a romantic affair, really. And pray, Mr Hawkesley, what success haveyoumet with in Cupid’s warfare?”“None whatever, sir,” I replied with a laugh. “The only other lady in Don Manuel’s household was old Dolores, Doña Antonia’s attendant, and I was positively afraid to try the effect of my fascinations upon her.”“Lest you should prove onlytoosuccessful,” laughed the skipper. “By the way, Smellie, do you think this Don Manuel was quite plain and above-board with you? I supposehedoes nothing in the slave-trading business, eh?”“I think not, sir; though he undoubtedly possesses the acquaintance of a certain Señor Madera, a most suspicious-looking character, whose name I have already mentioned to you—by the way, Hawkesley, you were evidently mistaken as to theJosefabelonging to Madera; he was nowhere to be found on board her.”“What is it, Mr Armitage?” said the skipper just then, as the third lieutenant made his appearance at the door.“A vessel, apparently a brig, sir, has just come into view under the northern shore, evidently having just left the river. She is hugging the land very closely, keeping well under its shadow, in fact, and has all the appearance of being anxious to avoid attracting our attention.”The skipper glanced interrogatively at Smellie, who at once responded to the look by saying:“TheBlack Venus, without doubt. I expect that our running away with theJosefahas given them the alarm, and they have determined to slip out whilst the option remains to them, and take their chance of being able to give us the slip.”“They shall not do that if I can help it,” remarked the skipper energetically; and, rising to his feet, he gave orders for all hands to be called forthwith. This broke up the party in the cabin, much to the gratification of Burnett, who now insisted that both Smellie and I should retire to our hammocks forthwith, and on no account presume to leave them again until we had his permission.I was not very long in undressing, having secured the services of a marine to assist me in the operation; but before I had gained my hammock I was rejoined by Keene, a brother mid, whose watch it was below, and who brought me down the news that the sloop was under weigh and fairly after the stranger, who, as soon as our canvas dropped from the yards, had squared away on a westerly course with the wind on her quarter and a whole cloud of studding-sails set to windward.What with the excitement of finding myself once more among so many friends and the pain of my wound it was some time before I succeeded in getting to sleep that night; and before I did so theDaphnewas rolling like an empty hogshead, showing how rapidly she had run off the land and into the sea knocked up by the gale.When I awoke next morning the wind had dropped to a considerable extent, the sea had gone down, and the ship was a great deal steadier under her canvas. I was most anxious to leave my hammock and go on deck, but this Burnett would not for a moment consent to; my wound was very much inflamed and exceedingly painful, the result, doubtless, of the probing for the bullet on the night before; and instead of being allowed to turn out I was removed in my hammock, just as I was, to the sick bay. I was ordered to keep very quiet, but I managed to learn, nevertheless, that the chase was still in sight directly ahead, about nine miles distant, and that, though she certainly was not running away from us, there seemed to be little hope of our overtaking her for some time to come.Matters remained in this unsatisfactory state for the next five days, theDaphnekeeping the chase in sight during the whole of that time, but failing to come up with her. The distance between the two vessels varied according to the weather, the chase appearing to have the best of it in a strong breeze, whilst theDaphnewas slightly the faster of the two in light airs. Unfortunately for us, the wind continued very nearly dead fair, or about three points on our starboard quarter, whereas the sloop seemed to do best with the wind abeam. We would not have objected even to a moderate breeze dead in our teeth, our craft being remarkably fast on a taut bowline; and as day after day went by without any apparent prospect of an end of the chase the barometer was anxiously watched, in the hope that before long we should be favoured with a change of weather.On the morning of the fifth day I was so much better that, acceding to my urgent request, Burnett consented, with many doubtful shakes of the head, to my leaving my hammock and taking the air on deck for an hour or two. I accordingly dressed as rapidly as possible, and got on deck just in time to catch sight of the chase, about six miles distant, before a sea mist settled down on the scene, which soon effectually concealed her from our view. This was particularly exasperating, since, the wind having dropped to about a five-knot breeze, we had been slowly but perceptibly gaining on her for the last three or four hours; and now, when at length there appeared a prospect of overtaking her, a chance to elude us in the fog had presented itself. Of course it was utterly impossible to guess what ruse so wary a foe would resort to, but that he would have recourse to one of some kind was a moral certainty. Captain Vernon at once took counsel with his first and second lieutenants as to what course it would be most advisable to adopt under the circumstances, and it was at last decided to put the ship upon a wind, and make short tacks to the eastward until the fog should clear, it being thought highly probable that the chase would likewise double back upon her former course in the hope of our running past her in the fog.The studding-sails were accordingly taken in, and the ship brought to the wind on the starboard tack. We made short reaches, tacking every hour, and had gone about for the third time when, just as the men were coiling up the ropes fore and aft, the look-out reported:“Sail, ho! straight ahead. Hard up, sir, or you will be into her.”Mr Austin, who had charge of the deck, sprang upon a gun, and peered out eagerly ahead.“Hard over, my man,hardover!” he exclaimed excitedly; then continued, after a moment of breathless suspense:“All clear, all clear! we havejustmissed her, and that is all. By Jove, Hawkesley, that was a narrow squeak, eh? Why, it is surely theVestale!Vestaleahoy!”“Hillo!” was the response from the other craft, indubitably the brig which we had fallen in with shortly after our first look into the Congo, and which we had been given to understand was theVestale, French gun-brig.“Have you sighted a sail of any kind to-day?” hailed Austin.“Non, mon Dieu! We have not nevaire seen a sail until now since we leave Sierra Leone four weeks ago.”This ended the communication between the two ships, theVestale—or whatever she was—disappearing again into the fog before the last words of the reply to our question had been uttered.“Well,” said Mr Austin, as he jumped down off the gun, “I am disappointed. When I first caught sight of that craft close under our bows I thought for a moment that we had made a clever guess; that the chase had doubled on her track, and that, by a lucky accident, we had stumbled fairly upon her in the fog. But as soon as I caught sight of the white figure-head and the streak round her sides I saw that I was mistaken. Well, wemaydrop upon the fellow yet. I would give a ten-pound note this instant if the fog would only lift.”“I cannot understand it for the life of me,” I replied in a dazed sort of way, as I stepped gingerly down off the gun upon which I, like the first lieutenant, had jumped in the first of the excitement.Mr Austin looked at me questioningly.“What is it that you cannot understand, Hawkesley?” he asked.“That brig—theVestale, as she calls herself—and all connected with her,” I answered.“Why, whatisthere to understand about her? Or rather, what is there that is incomprehensible about her?” he asked sharply.“Everything,” I replied eagerly. “In the first place, we have only the statement of one man—and he a member of her own crew—that she actuallyisthe veritableVestale, French gun-brig, which we know to be cruising in these waters. Secondly, her very extraordinary resemblance to theBlack Venus, which, as you are aware, I have seen, absolutelycompelsme, against my better judgment, to the belief that the two brigs are, in some mysterious way, intimately associated together, if, indeed, they are not absolutelyone and the same vessel. And thirdly, my suspicion that the latter is the case receives strong confirmation from the fact that onbothoccasions when we have been after the one—theBlack Venus—we have encountered the other—theVestale.”Mr Austin stared at me in a very peculiar way for a few minutes, and then said:“Well, Hawkesley, your last assertion is undoubtedly true; but what does it prove? It can be nothing more than a curious coincidence.”“So I have assured myself over and over again, when my suspicions were strengthened by the first occurrence of the coincidence; and so I shall doubtless assure myself over and over again during the next few days,” I replied. “But if a coincidence only it is certainly curious that it should have occurred on two occasions.”“I am not quite prepared to admit that,” said the first lieutenant. “And, then, as to the remarkable resemblance between the two vessels, do you not think, now, honestly, Hawkesley, that your very extraordinary suspicions may have magnified that resemblance?”“No,” said I; “I do not. I only wish Mr Smellie had been on deck just now to have caught a glimpse of that inexplicable brig; he would have borne convincing testimony to the marvellous likeness between them. Why, sir, but for the white ribbon round the one, and the difference in the figure-heads, the two craft would be positively indistinguishable; so completely so, indeed, that poor Richards was actually unable to believe the evidence of his own senses, and, I firmly believe, was convinced of the identity of the two vessels.”“Indeed!” said Mr Austin in a tone of great surprise. “That is news to me. So Richards shared your suspicions, did he?”“He did, indeed, sir,” I replied. “It was, in fact, his extraordinary demeanour on the occasion of our second encounter with theVestale—you will remember the circumstance, sir?—which confirmed my suspicions; suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of thePensacolarelative to theBlack Venusand theVestale, how evasive were his replies!”“Look here, Hawkesley; you have interested me in spite of myself,” said Mr Austin. “If you are not too tired I should like you to tell me the whole history of these singular suspicions of yours from the very moment of their birth.”“I will, sir, with pleasure. They arose with Monsieur Le Breton’s visit to us on the occasion of our first falling in with theVestale,” I replied. And then having at last finally broached the subject which had been for so long a secret source of mental disquiet to me, I fully detailed to the first luff all those suspicious circumstances—trifling in themselves but important when regarded collectively—which I have already confided to the reader. When I had finished he remained silent for a long time, nearly a quarter of an hour I should think, with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes bent on the deck, evidently cogitating deeply. Finally he emerged from his abstraction with a start, cast an eye aloft at the sails, and then turning to me said:“You have given me something to think about now with a vengeance, Hawkesley. If indeed your suspicions as to the honesty of theVestaleshould prove well-founded, your mention of them and the acute perception which caused you in the first instance to entertain them will constitute a very valuable service—for which I will take care that you get full credit—and may very possibly lead to the final detection and suppression of a series of hitherto utterly unaccountable transactions of a most nefarious character. At all events we can do no harm by keeping a wary eye upon this allegedVestalefor the future, and I will make it my business to invent some plausible pretext for boarding her on the first opportunity which presents itself. And now I think you have been on deck quite as long as is good for you, so away you go below again and get back to your hammock. Such a wound as yours is not to be trifled with in this abominable climate; and you know,”—with a smile half good-humoured and half satirical—“we must take every possible care of a young gentleman who seems destined to teach us, from the captain downwards, our business. There, now, don’t look hurt, my lad; you did quite right in speaking to me, and I am very much obliged to you for so doing; I only regret that you did not earlier make me your confidant. Now away you go below at once.”I of course did dutifully as I was bidden, and, truth to tell, was by no means sorry to regain my hammock, having soon found that my strength was by no means as great as I had expected. That same night I suffered from a considerable accession of fever, and in fine was confined to my hammock for rather more than three weeks from that date, at the end of which I became once more convalescent, and—this time observing proper precautions and a strict adherence to the doctor’s orders—finally managed to get myself reported as once more fit for duty six weeks from the day on which Smellie and I rejoined theDaphne. I may as well here mention that the fog which so inopportunely enveloped us on the day of my conversation with Mr Austin did not clear away until just before sunset; and when it did the horizon was clear all round us, no trace of a sail being visible in any direction from our main-royal yard.

