CHAPTER FOURTEEN.
MENDOUCA BECOMES COMMUNICATIVE.
"Only ten days longer?" roared Mendouca, his face livid with fury andconsternation. "Nonsense, Juan! you must have made some stupid mistake;there surely is--there _must_ be--more than that!"
"I have not made any mistake at all, senor," answered the man sulkily;"it is just as I have said; there are only provisions and water enoughto 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 alittle; there _must_ be some mistake. Light your lantern again, and Iwill 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 theoriginal report of the latter was fully confirmed!
Mendouca came up from the hold, raging like a maniac, cursing theweather, the provisions, and everything else that he could think of,including myself, whom he denounced as a Jonah, his ill-luck havingcommenced, according to his assertion, with the sparing of my life andmy reception on board the _Francesca_. As for the calm, he declaredthat it should detain him no longer; and, having searched the sky andexamined the barometer in vain for any signs of a change, he gave ordersfor all canvas to be furled, and for the negroes to be set to workforthwith upon the sweeps, his intention being, as he stated, to keepthem at it in relays or gangs until the region of apparently eternalcalm had been left, and a breeze of some sort found. There were ten ofthese sweeps, or long, heavy oars, working through the ports, in becketsfirmly lashed to ringbolts in the stanchions, that were evidently placedthere expressly for that particular purpose. The loom of the sweep waslong enough to admit of four men working at it, and accordingly theboatswain, having received his orders from Mendouca, selected forty ofthe strongest-looking of the negroes, and set them to this exhaustinglabour, the rest of the unfortunate creatures being driven below out ofthe way. The vessel, lying there inert as a log on the water, provedvery heavy to start, especially as the blacks knew not how to handle thesweeps, having evidently never touched one before; but, once fairlystarted, the craft was kept moving with comparative ease at a speed ofabout three and a half knots per hour. But it was cruel work for theunhappy blacks, who, naked as when they were born, were remorselesslykept 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 unmercifullyupon the shoulders of any man whom they chose to believe was not fullyexerting himself, although the perspiration poured from the dark nakedhides like rain. "Short spells and hard work" was, however, the orderof the day, and after half-an-hour of almost superhuman exertion arelief was called, a fresh gang was set to work, and the exhaustedtoilers were hustled below to rest and recover themselves as best theycould. I remonstrated hotly with Mendouca upon the needless crueltypractised by the boatswain and his mate, but I was roughly told that Idid not know what I was talking about; that negroes would never workunless kept continually in wholesome dread of the lash; and that it wasabsolutely necessary to get every ounce of work out of them if we werenot one and all to perish miserably of hunger and thirst. So, as Icould do no better, I got a piece of the oldest and softest canvas Icould find, and a bucket of water, with which I descended to theslave-deck and carefully bathed the poor lacerated shoulders of thoseunfortunates who had suffered most severely at the hands of theboatswain and his mate, a little piece of attention that I saw was mostgratefully received.
We made fully twenty miles of westing that day, from the time when thenegroes were first set to work up to sunset, to Mendouca's greatgratification. Indeed, so delighted was he with his own brilliant idea,that he did that night what I had never known him to do before, heindulged rather too freely in the contents of the rum-bottle. And, as aconsequence, he grew garrulous and good-humouredly sarcastic over theefforts made for the suppression of the slave-trade, which heemphatically 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 acceptevery man as honest and straightforward until you have learned, to yourcost, that he is the reverse. Take the case, for example, of yourattack upon Chango Creek. You were led to undertake it upon therepresentations made and the information given by Lobo, the Portuguesetrader of Banana Point, weren't you? Oh, I know all about it, I haveheard the whole story," he interrupted himself to say, in reply to myejaculation of surprise. "You were all very much obliged to Lobo, ofcourse; and your captain paid him handsomely for his information andassistance. I suppose there was not one of you, from the captaindownward, who ever had the ghost of a suspicion that the fellow wasplaying you false, and that the affair was a bold yet carefully arrangedplot to exterminate the whole of you, and destroy your ship, eh? No; ofcourse you hadn't; yet I give you my word that it _was_. Ay; and theonly wonder to me was that it did not succeed. I suppose it was thatyou had a good deal more fight in you than any of them gave you creditfor; and that is where so many excellently arranged traps have failed;the plotters have never made sufficient allowance for the fightingpowers of the British, as I have told them over and over again. It wasjust that important oversight that caused what ought to have been asplendid success to result in a serious disaster; the intention wasgood, but, as is much too often the case, they had reckoned withouttheir host."
