CHAPTER FOUR.
CHANGO CREEK.
Then I heard the skipper hailing, apparently from the forecastle--
"Is that Mr Ryan's voice that I hear, aft there?"
"Ay, ay, sorr," answered the second luff; "it's myself, bedad, allthat's left ov me!"
A sound of footsteps followed, suggesting that he had walked awayforward to join his superior; but as the man at my feet just thenstirred uneasily, as though his senses were returning to him, I made aquick grab at my cutlass, and drawing from my belt a loaded pistol, theexistence of which I had until then forgotten, I pulled myself togetherand made ready for the next emergency.
Presently, my prisoner, for such he now was, stirred again, sigheddeeply, and opened his eyes, his glance immediately falling upon me.For a few seconds he seemed not to know where he was, or what hadhappened; then, as we gazed into each other's eyes, I saw that hismemory had returned to him, and as he made a motion to rise to his feet,I sprang to mine, and pointing my pistol straight at his head, said inthe best Spanish that I could muster--
"Stay where you are! If you make the slightest attempt to move I willblow your brains out, you villain!"
He continued to gaze steadfastly at me for some moments; and thenseeing, I suppose, that I fully meant what I said, he smiled bitterlyand muttered--
"So it has come to this, has it, that I must lie here in my own cabin,helpless, at the mercy of a mere boy? _Car-r-am-ba_!"
He still kept his regards steadfastly fixed upon me; and as I seemed toread in the expression of his eyes a dawning determination to make atleast one more effort for freedom, I was not sorry to hear footstepscoming along the deck, and the voices of the skipper and Ryan in earnestconversation.
"We must get a light from somewhere at once, and look to the woundedwithout a moment's delay," said the former. "I fear that our loss hasbeen very serious in this affair. Ah! there is a faint glimmer of lightfrom the skylight yonder; I will go below and see what it is.Meanwhile, Mr Ryan, muster your men, and load the guns, if you can layyour hand upon any ammunition. Those schooners will try to slip away ifthey can, now that we have got the brig; but I shall not be satisfiedunless I can secure the whole of them; we _must_ have something morethan we have got already to account satisfactorily for our loss!"
"Niver fear, sorr," answered the second luff; "they'll not get awayfrom--By all the powers though, there goes one of thim now!"
And away he dashed forward again, shouting out certain orders to themen, while the skipper, after hesitating for a few seconds, entered thecompanion and began to descend.
My attention had been somewhat distracted from my prisoner by this briefconversation, a fact which had evidently not passed unnoticed by him,for before I fully realised what was happening, he had in someinexplicable manner sprung to his feet with a single, lightning-likemovement, and his hand was already upon my left wrist, when with a quicktwist of the arm I managed to get my pistol-barrel pointed at him as Ipressed the trigger. There was a bright flash, lighting up the wholecabin as though by a gleam of lightning, and glancing vividly from therolling eyeballs of my antagonist, a sharp explosion, and the Spaniardwent reeling backward with a crash upon one of the sofas as the captainentered the cabin at a bound.
"Hillo!" he exclaimed, as he peered at me in the faint light of thelantern, "who are you, and what is the matter here? Why--bless me!--itis Mr Dugdale, isn't it? And pray who is that man on the sofa?"
In a few brief words I narrated my adventure, to which he listenedquietly, holding his wounded hand, bound up in a handkerchief, in theother meanwhile; and when I had finished, he glanced at the prostratefigure on the sofa and said, noticing the ghastly paleness of theupturned face, and the lifelessness of the outstretched limbs--
"Well, he looks as though there was not much mischief left in him now,at all events. But it will not do to take any risks; he is evidently adesperate character, or was before you pinked him, so slip up on deckand get a length of line--a bit off one of the topgallant-braces will doif you can't find anything better--to make him fast with. And call acouple of hands to come below and carry him on deck; it is scarcely safeto leave such a fellow alone in the cabin, even when securely bound."