“Welcome back to theDaphne, gentlemen!” exclaimed Captain Vernon as he met us at the gangway and extended his hand, first to Smellie and then to me. “This is indeed a pleasant surprise—for all hands, I will venture to say, though Armitage loses his step, at leastpro tem., in consequence of your reappearance, Mr Smellie. But he is a good-hearted fellow, and when he entered my cabin to report you alongside, though he seemed a trifle incredulous as to your personality, he was as delighted as a schoolboy at the prospect of a holiday.”

Smellie took the skipper’s extended hand, and after replying suitably to his greeting, said:

“I must beg you will excuse Hawkesley, sir, if he gives you his left instead of his right hand. His starboard shoulder has been disabled to-night by a pistol-bullet whilst supporting me most intrepidly in the task of bringing out the schooner.”

The skipper seized my left hand with his right, and pressing it earnestly yet gently, said:

“I am proud and pleased to hear so gratifying an account of you, Hawkesley. Mr Armitage has already borne witness to your gallantry during the night attack upon the slavers; and it was with deep and sincere sorrow that I received the news of your being, with Mr Smellie, missing. I fear, gentlemen, your friends at home will suffer a great deal of, happily unnecessary, sorrow at the news which I felt it my duty to send home; but that can all be repaired by your personally despatching to them the agreeable intelligence of your both being still in the land of the living. But what of your hurts? Are they too serious to be attended to in my cabin? They are not? I am glad to hear that. Then follow me, both of you, please; for I long to hear where you have been, what doing all this time, and how you happened to turn up so opportunely here to-night I will send for Burnett to bring his tools into my cabin; and you can satisfy my curiosity whilst he is doing the needful for you. Will you join us, Austin? I’ll be bound your ears are tingling to hear what has befallen these wandering knights.”

Thereupon we filed down below in the skipper’s wake—I for one being most heartily thankful to find myself where I could once more sit down and rest my aching limbs. The skipper’s steward brought out some wine and glasses, and then at Burnett’s request—that individual having promptly turned up—went away to get ready some warm water.

“I think,” said our genial medico, turning to me, “youlook in most urgent need of my services, so I will begin with you, young gentleman, if you please. Now whereabouts are your hurts?”

I told him, and he straightway began to cut away the sleeve of my coat and shirt, preparatory to more serious operations; whilst Smellie, drawing his chair up to the table, helped himself to a glass of wine, and then said:

“Before I begin my story, sir, will you permit me to ask what was the ultimate result of that most disastrous expedition against the slavers? I am naturally anxious to know, of course, seeing that upon my shoulders rests the odium of our failure.”

Captain Vernon stared hard at the second lieutenant for a minute, and then said:

“My dear Smellie, what in the world are you talking about? Disaster! Odium! Why, man, the expedition was asuccess, not a failure. I admit that there was, most unfortunately, a very serious loss of life among the unhappy slaves; but we took the brigantine and afterwards raised the schooner, with a loss to ourselves of only four killed—now that you two have turned up. It was a most dashing affair, and admirably conducted, when we take into consideration the elaborate preparations which had been evidently made for your reception; and theultimate resultabout which you inquire so anxiously will, I hope, be a nice little bit of prize-money to all hands, and richly deserved promotion to yourself, Armitage, and young Williams.”

It was now Smellie’s turn to look surprised.

“You astonish me, sir,” he said. “The last I remember of the affair is that, after a most stubborn and protracted fight, in which the schooner was sunk, we succeeded in gaining possession of the brig, only to be blown out of her a few minutes later, however; and my own impression—and Hawkesley’s too, for that matter, as I afterwards discovered on comparing notes with him—was that our losses must have amounted to at least half of the men composing the expedition.”

“Well,” said Captain Vernon, “I am happy to tell you that you were mistaken. Our total loss over that affair amounts to four men killed; but the severity of the fight is amply testified to by the fact that not one man out of the whole number escaped without a wound of some kind, more or less serious. They have all recovered, however, I am happy to say, and we have not at present a sick man in the ship. There can be no doubt that the slavers somehow received timely notice of our presence in the river, through the instrumentality of your fair-speaking friend, the skipper of thePensacola, I strongly suspect, and that they made the best possible use of the time at their disposal. Had I been as wise then as I am now my arrangements would have been very different. However, it is easy to be wise after the event; and I am thankful that matters turned out so well. And now, I think we are fairly entitled to hear your story.”

Thereupon Smellie launched out into a detailed recital of all that had befallen us from the moment of the explosion on board the brig up to our unexpected arrival that same night alongside theDaphne. He was interrupted by countless exclamations of astonishment and sympathy; and when he had finished there seemed to be no end to the questions which one and another was anxious to put to him. In the midst of it all, however, Burnett broke in with the announcement that, having finished with me, he was ready to attend to the second lieutenant.

The worthy medico’s attentions to me had been, as may be gathered from the fact that they outlasted Smellie’s story, of somewhat protracted duration, and that they were of an exceedingly painful character I can abundantly testify, the ball having broken my shoulder-blade and then buried itself among the muscles of the shoulder, whence Burnett insisted on extracting it, in spite of my protestations that I was quite willing to postpone that operation to a more convenient season. After much groping and probing about, however, utterly regardless of the excruciating agony he thus inflicted upon me, the conscientious Burnett had at last succeeded in extracting the ball, which he kindly presented to me as a memento, and then the rest of the work was, comparatively speaking, plain sailing. My wound was washed, dressed, and made comfortable; and I was dismissed with a strict injunction to turn-in at once.

To this the skipper moved, as an amendment, that I be permitted to drink a single glass of wine before retiring; and whilst I was sipping this they turned upon me with their questions, with the result that I soon forgot all about my hammock. At length Captain Vernon said:

“By-the-by, Hawkesley, what sort of a young lady is this Doña Antonia whom Mr Smellie has mentioned once or twice?”

“She is simply the most lovely creature I have ever seen, sir,” I replied enthusiastically.

”—And my promised wife,” jerked in Smellie, in a tone which warned all hands that there must be no jocularity in connection with the mention of the doña’s name.

