Chapter Fourteen.

Chapter Fourteen.Mendouca becomes communicative.“Only ten days longer?” roared Mendouca, his face livid with fury and consternation. “Nonsense, Juan! you must have made some stupid mistake; there surely is—theremustbe—more than that!”“I have not made any mistake at all, señor,” answered the man sulkily; “it is just as I have said; there are only provisions and water enough to last us, on a full allowance, ten days longer.”“Then, if that is the case, all hands must be put on short allowance—half rations—at once!” exclaimed Mendouca, with an oath. “But, stop a little; theremustbe some mistake. Light your lantern again, and I will go down below with you, and satisfy myself on the point.”Accordingly Mendouca and the steward went down into the hold together, and gave the stores an exhaustive overhaul, with the result that the original report of the latter was fully confirmed!Mendouca came up from the hold, raging like a maniac, cursing the weather, the provisions, and everything else that he could think of, including myself, whom he denounced as a Jonah, his ill-luck having commenced, according to his assertion, with the sparing of my life and my reception on board theFrancesca. As for the calm, he declared that it should detain him no longer; and, having searched the sky and examined the barometer in vain for any signs of a change, he gave orders for all canvas to be furled, and for the negroes to be set to work forthwith upon the sweeps, his intention being, as he stated, to keep them at it in relays or gangs until the region of apparently eternal calm had been left, and a breeze of some sort found. There were ten of these sweeps, or long, heavy oars, working through the ports, in beckets firmly lashed to ringbolts in the stanchions, that were evidently placed there expressly for that particular purpose. The loom of the sweep was long enough to admit of four men working at it, and accordingly the boatswain, having received his orders from Mendouca, selected forty of the strongest-looking of the negroes, and set them to this exhausting labour, the rest of the unfortunate creatures being driven below out of the way. The vessel, lying there inert as a log on the water, proved very heavy to start, especially as the blacks knew not how to handle the sweeps, having evidently never touched one before; but, once fairly started, the craft was kept moving with comparative ease at a speed of about three and a half knots per hour. But it was cruel work for the unhappy blacks, who, naked as when they were born, were remorselessly kept at it by the boatswain and his mate, both of whom paced the deck, fore and aft, armed with a heavy “colt,” which they plied unmercifully upon the shoulders of any man whom they chose to believe was not fully exerting himself, although the perspiration poured from the dark naked hides like rain. “Short spells and hard work” was, however, the order of the day, and after half-an-hour of almost superhuman exertion a relief was called, a fresh gang was set to work, and the exhausted toilers were hustled below to rest and recover themselves as best they could. I remonstrated hotly with Mendouca upon the needless cruelty practised by the boatswain and his mate, but I was roughly told that I did not know what I was talking about; that negroes would never work unless kept continually in wholesome dread of the lash; and that it was absolutely necessary to get every ounce of work out of them if we were not one and all to perish miserably of hunger and thirst. So, as I could do no better, I got a piece of the oldest and softest canvas I could find, and a bucket of water, with which I descended to the slave-deck and carefully bathed the poor lacerated shoulders of those unfortunates who had suffered most severely at the hands of the boatswain and his mate, a little piece of attention that I saw was most gratefully received.We made fully twenty miles of westing that day, from the time when the negroes were first set to work up to sunset, to Mendouca’s great gratification. Indeed, so delighted was he with his own brilliant idea, that he did that night what I had never known him to do before, he indulged rather too freely in the contents of the rum-bottle. And, as a consequence, he grew garrulous and good-humouredly sarcastic over the efforts made for the suppression of the slave-trade, which he emphatically asserted would never be put down.“One very serious disadvantage which you labour under,” he remarked, referring particularly to the operations of the British slave-squadron, “is that you are altogether too confiding and credulous; you accept every man as honest and straightforward until you have learned, to your cost, that he is the reverse. Take the case, for example, of your attack upon Chango Creek. You were led to undertake it upon the representations made and the information given by Lobo, the Portuguese trader of Banana Point, weren’t you? Oh, I know all about it, I have heard the whole story,” he interrupted himself to say, in reply to my ejaculation of surprise. “You were all very much obliged to Lobo, of course; and your captain paid him handsomely for his information and assistance. I suppose there was not one of you, from the captain downward, who ever had the ghost of a suspicion that the fellow was playing you false, and that the affair was a bold yet carefully arranged plot to exterminate the whole of you, and destroy your ship, eh? No; of course you hadn’t; yet I give you my word that itwas. Ay; and the only wonder to me was that it did not succeed. I suppose it was that you had a good deal more fight in you than any of them gave you credit for; and that is where so many excellently arranged traps have failed; the plotters have never made sufficient allowance for the fighting powers of the British, as I have told them over and over again. It was just that important oversight that caused what ought to have been a splendid success to result in a serious disaster; the intention was good, but, as is much too often the case, they had reckoned without their host.”“But I do not understand,” I cut in, as Mendouca paused. “What was the plot? and how was Lobo concerned in it? It appears to me that the man acted in perfect good faith; he gave us certain information which proved to be substantially correct—except that he was mistaken as to the force that we should have to encounter—and he safely piloted us to the spot from which our boat attack was to be made; I can see nothing like a plot or treachery in that.”“No; of course you cannot, you sweet innocent,” retorted Mendouca, with fine sarcasm, “for the simple reason, as I say, that the British are altogether too trustful and confiding to see treachery or double-dealing until it is thrust openly in their faces. You are altogether too simple and unsuspicious, you navy men, to deal with the tricks and ruses of the slave-dealing fraternity; and before your eyes are opened you either die of fever, or are killed in some brush with us, or are invalided home.”“It may be so,” I agreed; “but so general a statement as that does not in the least help me to see what was the character of Lobo’s plot, or even that there was a plot at all.”“Well, I will tell you,” said Mendouca thickly, helping himself to another caulker of rum—he had already swallowed two tumblers of stiff grog since the subject had been broached, in addition to what he had previously taken—“I will tell you, because, having made up my mind that you shall never rejoin your own people, the information is not likely to do Lobo any harm. When you arrived at Banana Point on that particular morning, your presence seriously threatened to entirely upset a very important transaction which Señor Lobo had in hand, namely, the disposal and shipment of a prime lot of nearly a thousand able-bodied, full-grown, male blacks that he had got snugly stowed away in two big barracoons a short distance up the creek from his factory. Had your captain taken it into his head to land a party and make a search of the peninsula, the barracoons would have been discovered, and friend Lobo would have been a ruined man. So, as soon as your brig was identified as a man-o’-war—and that was as soon as she could be distinctly made out—another mistake that you man-o’-war’s men make, friend Dugdale; you can scarcely ever bring yourselves to disguise your ships; they declare their character as far as it is possible to see them.—Let me see, what was I saying? I have run clean off my course, and don’t know where I am.”“You were going to tell me what happened when theBarracoutawas identified from Banana Point as a man-o’-war,” said I.“Ah, yes, exactly,” answered Mendouca. “Well, as soon as it was discovered that your brig was a British man-o’-war, every available hand was set to work to clear everything of an incriminating character out of the two brigs that were going to ship the slaves; so that, should you overhaul them—as I was told you did—nothing might be found on board to justify their seizure. This job was successfully completed only a few minutes before you entered the creek. But that would have availed Lobo nothing had your captain happened to have thought of landing upon the peninsula; the next thing, therefore, was to furnish him with a totally different subject to think about; and this Lobo found in the opportune presence of the four craft in Chango Creek. The captains of three out of the four vessels happened to be down at Banana when you arrived; and Lobo—who is gifted with quite an unusual measure of persuasiveness—had very little difficulty in convincing them that you would be absolutely certain to discover their hiding-place sooner or later, and that consequently it would be a good plan to inveigle you into making an immediate attack upon them; when, by concerting proper measures of defence, they might succeed in practically annihilating you, and so sweeping a formidable enemy out of their path. The three skippers fell in readily with his plan, when he had propounded it, and also undertook to secure the cooperation of the fourth; and as the creek offered exceptional facilities for a successful defence, it was accepted that you were all as good as done for, especially as Lobo had undertaken to cut the brig adrift at the right moment, so that she might be driven ashore and rendered useless for the time being, if not altogether. This matter arranged, the slave-captains left Banana forthwith to carry out their plans for the defence of the creek, taking a short cut by way of the back of the creek, and taking with them also every available man that Lobo could spare; the idea being to allow you to advance unmolested as far as the boom—which, they never dreamed that you would succeed in forcing—and then destroy you by a musketry fire from the banks, when, weakened by your unavailing attack upon the boom, you should at length be compelled to retire. Your astounding pluck and perseverance in forcing the boom completely upset all their plans, and converted what would have been for them an easy and bloodless victory into a disastrous defeat, while it saved the lives of the survivors of the attacking party. But though it turned out disastrously for Aravares, of theMercedes, and his friends, the plot served Lobo’s purpose perfectly; the shipping of the slaves on board the two brigs which were waiting for them proceeding immediately that you were clear of the creek, and both vessels getting away to sea that same night. So that, you see, it is by no means as difficult a matter to deceive and hoodwink you man-o’-war people as you choose to suppose.”“No,” answered I; “so it would seem. Yet, by your own showing, we were not the only deceived parties; and, after all, the attack was successful, so far as we were concerned.”“That is very true, and only confirms what I have always insisted upon; namely, that, in making their plans, foreigners do not allow sufficiently for British pluck and obstinacy. NowIdo; I never leave anything to chance, but always lay my plans so carefully that the destruction or capture of my enemies is an absolute certainty. But for such careful forethought on my part, theSapphire’stwo boats would never have fallen into my power.”“TheSapphire’sboats?” I exclaimed. “Surely you do not mean to tell me thatyouare responsible for the massacre of those two boats’ crews?”“No, not the massacre of them, certainly, but their capture,” answered Mendouca, with a smile of gratified pride.“And are the people still alive, then?” I asked.“They were when I last heard of them,” answered Mendouca. “But it is quite possible that by this time they—or at least a part of them—have been tortured to death by Matadi—the chief to whom I sold them—as a sacrifice to his fetish.”“Gracious powers, how horrible!” I exclaimed. “And to think that you, an Englishman, could consign your fellow-countrymen to such a fate as that!”“Why not?” demanded Mendouca fiercely; “why should I be more gentle to my countrymen than they have been to me? Do you think that, because I carry my fate lightly and gaily, I do not feel keenly the depth to which I have fallen? I might have been a post-captain by this time, honoured and distinguished for great services worthily rendered; but I am instead a slaver and a pirate masquerading under the disguise of a Spanish name. Do you think I am insensible of the immeasurable gulf that separates me from what I might have been? And it is my own countrymen who have opened that gulf—who have robbed me of the opportunity of reaching that proud eminence that was at one time all but within my reach, and have hurled me into the abyss of crime and infamy in which you find me. And you are surprised, forsooth, that I should avenge myself whenever the opportunity comes!”I knew now from experience that it was quite useless to argue with Mendouca when he got upon the subject of his grievances; I therefore gave the conversation a turn by asking—“Where, then, are these wretched people now, if indeed they are still alive?”