I hobbled on deck as well as my burnt foot--which by this time wasexcruciatingly painful--would permit, and finding a suitable bit ofline, and securing the assistance of two of our lads, the slave-captain,as he eventually proved to be, was speedily bound hand and foot,conveyed on deck, and propped up in a reclining position against thebulwarks, well aft out of the way, in such a position as seemed leastlikely to encourage the bleeding of his wound.
Meanwhile, Ryan, upon leaving the skipper, had rushed forward and hailedthe fugitive schooner, in his richest Dublin accent, to heave-to, or hewould sink her. To this command, however, whether understood or not, noattention was paid; and before our people, groping about in the thickdarkness among the dead and wounded, could lay their hands upon a singlecartridge, they had the mortification of seeing her vanish round a bendof the creek on her way seaward, the lieutenant consoling himself withthe assurance that she would infallibly be snapped up by the_Barracouta_, whose slender crew would be certain to be on the alert allthrough the night. When the skipper and I arrived on deck, aftersecuring our prisoner, Ryan and a few of our lads were busily employedramming home a charge in the long eighteen mounted upon the brig'sforecastle, a cartridge and shot for which they had stumbled across intheir search. The second luff at once began to relate, with manycomical expressions of righteous indignation, the particulars of theschooner's escape; but he had scarcely got well into his narrative whenthe faint _screep_ of a block-sheave from to windward warned us thatanother of our slippery neighbours was about to hazard a likeexperiment. Without waiting for orders, or thinking of what I wasdoing, forgetting even my injured foot in the excitement of the moment,I sprang upon the rail and hailed in Spanish--
"Hola there, keep all fast on board those schooners, or we will riddleyou with grape! And light a lantern each of you and hoist it to yourmain-mast-head. I warn you that we will stand no nonsense, so if youvalue your lives you will attempt to play no tricks!"
To this no reply whatever was vouchsafed; and I was about to hail again,when the captain remarked, very quietly--
"May I inquire, Mr Dugdale, what is the nature of the communication--the _unauthorised_ communication--that you have just made to thoseschooners?"
"I beg your pardon, sir," answered I, considerably abashed; "I thought Iheard a sound just now as though another of the schooners were on thepoint of attempting to slip away; so I hailed them that if theyattempted any such trick we would treat them to a dose of grape. I alsoordered them to each hoist a lantern to the mast-head, so that we maysee where they are."
"Very good," remarked the skipper suavely; "it was quite the properthing to do. But I do not altogether approve of my young gentlementaking the initiative in any matter unless they happen to be for thetime being in supreme command. When that is not the case I expect themto wait for instructions. And now, be so good as to hail them again,and say that unless those lanterns are displayed within three minutes Iwill fire into them."
My second hail proved effective, the two lanterns being in position wellwithin the time specified. Our skipper was, however, very uneasy; andafter retiring aft and consulting with Ryan for a few minutes, thesecond luff and Gowland went away in the first and second cutters withtwo good strong crews, and boarded the schooners, the slavers--who wereevidently on the look-out--shoving off in their own boats and escapingto the shore the moment that they detected what we were after. Bothschooners had a cargo of slaves on board, and were of course at oncetaken possession of, an instant search--prompted by our experience onboard the brig--revealing the fact that one of them had been set fire toso effectually that it took the prize-crew fully an hour to extinguishit.
Meanwhile, lamps and lanterns were found on board the brig and lighted,when those of us whose hurts were the least serious
set to work toattend to our more unfortunate comrades. Closer investigation nowrevealed the welcome fact that we had suffered less severely than hadbeen at first anticipated, our killed amounting to five only--althoughtwo more died before they could receive proper surgical attention--while, of the wounded, seven had received injuries serious enough tocompletely disable them, the rest, amounting to no less thantwenty-three, suffering from hurts ranging from such an insignificantprod as I had received in the leg, up to a cutlass-stroke that had allbut scalped one poor fellow.