“Ho, ho!” ejaculated the skipper with a whistle of surprise. “That is how the wind blows, is it? Upon my word, Smellie, I heartily congratulate you upon your conquest. Quite a romantic affair, really. And pray, Mr Hawkesley, what success haveyoumet with in Cupid’s warfare?”

“None whatever, sir,” I replied with a laugh. “The only other lady in Don Manuel’s household was old Dolores, Doña Antonia’s attendant, and I was positively afraid to try the effect of my fascinations upon her.”

“Lest you should prove onlytoosuccessful,” laughed the skipper. “By the way, Smellie, do you think this Don Manuel was quite plain and above-board with you? I supposehedoes nothing in the slave-trading business, eh?”

“I think not, sir; though he undoubtedly possesses the acquaintance of a certain Señor Madera, a most suspicious-looking character, whose name I have already mentioned to you—by the way, Hawkesley, you were evidently mistaken as to theJosefabelonging to Madera; he was nowhere to be found on board her.”

“What is it, Mr Armitage?” said the skipper just then, as the third lieutenant made his appearance at the door.

“A vessel, apparently a brig, sir, has just come into view under the northern shore, evidently having just left the river. She is hugging the land very closely, keeping well under its shadow, in fact, and has all the appearance of being anxious to avoid attracting our attention.”

The skipper glanced interrogatively at Smellie, who at once responded to the look by saying:

“TheBlack Venus, without doubt. I expect that our running away with theJosefahas given them the alarm, and they have determined to slip out whilst the option remains to them, and take their chance of being able to give us the slip.”

“They shall not do that if I can help it,” remarked the skipper energetically; and, rising to his feet, he gave orders for all hands to be called forthwith. This broke up the party in the cabin, much to the gratification of Burnett, who now insisted that both Smellie and I should retire to our hammocks forthwith, and on no account presume to leave them again until we had his permission.

I was not very long in undressing, having secured the services of a marine to assist me in the operation; but before I had gained my hammock I was rejoined by Keene, a brother mid, whose watch it was below, and who brought me down the news that the sloop was under weigh and fairly after the stranger, who, as soon as our canvas dropped from the yards, had squared away on a westerly course with the wind on her quarter and a whole cloud of studding-sails set to windward.

What with the excitement of finding myself once more among so many friends and the pain of my wound it was some time before I succeeded in getting to sleep that night; and before I did so theDaphnewas rolling like an empty hogshead, showing how rapidly she had run off the land and into the sea knocked up by the gale.

When I awoke next morning the wind had dropped to a considerable extent, the sea had gone down, and the ship was a great deal steadier under her canvas. I was most anxious to leave my hammock and go on deck, but this Burnett would not for a moment consent to; my wound was very much inflamed and exceedingly painful, the result, doubtless, of the probing for the bullet on the night before; and instead of being allowed to turn out I was removed in my hammock, just as I was, to the sick bay. I was ordered to keep very quiet, but I managed to learn, nevertheless, that the chase was still in sight directly ahead, about nine miles distant, and that, though she certainly was not running away from us, there seemed to be little hope of our overtaking her for some time to come.

Matters remained in this unsatisfactory state for the next five days, theDaphnekeeping the chase in sight during the whole of that time, but failing to come up with her. The distance between the two vessels varied according to the weather, the chase appearing to have the best of it in a strong breeze, whilst theDaphnewas slightly the faster of the two in light airs. Unfortunately for us, the wind continued very nearly dead fair, or about three points on our starboard quarter, whereas the sloop seemed to do best with the wind abeam. We would not have objected even to a moderate breeze dead in our teeth, our craft being remarkably fast on a taut bowline; and as day after day went by without any apparent prospect of an end of the chase the barometer was anxiously watched, in the hope that before long we should be favoured with a change of weather.

On the morning of the fifth day I was so much better that, acceding to my urgent request, Burnett consented, with many doubtful shakes of the head, to my leaving my hammock and taking the air on deck for an hour or two. I accordingly dressed as rapidly as possible, and got on deck just in time to catch sight of the chase, about six miles distant, before a sea mist settled down on the scene, which soon effectually concealed her from our view. This was particularly exasperating, since, the wind having dropped to about a five-knot breeze, we had been slowly but perceptibly gaining on her for the last three or four hours; and now, when at length there appeared a prospect of overtaking her, a chance to elude us in the fog had presented itself. Of course it was utterly impossible to guess what ruse so wary a foe would resort to, but that he would have recourse to one of some kind was a moral certainty. Captain Vernon at once took counsel with his first and second lieutenants as to what course it would be most advisable to adopt under the circumstances, and it was at last decided to put the ship upon a wind, and make short tacks to the eastward until the fog should clear, it being thought highly probable that the chase would likewise double back upon her former course in the hope of our running past her in the fog.

The studding-sails were accordingly taken in, and the ship brought to the wind on the starboard tack. We made short reaches, tacking every hour, and had gone about for the third time when, just as the men were coiling up the ropes fore and aft, the look-out reported:

“Sail, ho! straight ahead. Hard up, sir, or you will be into her.”

Mr Austin, who had charge of the deck, sprang upon a gun, and peered out eagerly ahead.

“Hard over, my man,hardover!” he exclaimed excitedly; then continued, after a moment of breathless suspense:

“All clear, all clear! we havejustmissed her, and that is all. By Jove, Hawkesley, that was a narrow squeak, eh? Why, it is surely theVestale!Vestaleahoy!”

“Hillo!” was the response from the other craft, indubitably the brig which we had fallen in with shortly after our first look into the Congo, and which we had been given to understand was theVestale, French gun-brig.

“Have you sighted a sail of any kind to-day?” hailed Austin.

“Non, mon Dieu! We have not nevaire seen a sail until now since we leave Sierra Leone four weeks ago.”

This ended the communication between the two ships, theVestale—or whatever she was—disappearing again into the fog before the last words of the reply to our question had been uttered.

“Well,” said Mr Austin, as he jumped down off the gun, “I am disappointed. When I first caught sight of that craft close under our bows I thought for a moment that we had made a clever guess; that the chase had doubled on her track, and that, by a lucky accident, we had stumbled fairly upon her in the fog. But as soon as I caught sight of the white figure-head and the streak round her sides I saw that I was mistaken. Well, wemaydrop upon the fellow yet. I would give a ten-pound note this instant if the fog would only lift.”

“I cannot understand it for the life of me,” I replied in a dazed sort of way, as I stepped gingerly down off the gun upon which I, like the first lieutenant, had jumped in the first of the excitement.

Mr Austin looked at me questioningly.

“What is it that you cannot understand, Hawkesley?” he asked.

“That brig—theVestale, as she calls herself—and all connected with her,” I answered.

“Why, whatisthere to understand about her? Or rather, what is there that is incomprehensible about her?” he asked sharply.

“Everything,” I replied eagerly. “In the first place, we have only the statement of one man—and he a member of her own crew—that she actuallyisthe veritableVestale, French gun-brig, which we know to be cruising in these waters. Secondly, her very extraordinary resemblance to theBlack Venus, which, as you are aware, I have seen, absolutelycompelsme, against my better judgment, to the belief that the two brigs are, in some mysterious way, intimately associated together, if, indeed, they are not absolutelyone and the same vessel. And thirdly, my suspicion that the latter is the case receives strong confirmation from the fact that onbothoccasions when we have been after the one—theBlack Venus—we have encountered the other—theVestale.”

Mr Austin stared at me in a very peculiar way for a few minutes, and then said:

“Well, Hawkesley, your last assertion is undoubtedly true; but what does it prove? It can be nothing more than a curious coincidence.”

“So I have assured myself over and over again, when my suspicions were strengthened by the first occurrence of the coincidence; and so I shall doubtless assure myself over and over again during the next few days,” I replied. “But if a coincidence only it is certainly curious that it should have occurred on two occasions.”

“I am not quite prepared to admit that,” said the first lieutenant. “And, then, as to the remarkable resemblance between the two vessels, do you not think, now, honestly, Hawkesley, that your very extraordinary suspicions may have magnified that resemblance?”

“No,” said I; “I do not. I only wish Mr Smellie had been on deck just now to have caught a glimpse of that inexplicable brig; he would have borne convincing testimony to the marvellous likeness between them. Why, sir, but for the white ribbon round the one, and the difference in the figure-heads, the two craft would be positively indistinguishable; so completely so, indeed, that poor Richards was actually unable to believe the evidence of his own senses, and, I firmly believe, was convinced of the identity of the two vessels.”

“Indeed!” said Mr Austin in a tone of great surprise. “That is news to me. So Richards shared your suspicions, did he?”