“I presume,” answered he, “that, if still alive, as you say, they are where I last heard of them; namely, at Matadi’s village; a place on the south bank of the Congo, about one hundred miles, or rather more, from its mouth. But why do you take such a profound interest in them?” he asked. “Possibly you are contemplating the formation of an expedition for their rescue, as soon as you have effected your escape from me?” and he laughed satirically.My reply and his laugh were alike cut short by the sound of heavy footsteps on the companion-ladder outside the cabin, and the next moment the boatswain made his appearance in the doorway with the intimation that a craft of some sort had just been made out, at a distance of about three miles broad on the starboard bow; and he wished to know whether the course of the brigantine was to be altered or not.Mendouca sprang to his feet and hurried on deck, I following him.On our first emergence from the brilliantly-lighted cabin the night appeared to be dark; but as our eyes accommodated themselves to the change of conditions, it became apparent that the cloudless sky was thickly gemmed and powdered with stars of all magnitudes, from those of the first order down to the star-dust constituting the broad belt of the Milky Way, all gleaming with that soft, resplendent lustre that is only to be witnessed within the zone of the tropics. Moreover, there was a young moon, a delicate, crescent-shaped paring, about two days old, hanging low in the western sky, yet capable, in that pure, translucent atmosphere, of yielding quite an appreciable amount of light. The water was still smooth as polished glass, even the swell having gone down so completely that its undulations were not to be detected by even the delicate test of watching the star reflections in the polished depths, while the brigantine was as steady as though still on the stocks where she took form and substance. The negroes were still toiling at the sweeps, and the watch, armed to the teeth, were clustered fore and aft, on the alert to guard against any attempt at an outbreak among them. The canvas was all closely furled, so that we had an uninterrupted view of the sky from horizon to zenith, all around, toward the latter of which the delicate, tapering, naked spars pointed as steadily as the spires of a church. The boatswain, however, was eagerly directing Mendouca’s attention toward small, dark object, broad on our starboard bow; and turning my gaze toward it, I made out a brig under her two topsails, jib, and trysail, with her courses in the brails. Mendouca had already seized the night-glass, and with its aid was subjecting her to a prolonged and searching scrutiny, upon the completion of which he handed the instrument to me, with the remark, in English—“Take a good look at her, Dugdale, and tell me what you think of her?”I took the glass, and, having brought the stranger into its field, soon managed, by an adjustment of the focus, to get a clear, sharply-defined image of her, as she floated motionless, a black silhouette, against the deep, velvety, purple-black, star-spangled sky. And as I did so a certain sense of familiarity with the delicate, diminutive, black picture upon which I was gazing thrilled through me. Surely I knew that low, long, shapely hull; those lofty, slightly-raking masts; those spacious topsails? Even the very steeve of the bowsprit seemed familiar to me, and I felt certain that the superbly cut jib and handsome trysail could belong only to theBarracouta! And, if so, how was I to act? It was plainly my duty to do anything and everything that might be in my power to promote the capture of the daring slaver and unscrupulous pirate, whose guest—or prisoner—I was; but had I the power to doanything? With that now thoroughly alert and even suspicious individual at my side, and the watch on deck all about me, it was clearly evident that nothing in the shape of signalling could even be attempted with the slightest hope or chance of success; and the only other mode of action that remained to me appeared to be to carefully conceal my knowledge—or, rather, very strong suspicion—as to the identity of the brig. I had barely arrived at this conclusion when Mendouca, with an accent of impatience, interrupted my reverie with the exclamation—“Well, surely you have seen all that it is possible to see by this time? Or cannot you quite make up your mind as to her character?”“I have an impression that I have seen her before, and it seems to me that she bears a very striking resemblance to the Spanish brig that was lying off Lobo’s factory on the day of our first arrival in the Congo,” said I; the happy idea suggesting itself to me, as I began to speak, that I might safely make this statement without any breach of the truth, all of us on board theBarracoutahaving observed and remarked upon the striking resemblance between the two craft.“Um! itmaybe so,” muttered Mendouca, with a strong accent of doubt in his voice, however. “Let me have another look at her.”I handed over the glass with alacrity, for it was about my last wish just then to be questioned too closely as to the character of the stranger; and Mendouca subjected her to a further long and exhaustive scrutiny. At its termination he turned to me, and, with an accent of unmistakable suspicion, inquired—“It hasn’t suggested itself to you, I suppose, that yonder craft may be a British man-o’-war? You have seen nothing so like her in your own squadron as to lead to the suspicion that she may be a dangerous enemy whom I ought to be promptly warned to avoid?”Now, had I not known that he had never seen theBarracouta, I should have scarcely known what reply to give to this home question; as it was, however, I answered at hazard—“Well, at this distance yonder vessel offers to my eye very little resemblance to the usual type of British gun-brig; she is longer, and much lower in the water, and her masts are certainly further apart than is the case with our brigs generally, you must see that for yourself; and it would be unreasonable to expect me to give a more decided opinion at this distance and in so vague a light.”“Will you swear to me that you are honestly of opinion that yon brig isnota man-o’-war?”“Certainly not,” answered I, with pretended annoyance at his pertinacity. “She may be, or she may not be; it is quite impossible to express a more decided opinion, under the circumstances, and I therefore must decline to do so.”And I turned and walked away from him with an air of petulance.Mendouca laid down the telescope, walked to the binnacle, and peered intently for a moment at the compass.“Keep her way two points more to the southward,” he ordered the helmsman.This alteration in our course brought the brig about one point before our beam, distant about two and a half miles, and if persisted in, would soon have the effect of increasing the distance between the two craft; and, unless we were already seen, rendered it quite possible that we might slip past unobserved, our spars standing naked to the dark sky, and our hull lying low upon the equally dark water. There was, however, the hope that, even at the distance separating the two vessels, the roll and grinding of the heavy sweeps would be heard in the perfect stillness of air and water; and I felt confident that, if yonder brig were indeed theBarracouta, and the sounds referred to extended so far as to reach the sharp ears on board her, they would be identified, and their significance at once understood. But even as the thought passed through my mind it seemed to have also occurred to Mendouca; for he strode toward the waist and exclaimed in a low, clear voice that was distinctly audible fore and aft, but which would probably not have been audible half a cable’s length away—“Let those niggers knock off sweeping for the present, and send them below. And as soon as they are there and you have clapped the hatches on—noiselessly, mind—let all hands set to work to muffle the sweeps with mats, old canvas, pads of oakum, or anything else that you can lay your hands upon. It is unfortunate that this was not thought of before; but it may not yet be too late.”The negroes, grateful for this unexpected respite from their exhausting toil, and of course quite ignorant as to its cause, gladly tumbled below, and the gratings were carefully secured over them. Meanwhile the boatswain, with one hand, dived below, and in a short time the two men re-appeared with a load of miscellaneous stuff and some balls of spun-yarn; and all hands went diligently to work under Mendouca’s personal supervision, to muffle the sweeps, which was so effectually done that when, half-an-hour later, they were again manned, they worked with scarcely a sound beyond the rather heavy splash of their blades in the water. Meanwhile, during the progress of the muffling process—in which I had not offered to participate—I kept a keen watch upon the distant brig, taking an occasional squint at her through the night-glass when I thought it possible to do so without attracting Mendouca’s attention. I do not quite know what I expected to see, for of course I knew perfectly well that every eye in the brig might be steadfastly watching us, without our being able to detect any sign of such scrutiny; and I was moreover fully aware that should we have been discovered, and our character suspected, no visible indication of such discovery or suspicion would be permitted to reveal itself to our eyes; and the same studied concealment would equally apply to the preparations for any investigation that they might be moved to undertake. Still, I thought it just barely possible that by maintaining a strict watch I might chance to detect some sign of alertness on board the brig, if she were indeed theBarracouta, as I strongly suspected. Nor was I disappointed, for I did at length detect such an indication, not on board the brig herself, but at some considerable distance from her, and immediately under the slender crescent of the setting moon, where, while sweeping the surface of the water, moved by some vague instinct, I caught two faint momentary flashes of dim orange radiance that to me had very much the appearance of reflected moonlight glancing off the wet blades of oars. And if this were so it meant that we had been seen, our character very shrewdly suspected—most probably from the steady plying of the sweeps for no more apparently urgent reason than that we were becalmed—and that a surprise attack was about to be attempted from the very quarter where, under the circumstances, it was least likely to be looked for, namely, straight ahead. Of course what I had seen might merely have been a ray of moonlight glancing off the wet body of a porpoise, a whale, or some other sea creature risen to the surface to breathe; but it had so much the appearance of the momentary flash of oars that I was loath to believe it anything else. Assuming it to be what I hoped, my cue was now of course to distract attention as much as possible from that part of the ocean that lay immediately ahead of us; and this could not be better done than by concentrating it upon the brig, which now lay practically abeam of us, a short three miles away. I therefore—no longer surreptitiously but ostentatiously—again brought the night-glass to bear upon her, and allowed myself to be found thus when Mendouca came aft, after having personally superintended the muffling of the sweeps and the putting of them in motion again.“Well,” he said, as he rejoined me, “have you not yet been able to satisfy yourself as to the character of that brig?”“No,” said I; “but, whatever she is, they all seem to be asleep on board her. If she is a slaver, her skipper has more care and consideration for his property than you have, for he at least allows his slaves to rest at night.”“That is quite patent to us all,” answered Mendouca drily. “But then, you know, he may not be running short of food and water, as we are. Or—he may not be a slaver.”“Of course,” I assented, with the best accent of indifference that I could assume. “But, slaver or no slaver, I have not been able to detect a sign of life on board that brig for the last half-hour, or indeed from the moment when I first began to watch her. I can make out the faint light of her binnacle lamps, and that is all. But the fact of their being allowed to continue shining would seem to argue, to my mind at least, that, be they what they may, they have no reason for attempting to conceal their presence from us. If you feel differently toward them I think you would do well to extinguish your binnacle lights for awhile; the helmsman can steer equally well by a star, of which there are plenty to choose from.”“Yes, of course; you are right,” he assented hastily; “there can be no harm in doing that.”And going to the binnacle, he glanced into it, saw that the ship was heading on the course he had last set for her, directed the helmsman to choose a star to steer by, and then himself carefully withdrew the lamps and extinguished them.