"But I do not understand," I cut in, as Mendouca paused. "What was theplot? and how was Lobo concerned in it? It appears to me that the manacted in perfect good faith; he gave us certain information which provedto be substantially correct--except that he was mistaken as to the forcethat we should have to encounter--and he safely piloted us to the spotfrom which our boat attack was to be made; I can see nothing like a plotor treachery in that."
"No; of course you cannot, you sweet innocent," retorted Mendouca, withfine sarcasm, "for the simple reason, as I say, that the British arealtogether too trustful and confiding to see treachery or double-dealinguntil it is thrust openly in their faces. You are altogether too simpleand unsuspicious, you navy men, to deal with the tricks and ruses of theslave-dealing fraternity; and before your eyes are opened you either dieof 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 notin the least help me to see what was the character of Lobo's plot, oreven that there was a plot at all."
"Well, I will tell you," said Mendouca thickly, helping himself toanother caulker of rum--he had already swallowed two tumblers of stiffgrog since the subject had been broached, in addition to what he hadpreviously taken--"I will tell you, because, having made up my mind thatyou shall never rejoin your own people, the information is not likely todo Lobo any harm. When you arrived at Banana Point on that particularmorning, your presence seriously threatened to entirely upset a veryimportant transaction which Senor Lobo had in hand, namely, the disposaland shipment of a prime lot of nearly a thousand able-bodied,full-grown, male blacks that he had got snugly stowed away in two bigbarracoons a short distance up the creek from his factory. Had yourcaptain taken it into his head to land a party and make a search of thepeninsula, the barracoons would have been discovered, and friend Lobowould have been a ruined man. So, as soon as your brig was identifiedas a man-o'-war--and that was as soon as she could be distinctly madeout--another mistake that you man-o'-war's men make, friend Dugdale; youcan scarcely ever bring yourselves to disguise your ships; they declaretheir character as far as it is possible to see them.--Let me see, whatwas I saying? I have run clean off my course, and don't know where Iam."
"You were going to tell me what happened when the _Barracouta_ wasidentified from Banana Point as a man-o'-war," said I.
"Ah, yes, exactly," answered Mendouca. "Well, as soon as it wasdiscovered that your brig
was a British man-o'-war, every available handwas set to work to clear everything of an incriminating character out ofthe two brigs that were going to ship the slaves; so that, should youoverhaul them--as I was told you did--nothing might be found on board tojustify their seizure. This job was successfully completed only a fewminutes before you entered the creek. But that would have availed Lobonothing had your captain happened to have thought of landing upon thepeninsula; the next thing, therefore, was to furnish him with a totallydifferent subject to think about; and this Lobo found in the opportunepresence of the four craft in Chango Creek. The captains of three outof the four vessels happened to be down at Banana when you arrived; andLobo--who is gifted with quite an unusual measure of persuasiveness--hadvery little difficulty in convincing them that you would be absolutelycertain to discover their hiding-place sooner or later, and thatconsequently it would be a good plan to inveigle you into making animmediate attack upon them; when, by concerting proper measures ofdefence, they might succeed in practically annihilating you, and sosweeping a formidable enemy out of their path. The three skippers fellin readily with his plan, when he had propounded it, and also undertookto secure the cooperation of the fourth; and as the creek offeredexceptional facilities for a successful defence, it was accepted thatyou were all as good as done for, especially as Lobo had undertaken tocut the brig adrift at the right moment, so that she might be drivenashore and rendered useless for the time being, if not altogether. Thismatter arranged, the slave-captains left Banana forthwith to carry outtheir plans for the defence of the creek, taking a short cut by way ofthe back of the creek, and taking with them also every available manthat Lobo could spare; the idea being to allow you to advance unmolestedas far as the boom--which, they never dreamed that you would succeed inforcing--and then destroy you by a musketry fire from the banks, when,weakened by your unavailing attack upon the boom, you should at lengthbe compelled to retire. Your astounding pluck and perseverance inforcing the boom completely upset all their plans, and converted whatwould have been for them an easy and bloodless victory into a disastrousdefeat, while it saved the lives of the survivors of the attackingparty. But though it turned out disastrously for Aravares, of the_Mercedes_, and his friends, the plot served Lobo's purpose perfectly;the shipping of the slaves on board the two brigs which were waiting forthem proceeding immediately that you were clear of the creek, and bothvessels getting away to sea that same night. So that, you see, it is byno means as difficult a matter to deceive and hoodwink you man-o'-warpeople as you choose to suppose."