“He did, indeed, sir,” I replied. “It was, in fact, his extraordinary demeanour on the occasion of our second encounter with theVestale—you will remember the circumstance, sir?—which confirmed my suspicions; suspicions which, up to then, I had attributed solely to some aberration of fancy on my part. Then, again, when we questioned the skipper of thePensacolarelative to theBlack Venusand theVestale, how evasive were his replies!”

“Look here, Hawkesley; you have interested me in spite of myself,” said Mr Austin. “If you are not too tired I should like you to tell me the whole history of these singular suspicions of yours from the very moment of their birth.”

“I will, sir, with pleasure. They arose with Monsieur Le Breton’s visit to us on the occasion of our first falling in with theVestale,” I replied. And then having at last finally broached the subject which had been for so long a secret source of mental disquiet to me, I fully detailed to the first luff all those suspicious circumstances—trifling in themselves but important when regarded collectively—which I have already confided to the reader. When I had finished he remained silent for a long time, nearly a quarter of an hour I should think, with his hands clasped behind his back and his eyes bent on the deck, evidently cogitating deeply. Finally he emerged from his abstraction with a start, cast an eye aloft at the sails, and then turning to me said:

“You have given me something to think about now with a vengeance, Hawkesley. If indeed your suspicions as to the honesty of theVestaleshould prove well-founded, your mention of them and the acute perception which caused you in the first instance to entertain them will constitute a very valuable service—for which I will take care that you get full credit—and may very possibly lead to the final detection and suppression of a series of hitherto utterly unaccountable transactions of a most nefarious character. At all events we can do no harm by keeping a wary eye upon this allegedVestalefor the future, and I will make it my business to invent some plausible pretext for boarding her on the first opportunity which presents itself. And now I think you have been on deck quite as long as is good for you, so away you go below again and get back to your hammock. Such a wound as yours is not to be trifled with in this abominable climate; and you know,”—with a smile half good-humoured and half satirical—“we must take every possible care of a young gentleman who seems destined to teach us, from the captain downwards, our business. There, now, don’t look hurt, my lad; you did quite right in speaking to me, and I am very much obliged to you for so doing; I only regret that you did not earlier make me your confidant. Now away you go below at once.”

I of course did dutifully as I was bidden, and, truth to tell, was by no means sorry to regain my hammock, having soon found that my strength was by no means as great as I had expected. That same night I suffered from a considerable accession of fever, and in fine was confined to my hammock for rather more than three weeks from that date, at the end of which I became once more convalescent, and—this time observing proper precautions and a strict adherence to the doctor’s orders—finally managed to get myself reported as once more fit for duty six weeks from the day on which Smellie and I rejoined theDaphne. I may as well here mention that the fog which so inopportunely enveloped us on the day of my conversation with Mr Austin did not clear away until just before sunset; and when it did the horizon was clear all round us, no trace of a sail being visible in any direction from our main-royal yard.