“Only ten days longer?” roared Mendouca, his face livid with fury and consternation. “Nonsense, Juan! you must have made some stupid mistake; there surely is—theremustbe—more than that!”

“I have not made any mistake at all, señor,” answered the man sulkily; “it is just as I have said; there are only provisions and water enough to last us, on a full allowance, ten days longer.”

“Then, if that is the case, all hands must be put on short allowance—half rations—at once!” exclaimed Mendouca, with an oath. “But, stop a little; theremustbe some mistake. Light your lantern again, and I will go down below with you, and satisfy myself on the point.”

Accordingly Mendouca and the steward went down into the hold together, and gave the stores an exhaustive overhaul, with the result that the original report of the latter was fully confirmed!

Mendouca came up from the hold, raging like a maniac, cursing the weather, the provisions, and everything else that he could think of, including myself, whom he denounced as a Jonah, his ill-luck having commenced, according to his assertion, with the sparing of my life and my reception on board theFrancesca. As for the calm, he declared that it should detain him no longer; and, having searched the sky and examined the barometer in vain for any signs of a change, he gave orders for all canvas to be furled, and for the negroes to be set to work forthwith upon the sweeps, his intention being, as he stated, to keep them at it in relays or gangs until the region of apparently eternal calm had been left, and a breeze of some sort found. There were ten of these sweeps, or long, heavy oars, working through the ports, in beckets firmly lashed to ringbolts in the stanchions, that were evidently placed there expressly for that particular purpose. The loom of the sweep was long enough to admit of four men working at it, and accordingly the boatswain, having received his orders from Mendouca, selected forty of the strongest-looking of the negroes, and set them to this exhausting labour, the rest of the unfortunate creatures being driven below out of the way. The vessel, lying there inert as a log on the water, proved very heavy to start, especially as the blacks knew not how to handle the sweeps, having evidently never touched one before; but, once fairly started, the craft was kept moving with comparative ease at a speed of about three and a half knots per hour. But it was cruel work for the unhappy blacks, who, naked as when they were born, were remorselessly kept at it by the boatswain and his mate, both of whom paced the deck, fore and aft, armed with a heavy “colt,” which they plied unmercifully upon the shoulders of any man whom they chose to believe was not fully exerting himself, although the perspiration poured from the dark naked hides like rain. “Short spells and hard work” was, however, the order of the day, and after half-an-hour of almost superhuman exertion a relief was called, a fresh gang was set to work, and the exhausted toilers were hustled below to rest and recover themselves as best they could. I remonstrated hotly with Mendouca upon the needless cruelty practised by the boatswain and his mate, but I was roughly told that I did not know what I was talking about; that negroes would never work unless kept continually in wholesome dread of the lash; and that it was absolutely necessary to get every ounce of work out of them if we were not one and all to perish miserably of hunger and thirst. So, as I could do no better, I got a piece of the oldest and softest canvas I could find, and a bucket of water, with which I descended to the slave-deck and carefully bathed the poor lacerated shoulders of those unfortunates who had suffered most severely at the hands of the boatswain and his mate, a little piece of attention that I saw was most gratefully received.

We made fully twenty miles of westing that day, from the time when the negroes were first set to work up to sunset, to Mendouca’s great gratification. Indeed, so delighted was he with his own brilliant idea, that he did that night what I had never known him to do before, he indulged rather too freely in the contents of the rum-bottle. And, as a consequence, he grew garrulous and good-humouredly sarcastic over the efforts made for the suppression of the slave-trade, which he emphatically asserted would never be put down.

“One very serious disadvantage which you labour under,” he remarked, referring particularly to the operations of the British slave-squadron, “is that you are altogether too confiding and credulous; you accept every man as honest and straightforward until you have learned, to your cost, that he is the reverse. Take the case, for example, of your attack upon Chango Creek. You were led to undertake it upon the representations made and the information given by Lobo, the Portuguese trader of Banana Point, weren’t you? Oh, I know all about it, I have heard the whole story,” he interrupted himself to say, in reply to my ejaculation of surprise. “You were all very much obliged to Lobo, of course; and your captain paid him handsomely for his information and assistance. I suppose there was not one of you, from the captain downward, who ever had the ghost of a suspicion that the fellow was playing you false, and that the affair was a bold yet carefully arranged plot to exterminate the whole of you, and destroy your ship, eh? No; of course you hadn’t; yet I give you my word that itwas. Ay; and the only wonder to me was that it did not succeed. I suppose it was that you had a good deal more fight in you than any of them gave you credit for; and that is where so many excellently arranged traps have failed; the plotters have never made sufficient allowance for the fighting powers of the British, as I have told them over and over again. It was just that important oversight that caused what ought to have been a splendid success to result in a serious disaster; the intention was good, but, as is much too often the case, they had reckoned without their host.”

“But I do not understand,” I cut in, as Mendouca paused. “What was the plot? and how was Lobo concerned in it? It appears to me that the man acted in perfect good faith; he gave us certain information which proved to be substantially correct—except that he was mistaken as to the force that we should have to encounter—and he safely piloted us to the spot from which our boat attack was to be made; I can see nothing like a plot or treachery in that.”

“No; of course you cannot, you sweet innocent,” retorted Mendouca, with fine sarcasm, “for the simple reason, as I say, that the British are altogether too trustful and confiding to see treachery or double-dealing until it is thrust openly in their faces. You are altogether too simple and unsuspicious, you navy men, to deal with the tricks and ruses of the slave-dealing fraternity; and before your eyes are opened you either die of fever, or are killed in some brush with us, or are invalided home.”

“It may be so,” I agreed; “but so general a statement as that does not in the least help me to see what was the character of Lobo’s plot, or even that there was a plot at all.”

“Well, I will tell you,” said Mendouca thickly, helping himself to another caulker of rum—he had already swallowed two tumblers of stiff grog since the subject had been broached, in addition to what he had previously taken—“I will tell you, because, having made up my mind that you shall never rejoin your own people, the information is not likely to do Lobo any harm. When you arrived at Banana Point on that particular morning, your presence seriously threatened to entirely upset a very important transaction which Señor Lobo had in hand, namely, the disposal and shipment of a prime lot of nearly a thousand able-bodied, full-grown, male blacks that he had got snugly stowed away in two big barracoons a short distance up the creek from his factory. Had your captain taken it into his head to land a party and make a search of the peninsula, the barracoons would have been discovered, and friend Lobo would have been a ruined man. So, as soon as your brig was identified as a man-o’-war—and that was as soon as she could be distinctly made out—another mistake that you man-o’-war’s men make, friend Dugdale; you can scarcely ever bring yourselves to disguise your ships; they declare their character as far as it is possible to see them.—Let me see, what was I saying? I have run clean off my course, and don’t know where I am.”

“You were going to tell me what happened when theBarracoutawas identified from Banana Point as a man-o’-war,” said I.

“Ah, yes, exactly,” answered Mendouca. “Well, as soon as it was discovered that your brig was a British man-o’-war, every available hand was set to work to clear everything of an incriminating character out of the two brigs that were going to ship the slaves; so that, should you overhaul them—as I was told you did—nothing might be found on board to justify their seizure. This job was successfully completed only a few minutes before you entered the creek. But that would have availed Lobo nothing had your captain happened to have thought of landing upon the peninsula; the next thing, therefore, was to furnish him with a totally different subject to think about; and this Lobo found in the opportune presence of the four craft in Chango Creek. The captains of three out of the four vessels happened to be down at Banana when you arrived; and Lobo—who is gifted with quite an unusual measure of persuasiveness—had very little difficulty in convincing them that you would be absolutely certain to discover their hiding-place sooner or later, and that consequently it would be a good plan to inveigle you into making an immediate attack upon them; when, by concerting proper measures of defence, they might succeed in practically annihilating you, and so sweeping a formidable enemy out of their path. The three skippers fell in readily with his plan, when he had propounded it, and also undertook to secure the cooperation of the fourth; and as the creek offered exceptional facilities for a successful defence, it was accepted that you were all as good as done for, especially as Lobo had undertaken to cut the brig adrift at the right moment, so that she might be driven ashore and rendered useless for the time being, if not altogether. This matter arranged, the slave-captains left Banana forthwith to carry out their plans for the defence of the creek, taking a short cut by way of the back of the creek, and taking with them also every available man that Lobo could spare; the idea being to allow you to advance unmolested as far as the boom—which, they never dreamed that you would succeed in forcing—and then destroy you by a musketry fire from the banks, when, weakened by your unavailing attack upon the boom, you should at length be compelled to retire. Your astounding pluck and perseverance in forcing the boom completely upset all their plans, and converted what would have been for them an easy and bloodless victory into a disastrous defeat, while it saved the lives of the survivors of the attacking party. But though it turned out disastrously for Aravares, of theMercedes, and his friends, the plot served Lobo’s purpose perfectly; the shipping of the slaves on board the two brigs which were waiting for them proceeding immediately that you were clear of the creek, and both vessels getting away to sea that same night. So that, you see, it is by no means as difficult a matter to deceive and hoodwink you man-o’-war people as you choose to suppose.”

“No,” answered I; “so it would seem. Yet, by your own showing, we were not the only deceived parties; and, after all, the attack was successful, so far as we were concerned.”

“That is very true, and only confirms what I have always insisted upon; namely, that, in making their plans, foreigners do not allow sufficiently for British pluck and obstinacy. NowIdo; I never leave anything to chance, but always lay my plans so carefully that the destruction or capture of my enemies is an absolute certainty. But for such careful forethought on my part, theSapphire’stwo boats would never have fallen into my power.”

“TheSapphire’sboats?” I exclaimed. “Surely you do not mean to tell me thatyouare responsible for the massacre of those two boats’ crews?”

“No, not the massacre of them, certainly, but their capture,” answered Mendouca, with a smile of gratified pride.

“And are the people still alive, then?” I asked.

“They were when I last heard of them,” answered Mendouca. “But it is quite possible that by this time they—or at least a part of them—have been tortured to death by Matadi—the chief to whom I sold them—as a sacrifice to his fetish.”

“Gracious powers, how horrible!” I exclaimed. “And to think that you, an Englishman, could consign your fellow-countrymen to such a fate as that!”

“Why not?” demanded Mendouca fiercely; “why should I be more gentle to my countrymen than they have been to me? Do you think that, because I carry my fate lightly and gaily, I do not feel keenly the depth to which I have fallen? I might have been a post-captain by this time, honoured and distinguished for great services worthily rendered; but I am instead a slaver and a pirate masquerading under the disguise of a Spanish name. Do you think I am insensible of the immeasurable gulf that separates me from what I might have been? And it is my own countrymen who have opened that gulf—who have robbed me of the opportunity of reaching that proud eminence that was at one time all but within my reach, and have hurled me into the abyss of crime and infamy in which you find me. And you are surprised, forsooth, that I should avenge myself whenever the opportunity comes!”

I knew now from experience that it was quite useless to argue with Mendouca when he got upon the subject of his grievances; I therefore gave the conversation a turn by asking—

“Where, then, are these wretched people now, if indeed they are still alive?”