"No," answered I; "so it would seem. Yet, by your own showing, we werenot the only deceived parties; and, after all, the attack wassuccessful, 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 allowsufficiently for British pluck and obstinacy. Now _I_ do; I never leaveanything to chance, but always lay my plans so carefully that thedestruction or capture of my enemies is an absolute certainty. But forsuch careful forethought on my part, the _Sapphire's_ two boats wouldnever have fallen into my power."
"The _Sapphire's_ boats?" I exclaimed. "Surely you do not mean to tellme that _you_ are responsible for the massacre of those two boats'crews?"
"No, not the massacre of them, certainly, but their capture," answeredMendouca, 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 isquite possible that by this time they--or at least a part of them--havebeen tortured to death by Matadi--the chief to whom I sold them--as asacrifice 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 asthat!"
"Why not?" demanded Mendouca fiercely; "why should I be more gentle tomy countrymen than they have been to me? Do you think that, because Icarry my fate lightly and gaily, I do not feel keenly the depth to whichI have fallen? I might have been a post-captain by this time, honouredand distinguished for great services worthily rendered; but I am insteada slaver and a pirate masquerading under the disguise of a Spanish name.Do you think I am insensible of the immeasurable gulf that separates mefrom what I might have been? And it is my own countrymen who haveopened that gulf--who have robbed me of the opportunity of reaching thatproud eminence that was at one time all but within my reach, and havehurled me into the abyss of crime and infamy in which you find me. Andyou are surprised, forsooth, that I should avenge myself whenever theopportunity comes!"
I knew now from experience that it was quite useless to argue withMendouca when he got upon the subject of his grievances; I thereforegave the conversation a turn by asking--
"Where, then, are these wretched people now, if indeed they are stillalive?"
"I presume," answered he, "that, if still alive, as you say, they arewhere I last heard of them; namely, at Matadi's village; a place on thesouth bank of the Congo, about one hundred miles, or rather more, fromits mouth. But why do you take such a profound interest in them?" heasked. "Possibly you are contemplating the formation of an expeditionfor their rescue, as soon as you have effected your escape from me?" andhe laughed satirically.