Chapter Sixteen.A very mysterious Occurrence.In extreme disgust at the loss of the notoriousBlack VenusCaptain Vernon reluctantly gave orders for the resumption of the cruise, and theDaphnewas once more headed in for the land, it being the skipper’s intention to give a look in at all the likely places along the coast as far north as the Bight of Benin.This was terribly tedious and particularly trying to the men, it being all boat work. The exploration of the Fernan Vas river occupied thirty hours, whilst in the case of the Ogowé river the boats were away from the ship for four days and three nights; the result being that when at last we went into Sierra Leone we had ten men down with fever, and had lost four more from the same cause. The worst of it all was that our labour had been wholly in vain, not a single prize being taken nor a suspicious craft fallen in with. Here we found Williams and the prize crew of theJosefaawaiting us according to instructions; so shipping them and landing the sick men Captain Vernon lost no time in putting to sea once more.On leaving Sierra Leone a course was shaped for the Congo, and after a long and very tedious passage, during the whole of which we had to contend against light head-winds, we found ourselves once more within sight of the river at daybreak.It was stark calm, with a cloudless sky, and a long lazy swell came creeping in from the southward and eastward causing the sloop to roll most uncomfortably. We were about twelve miles off the land; and at about half-way between us and it, becalmed like ourselves, there lay a brig, which our telescopes informed us was theVestale. On this fact being decisively ascertained Mr Austin came up to me and said:“There is yourbête noire, theVestale, once more, you see, Hawkesley. I have been thinking a great deal about what you said to me some time ago respecting her, and I have come to the conclusion that it is quite worth our while to look into the matter, at least so far as will enable us to judge whether your suspicions are wholly groundless or not. If they are—if, in fact, the craft proves to be what she professes herself—well and good; we can dismiss the affair finally and for ever from our minds and give our undivided attention to other matters. But I confess you have to a certain extent imbued me with your own doubts as to the strict integrity of yonder brig; there are one or two little matters you mentioned which escaped my notice end which certainly have rather a suspicious appearance. I therefore intend—if the craft is bound into the river like ourselves—to make an early opportunity to pay her a visit on some pretext or other.”“Have you mentioned the matter to Captain Vernon yet, sir?” I inquired.“No, not yet,” was the reply. “I must have something a little more definite to say before I broach the matter to him. But here comes the breeze at last, aseabreeze, too, thank Heaven! Man the braces fore and aft; square away the yards and brail in the mizen. Hard up with your helm, my man, and keep her dead away for the mouth of the river.”The faint blue line along the western horizon came creeping gradually down toward us, and presently a catspaw or two ruffled the glassy surface of the water for a moment and disappeared. Then a deliciously cool and refreshing draught of air fanned our faces and swelled out the light upper canvas for an instant, died away, came again a trifle stronger and lasted for perhaps half a minute, then with a flap the canvas collapsed, filled again, the sloop gathered way and paid off with her head to the eastward; a bubble or two floated past her sides, a faint ripple arose under her bows, grew larger, became audible, the glassy surface of the water grew gently ruffled and assumed an exquisite cerulean tint, the wheel began to press against the helmsman’s hand, and away we went straight for the mouth of the river—and the brig.The breeze, gentle though it was, reached our neighbour long before we did, and as soon as she felt it she too bore up, squared her yards, and headed direct for Boolambemba Point. She was about three miles ahead of us when the breeze reached her, and I felt very curious to see where she would finally come to an anchor. The onlysafeanchorage is in Banana Creek, and though slavers constantly resort to the numerous other creeks and inlets higher up the river no captain of a man-of-war would think for a moment of risking his ship in any of them unless the emergency happened to be very pressing, nor even then unless his vessel happened to be of exceedingly light draught. If therefore the brig anchored in Banana Creek I should accept it as a point in favour of her honesty; if not, my suspicions would be stronger than ever.It so happened that shedidanchor in Banana Creek, but fully a quarter of a mile higher up it than old Mildmay the master thought it prudent for us to venture, though in obedience to a hint from Mr Austin he took us much further in than where we had anchored on our previous visit. The brig got in fully half an hour before us, her canvas was consequently stowed, her yards squared, ropes hauled taut and coiled down, and her boats in the water when our anchor at length plunged into the muddy opaque-looking water of the creek.We were barely brought up—and indeed the hands were still aloft stowing the canvas—when a gig shoved off from the brig and pulled down the creek. A few minutes later she dashed alongside and Monsieur Le Breton once more presented himself upon our quarter-deck, cap in had, bowing, smiling, and grimacing as only a Frenchman can. His visit, though such a singularly precipitate one, was, it soon turned out, merely a visit of ceremony, which he prolonged to such an extent that Captain Vernon was perforce obliged to invite him down below to breakfast, Mr Austin and I being also the skipper’s guests on that particular morning. In the course of the meal he made several very complimentary remarks as to the appearance of theDaphne, and finally—when I suppose he saw that he had thus completely won poor Austin’s heart—he very politely expressed his extreme desire to take a look through the ship, a desire which the first luff with equal politeness assured him it would give him great pleasure to gratify.The fellow certainly had a wonderfully plausible and winning way with him, there was no denying that, and I saw that under its influence the slight suspicions which I had imparted to poor honest-hearted, straightforward Mr Austin were melting like snowflakes under a summer sun. Still, under all the plausibility, the delicate flattery, and the elaborate politeness of the man, there was a vague indefinablesomethingto which I found it quite impossible to reconcile myself; and I watched him as a cat does a mouse, anxious to note whatever suspicious circumstances might transpire, in order that I might be fully prepared for the talk with the first luff which I felt certain would closely follow upon our visitor’s departure. To my chagrin, however, I was on this occasion wholly unable to detect anything whatever out of the common, and Monsieur Le Breton’s broken English, upon which I had laid such stress in my former conversation with Mr Austin, was now quite consistent and irreproachable. He was taken through the ship and shown every nook and corner in her, and finally, about noon, took his leave. Just before going down over the side he apologised for the non-appearance of “Captain Dubosc” upon the plea that that gentleman was confined to his hammock with a severe attack of dysentery; but if the officers of theDaphnewould honour theestate’sward-room with their presence at dinner that evening Monsieur Le Breton and his brother officers would be “enchanted.” And, apparently as an after-thought, when his foot was on the top step of the gangway ladder, this very agreeable gentleman urgently requested the pleasure of Mr Austin’s company on a sporting expedition which he and one or two more were about to undertake that afternoon. This latter invitation was declined upon the plea of stress of work; but the invitation to dinner was accepted conditionally upon the work being in a sufficiently forward state to allow of the officers leaving the ship.We were indeed exceedingly busy that day, Mr Austin having determined to take advantage of the opportunity which our being at anchor afforded him to lift the rigging off the mastheads and give it and them a thorough overhaul.As for me, I was engaged during the whole of the day in charge of a boat’s crew filling up our water casks and tanks and foraging in the adjacent forest for a supply of fruit, not a single native canoe having approached us during the entire day. It was, consequently, not until late in the afternoon, when the neck of the day’s work was broken, that I had an opportunity of exchanging a word or two with the first lieutenant on the subject of our neighbour, the brig, and then it was only a word or two. Mr Austin opened the conversation with:“Well, Hawkesley, what do you think of our friend Monsieur Le Breton, now that you have had an opportunity of bettering your acquaintance with him?”“Well, sir,” I replied; “on the whole I am inclined to think that there is just a bare possibility of my having been mistaken in my estimate of him and of the character of the brig. Still—”“Still your mind is not yet quite easy,” Mr Austin laughingly interrupted me. “Now, what could you possibly have noticed of a suspicious character in the poor fellow’s conduct this morning?”“Nothing,” I was obliged to acknowledge. “I am quite prepared to admit, sir, a total absence of those peculiarities of manner whichI am certainexisted during his first visit to the ship. But did you not think it strange that he should be in such a tremendous hurry to come on board us this morning? At first I was inclined to think his object might be to prevent a visit from some of us to the brig; but that supposition is met, to some extent, by his invitation to us for this evening. The delay may, of course, have afforded them an opportunity to make arrangements for our reception by putting out of sight any—”“Any tell-tale evidences of their dishonesty,” laughed the first luff. “Really, Hawkesley, I must say I think you are deceiving yourself and worrying yourself unnecessarily. Of course I can quite understand how, having harboured those extraordinary suspicions of yours for so great a length of time, you now find it difficult to dismiss them all in a moment; but have patience for a few hours more; an excellent opportunity is now offered us for satisfying ourselves as to the brig’sbona fides, and you may rest assured that I shall make the very best use of it. I find I shall be the only guest of the Frenchmen to-night—the rest of the officers are far too busy to leave the ship, and indeedIcan hardly be spared, and would not go but for the fact that it would look uncivil if we in a body declined their invitation; but I will see that to-morrow you have an opportunity of going on board and investigating for yourself. And now I must be off to make myself presentable, or I shall be keeping my hosts waiting, and perhaps spoil their dinner.”With that he dived below; and I turned away to attend to some little matter connected with the progress of the work. A quarter of an hour later he reappeared on deck, clean-shaven, and looking very handsome and seamanlike in his best suit of uniform; and, the gig being piped away, he went down over the side, giving me a parting nod as he did so. I watched the boat dash up alongside the brig; noted that the side was manned in due form, that our worthy “first” was received by a group of officers on the quarter-deck, conspicuous among whom I could make out with the aid of my glass Monsieur Le Breton, evidently performing the ceremony of introduction; and then the work being finished, ropes coiled down, and everything once more restored to its proper place, the hands were piped to tea, and I descended to the midshipmen’s den, thoroughly tired out with my unwonted exertion.When I again went on deck, about an hour later, the stars were shining brilliantly; the moon, about three days old, was gleaming with a soft subdued radiance through the topmost branches of the trees on the adjacent shore; and the night-mist was already gathering so thickly on the bosom of the river that the brig loomed through it vague, shadowy, and indistinct as a phantom craft. The tide was ebbing, and her stern was turned toward us, but no lights appeared gleaming through her cabin windows, which struck me as being a little strange until I remembered that Monsieur Le Breton had spoken of her captain being ill. A few of our lads were amusing themselves on the forecastle, dancing to the enlivening strains of the cook’s fiddle, or singing songs; and an occasional round of applause or an answering song came floating down upon the gentle night-breeze from the brig; but as the fog grew thicker these sounds gradually ceased, we lost sight of her altogether, and so far as sound or sight was concerned we might have been the only craft in the entire river. Our own lads also quieted down; and finally the only sounds which broke the solemn stillness of the night were the sighing of the breeze, the gentle rustle of the foliage, and the loud sonorouschirr, chirr, chirrof the insects.It was about half-past nine o’clock, and I was just thinking of going below to turn-in when I became conscious of the sounds of a commotion of some sort; a muffled cry, which seemed to me like a call for “help;” a dull thud, as of a falling body, anda splash! The sounds certainly proceeded from the direction of the brig; and I thought that they must have emanated from a spot at about her distance from theDaphne. The slight feeling of drowsiness which had possessed me took flight at once; all my senses became instantly upon the alert; and I awaited in keen expectancy to hear if anything further followed. In vain; the minutes sped past, and neither sight nor sound occurred to elucidate the mystery. I began to feel anxious and alarmed; my old suspicions rose up again like a strong man aroused from sleep; and I walked aft to Mr Armitage, who was leaning against a gun with his arms folded, and his chin sunk upon his breast evidently in deep meditation. He started up as he heard my footstep approaching; and on my asking if he had heard anything peculiar ahead of us, somewhat shortly acknowledged that he had not. I thereupon told him what I had heard; but he evidently attached no importance to my statement, suggesting thatif anythingit was doubtless some of the Frenchmen amusing themselves. I was by no means satisfied with this, and, my uneasiness increasing every moment, I went forward to ascertain whether any of the hands on the forecastle had heard the mysterious sounds. I found them all listening open-mouthed to some weird and marvellous yarn which one of the topmen was spinning for their edification; and from them also I failed to elicit anything satisfactory. Finally, it suddenly occurred to me that, in my wanderings ashore, I had often noticed how low the night-mists lay upon the surface of the river; and it now struck me that by going aloft I might get sight of something which would tend to explain the disquieting occurrence. To act upon the idea was the work of a moment; I sprang into the main rigging and made my way aloft as rapidly as if my life depended upon it, utterly heedless of the fact that the rigging had been freshly tarred down that day; and in less than a minute had reached the maintopmast crosstrees. As I had anticipated I was here almost clear of the mist; and I eagerly looked ahead to see if all was right in that quarter. The first objects which caught my eye were the mastheads of the brig, broad on our starboard bow instead of directly ahead, as I had expected to find them. This of itself struck me as being somewhat strange; but, what was stranger still,they seemed to be unaccountably near to us. I rubbed my eyes and looked at them again. They were just in a line with the tops of a clump of trees which rose like islands out of the silvery mist, and as I looked I saw that the spars were moving, gliding slowly and almost imperceptibly past the trees toward the river.The brig was adrift. I listened intently for quite five minutes without hearing the faintest sound from the craft, and during that time she had neared us almost a cable’s length. In another minute or two she would be abreast of and within a couple of ships’ lengths of us. What could it mean? She could not by any possibility have struck adrift accidentally. And if her berth was being intentionally shifted for any reason, why was the operation carried out under cover of the fog and in such profound silence? There had been no sound of lifting the anchor; nor could I hear anything to indicate that they were running out warps; it looked very much as though they had slipped their cable, and were allowing the tide to carry them silently out to sea. And where was Mr Austin during this stealthy movement? Was he aware of it? Why, if my suspicions were correct, had they invited the officers of theDaphneon board to dinner? Was it merely a blind, a temporary resort to the usual courtesies adopted for the purpose of giving colour to their assumed character of a French man-o’-war, or was it a diabolical scheme to get us all into their power and so deprive a formidable antagonist of its head, so to speak, and thus cripple it?All these surmises and many others equally wild flashed through my bewildered brain as I stood there on the crosstrees watching the stealthy phantom-like movement of the brig’s upper spars; and the conclusion to which I finally came was that Captain Vernon ought to be informed forthwith of what was going on. I accordingly descended to the deck and once more sought out the third lieutenant.“Mr Armitage,” said I, in a low cautious tone of voice, “the brig is adrift, and driving down past us with the tide in the direction of the river.”“The brig adrift!” he repeated incredulously. “Nonsense, Mr Hawkesley, you must be dreaming!”“Indeed I am not, sir, I assure you,” I replied earnestly. “I have this moment come from aloft, and I saw her topgallant-masts most distinctly over the top of the mist. She is away over in that direction, and scarcely a cable’s length distant from us.”“Are youquite sure?” he asked, aroused at last by my earnest manner to something like interest. “I can hear no sound of her.”“No, sir,” I replied; “and that, in conjunction with the sounds which I undoubtedly heard just now makes me think that something must be wrong on board her. Do you not think the matter ought to be reported to Captain Vernon?”“Most certainly it ought,” he agreed. “Is it possible that the crew have taken the ship from their officers, think you?”“I scarcely knowwhatto think,” I replied. “Let us speak to the captain at once, and hear what he has to say about it.”Thereupon the third lieutenant directed Keene, one of the midshipmen, to take temporary charge of the deck; and we at once dived below.“Well, Mr Armitage, what is it?” asked Captain Vernon, as we presented ourselves in the cabin and discovered him and Mr Smellie chatting together over their wine and cigars.“I must apologise for intruding upon you, sir,” said Armitage; “but Hawkesley here has come to me with a very extraordinary story which I think you had better hear from his own lips.”“Oh! Well, what is it, Mr —. Why, Hawkesley, where in the world have you been, and what doing, man? You are positively smothered in tar.”“Yes, sir,” I replied, glancing at myself and discovering for the first time by the brilliant light of the cabin lamp the woeful ruin wrought upon my uniform. “I really beg your pardon, sir, for presenting myself in this plight, but the urgent nature of my business must be my excuse.” And I forthwith plungedin medias resand told what I had heard and seen.“The noise of a scuffle and the brig adrift!” exclaimed the skipper. “The crew surely cannot have risen upon their officers and taken the ship!” the same idea promptly presenting itself to him as had occurred to the third lieutenant.“No, sir,” said I. “I do not believe that is it at all; the commotion was not great enough or prolonged enough for that;allthe officers would not be likely to be taken by surprise, butone man might be.”“One man! What do you mean? I don’t understand you,” rapped out the skipper.“Well, then, sir, to speak the whole of my mind plainly, I am greatly afraid that Mr Austin has met with foul play on board that brig, and that she is not a French man-o’-war at all, as she professes to be,” I exclaimed.I saw Smellie start; and he was about to speak when:“Mr Austin! Foul play! Not a French man-o’-war!!” gasped the skipper. “Why, Good Heavens! the boy ismad!”“If I am, sir, I can only say that I have been so for the last four months,” I retorted. “For it is fully as long as that, or longer, that I have had my suspicions about that brig and her crew.”“What!” exclaimed Smellie. “Haveyou, too, suspected the brig?”“I have, indeed, sir,” I replied.“Take a chair, Hawkesley,” interrupted the skipper; “pour yourself out a glass of wine, and let us have your story in the fewest possible words. Mr Armitage, do me the favour to ascertain the brig’s present whereabouts and let me know. Now, Hawkesley, we are ready to listen to you.”As the skipper ceased, Armitage bowed and withdrew, whilst I very hastily sketched the rise and progress of my suspicions, from Monsieur Le Breton’s first visit up to that present moment.Before I had proceeded very far, however, Armitage returned with the intelligence that the brig was undoubtedly adrift and already some distance astern of us, and that the topman, who had been aloft to inspect, had reported that he thought he could detect men on her yards.“Turn up the hands at once then, sir, if you please, and see everything ready for slipping our cable and making sail at a moment’s notice. But let everything be done in absolute silence; and keep a hand aloft to watch the brig and report anything further he may notice on board her; it really looks as though we were on the brink of some important discovery. Now go ahead with your story, Hawkesley,” said the skipper.I proceeded as rapidly as possible, merely stating what suspicious circumstances had come under my own notice, and leaving Captain Vernon to draw his own deductions. When I had finished, the skipper turned to Smellie and said:“Am I to understand, from your remark made a short time ago, that you, too, have suspected this mysterious brig, Mr Smellie?”“Yes,” answered Smellie, “I certainly had a vague feeling that there was something queer about her; but my suspicions were not nearly so clear and strong as Hawkesley’s, and subsequent events quite drove the matter out of my mind.”“Um!” remarked the skipper meditatively; “it is strange,verystrange.Inever noticed anything peculiar about the craft.”“The brig is now about half a mile distant, sir, and is making sail,” reported Armitage at that moment, presenting himself again at the cabin door.“Then wait until the hands are out of his rigging; then slip, and we will be after him. I intend to see to the bottom of this,” returned the skipper sharply. “There is undoubtedly something wrong or poor Austin would have turned up on board before matters had reached this stage. But, mind, let the work be carried on without an unnecessary sound of any kind.”As Armitage again withdrew and Smellie rose to his feet, Captain Vernon turned to me and said:“I am very greatly obliged to you for the zeal and discretion you have manifested in this most delicate matter, Hawkesley; whatever comes of it I shall remember that you have acted throughout to the very best of your ability, not coming to me precipitately with a vague unconnected story, but waiting patiently until you had accumulated a sufficiency of convincing evidence for us to act upon; though, even now we must be very cautious as to what we do. And let me also add that Mr Smellie has spoken to me in the highest terms of your conduct throughout that trying time when you and he were ashore together; indeed he assures me that to you, under God, he is indebted for the actual preservation of his life. I have watched you carefully from the moment of your first coming on board, and I have been highly gratified with your conduct throughout. Go on as you have begun, young sir, and you will prove an ornament to the service. And now, gentlemen, to business.”