“I presume,” answered he, “that, if still alive, as you say, they are where I last heard of them; namely, at Matadi’s village; a place on the south bank of the Congo, about one hundred miles, or rather more, from its mouth. But why do you take such a profound interest in them?” he asked. “Possibly you are contemplating the formation of an expedition for their rescue, as soon as you have effected your escape from me?” and he laughed satirically.

My reply and his laugh were alike cut short by the sound of heavy footsteps on the companion-ladder outside the cabin, and the next moment the boatswain made his appearance in the doorway with the intimation that a craft of some sort had just been made out, at a distance of about three miles broad on the starboard bow; and he wished to know whether the course of the brigantine was to be altered or not.

Mendouca sprang to his feet and hurried on deck, I following him.

On our first emergence from the brilliantly-lighted cabin the night appeared to be dark; but as our eyes accommodated themselves to the change of conditions, it became apparent that the cloudless sky was thickly gemmed and powdered with stars of all magnitudes, from those of the first order down to the star-dust constituting the broad belt of the Milky Way, all gleaming with that soft, resplendent lustre that is only to be witnessed within the zone of the tropics. Moreover, there was a young moon, a delicate, crescent-shaped paring, about two days old, hanging low in the western sky, yet capable, in that pure, translucent atmosphere, of yielding quite an appreciable amount of light. The water was still smooth as polished glass, even the swell having gone down so completely that its undulations were not to be detected by even the delicate test of watching the star reflections in the polished depths, while the brigantine was as steady as though still on the stocks where she took form and substance. The negroes were still toiling at the sweeps, and the watch, armed to the teeth, were clustered fore and aft, on the alert to guard against any attempt at an outbreak among them. The canvas was all closely furled, so that we had an uninterrupted view of the sky from horizon to zenith, all around, toward the latter of which the delicate, tapering, naked spars pointed as steadily as the spires of a church. The boatswain, however, was eagerly directing Mendouca’s attention toward small, dark object, broad on our starboard bow; and turning my gaze toward it, I made out a brig under her two topsails, jib, and trysail, with her courses in the brails. Mendouca had already seized the night-glass, and with its aid was subjecting her to a prolonged and searching scrutiny, upon the completion of which he handed the instrument to me, with the remark, in English—

“Take a good look at her, Dugdale, and tell me what you think of her?”

I took the glass, and, having brought the stranger into its field, soon managed, by an adjustment of the focus, to get a clear, sharply-defined image of her, as she floated motionless, a black silhouette, against the deep, velvety, purple-black, star-spangled sky. And as I did so a certain sense of familiarity with the delicate, diminutive, black picture upon which I was gazing thrilled through me. Surely I knew that low, long, shapely hull; those lofty, slightly-raking masts; those spacious topsails? Even the very steeve of the bowsprit seemed familiar to me, and I felt certain that the superbly cut jib and handsome trysail could belong only to theBarracouta! And, if so, how was I to act? It was plainly my duty to do anything and everything that might be in my power to promote the capture of the daring slaver and unscrupulous pirate, whose guest—or prisoner—I was; but had I the power to doanything? With that now thoroughly alert and even suspicious individual at my side, and the watch on deck all about me, it was clearly evident that nothing in the shape of signalling could even be attempted with the slightest hope or chance of success; and the only other mode of action that remained to me appeared to be to carefully conceal my knowledge—or, rather, very strong suspicion—as to the identity of the brig. I had barely arrived at this conclusion when Mendouca, with an accent of impatience, interrupted my reverie with the exclamation—

“Well, surely you have seen all that it is possible to see by this time? Or cannot you quite make up your mind as to her character?”

“I have an impression that I have seen her before, and it seems to me that she bears a very striking resemblance to the Spanish brig that was lying off Lobo’s factory on the day of our first arrival in the Congo,” said I; the happy idea suggesting itself to me, as I began to speak, that I might safely make this statement without any breach of the truth, all of us on board theBarracoutahaving observed and remarked upon the striking resemblance between the two craft.

“Um! itmaybe so,” muttered Mendouca, with a strong accent of doubt in his voice, however. “Let me have another look at her.”

I handed over the glass with alacrity, for it was about my last wish just then to be questioned too closely as to the character of the stranger; and Mendouca subjected her to a further long and exhaustive scrutiny. At its termination he turned to me, and, with an accent of unmistakable suspicion, inquired—

“It hasn’t suggested itself to you, I suppose, that yonder craft may be a British man-o’-war? You have seen nothing so like her in your own squadron as to lead to the suspicion that she may be a dangerous enemy whom I ought to be promptly warned to avoid?”

Now, had I not known that he had never seen theBarracouta, I should have scarcely known what reply to give to this home question; as it was, however, I answered at hazard—

“Well, at this distance yonder vessel offers to my eye very little resemblance to the usual type of British gun-brig; she is longer, and much lower in the water, and her masts are certainly further apart than is the case with our brigs generally, you must see that for yourself; and it would be unreasonable to expect me to give a more decided opinion at this distance and in so vague a light.”

“Will you swear to me that you are honestly of opinion that yon brig isnota man-o’-war?”

“Certainly not,” answered I, with pretended annoyance at his pertinacity. “She may be, or she may not be; it is quite impossible to express a more decided opinion, under the circumstances, and I therefore must decline to do so.”

And I turned and walked away from him with an air of petulance.

Mendouca laid down the telescope, walked to the binnacle, and peered intently for a moment at the compass.

“Keep her way two points more to the southward,” he ordered the helmsman.

This alteration in our course brought the brig about one point before our beam, distant about two and a half miles, and if persisted in, would soon have the effect of increasing the distance between the two craft; and, unless we were already seen, rendered it quite possible that we might slip past unobserved, our spars standing naked to the dark sky, and our hull lying low upon the equally dark water. There was, however, the hope that, even at the distance separating the two vessels, the roll and grinding of the heavy sweeps would be heard in the perfect stillness of air and water; and I felt confident that, if yonder brig were indeed theBarracouta, and the sounds referred to extended so far as to reach the sharp ears on board her, they would be identified, and their significance at once understood. But even as the thought passed through my mind it seemed to have also occurred to Mendouca; for he strode toward the waist and exclaimed in a low, clear voice that was distinctly audible fore and aft, but which would probably not have been audible half a cable’s length away—

“Let those niggers knock off sweeping for the present, and send them below. And as soon as they are there and you have clapped the hatches on—noiselessly, mind—let all hands set to work to muffle the sweeps with mats, old canvas, pads of oakum, or anything else that you can lay your hands upon. It is unfortunate that this was not thought of before; but it may not yet be too late.”

The negroes, grateful for this unexpected respite from their exhausting toil, and of course quite ignorant as to its cause, gladly tumbled below, and the gratings were carefully secured over them. Meanwhile the boatswain, with one hand, dived below, and in a short time the two men re-appeared with a load of miscellaneous stuff and some balls of spun-yarn; and all hands went diligently to work under Mendouca’s personal supervision, to muffle the sweeps, which was so effectually done that when, half-an-hour later, they were again manned, they worked with scarcely a sound beyond the rather heavy splash of their blades in the water. Meanwhile, during the progress of the muffling process—in which I had not offered to participate—I kept a keen watch upon the distant brig, taking an occasional squint at her through the night-glass when I thought it possible to do so without attracting Mendouca’s attention. I do not quite know what I expected to see, for of course I knew perfectly well that every eye in the brig might be steadfastly watching us, without our being able to detect any sign of such scrutiny; and I was moreover fully aware that should we have been discovered, and our character suspected, no visible indication of such discovery or suspicion would be permitted to reveal itself to our eyes; and the same studied concealment would equally apply to the preparations for any investigation that they might be moved to undertake. Still, I thought it just barely possible that by maintaining a strict watch I might chance to detect some sign of alertness on board the brig, if she were indeed theBarracouta, as I strongly suspected. Nor was I disappointed, for I did at length detect such an indication, not on board the brig herself, but at some considerable distance from her, and immediately under the slender crescent of the setting moon, where, while sweeping the surface of the water, moved by some vague instinct, I caught two faint momentary flashes of dim orange radiance that to me had very much the appearance of reflected moonlight glancing off the wet blades of oars. And if this were so it meant that we had been seen, our character very shrewdly suspected—most probably from the steady plying of the sweeps for no more apparently urgent reason than that we were becalmed—and that a surprise attack was about to be attempted from the very quarter where, under the circumstances, it was least likely to be looked for, namely, straight ahead. Of course what I had seen might merely have been a ray of moonlight glancing off the wet body of a porpoise, a whale, or some other sea creature risen to the surface to breathe; but it had so much the appearance of the momentary flash of oars that I was loath to believe it anything else. Assuming it to be what I hoped, my cue was now of course to distract attention as much as possible from that part of the ocean that lay immediately ahead of us; and this could not be better done than by concentrating it upon the brig, which now lay practically abeam of us, a short three miles away. I therefore—no longer surreptitiously but ostentatiously—again brought the night-glass to bear upon her, and allowed myself to be found thus when Mendouca came aft, after having personally superintended the muffling of the sweeps and the putting of them in motion again.

“Well,” he said, as he rejoined me, “have you not yet been able to satisfy yourself as to the character of that brig?”

“No,” said I; “but, whatever she is, they all seem to be asleep on board her. If she is a slaver, her skipper has more care and consideration for his property than you have, for he at least allows his slaves to rest at night.”

“That is quite patent to us all,” answered Mendouca drily. “But then, you know, he may not be running short of food and water, as we are. Or—he may not be a slaver.”

“Of course,” I assented, with the best accent of indifference that I could assume. “But, slaver or no slaver, I have not been able to detect a sign of life on board that brig for the last half-hour, or indeed from the moment when I first began to watch her. I can make out the faint light of her binnacle lamps, and that is all. But the fact of their being allowed to continue shining would seem to argue, to my mind at least, that, be they what they may, they have no reason for attempting to conceal their presence from us. If you feel differently toward them I think you would do well to extinguish your binnacle lights for awhile; the helmsman can steer equally well by a star, of which there are plenty to choose from.”

“Yes, of course; you are right,” he assented hastily; “there can be no harm in doing that.”

And going to the binnacle, he glanced into it, saw that the ship was heading on the course he had last set for her, directed the helmsman to choose a star to steer by, and then himself carefully withdrew the lamps and extinguished them.