At length, just as we had completed the task of getting our worst casesbelow out of the persistent rain, and making them in a measurecomfortable, the wind shifted and subsided to a gentle breeze from thenorth-eastward, the weather cleared, the rain ceased, and abouthalf-an-hour later the day broke gloriously, and we were able to get aview of our surroundings.
We found ourselves in a nearly circular lagoon or basin, abouthalf-a-mile in diameter, across the centre of which lay moored the brigand the two schooners, with a gap in the line to mark the berth that hadbeen occupied by the third schooner--the craft that had succeeded ineffecting her escape. We were completely land-locked, the shores of thecreek being low, and for the most part closely fringed with mangroves,behind which rose dense and apparently impenetrable masses of bush, nowin full leaf, and thickly overgrown with flowering parasites, the bushbeing interspersed with trees of several kinds, some of which were verylofty and handsome. At a short distance above where we were lying,there appeared to be another creek--a small affair, not more than ahundred feet wide--branching off from the main channel; and, upon itsbeing pointed out to him, the captain at once hailed the schooner ofwhich the second lieutenant was in possession, directing that the lattershould take his boat, with the crew well armed, and make an explorationof the subsidiary and main creeks for a short distance, for the purposeof ascertaining whether, as was exceedingly probable, there was a slavedepot in the neighbourhood. I should greatly have liked to have madeone of the party, and indeed asked permission to join it, but my burntfoot was by this time so inflamed and painful that I could not put it tothe deck, and Captain Stopford, while expressing his gratification atthe zeal manifested by the request, refused, pointing out that, lame asI was, I should not only be useless but an actual encumbrance andembarrassment to the party in the event of resistance being offered toany attempt on their part to land.
In a few minutes Ryan was ready, and the boat shoved off from theschooner, leaving just enough hands to take care of her during theabsence of the others. She made straight for the small subsidiarycreek, in the first instance, but re-appeared in about a quarter of anhour, when the second luff hailed to say that it was a mere _cul desac_, only some half-a-mile long, and with very little water in it, thebanks being of soft, black, foetid mud, of a consistency which renderedlanding an impossibility. Having communicated this intelligence, thecutter next proceeded up stream and quickly vanished round a bend. Shehad been out of sight fully half-an-hour, and the captain was justbeginning to manifest some anxiety, neither sight nor sound havingreached us to indicate her whereabouts, when thin wreaths of light brownsmoke appeared rising above the bush and trees about a mile away, thesmoke rapidly increasing in density and volume, and darkening in colour,until it became quite apparent that a serious conflagration was ragingat no great distance. When the smoke at first appeared, there was somequestion in the mind of the captain whether it might not be the work ofthe people who had effected their escape from the craft during thedarkness, they having perhaps set fire to the bush in the hope ofinvolving the prizes and ourselves in the ensuing destruction; but alittle reflection revealed the unlikelihood of this, the vegetation notonly being saturated with the rain that had fallen during the night, butalso being so green and full of sap that it would probably proveimpossible to fire it. We had just reached this conclusion when Ryanand his party appeared returning, and in a few minutes the cutter rangedup alongside us to enable the second luff to make his report. He statedthat he had proceeded about a mile and a half up the creek, the courseof which he had found to be very sinuous, when he reached a spot atwhich the bank on his port hand was clear of bush and trees, with thesoil firm enough to admit of a landing being conveniently effected, andas there were signs indicating that the place had been very freely usedquite recently, he shoved alongside the bank and stepped ashore. Asingle glance about him now sufficed to convince him that he had made animportant discovery; the grass was much worn, as with the trampling ofmany feet, and from this well-trodden spot a broad path led into thebush. Leaving two men in the boat; to take care of her, with orders howto proceed in the event of an enemy heaving in sight, Ryan at once ledhis party along this path, and after traversing it for less than ahundred yards, came upon a large barracoon, very solidly andsubstantially built, and of dimensions sufficient to accommodate fully athousand slaves; there were also kitchens for the preparation of theslaves' food, tanks for the collection of fresh water, several largethatched huts that looked as if they were for the accommodation of thetraders, a large store building, and, in short, everything necessary tocomplete an important slave-trading establishment. It was evident thatit had been very hurriedly abandoned only a few hours previously; but astrict and prolonged search failed to reveal the whereabouts of any ofits late occupants; Ryan had therefore first emptied the water-tanks,and had then set fire to the whole establishment, remaining until theflames had taken a strong hold upon the several buildings, when he hadretired without molestation.