In extreme disgust at the loss of the notoriousBlack VenusCaptain Vernon reluctantly gave orders for the resumption of the cruise, and theDaphnewas once more headed in for the land, it being the skipper’s intention to give a look in at all the likely places along the coast as far north as the Bight of Benin.

This was terribly tedious and particularly trying to the men, it being all boat work. The exploration of the Fernan Vas river occupied thirty hours, whilst in the case of the Ogowé river the boats were away from the ship for four days and three nights; the result being that when at last we went into Sierra Leone we had ten men down with fever, and had lost four more from the same cause. The worst of it all was that our labour had been wholly in vain, not a single prize being taken nor a suspicious craft fallen in with. Here we found Williams and the prize crew of theJosefaawaiting us according to instructions; so shipping them and landing the sick men Captain Vernon lost no time in putting to sea once more.

On leaving Sierra Leone a course was shaped for the Congo, and after a long and very tedious passage, during the whole of which we had to contend against light head-winds, we found ourselves once more within sight of the river at daybreak.

It was stark calm, with a cloudless sky, and a long lazy swell came creeping in from the southward and eastward causing the sloop to roll most uncomfortably. We were about twelve miles off the land; and at about half-way between us and it, becalmed like ourselves, there lay a brig, which our telescopes informed us was theVestale. On this fact being decisively ascertained Mr Austin came up to me and said:

“There is yourbête noire, theVestale, once more, you see, Hawkesley. I have been thinking a great deal about what you said to me some time ago respecting her, and I have come to the conclusion that it is quite worth our while to look into the matter, at least so far as will enable us to judge whether your suspicions are wholly groundless or not. If they are—if, in fact, the craft proves to be what she professes herself—well and good; we can dismiss the affair finally and for ever from our minds and give our undivided attention to other matters. But I confess you have to a certain extent imbued me with your own doubts as to the strict integrity of yonder brig; there are one or two little matters you mentioned which escaped my notice end which certainly have rather a suspicious appearance. I therefore intend—if the craft is bound into the river like ourselves—to make an early opportunity to pay her a visit on some pretext or other.”

“Have you mentioned the matter to Captain Vernon yet, sir?” I inquired.

“No, not yet,” was the reply. “I must have something a little more definite to say before I broach the matter to him. But here comes the breeze at last, aseabreeze, too, thank Heaven! Man the braces fore and aft; square away the yards and brail in the mizen. Hard up with your helm, my man, and keep her dead away for the mouth of the river.”

The faint blue line along the western horizon came creeping gradually down toward us, and presently a catspaw or two ruffled the glassy surface of the water for a moment and disappeared. Then a deliciously cool and refreshing draught of air fanned our faces and swelled out the light upper canvas for an instant, died away, came again a trifle stronger and lasted for perhaps half a minute, then with a flap the canvas collapsed, filled again, the sloop gathered way and paid off with her head to the eastward; a bubble or two floated past her sides, a faint ripple arose under her bows, grew larger, became audible, the glassy surface of the water grew gently ruffled and assumed an exquisite cerulean tint, the wheel began to press against the helmsman’s hand, and away we went straight for the mouth of the river—and the brig.