Chapter Fifteen.The Affair of the ‘Francesca’ and the ‘Barracouta’s’ Boats.I continued to industriously scrutinise the brig through the night-glass, and, by so doing, contrived to keep Mendouca’s attention also pretty closely centred upon her; but I could see that he was fully on the alert. He appeared to instinctively scent danger in the air, for he frequently assumed an anxious, listening attitude, with a growing irritability that manifested itself in repeated execration of the slaves for the quite unavoidable splashing sounds that they made in working the sweeps. He was also intently watching the thin crescent of the setting moon that was by this time hanging on the very verge of the western horizon; and I suspected that he was awaiting her disappearance to put in practice some stratagem—such as, perhaps, a further alteration of the ship’s course—as an additional safeguard. But, whatever may have been his intentions, they were all altered by an unlucky discovery made by one of the men on the forecastle, who, at the very moment when the moon was in the act of sinking behind the horizon, caught sight for a moment of a large boat full of men strongly outlined against the golden crescent, and immediately reported the fact, coming aft that he might do so without raising his voice.“A boat!” exclaimed Mendouca anxiously, when the man had told what he had seen. “Are youquitesure?”“As sure as I am that I am now standing here speaking to you, señor,” answered the man, in a tone of conviction. “José saw it also. We were both watching the disappearing moon, and when she was about half-way below the horizon we suddenly saw a large boat, pulling, I should say, at least twelve oars, glide swiftly across her face, as though steering to the southward on a line that would cross our course.”“Phew!” ejaculated Mendouca; “that looks serious. For it undoubtedly means that the brig’s people are by no means as fast asleep as you have imagined them to be, Dugdale. How far off did you judge the boat to be when you saw her?” he demanded, turning again to the seaman.“A matter of a mile and a half, or perhaps a trifle more,” was the answer.“Very well, then, that will do,” answered Mendouca. “‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ as the English say. As you go forward pass the word along for the sweeps to be laid in and stowed away, and for the negroes to be sent below, and the hatch gratings put on and secured. And, do you hear, everything must be done as noiselessly as possible.”“Bueno, señor,” answered the man, as he turned away to do Mendouca’s bidding; and in a few minutes the sweeps were laid in and stowed away, and the brigantine’s head gently turned more to the southward, in order that she might drift in that direction as long as she retained her way. Then, the slaves having been driven below and secured, the decks were rapidly but noiselessly cleared for action, the guns were cast loose and loaded, a liberal supply of grape and canister was passed on deck, arms were served out to the men, and the boarding nettings were triced up all round the ship. The whole of the work was executed so rapidly and silently as to clearly demonstrate that the crew was a thoroughly seasoned one, inured to fighting, and by no means averse to it when the chances were in their favour, as they certainly were in the present instance; and I was filled with chagrin and disgust at the thought of how simple an accident had sufficed to mar and defeat what might otherwise have proved a perfect surprise to Mendouca and his crew. Still, although I could not conceal from myself the fact that this apparently trivial accident had placed the attacking party at a woeful disadvantage, by warning their antagonists of the intended attack, and thus putting them on the alert, I had seen enough of British pluck to hope that even yet, despite all, it might still prove successful; and I awaited the event with no small anxiety, quite determined that if the slightest chance offered of affording any aid to the assailants, I would avail myself of it, let the consequences to myself be what they would. But Mendouca soon proved that he was not the man to overlook any such peril as this; for presently, when by personal inspection he had satisfied himself that everything was in readiness, he came up to me and said, with just the suspicion of a sneer in the tones of his voice—“Now, Dugdale, I will not pay you so poor a compliment as to suppose you capable of treacherously making use of your present position on board my ship, to raise your hand against the man who gave you your life, at the moment when his whole attention will be needed to protect himself against outside enemies. Still, your conscience appears to be a very curious and inscrutable thing, and there is no knowing what it may prompt you to do under the influence of excitement and misguided enthusiasm. In order therefore that you may be placed beyond the danger of temptation to do something that you would probably afterwards have cause to bitterly regret, I will ask you to go below to your cabin, where, for your own safety’s sake, I will take the liberty of locking you in, with a companion whose duty it will be to see that you remain there and do not commit yourself by any rash act.”“Oh, certainly!” I answered, rather bitterly. “Needs must when the devil drives; so lead on, most courteous señor.”“Look here, Dugdale,” said he, apparently rather hurt by my tone, “you must not feel yourself aggrieved at my action in this matter. What I propose to do is for your own good and safety, quite as much as by way of a safeguard of my own. My men are fairly amenable to discipline in their calmer moments, as you have doubtless discovered by this time; but I should be sorry to answer for them in the excitement of a fiercely-contested fight, such as this is likely to be; and since you have persistently refused to join us out and out, I honestly think it will be safer for you to be below out of sight until we have driven those meddlesome boats off.”“Very well,” said I; “it must of course be as you please. Only, for mercy’s sake, spare me the humiliation of mounting a guard over me!”He looked me intently in the eyes for a moment, and then said—“All right, I will; you shall be locked up by yourself. Only, for your own sake, be careful to behave exactly as you would in the presence of a guard; for I promise you that, if I have the slightest reason to suspect any treachery on your part, you will be sorry that I ever spared your life. Now, come along, for there is no time to spare.”I accordingly followed him below and entered my cabin, closing the door behind me, and I immediately heard him turn the key and withdraw it from the lock, after which he went on deck again; and for a time the most perfect stillness and silence reigned throughout the ship.The silence was not of long duration, however; for I had scarcely been in my cabin ten minutes when I heard a low murmur of voices overhead, and the next instant Mendouca’s voice pealed outs loud and clear, in English—“Ho, the boats ahoy! Who are you, and what do you want?”There was some reply that I could not catch, the voice evidently coming from a point at some distance from the ship, on the opposite side to that occupied by my cabin. It was probably an inquiry as to name and destination of the brigantine, for Mendouca shouted—“TheNubian Queen, of and for Liverpool, from the Brass river, with oil and ivory. Keep off, or I will fire into you! I warn you that we are armed, and are quite prepared to defend ourselves.”A long hail from the boats now followed, to which Mendouca replied—“If you do it will be at your peril; I have been cleared out once before just about this same spot, and I do not intend to be robbed a second time. Keep off, I tell you! If you advance another stroke I will fire!”And instantly afterwards I heard him say to his own men in Spanish—“Now, lads, you have them all in a cluster, let them have it. Fire!”The sharp, ringing report of the brigantine’s nine-pounders immediately pealed out, and even through the shock and concussion of the discharge I thought that, as I stood with my ear at the open port, I caught the sound of a crash. Whether this was so or not, there could be no mistake about the screams and groans of agony that came floating over the water in response to our broadside, mingled with cries of command, the roll and dash of oars in the water, a rattling volley of musketry, and the deeper notes of two boat-guns fired almost together, the shot of one at least of which I heard and felt strike the hull of the brigantine.All was now in an instant noise and confusion on deck; the silence that had held the tongues of the crew was now no longer necessary, and the jabber, the oaths, the shouting, the loud, defiant laughs, the rumbling of the gun-carriages, the creaking of tackle-blocks, the thud of rammers and sponges, the calls for cartridges, all combined to create a hubbub that would not have shamed the builders of Babel; and through all and above all rose Mendouca’s voice in short, sharp sentences of appeal, encouragement, and direction to his men. I could hear, by the furious grinding of handspikes, the breathless ejaculations of the men, and the crash of the gun-carriages as the guns were run out, that theFrancesca’screw were working like demons; and almost before I could have believed it possible, they had again loaded their guns and a second broadside rang out over the still water, to be again followed by a still more gruesome chorus of cries and groans, and the sudden cessation of the sound of the oars, loud above which rose the exultant cheers of the ruffians on deck.“Hurrah, lads!” I heard Mendouca exclaim joyously; “load again smartly, but with grape and canister only this time. We have checked them for a moment, but they have not yet had enough, I fear; they will come at us again as soon as they have picked up their shipmates, so now is your time; load and let them have it while they are stationary!”And while he was speaking I could also hear a voice—that, unless I was greatly mistaken, belonged to Young, the first luff of theBarracouta—exclaiming at no great distance—“Pull starboard, back port; now back, hard, all, and let us pick up those poor fellows before the sharks get the scent of them! Easy all; steady, lads, steady; hold water! Now then, my hearties, lay hold of the oars and let us get you inboard sharp; we can’t afford to lie here to be peppered. Help the wounded, those of you who are unhurt. That’s your sort, Styles, bring him along here; is he still alive, do you think? All right, I have him! Now then, coxswain, heave with a will, but don’t hurt the poor fellow more than you can help. Gently, man, gently; now lift handsomely, so—”Crash! the relentless broadside of theFrancescaagain pealed forth, and again uprose that dismal wail of shrieks in testimony of its too terribly truthful aim. Frantic cheers and shouts of exultation burst from the lips of the slaver’s crew, in the midst of which Mendouca’s voice rang out—“Now, stand by, men! here they come; but there is only one boat-load of them, and half their number must be killed or wounded. Stand by with your pikes, pistols, and cutlasses, and let not one of them show his head above the rail. Give them a volley from your pistols as they range alongside, and then trust to cold steel for the rest.Nowis your time! Fire!”And at the word there followed a tremendous popping of pistols, mingled with the yells of the men on deck, a British cheer that sent the blood tingling through my veins and made me anathematise my helpless condition, the sharp, ringing clash of steel upon steel, and a furious trampling of bare feet upon the planks overhead.The scuffle continued for fully three minutes, and must have been very hot while it lasted, for all through the hubbub the cries and groans of the freshly-wounded were continuous. I could hear the dull crunching sound of the sharp cutlasses shearing through bone and muscle, the shrill scream of agony, the heavy thud of bodies falling to the deck, oaths and execrations both in Spanish and in English, shouts of mutual encouragement, yells of deadly hatred, the ceaseless trampling of feet, and all the indescribable medley of sounds that accompany a sharp and stubbornly-contested hand-to-hand conflict; and in my feverish anxiety to share in the struggle I forgot all about Mendouca’s warning, and dashed myself frantically against the stout cabin-door in an effort to burst my way out. Before, however, I could succeed the hurly-burly suddenly ceased, to be almost instantly followed by a yell of exultation from the crowd overhead as the hasty rattle and splash of oars proclaimed that the attacking party had been driven off.“Now, men, to your guns again, quick! Load smartly and give them another broadside before they get out of range!” shouted Mendouca. “Sweep them off the face of the water, if you can; let not one of them escape to tell the tale!”A loud shout of exulting assent to this brutal exhortation pealed forth; and I heard the rumbling of the wheels on the deck as the guns were run in. This was more than I could endure; and again hurling myself furiously against the cabin-door, I at length succeeded in bursting it off its hinges. To emerge from the cabin and rush on deck was the work of a moment, and I reached the scene of action just as the loaded guns were being run out.