Meanwhile, by the captain's orders, the hatches had been removed onboard the three prizes, and the condition of the unfortunate prisonerslooked to. I shall never forget the moment when the first hatch wastaken off on board the brig; a thick cloud of steam slowly rose upthrough the opening, and the foetid, musky odour, of which I havealready spoken, at once became so pungent and overpowering that the menwho were engaged upon the operation of opening the hatchways were fairlydriven away from their work for the moment, and until the strength ofthe stench had been to some extent ameliorated by the fresh air thatimmediately poured down into the densely-packed hold. What the reliefof that whiff of fresh air must have been to the unhappy blacks can onlybe faintly imagined; but that it was ineffably grateful to them wasevidenced by the deep murmur of delight, and the loud, long-drawninspiration of the breath that swept from end to end of the hold themoment that the hatch was withdrawn, as well as by the upward glance ofgratitude that instantly greeted us from the upturned eyes of those whowere placed nearest the hatchway! But what a sight that hold presentedwhen in the course of a few minutes the hatches were all removed, andthe blessed light of heaven and the sweet, pure air of the early morninghad gained free access to its sweltering occupants, dispersing thepoisonous fumes which they had been condemned to breathe from the momentwhen the approach of our boats had been first notified! I had more thanonce had the hold of a slaver and the mode of stowing her human cargodescribed to me, but it was necessary to actually _see_ it before thefull horror and misery of the thing could be completely realised. Thespace between the planking of the slave-deck and the underside of thebeams was just three feet, or barely sufficient to allow the unfortunatewretches to sit upright; and in this confined space they were stowed astightly as herrings in a barrel, seated on their hams, with the feetdrawn close up to the body, and the knees clasped by the arms close tothe chest. Let anyone try the fatiguing effect of sitting in thisconstrained attitude for only a single half-hour, and some idea may thenbe formed of the horrible suffering and misery that the unhappy slaveshad to endure cooped up in this fashion for _weeks at a stretch_, not ona steady, motionless platform, but on the heaving, plunging deck of aship driven at her utmost speed over a sea that was seldom smooth enoughto render the motion imperceptible, and often rough enough to sweep herfrom stem to stern, and to render the closing of the hatchesimperatively necessary to save her from foundering. Add to this thefact that the slaves were packed so tightly together that it wasimpossible to move, and thus
obtain the relief of even a slight changeof position; bear in mind that it was equally impossible to cleanse theslave-deck during the entire period of the passage of the ship from portto port; think of the indescribable foulness of the place, the dreadfulatmosphere generated by the ever-accumulating filth, and the exhalationsfrom the bodies of four or five hundred human beings wedged together inthis confined space; and add to all this the horrors of sea-sickness,and it at once becomes a perfect marvel that a sufficient numberremained alive at the end of the passage to render the slave-traffic aremunerative business. It is true that, solely in their own interests,and not in the least from motives of humanity, the slavers exercised acertain amount of care and watchfulness over the health of theircaptives; that is to say, they allowed one-half to go on deck duringmeal-times (twice a day), for the double purpose of affording anopportunity for the inspiration of a little fresh air, and at the sametime of providing space for the poor wretches below to feed themselves.This, however, was only when the weather and other circumstances werefavourable; if the weather was bad, the hatches were put on and kept onuntil a favourable change occurred; and in the case of a gale, of windthe unhappy slaves have been known to have been kept without food orwater for forty-eight hours, or even longer, simply because it wasimpossible to give them either. Of course in such a case the mortalitywas simply frightful, it being no uncommon occurrence for a slaver tolose more than half her cargo in a single gale; this loss, be itunderstood, arising not so much from the want of food as from simplesuffocation through long confinement in the dreadful atmosphere of theunventilated hold. And when a slaver happened to be pursued by aman-o'-war, the sufferings of the slaves were almost as bad, for in sucha case the crew seldom troubled themselves to attend to the wants oftheir helpless prisoners, devoting all their thoughts and energies tothe task of effecting their own escape. But as I shall have more to sayupon this subject further on, I will not enlarge upon it here.