My reply and his laugh were alike cut short by the sound of heavyfootsteps on the companion-ladder outside the cabin, and the next momentthe boatswain made his appearance in the doorway with the intimationthat a craft of some sort had just been made out, at a distance of aboutthree miles broad on the starboard bow; and he wished to know whetherthe 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 nightappeared to be dark; but as our eyes accommodated themselves to thechange of conditions, it became apparent that the cloudless sky wasthickly gemmed and powdered with stars of all magnitudes, from those ofthe first order down to the star-dust constituting the broad belt of theMilky Way, all gleaming with that soft, resplendent lustre that is onlyto be witnessed within the zone of the tropics. Moreover, there was ayoung moon, a delicate, crescent-shaped paring, about two days old,hanging low in the western sky, yet capable, in that pure, translucentatmosphere, of yielding quite an appreciable amount of light. The waterwas still smooth as polished glass, even the swell having gone down socompletely that its undulations were not to be detected by even thedelicate test of watching the star reflections in the polished depths,while the brigantine was as steady as though still on the stocks whereshe took form and substance. The negroes were still toiling at thesweeps, 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 viewof the sky from horizon to zenith, all around, toward the latter ofwhich the delicate, tapering, naked spars pointed as steadily as thespires of a church. The boatswain, however, was eagerly directingMendouca's attention toward small, dark object, broad on our starboardbow; and turning my gaze toward it, I made out a brig under her twotopsails, jib, and trysail, with her courses in the brails. Mendoucahad already seized the night-glass, and with its aid was subjecting herto a prolonged and searching scrutiny, upon the completion of which hehanded 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, soonmanaged, by an adjustment of the focus, to get a clear, sharply-definedimage of her, as she floated motionless, a black silhouette, against thedeep, velvety, purple-black, star-spangled sky. And as I did so acertain sense of familiarity with the delicate, diminutive, blackpicture upon which I was gazing thrilled through me. Surely I knew thatlow, long, shapely hull; those lofty, slightly-raking masts; thosespacious topsails? Even the very steeve of the bowsprit seemed familiarto me, and I felt c
ertain that the superbly cut jib and handsome trysailcould belong only to the _Barracouta_! And, if so, how was I to act?It was plainly my duty to do anything and everything that might be in mypower to promote the capture of the daring slaver and unscrupulouspirate, whose guest--or prisoner--I was; but had I the power to do_anything_? With that now thoroughly alert and even suspiciousindividual at my side, and the watch on deck all about me, it wasclearly evident that nothing in the shape of signalling could even beattempted with the slightest hope or chance of success; and the onlyother mode of action that remained to me appeared to be to carefullyconceal my knowledge--or, rather, very strong suspicion--as to theidentity of the brig. I had barely arrived at this conclusion whenMendouca, with an accent of impatience, interrupted my reverie with theexclamation--
"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 methat she bears a very striking resemblance to the Spanish brig that waslying 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 the _Barracouta_ having observed and remarked uponthe striking resemblance between the two craft.
"Um! it _may_ be so," muttered Mendouca, with a strong accent of doubtin his voice, however. "Let me have another look at her."
I handed over the glass with alacrity, for it was about my last wishjust then to be questioned too closely as to the character of thestranger; and Mendouca subjected her to a further long and exhaustivescrutiny. At its termination he turned to me, and, with an accent ofunmistakable suspicion, inquired--
"It hasn't suggested itself to you, I suppose, that yonder craft may bea British man-o'-war? You have seen nothing so like her in your ownsquadron as to lead to the suspicion that she may be a dangerous enemywhom I ought to be promptly warned to avoid?"
Now, had I not known that he had never seen the _Barracouta_, I shouldhave 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 littleresemblance to the usual type of British gun-brig; she is longer, andmuch lower in the water, and her masts are certainly further apart thanis 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 opinionat this distance and in so vague a light."
"Will you swear to me that you are honestly of opinion that yon brig is_not_ a man-o'-war?"
"Certainly not," answered I, with pretended annoyance at hispertinacity. "She may be, or she may not be; it is quite impossible toexpress a more decided opinion, under the circumstances, and I thereforemust 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 peeredintently for a moment at the compass.
"Keep her way two points more to the southward," he ordered thehelmsman.