“Stop!” I shouted. “What are you about to do, men? You have utterly mistaken your captain’s orders if you suppose he meant you to fire upon that boat! Order them to secure the guns,” I continued, turning to Mendouca; “it surelycannotbe that you are going to allow the excitement of battle to betray you into the committal of a cold-blooded murder? You have beaten off your enemies, and they are in full retreat; let that satisfy you. Hitherto you have beenfighting, and, as you are aware, the present state of the law is such that you are held justifiable in your act of self-defence; but should you fire upon that boat now it will bemurder, and I swear to you that if you do I will testify against you for the deed, if I live so long. Man, have you no regard foryourself? Do you suppose that the captain of yonder brig will be content to take the beating off of his boats as a final settlement of this night’s doings? I tell you he will follow you and hunt you to the world’s end, ay, andtakeyou, sooner or later! And what do you suppose will be your fate if you murder that retreating boat’s crew? Why, you will swing for the deed, as certainly as that you now stand there glaring at me!”“Have you finished?” he demanded, in a voice almost inarticulate with fury, his hand resting meanwhile upon the butt of a pistol that was stuck in his sash.“Yes,” said I, “I have. That is to say, I have finished if I have succeeded in preventing the perpetration of an act of miserable cowardice that in your cooler moments would cause you to hate and despise yourself for the remainder of your life; not otherwise.”Slowly he removed his hand from the butt of his pistol and, with a bitter laugh, drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it.“Secure the guns!” he shouted to his men. Then walking up to me and clutching me by the shoulder, he said—“You have triumphed again. But I warn you that some day you will go too far, and pay for your temerity with your life. Do you know that while you were speaking you were actually tottering upon the very brink of the grave? Why I did not blow your brains out, I do not know. Boy, if you have any wish to live out your days, never taunt me with cowardice again! There, go below, and do not let me see you again until I have recovered my self-command, or even yet I shall do you a mischief.”“No,” I said, “I willnotgo below; it is my watch on deck, and I mean to keep it. I have no fear of your temper getting the better of you now, so I shall remain where I am—that is, if you will trust me with the charge of the deck. I am fresh, while you are fagged with exertion and excitement, so it is foryouto go below and get some rest, not I.”Mendouca laughed again, this time quite genially, and said—“Very well, let it be as you say; Iwill gobelow and rest. And if it is any comfort to you to know it, I do not mind acknowledgingnowthat I am glad you intervened to prevent me from firing on that boat. Keep her as she is going and let the niggers man the sweeps again; you are right about that brig, she will follow us to the world’s end—if she can, so we must put all the distance possible between ourselves and her while this calm lasts.”And, repeating to the boatswain his orders respecting the manning of the sweeps, this singular man nodded shortly to me and dived out of sight down the companion-way.In a few minutes a gang of slaves was again brought on deck and put to the sweeps; and steering a course of about south-south-west, we were soon once more moving through the water at a speed of about three knots. This course was followed all through the night and up to eight o’clock the next morning, at which hour—one of the men having been sent aloft as far as the royal-yard to see whether any sign of the brig could be discovered, and having returned to the deck again with an intimation that the horizon was clear all round—the brigantine’s position was pricked off upon the chart and her head once more pointed straight for Cuba.We had by this time traversed a distance of fully sixty miles under the impulsion of the sweeps alone, and everybody was anxiously watching for some sign of a coming breeze; yet, despite the already long continuance of the calm, the heavens were still as brass to us, clear, cloudless, blue as the fathomless depths beneath our feet, not the merest vestige of cloud to be seen, the mercury still persistently steady at an abnormal height, the sea as smooth and motionless as a sheet of glass, and not the smallest sign to justify us in hoping for any change. The heat was something absolutely phenomenal; the deck planking was so hot that we all had to wear shoes to protect our feet from being scorched; a gang of negroes was kept constantly at work drawing water with which to flood the deck; yet, despite this precaution, and despite, too, the awnings which were now spread fore and aft, the pitch in the seams of the planking became so soft that if I stood still for only a few seconds I found myself stuck fast. I pitied the unfortunate blacks from the bottom of my heart, for they were relentlessly kept toiling at those horrible sweeps without intermission all through the day, and that, too, upon a short allowance of water; but it was useless to interfere, for even I had begun to understand by this time that, unless the brigantine could be taken out of that awful region of apparently eternal calm, every one of us, black and white together, must inevitably perish miserably of thirst.This terrible weather lasted all through that and the following day, during which, with torment indescribable from thirst and the lash of the boatswains’ colts, the miserable slaves propelled the ship no less a distance than one hundred and fifty miles. Oh, how fervently I begged and entreated Mendouca to have mercy upon the unhappy creatures, and to at least give orders that they must be no more flogged, even if inexorable necessity demanded that they must be kept toiling at the sweeps. But the wretch was as adamant, he laughed and jeered at my sympathy with the poor creatures, and—as much, I believe, to annoy me as for any other reason—persistently refused to give the order, declaring that, since they would receive many a sound flogging when they got ashore—if indeed they ever lived to reach it—it was just as well that they should learn to endure the lash at once. At which brutal statement I went temporarily mad, I think—at all events I did what looked like a thoroughly mad thing; I went on deck and, walking up to the boatswain, informed him that if he or his mate dared to strike a negro again I would knock them both down. Mendouca, highly amused at my heat and excitement on behalf of the negroes, had followed me on deck, probably to see what I would next do; and upon hearing this threat he called out, jeeringly—“Look out, José, my man! Señor Dugdale has warned you, and you may be sure that if you strike one of those niggers again he will carry out his threat!”The boatswain saw at once how the land lay, and that Mendouca was only amusing himself at my expense; feeling confident therefore of his captain’s countenance and protection, I suppose, he, for answer, raised his colt and smote the nearest negro a savage blow over the shoulders with it.Of course, after my possibly foolhardy threat there was but one thing to do, and I did it forthwith, hitting out with my whole strength, catching the boatswain fair between the eyes, and rolling him over like a ninepin.“Ha, ha! well hit!” exclaimed Mendouca, laughing heartily at the sight of the boatswain as he reeled and fell under the feet of the negroes. “I warned you, José, my lad; and now you see the evil results of neglecting my warning! No, no,” he hastily continued, starting to his feet; “put up your knife, man; that will never do! I cannot afford to spare Señor Dugdale—at least not just yet—ah! would you? Look out, Dugdale! bravo! well hit again! Serves you right, José; you should never draw your knife upon an unarmed man.”For the fellow had hastily scrambled to his feet, and, with his drawn knife in his hand, made a rush at me, his eyes blazing with fury. And, as the only way of defending myself at the moment, I had seized his uplifted right hand with my left, giving it a wrench that sent the knife spinning over the bulwarks into the sea, while with my right I again knocked him down.“Now, José,” exclaimed Mendouca, “that ends the matter; do you hear? I cannot spare Señor Dugdale, so if he is found with a knife between his ribs I shall hold you responsible for it, and I give you my solemn promise that I will run you up to the yard-arm and leave you there until it will not matter to you what becomes of your miserable carcase. And I hope that the thrashing you have received will make you use a little more discrimination in the use of your colt. If a niggerwon’twork,makehim, by all means; but so long as they are willing to work without thrashing, leave them alone, I say. As for you, Dugdale,” he continued, in English, “had I suspected that you really meant to carry out your threat, I would have taken steps to prevent it. I will not have my men interfered with in the execution of their duty. If they do not perform their duty to my satisfaction,Iwill take such steps as may seem necessary for their correction, so you need not trouble yourself further in that direction. Why, man, if I were to give you a free hand, we should have a mutiny in less than a week. Moreover, you have made one deadly enemy by knocking José down, and you may consider yourself exceedingly fortunate if my authority proves sufficient to protect you from his knife. Take care you make no other enemies among the men, or I will not be answerable for your safety.”This occurred shortly before sunset, and all through the hot and breathless night the unhappy negroes were kept toiling at the sweeps in gangs or relays, the result being that when morning dawned the poor wretches seemed, one and all, to be utterly worn-out. Yet still there was no respite for them; and when I again attempted to remonstrate with Mendouca, that individual simply pointed to the serene, cloudless sky, with the blazing, merciless sun in the midst, and savagely asked whether I wanted all hands to perish of hunger and thirst. This occurred while we were at breakfast; and when we went on deck at the conclusion of the meal, my enemy the boatswain drew Mendouca’s attention to the upper spars and sails of a ship just rising slowly above the horizon on our starboard bow. I never saw so sudden a change in a man’s demeanour as took place in that of Mendouca when his eye rested upon that distant object; hitherto he had been growing every day more savage and morose, but now his good-humour suddenly returned to him, and, ordering the brigantine’s head to be pointed straight for the stranger, he shouted, in the gladness of his heart—“Hurrah, lads, there is relief for us at last! We shall find what we want—food and water—on board yon stranger, and also a way of persuading them to let us have it, or I am greatly mistaken!”The significance of the last part of this remark was, to my mind, unmistakable. If he could not get by fair means what he wanted, Mendouca had already made up his mind to take it by force; in other words, to commit an act of piracy.I was sorry for the crew of the unlucky craft, for I felt convinced that Mendouca would have but scant consideration for their future wants while satisfying his own; yet the sight of the stranger filled me with almost delirious delight, for here was a chance—if I could but contrive to avail myself of it—to make my escape from my present surroundings. True, if I were permitted, or could contrive, to throw in my lot with those people yonder, I should probably have to face terrible suffering in the shape of hunger and thirst, but, after all, that would be less unendurable than my present situation; and I determined that, whatever might happen, I would certainly make an attempt to join them, always provided, of course, that the craft was honest, and not of a similar character to theFrancesca.As we neared the stranger she proved to be a handsome, full-rigged ship of about a thousand tons measurement, or thereabouts, and I thought that she had somewhat of the look of one of the new British clipper Indiamen that were just at this time beginning to supersede the old-fashioned, slow, lumbering tubs that had been considered the correct kind of thing by John Company; if she were, she would probably have a crew strong enough not only to successfully resist the demands of Mendouca, but also to protect me, should I be able by any pretext to get on board her. The difficulty, of course, would be to do this; but if, as I rather expected, Mendouca should elect to lay theFrancesca, alongside the ship and endeavour to carry the latter by acoup de main, I would board with the rest, taking my chance of being run through or shot down in the attempt, and immediately place myself under the protection of the stranger’s crew. It was of course easy enough to arrange this scheme in my own mind, but even a very slight deviation on Mendouca’s part from the programme which I expected him to adopt might suffice to nullify it; nevertheless, it appeared probable that my surmise as to Mendouca’s intentions would prove correct, for if he did not mean to lay the stranger aboard and carry her with a rush, I could scarcely understand the boldness with which he was approaching her in broad daylight, with his strongly-manned sweeps proclaiming to the most unsuspicious eye the dubious character of the brigantine.