The breeze, gentle though it was, reached our neighbour long before we did, and as soon as she felt it she too bore up, squared her yards, and headed direct for Boolambemba Point. She was about three miles ahead of us when the breeze reached her, and I felt very curious to see where she would finally come to an anchor. The onlysafeanchorage is in Banana Creek, and though slavers constantly resort to the numerous other creeks and inlets higher up the river no captain of a man-of-war would think for a moment of risking his ship in any of them unless the emergency happened to be very pressing, nor even then unless his vessel happened to be of exceedingly light draught. If therefore the brig anchored in Banana Creek I should accept it as a point in favour of her honesty; if not, my suspicions would be stronger than ever.

It so happened that shedidanchor in Banana Creek, but fully a quarter of a mile higher up it than old Mildmay the master thought it prudent for us to venture, though in obedience to a hint from Mr Austin he took us much further in than where we had anchored on our previous visit. The brig got in fully half an hour before us, her canvas was consequently stowed, her yards squared, ropes hauled taut and coiled down, and her boats in the water when our anchor at length plunged into the muddy opaque-looking water of the creek.

We were barely brought up—and indeed the hands were still aloft stowing the canvas—when a gig shoved off from the brig and pulled down the creek. A few minutes later she dashed alongside and Monsieur Le Breton once more presented himself upon our quarter-deck, cap in had, bowing, smiling, and grimacing as only a Frenchman can. His visit, though such a singularly precipitate one, was, it soon turned out, merely a visit of ceremony, which he prolonged to such an extent that Captain Vernon was perforce obliged to invite him down below to breakfast, Mr Austin and I being also the skipper’s guests on that particular morning. In the course of the meal he made several very complimentary remarks as to the appearance of theDaphne, and finally—when I suppose he saw that he had thus completely won poor Austin’s heart—he very politely expressed his extreme desire to take a look through the ship, a desire which the first luff with equal politeness assured him it would give him great pleasure to gratify.

The fellow certainly had a wonderfully plausible and winning way with him, there was no denying that, and I saw that under its influence the slight suspicions which I had imparted to poor honest-hearted, straightforward Mr Austin were melting like snowflakes under a summer sun. Still, under all the plausibility, the delicate flattery, and the elaborate politeness of the man, there was a vague indefinablesomethingto which I found it quite impossible to reconcile myself; and I watched him as a cat does a mouse, anxious to note whatever suspicious circumstances might transpire, in order that I might be fully prepared for the talk with the first luff which I felt certain would closely follow upon our visitor’s departure. To my chagrin, however, I was on this occasion wholly unable to detect anything whatever out of the common, and Monsieur Le Breton’s broken English, upon which I had laid such stress in my former conversation with Mr Austin, was now quite consistent and irreproachable. He was taken through the ship and shown every nook and corner in her, and finally, about noon, took his leave. Just before going down over the side he apologised for the non-appearance of “Captain Dubosc” upon the plea that that gentleman was confined to his hammock with a severe attack of dysentery; but if the officers of theDaphnewould honour theestate’sward-room with their presence at dinner that evening Monsieur Le Breton and his brother officers would be “enchanted.” And, apparently as an after-thought, when his foot was on the top step of the gangway ladder, this very agreeable gentleman urgently requested the pleasure of Mr Austin’s company on a sporting expedition which he and one or two more were about to undertake that afternoon. This latter invitation was declined upon the plea of stress of work; but the invitation to dinner was accepted conditionally upon the work being in a sufficiently forward state to allow of the officers leaving the ship.

We were indeed exceedingly busy that day, Mr Austin having determined to take advantage of the opportunity which our being at anchor afforded him to lift the rigging off the mastheads and give it and them a thorough overhaul.

As for me, I was engaged during the whole of the day in charge of a boat’s crew filling up our water casks and tanks and foraging in the adjacent forest for a supply of fruit, not a single native canoe having approached us during the entire day. It was, consequently, not until late in the afternoon, when the neck of the day’s work was broken, that I had an opportunity of exchanging a word or two with the first lieutenant on the subject of our neighbour, the brig, and then it was only a word or two. Mr Austin opened the conversation with:

“Well, Hawkesley, what do you think of our friend Monsieur Le Breton, now that you have had an opportunity of bettering your acquaintance with him?”

“Well, sir,” I replied; “on the whole I am inclined to think that there is just a bare possibility of my having been mistaken in my estimate of him and of the character of the brig. Still—”

“Still your mind is not yet quite easy,” Mr Austin laughingly interrupted me. “Now, what could you possibly have noticed of a suspicious character in the poor fellow’s conduct this morning?”

“Nothing,” I was obliged to acknowledge. “I am quite prepared to admit, sir, a total absence of those peculiarities of manner whichI am certainexisted during his first visit to the ship. But did you not think it strange that he should be in such a tremendous hurry to come on board us this morning? At first I was inclined to think his object might be to prevent a visit from some of us to the brig; but that supposition is met, to some extent, by his invitation to us for this evening. The delay may, of course, have afforded them an opportunity to make arrangements for our reception by putting out of sight any—”

“Any tell-tale evidences of their dishonesty,” laughed the first luff. “Really, Hawkesley, I must say I think you are deceiving yourself and worrying yourself unnecessarily. Of course I can quite understand how, having harboured those extraordinary suspicions of yours for so great a length of time, you now find it difficult to dismiss them all in a moment; but have patience for a few hours more; an excellent opportunity is now offered us for satisfying ourselves as to the brig’sbona fides, and you may rest assured that I shall make the very best use of it. I find I shall be the only guest of the Frenchmen to-night—the rest of the officers are far too busy to leave the ship, and indeedIcan hardly be spared, and would not go but for the fact that it would look uncivil if we in a body declined their invitation; but I will see that to-morrow you have an opportunity of going on board and investigating for yourself. And now I must be off to make myself presentable, or I shall be keeping my hosts waiting, and perhaps spoil their dinner.”

With that he dived below; and I turned away to attend to some little matter connected with the progress of the work. A quarter of an hour later he reappeared on deck, clean-shaven, and looking very handsome and seamanlike in his best suit of uniform; and, the gig being piped away, he went down over the side, giving me a parting nod as he did so. I watched the boat dash up alongside the brig; noted that the side was manned in due form, that our worthy “first” was received by a group of officers on the quarter-deck, conspicuous among whom I could make out with the aid of my glass Monsieur Le Breton, evidently performing the ceremony of introduction; and then the work being finished, ropes coiled down, and everything once more restored to its proper place, the hands were piped to tea, and I descended to the midshipmen’s den, thoroughly tired out with my unwonted exertion.

When I again went on deck, about an hour later, the stars were shining brilliantly; the moon, about three days old, was gleaming with a soft subdued radiance through the topmost branches of the trees on the adjacent shore; and the night-mist was already gathering so thickly on the bosom of the river that the brig loomed through it vague, shadowy, and indistinct as a phantom craft. The tide was ebbing, and her stern was turned toward us, but no lights appeared gleaming through her cabin windows, which struck me as being a little strange until I remembered that Monsieur Le Breton had spoken of her captain being ill. A few of our lads were amusing themselves on the forecastle, dancing to the enlivening strains of the cook’s fiddle, or singing songs; and an occasional round of applause or an answering song came floating down upon the gentle night-breeze from the brig; but as the fog grew thicker these sounds gradually ceased, we lost sight of her altogether, and so far as sound or sight was concerned we might have been the only craft in the entire river. Our own lads also quieted down; and finally the only sounds which broke the solemn stillness of the night were the sighing of the breeze, the gentle rustle of the foliage, and the loud sonorouschirr, chirr, chirrof the insects.