This alteration in our course brought the brig about one point beforeour beam, distant about two and a half miles, and if persisted in, wouldsoon have the effect of increasing the distance between the two craft;and, unless we were already seen, rendered it quite possible that wemight 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 rolland grinding of the heavy sweeps would be heard in the perfect stillnessof air and water; and I felt confident that, if yonder brig were indeedthe _Barracouta_, and the sounds referred to extended so far as to reachthe sharp ears on board her, they would be identified, and theirsignificance at once understood. But even as the thought passed throughmy mind it seemed to have also occurred to Mendouca; for he strodetoward the waist and exclaimed in a low, clear voice that was distinctlyaudible fore and aft, but which would probably not have been audiblehalf a cable's length away--
"Let those niggers knock off sweeping for the present, and send thembelow. And as soon as they are there and you have clapped the hatcheson--noiselessly, mind--let all hands set to work to muffle the sweepswith mats, old canvas, pads of oakum, or anything else that you can layyour 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 exhaustingtoil, and of course quite ignorant as to its cause, gladly tumbledbelow, and the gratings were carefully secured over them. Meanwhile theboatswain, with one hand, dived below, and in a short time the two menre-appeared with a load of miscellaneous stuff and some balls ofspun-yarn; and all hands went diligently to work under Mendouca'spersonal supervision, to muffle the sweeps, which was so effectuallydone that when, half-an-hour later, they were again manned, they workedwith scarcely a sound beyond the rather heavy splash of their blades inthe water. Meanwhile, during the progress of the muffling process--inwhich I had not offered to participate--I kept a keen watch upon thedistant brig, taking an occasional squint at her through the night-glasswhen I thought it possible to do so without attracting Mendouca'sattention. I do not quite know what I expected to see, for of course Iknew perfectly well that every eye in the brig might be steadfastlywatching us, without our being able to detect any sign of such scrutiny;and I was moreover fully aware that should we have been discovered, andour character suspected, no visible indication of such discovery orsuspicion would be permitted to reveal itself to our eyes; and the samestudied concealment would equally apply to the preparations for anyinvestigation that they might be moved to undertake. Still, I thoughtit just barely possible that by maintaining a strict watch I mightchance to detect some sign of alertness on board the brig, if she wereindeed the _Barracouta_, as I strongly suspected. Nor was Idisappointed, for I did at length detect such an indication, not onboard the brig herself, but at some considerable distance from her, andimmediately under the slender crescent of the setting moon, where, whilesweeping the surface of the water, moved by some vague instinct, Icaught two faint momentary flashes of dim orange radiance that to me hadvery much the appearance of reflected moonlight glancing off the wetblades of oars. And if this were so it meant that we had been seen, ourcharacter very shrewdly suspected--most probably from the steady plyingof the sweeps for no more apparently urgent reason than that we werebecalmed--and that a surprise attack was about to be attempted from thevery quarter where, under the circumstances, it was least likely to belooked for, namely, straight ahead. Of course what I had seen mightmerely have been a ray of moonlight glancing off the wet body of aporpoise, a whale, or some other sea creature risen to the surface tobreathe; but it had so much the appearance of the momentary flash ofoars that I was loath to believe it anything else. Assuming it to bewhat I hoped, my cue was now of course to distract attention as much aspossible from that part of the ocean that lay immediately ahead of us;and this could not be better done than by concentrating it upon thebrig, which now lay practically abeam of us, a short three miles away.I therefore--no longer surreptitiously but ostentatiously--again broughtthe night-glass to bear upon her, and allowed myself to be found thuswhen Mendouca came aft, after having personally superintended themuffling of the sweeps and the putting of them in motion again.
"Well," he said, as he rejoined me, "have you not yet been able tosatisfy yourself as to the character of that brig?"
"No," said I; "but, whatever she is, they all seem to be asleep on boardher. If she is a slaver, her skipper has more care and considerationfor his property than you have, for he at least allows his slaves torest 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 Icould a
ssume. "But, slaver or no slaver, I have not been able to detecta sign of life on board that brig for the last half-hour, or indeed fromthe moment when I first began to watch her. I can make out the faintlight of her binnacle lamps, and that is all. But the fact of theirbeing allowed to continue shining would seem to argue, to my mind atleast, that, be they what they may, they have no reason for attemptingto conceal their presence from us. If you feel differently toward themI 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 plentyto choose from."
"Yes, of course; you are right," he assented hastily; "there can be noharm in doing that."
And going to the binnacle, he glanced into it, saw that the ship washeading on the course he had last set for her, directed the helmsman tochoose a star to steer by, and then himself carefully withdrew the lampsand extinguished them.