I continued to industriously scrutinise the brig through the night-glass, and, by so doing, contrived to keep Mendouca’s attention also pretty closely centred upon her; but I could see that he was fully on the alert. He appeared to instinctively scent danger in the air, for he frequently assumed an anxious, listening attitude, with a growing irritability that manifested itself in repeated execration of the slaves for the quite unavoidable splashing sounds that they made in working the sweeps. He was also intently watching the thin crescent of the setting moon that was by this time hanging on the very verge of the western horizon; and I suspected that he was awaiting her disappearance to put in practice some stratagem—such as, perhaps, a further alteration of the ship’s course—as an additional safeguard. But, whatever may have been his intentions, they were all altered by an unlucky discovery made by one of the men on the forecastle, who, at the very moment when the moon was in the act of sinking behind the horizon, caught sight for a moment of a large boat full of men strongly outlined against the golden crescent, and immediately reported the fact, coming aft that he might do so without raising his voice.

“A boat!” exclaimed Mendouca anxiously, when the man had told what he had seen. “Are youquitesure?”

“As sure as I am that I am now standing here speaking to you, señor,” answered the man, in a tone of conviction. “José saw it also. We were both watching the disappearing moon, and when she was about half-way below the horizon we suddenly saw a large boat, pulling, I should say, at least twelve oars, glide swiftly across her face, as though steering to the southward on a line that would cross our course.”

“Phew!” ejaculated Mendouca; “that looks serious. For it undoubtedly means that the brig’s people are by no means as fast asleep as you have imagined them to be, Dugdale. How far off did you judge the boat to be when you saw her?” he demanded, turning again to the seaman.

“A matter of a mile and a half, or perhaps a trifle more,” was the answer.

“Very well, then, that will do,” answered Mendouca. “‘Forewarned is forearmed,’ as the English say. As you go forward pass the word along for the sweeps to be laid in and stowed away, and for the negroes to be sent below, and the hatch gratings put on and secured. And, do you hear, everything must be done as noiselessly as possible.”

“Bueno, señor,” answered the man, as he turned away to do Mendouca’s bidding; and in a few minutes the sweeps were laid in and stowed away, and the brigantine’s head gently turned more to the southward, in order that she might drift in that direction as long as she retained her way. Then, the slaves having been driven below and secured, the decks were rapidly but noiselessly cleared for action, the guns were cast loose and loaded, a liberal supply of grape and canister was passed on deck, arms were served out to the men, and the boarding nettings were triced up all round the ship. The whole of the work was executed so rapidly and silently as to clearly demonstrate that the crew was a thoroughly seasoned one, inured to fighting, and by no means averse to it when the chances were in their favour, as they certainly were in the present instance; and I was filled with chagrin and disgust at the thought of how simple an accident had sufficed to mar and defeat what might otherwise have proved a perfect surprise to Mendouca and his crew. Still, although I could not conceal from myself the fact that this apparently trivial accident had placed the attacking party at a woeful disadvantage, by warning their antagonists of the intended attack, and thus putting them on the alert, I had seen enough of British pluck to hope that even yet, despite all, it might still prove successful; and I awaited the event with no small anxiety, quite determined that if the slightest chance offered of affording any aid to the assailants, I would avail myself of it, let the consequences to myself be what they would. But Mendouca soon proved that he was not the man to overlook any such peril as this; for presently, when by personal inspection he had satisfied himself that everything was in readiness, he came up to me and said, with just the suspicion of a sneer in the tones of his voice—

“Now, Dugdale, I will not pay you so poor a compliment as to suppose you capable of treacherously making use of your present position on board my ship, to raise your hand against the man who gave you your life, at the moment when his whole attention will be needed to protect himself against outside enemies. Still, your conscience appears to be a very curious and inscrutable thing, and there is no knowing what it may prompt you to do under the influence of excitement and misguided enthusiasm. In order therefore that you may be placed beyond the danger of temptation to do something that you would probably afterwards have cause to bitterly regret, I will ask you to go below to your cabin, where, for your own safety’s sake, I will take the liberty of locking you in, with a companion whose duty it will be to see that you remain there and do not commit yourself by any rash act.”

“Oh, certainly!” I answered, rather bitterly. “Needs must when the devil drives; so lead on, most courteous señor.”

“Look here, Dugdale,” said he, apparently rather hurt by my tone, “you must not feel yourself aggrieved at my action in this matter. What I propose to do is for your own good and safety, quite as much as by way of a safeguard of my own. My men are fairly amenable to discipline in their calmer moments, as you have doubtless discovered by this time; but I should be sorry to answer for them in the excitement of a fiercely-contested fight, such as this is likely to be; and since you have persistently refused to join us out and out, I honestly think it will be safer for you to be below out of sight until we have driven those meddlesome boats off.”

“Very well,” said I; “it must of course be as you please. Only, for mercy’s sake, spare me the humiliation of mounting a guard over me!”

He looked me intently in the eyes for a moment, and then said—

“All right, I will; you shall be locked up by yourself. Only, for your own sake, be careful to behave exactly as you would in the presence of a guard; for I promise you that, if I have the slightest reason to suspect any treachery on your part, you will be sorry that I ever spared your life. Now, come along, for there is no time to spare.”

I accordingly followed him below and entered my cabin, closing the door behind me, and I immediately heard him turn the key and withdraw it from the lock, after which he went on deck again; and for a time the most perfect stillness and silence reigned throughout the ship.

The silence was not of long duration, however; for I had scarcely been in my cabin ten minutes when I heard a low murmur of voices overhead, and the next instant Mendouca’s voice pealed outs loud and clear, in English—

“Ho, the boats ahoy! Who are you, and what do you want?”

There was some reply that I could not catch, the voice evidently coming from a point at some distance from the ship, on the opposite side to that occupied by my cabin. It was probably an inquiry as to name and destination of the brigantine, for Mendouca shouted—

“TheNubian Queen, of and for Liverpool, from the Brass river, with oil and ivory. Keep off, or I will fire into you! I warn you that we are armed, and are quite prepared to defend ourselves.”

A long hail from the boats now followed, to which Mendouca replied—

“If you do it will be at your peril; I have been cleared out once before just about this same spot, and I do not intend to be robbed a second time. Keep off, I tell you! If you advance another stroke I will fire!”

And instantly afterwards I heard him say to his own men in Spanish—

“Now, lads, you have them all in a cluster, let them have it. Fire!”

The sharp, ringing report of the brigantine’s nine-pounders immediately pealed out, and even through the shock and concussion of the discharge I thought that, as I stood with my ear at the open port, I caught the sound of a crash. Whether this was so or not, there could be no mistake about the screams and groans of agony that came floating over the water in response to our broadside, mingled with cries of command, the roll and dash of oars in the water, a rattling volley of musketry, and the deeper notes of two boat-guns fired almost together, the shot of one at least of which I heard and felt strike the hull of the brigantine.

All was now in an instant noise and confusion on deck; the silence that had held the tongues of the crew was now no longer necessary, and the jabber, the oaths, the shouting, the loud, defiant laughs, the rumbling of the gun-carriages, the creaking of tackle-blocks, the thud of rammers and sponges, the calls for cartridges, all combined to create a hubbub that would not have shamed the builders of Babel; and through all and above all rose Mendouca’s voice in short, sharp sentences of appeal, encouragement, and direction to his men. I could hear, by the furious grinding of handspikes, the breathless ejaculations of the men, and the crash of the gun-carriages as the guns were run out, that theFrancesca’screw were working like demons; and almost before I could have believed it possible, they had again loaded their guns and a second broadside rang out over the still water, to be again followed by a still more gruesome chorus of cries and groans, and the sudden cessation of the sound of the oars, loud above which rose the exultant cheers of the ruffians on deck.

“Hurrah, lads!” I heard Mendouca exclaim joyously; “load again smartly, but with grape and canister only this time. We have checked them for a moment, but they have not yet had enough, I fear; they will come at us again as soon as they have picked up their shipmates, so now is your time; load and let them have it while they are stationary!”

And while he was speaking I could also hear a voice—that, unless I was greatly mistaken, belonged to Young, the first luff of theBarracouta—exclaiming at no great distance—

“Pull starboard, back port; now back, hard, all, and let us pick up those poor fellows before the sharks get the scent of them! Easy all; steady, lads, steady; hold water! Now then, my hearties, lay hold of the oars and let us get you inboard sharp; we can’t afford to lie here to be peppered. Help the wounded, those of you who are unhurt. That’s your sort, Styles, bring him along here; is he still alive, do you think? All right, I have him! Now then, coxswain, heave with a will, but don’t hurt the poor fellow more than you can help. Gently, man, gently; now lift handsomely, so—”

Crash! the relentless broadside of theFrancescaagain pealed forth, and again uprose that dismal wail of shrieks in testimony of its too terribly truthful aim. Frantic cheers and shouts of exultation burst from the lips of the slaver’s crew, in the midst of which Mendouca’s voice rang out—

“Now, stand by, men! here they come; but there is only one boat-load of them, and half their number must be killed or wounded. Stand by with your pikes, pistols, and cutlasses, and let not one of them show his head above the rail. Give them a volley from your pistols as they range alongside, and then trust to cold steel for the rest.Nowis your time! Fire!”

And at the word there followed a tremendous popping of pistols, mingled with the yells of the men on deck, a British cheer that sent the blood tingling through my veins and made me anathematise my helpless condition, the sharp, ringing clash of steel upon steel, and a furious trampling of bare feet upon the planks overhead.

The scuffle continued for fully three minutes, and must have been very hot while it lasted, for all through the hubbub the cries and groans of the freshly-wounded were continuous. I could hear the dull crunching sound of the sharp cutlasses shearing through bone and muscle, the shrill scream of agony, the heavy thud of bodies falling to the deck, oaths and execrations both in Spanish and in English, shouts of mutual encouragement, yells of deadly hatred, the ceaseless trampling of feet, and all the indescribable medley of sounds that accompany a sharp and stubbornly-contested hand-to-hand conflict; and in my feverish anxiety to share in the struggle I forgot all about Mendouca’s warning, and dashed myself frantically against the stout cabin-door in an effort to burst my way out. Before, however, I could succeed the hurly-burly suddenly ceased, to be almost instantly followed by a yell of exultation from the crowd overhead as the hasty rattle and splash of oars proclaimed that the attacking party had been driven off.

“Now, men, to your guns again, quick! Load smartly and give them another broadside before they get out of range!” shouted Mendouca. “Sweep them off the face of the water, if you can; let not one of them escape to tell the tale!”

A loud shout of exulting assent to this brutal exhortation pealed forth; and I heard the rumbling of the wheels on the deck as the guns were run in. This was more than I could endure; and again hurling myself furiously against the cabin-door, I at length succeeded in bursting it off its hinges. To emerge from the cabin and rush on deck was the work of a moment, and I reached the scene of action just as the loaded guns were being run out.