It was about half-past nine o’clock, and I was just thinking of going below to turn-in when I became conscious of the sounds of a commotion of some sort; a muffled cry, which seemed to me like a call for “help;” a dull thud, as of a falling body, anda splash! The sounds certainly proceeded from the direction of the brig; and I thought that they must have emanated from a spot at about her distance from theDaphne. The slight feeling of drowsiness which had possessed me took flight at once; all my senses became instantly upon the alert; and I awaited in keen expectancy to hear if anything further followed. In vain; the minutes sped past, and neither sight nor sound occurred to elucidate the mystery. I began to feel anxious and alarmed; my old suspicions rose up again like a strong man aroused from sleep; and I walked aft to Mr Armitage, who was leaning against a gun with his arms folded, and his chin sunk upon his breast evidently in deep meditation. He started up as he heard my footstep approaching; and on my asking if he had heard anything peculiar ahead of us, somewhat shortly acknowledged that he had not. I thereupon told him what I had heard; but he evidently attached no importance to my statement, suggesting thatif anythingit was doubtless some of the Frenchmen amusing themselves. I was by no means satisfied with this, and, my uneasiness increasing every moment, I went forward to ascertain whether any of the hands on the forecastle had heard the mysterious sounds. I found them all listening open-mouthed to some weird and marvellous yarn which one of the topmen was spinning for their edification; and from them also I failed to elicit anything satisfactory. Finally, it suddenly occurred to me that, in my wanderings ashore, I had often noticed how low the night-mists lay upon the surface of the river; and it now struck me that by going aloft I might get sight of something which would tend to explain the disquieting occurrence. To act upon the idea was the work of a moment; I sprang into the main rigging and made my way aloft as rapidly as if my life depended upon it, utterly heedless of the fact that the rigging had been freshly tarred down that day; and in less than a minute had reached the maintopmast crosstrees. As I had anticipated I was here almost clear of the mist; and I eagerly looked ahead to see if all was right in that quarter. The first objects which caught my eye were the mastheads of the brig, broad on our starboard bow instead of directly ahead, as I had expected to find them. This of itself struck me as being somewhat strange; but, what was stranger still,they seemed to be unaccountably near to us. I rubbed my eyes and looked at them again. They were just in a line with the tops of a clump of trees which rose like islands out of the silvery mist, and as I looked I saw that the spars were moving, gliding slowly and almost imperceptibly past the trees toward the river.The brig was adrift. I listened intently for quite five minutes without hearing the faintest sound from the craft, and during that time she had neared us almost a cable’s length. In another minute or two she would be abreast of and within a couple of ships’ lengths of us. What could it mean? She could not by any possibility have struck adrift accidentally. And if her berth was being intentionally shifted for any reason, why was the operation carried out under cover of the fog and in such profound silence? There had been no sound of lifting the anchor; nor could I hear anything to indicate that they were running out warps; it looked very much as though they had slipped their cable, and were allowing the tide to carry them silently out to sea. And where was Mr Austin during this stealthy movement? Was he aware of it? Why, if my suspicions were correct, had they invited the officers of theDaphneon board to dinner? Was it merely a blind, a temporary resort to the usual courtesies adopted for the purpose of giving colour to their assumed character of a French man-o’-war, or was it a diabolical scheme to get us all into their power and so deprive a formidable antagonist of its head, so to speak, and thus cripple it?

All these surmises and many others equally wild flashed through my bewildered brain as I stood there on the crosstrees watching the stealthy phantom-like movement of the brig’s upper spars; and the conclusion to which I finally came was that Captain Vernon ought to be informed forthwith of what was going on. I accordingly descended to the deck and once more sought out the third lieutenant.

“Mr Armitage,” said I, in a low cautious tone of voice, “the brig is adrift, and driving down past us with the tide in the direction of the river.”

“The brig adrift!” he repeated incredulously. “Nonsense, Mr Hawkesley, you must be dreaming!”

“Indeed I am not, sir, I assure you,” I replied earnestly. “I have this moment come from aloft, and I saw her topgallant-masts most distinctly over the top of the mist. She is away over in that direction, and scarcely a cable’s length distant from us.”

“Are youquite sure?” he asked, aroused at last by my earnest manner to something like interest. “I can hear no sound of her.”

“No, sir,” I replied; “and that, in conjunction with the sounds which I undoubtedly heard just now makes me think that something must be wrong on board her. Do you not think the matter ought to be reported to Captain Vernon?”

“Most certainly it ought,” he agreed. “Is it possible that the crew have taken the ship from their officers, think you?”

“I scarcely knowwhatto think,” I replied. “Let us speak to the captain at once, and hear what he has to say about it.”

Thereupon the third lieutenant directed Keene, one of the midshipmen, to take temporary charge of the deck; and we at once dived below.

“Well, Mr Armitage, what is it?” asked Captain Vernon, as we presented ourselves in the cabin and discovered him and Mr Smellie chatting together over their wine and cigars.

“I must apologise for intruding upon you, sir,” said Armitage; “but Hawkesley here has come to me with a very extraordinary story which I think you had better hear from his own lips.”

“Oh! Well, what is it, Mr —. Why, Hawkesley, where in the world have you been, and what doing, man? You are positively smothered in tar.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied, glancing at myself and discovering for the first time by the brilliant light of the cabin lamp the woeful ruin wrought upon my uniform. “I really beg your pardon, sir, for presenting myself in this plight, but the urgent nature of my business must be my excuse.” And I forthwith plungedin medias resand told what I had heard and seen.

“The noise of a scuffle and the brig adrift!” exclaimed the skipper. “The crew surely cannot have risen upon their officers and taken the ship!” the same idea promptly presenting itself to him as had occurred to the third lieutenant.

“No, sir,” said I. “I do not believe that is it at all; the commotion was not great enough or prolonged enough for that;allthe officers would not be likely to be taken by surprise, butone man might be.”

“One man! What do you mean? I don’t understand you,” rapped out the skipper.

“Well, then, sir, to speak the whole of my mind plainly, I am greatly afraid that Mr Austin has met with foul play on board that brig, and that she is not a French man-o’-war at all, as she professes to be,” I exclaimed.

I saw Smellie start; and he was about to speak when:

“Mr Austin! Foul play! Not a French man-o’-war!!” gasped the skipper. “Why, Good Heavens! the boy ismad!”

“If I am, sir, I can only say that I have been so for the last four months,” I retorted. “For it is fully as long as that, or longer, that I have had my suspicions about that brig and her crew.”

“What!” exclaimed Smellie. “Haveyou, too, suspected the brig?”

“I have, indeed, sir,” I replied.

“Take a chair, Hawkesley,” interrupted the skipper; “pour yourself out a glass of wine, and let us have your story in the fewest possible words. Mr Armitage, do me the favour to ascertain the brig’s present whereabouts and let me know. Now, Hawkesley, we are ready to listen to you.”

As the skipper ceased, Armitage bowed and withdrew, whilst I very hastily sketched the rise and progress of my suspicions, from Monsieur Le Breton’s first visit up to that present moment.

Before I had proceeded very far, however, Armitage returned with the intelligence that the brig was undoubtedly adrift and already some distance astern of us, and that the topman, who had been aloft to inspect, had reported that he thought he could detect men on her yards.

“Turn up the hands at once then, sir, if you please, and see everything ready for slipping our cable and making sail at a moment’s notice. But let everything be done in absolute silence; and keep a hand aloft to watch the brig and report anything further he may notice on board her; it really looks as though we were on the brink of some important discovery. Now go ahead with your story, Hawkesley,” said the skipper.

I proceeded as rapidly as possible, merely stating what suspicious circumstances had come under my own notice, and leaving Captain Vernon to draw his own deductions. When I had finished, the skipper turned to Smellie and said:

“Am I to understand, from your remark made a short time ago, that you, too, have suspected this mysterious brig, Mr Smellie?”

“Yes,” answered Smellie, “I certainly had a vague feeling that there was something queer about her; but my suspicions were not nearly so clear and strong as Hawkesley’s, and subsequent events quite drove the matter out of my mind.”

“Um!” remarked the skipper meditatively; “it is strange,verystrange.Inever noticed anything peculiar about the craft.”

“The brig is now about half a mile distant, sir, and is making sail,” reported Armitage at that moment, presenting himself again at the cabin door.

“Then wait until the hands are out of his rigging; then slip, and we will be after him. I intend to see to the bottom of this,” returned the skipper sharply. “There is undoubtedly something wrong or poor Austin would have turned up on board before matters had reached this stage. But, mind, let the work be carried on without an unnecessary sound of any kind.”

As Armitage again withdrew and Smellie rose to his feet, Captain Vernon turned to me and said:

“I am very greatly obliged to you for the zeal and discretion you have manifested in this most delicate matter, Hawkesley; whatever comes of it I shall remember that you have acted throughout to the very best of your ability, not coming to me precipitately with a vague unconnected story, but waiting patiently until you had accumulated a sufficiency of convincing evidence for us to act upon; though, even now we must be very cautious as to what we do. And let me also add that Mr Smellie has spoken to me in the highest terms of your conduct throughout that trying time when you and he were ashore together; indeed he assures me that to you, under God, he is indebted for the actual preservation of his life. I have watched you carefully from the moment of your first coming on board, and I have been highly gratified with your conduct throughout. Go on as you have begun, young sir, and you will prove an ornament to the service. And now, gentlemen, to business.”

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