“Stop!” I shouted. “What are you about to do, men? You have utterly mistaken your captain’s orders if you suppose he meant you to fire upon that boat! Order them to secure the guns,” I continued, turning to Mendouca; “it surelycannotbe that you are going to allow the excitement of battle to betray you into the committal of a cold-blooded murder? You have beaten off your enemies, and they are in full retreat; let that satisfy you. Hitherto you have beenfighting, and, as you are aware, the present state of the law is such that you are held justifiable in your act of self-defence; but should you fire upon that boat now it will bemurder, and I swear to you that if you do I will testify against you for the deed, if I live so long. Man, have you no regard foryourself? Do you suppose that the captain of yonder brig will be content to take the beating off of his boats as a final settlement of this night’s doings? I tell you he will follow you and hunt you to the world’s end, ay, andtakeyou, sooner or later! And what do you suppose will be your fate if you murder that retreating boat’s crew? Why, you will swing for the deed, as certainly as that you now stand there glaring at me!”

“Have you finished?” he demanded, in a voice almost inarticulate with fury, his hand resting meanwhile upon the butt of a pistol that was stuck in his sash.

“Yes,” said I, “I have. That is to say, I have finished if I have succeeded in preventing the perpetration of an act of miserable cowardice that in your cooler moments would cause you to hate and despise yourself for the remainder of your life; not otherwise.”

Slowly he removed his hand from the butt of his pistol and, with a bitter laugh, drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it.

“Secure the guns!” he shouted to his men. Then walking up to me and clutching me by the shoulder, he said—

“You have triumphed again. But I warn you that some day you will go too far, and pay for your temerity with your life. Do you know that while you were speaking you were actually tottering upon the very brink of the grave? Why I did not blow your brains out, I do not know. Boy, if you have any wish to live out your days, never taunt me with cowardice again! There, go below, and do not let me see you again until I have recovered my self-command, or even yet I shall do you a mischief.”

“No,” I said, “I willnotgo below; it is my watch on deck, and I mean to keep it. I have no fear of your temper getting the better of you now, so I shall remain where I am—that is, if you will trust me with the charge of the deck. I am fresh, while you are fagged with exertion and excitement, so it is foryouto go below and get some rest, not I.”

Mendouca laughed again, this time quite genially, and said—

“Very well, let it be as you say; Iwill gobelow and rest. And if it is any comfort to you to know it, I do not mind acknowledgingnowthat I am glad you intervened to prevent me from firing on that boat. Keep her as she is going and let the niggers man the sweeps again; you are right about that brig, she will follow us to the world’s end—if she can, so we must put all the distance possible between ourselves and her while this calm lasts.”

And, repeating to the boatswain his orders respecting the manning of the sweeps, this singular man nodded shortly to me and dived out of sight down the companion-way.

In a few minutes a gang of slaves was again brought on deck and put to the sweeps; and steering a course of about south-south-west, we were soon once more moving through the water at a speed of about three knots. This course was followed all through the night and up to eight o’clock the next morning, at which hour—one of the men having been sent aloft as far as the royal-yard to see whether any sign of the brig could be discovered, and having returned to the deck again with an intimation that the horizon was clear all round—the brigantine’s position was pricked off upon the chart and her head once more pointed straight for Cuba.

We had by this time traversed a distance of fully sixty miles under the impulsion of the sweeps alone, and everybody was anxiously watching for some sign of a coming breeze; yet, despite the already long continuance of the calm, the heavens were still as brass to us, clear, cloudless, blue as the fathomless depths beneath our feet, not the merest vestige of cloud to be seen, the mercury still persistently steady at an abnormal height, the sea as smooth and motionless as a sheet of glass, and not the smallest sign to justify us in hoping for any change. The heat was something absolutely phenomenal; the deck planking was so hot that we all had to wear shoes to protect our feet from being scorched; a gang of negroes was kept constantly at work drawing water with which to flood the deck; yet, despite this precaution, and despite, too, the awnings which were now spread fore and aft, the pitch in the seams of the planking became so soft that if I stood still for only a few seconds I found myself stuck fast. I pitied the unfortunate blacks from the bottom of my heart, for they were relentlessly kept toiling at those horrible sweeps without intermission all through the day, and that, too, upon a short allowance of water; but it was useless to interfere, for even I had begun to understand by this time that, unless the brigantine could be taken out of that awful region of apparently eternal calm, every one of us, black and white together, must inevitably perish miserably of thirst.

This terrible weather lasted all through that and the following day, during which, with torment indescribable from thirst and the lash of the boatswains’ colts, the miserable slaves propelled the ship no less a distance than one hundred and fifty miles. Oh, how fervently I begged and entreated Mendouca to have mercy upon the unhappy creatures, and to at least give orders that they must be no more flogged, even if inexorable necessity demanded that they must be kept toiling at the sweeps. But the wretch was as adamant, he laughed and jeered at my sympathy with the poor creatures, and—as much, I believe, to annoy me as for any other reason—persistently refused to give the order, declaring that, since they would receive many a sound flogging when they got ashore—if indeed they ever lived to reach it—it was just as well that they should learn to endure the lash at once. At which brutal statement I went temporarily mad, I think—at all events I did what looked like a thoroughly mad thing; I went on deck and, walking up to the boatswain, informed him that if he or his mate dared to strike a negro again I would knock them both down. Mendouca, highly amused at my heat and excitement on behalf of the negroes, had followed me on deck, probably to see what I would next do; and upon hearing this threat he called out, jeeringly—

“Look out, José, my man! Señor Dugdale has warned you, and you may be sure that if you strike one of those niggers again he will carry out his threat!”

The boatswain saw at once how the land lay, and that Mendouca was only amusing himself at my expense; feeling confident therefore of his captain’s countenance and protection, I suppose, he, for answer, raised his colt and smote the nearest negro a savage blow over the shoulders with it.

Of course, after my possibly foolhardy threat there was but one thing to do, and I did it forthwith, hitting out with my whole strength, catching the boatswain fair between the eyes, and rolling him over like a ninepin.

“Ha, ha! well hit!” exclaimed Mendouca, laughing heartily at the sight of the boatswain as he reeled and fell under the feet of the negroes. “I warned you, José, my lad; and now you see the evil results of neglecting my warning! No, no,” he hastily continued, starting to his feet; “put up your knife, man; that will never do! I cannot afford to spare Señor Dugdale—at least not just yet—ah! would you? Look out, Dugdale! bravo! well hit again! Serves you right, José; you should never draw your knife upon an unarmed man.”

For the fellow had hastily scrambled to his feet, and, with his drawn knife in his hand, made a rush at me, his eyes blazing with fury. And, as the only way of defending myself at the moment, I had seized his uplifted right hand with my left, giving it a wrench that sent the knife spinning over the bulwarks into the sea, while with my right I again knocked him down.

“Now, José,” exclaimed Mendouca, “that ends the matter; do you hear? I cannot spare Señor Dugdale, so if he is found with a knife between his ribs I shall hold you responsible for it, and I give you my solemn promise that I will run you up to the yard-arm and leave you there until it will not matter to you what becomes of your miserable carcase. And I hope that the thrashing you have received will make you use a little more discrimination in the use of your colt. If a niggerwon’twork,makehim, by all means; but so long as they are willing to work without thrashing, leave them alone, I say. As for you, Dugdale,” he continued, in English, “had I suspected that you really meant to carry out your threat, I would have taken steps to prevent it. I will not have my men interfered with in the execution of their duty. If they do not perform their duty to my satisfaction,Iwill take such steps as may seem necessary for their correction, so you need not trouble yourself further in that direction. Why, man, if I were to give you a free hand, we should have a mutiny in less than a week. Moreover, you have made one deadly enemy by knocking José down, and you may consider yourself exceedingly fortunate if my authority proves sufficient to protect you from his knife. Take care you make no other enemies among the men, or I will not be answerable for your safety.”

This occurred shortly before sunset, and all through the hot and breathless night the unhappy negroes were kept toiling at the sweeps in gangs or relays, the result being that when morning dawned the poor wretches seemed, one and all, to be utterly worn-out. Yet still there was no respite for them; and when I again attempted to remonstrate with Mendouca, that individual simply pointed to the serene, cloudless sky, with the blazing, merciless sun in the midst, and savagely asked whether I wanted all hands to perish of hunger and thirst. This occurred while we were at breakfast; and when we went on deck at the conclusion of the meal, my enemy the boatswain drew Mendouca’s attention to the upper spars and sails of a ship just rising slowly above the horizon on our starboard bow. I never saw so sudden a change in a man’s demeanour as took place in that of Mendouca when his eye rested upon that distant object; hitherto he had been growing every day more savage and morose, but now his good-humour suddenly returned to him, and, ordering the brigantine’s head to be pointed straight for the stranger, he shouted, in the gladness of his heart—

“Hurrah, lads, there is relief for us at last! We shall find what we want—food and water—on board yon stranger, and also a way of persuading them to let us have it, or I am greatly mistaken!”

The significance of the last part of this remark was, to my mind, unmistakable. If he could not get by fair means what he wanted, Mendouca had already made up his mind to take it by force; in other words, to commit an act of piracy.

I was sorry for the crew of the unlucky craft, for I felt convinced that Mendouca would have but scant consideration for their future wants while satisfying his own; yet the sight of the stranger filled me with almost delirious delight, for here was a chance—if I could but contrive to avail myself of it—to make my escape from my present surroundings. True, if I were permitted, or could contrive, to throw in my lot with those people yonder, I should probably have to face terrible suffering in the shape of hunger and thirst, but, after all, that would be less unendurable than my present situation; and I determined that, whatever might happen, I would certainly make an attempt to join them, always provided, of course, that the craft was honest, and not of a similar character to theFrancesca.

As we neared the stranger she proved to be a handsome, full-rigged ship of about a thousand tons measurement, or thereabouts, and I thought that she had somewhat of the look of one of the new British clipper Indiamen that were just at this time beginning to supersede the old-fashioned, slow, lumbering tubs that had been considered the correct kind of thing by John Company; if she were, she would probably have a crew strong enough not only to successfully resist the demands of Mendouca, but also to protect me, should I be able by any pretext to get on board her. The difficulty, of course, would be to do this; but if, as I rather expected, Mendouca should elect to lay theFrancesca, alongside the ship and endeavour to carry the latter by acoup de main, I would board with the rest, taking my chance of being run through or shot down in the attempt, and immediately place myself under the protection of the stranger’s crew. It was of course easy enough to arrange this scheme in my own mind, but even a very slight deviation on Mendouca’s part from the programme which I expected him to adopt might suffice to nullify it; nevertheless, it appeared probable that my surmise as to Mendouca’s intentions would prove correct, for if he did not mean to lay the stranger aboard and carry her with a rush, I could scarcely understand the boldness with which he was approaching her in broad daylight, with his strongly-manned sweeps proclaiming to the most unsuspicious eye the dubious character of the brigantine.

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