Ryan having rejoined his prize, and there being a nice little easterlybreeze blowing, the order was given for all three craft to weigh andproceed down the creek; the captain being rather anxious lest theslavers should return and take us at a disadvantage now that our forcewas divided. Nothing untoward occurred, however, and in a short time wewere all proceeding down the creek, with the second lieutenant in hisschooner as pilot.
And here it may be as well to enumerate the few particulars relative toour prizes that the exigencies of the narrative have hitherto notenabled me to give. To begin with the brig: she was, as Lobo hadstated, the _Mercedes_ of Havana; a truly beautiful craft, measuringfully five hundred tons, very flat in the floor, and so exceedinglyshallow that even in her sea-going trim, with everything on board aswhen we took her, she only drew a trifle over eight feet of water aft.But what she lacked in depth she more than made up for in beam, her deckbeing half as spacious again as that of the _Barracouta_. She was aperfectly lovely model, and sailed like a witch, as we soon discovered.This was not to be wondered at, however, for in addition to thebeautiful, easy grace of her flowing lines, her scantling wasextraordinarily light--less than half that of the _Barracouta_--and allher chief fastenings were _screws_! With so light a scantling she ofcourse worked like a wicker basket in anything of a breeze and seaway,and leaked like a sieve, the latter being of little or no consequencewith plenty of negroes to send to the pumps in relays, while the workingof her gave her life, and contributed in no small degree toward theextraordinary speed for which she was distinguished. She was armed witheight nine-pounder broadside guns, and a long eighteen mounted upon apivot on her forecastle; and in the course of our investigations wediscovered that her crew had numbered no less than seventy men, of whomfourteen were killed in her defence, and twenty-six too severely woundedto effect their escape. At the moment of her capture five hundred andsixty-four slaves, all males, were confined in her hold. She was thus,in herself, a very valuable prize, and quite worth all the trouble thatwe had taken to secure her. But in addition to her there were the twoschooners, the larger of which, named the _Dona Hermosa_, was a vesselof close upon one hundred and twenty tons measurement, with nothing veryremarkable about her appearance to distinguish her from a perfectlyhonest trader. Her cargo consisted of exactly three hundred slaves,rather more than half of whom were women and children. She was unarmedsave for the few muskets that were found scattered about her decks whenour lads boarded and took possession of her. The second schooner, ofwhich Gowland, the master's mate, had temporary command, was a littlebeauty. She was named the _Felicidad_, and hailed from Santiago deCuba. She was of one hundred and eighteen tons measurement, and inmodel generally very much resembled the _Mercedes_ though neither quiteso shallow nor so beamy in proportion, while her proportionate lengthwas considerably greater; her lines were therefore even more easy andbeautiful than those of the larger vessel. She sat very low in thewater, and might have been sworn to as a slaver as far away as she couldbe seen, her raking masts being short and stout, and her yards ofenormous proportionate length--her foreyard measuring no less thanseventy-eight feet--with a truly astonishing spread of beautifully cutcanvas. In light winds and smooth water she developed a speed that wasabsolutely phenomenal, easily running away from her two consorts on thepassage down the creek under her flying jib and main sail only. She waspierced for three guns of a side, and was further fitted with a veryingenious arrangement for mounting a gun on a pivot amidships, and atthe same time shifting it a few feet to port or starboard so as topermit of its being fired directly ahead or astern clear of the masts.None of her guns, however, were mounted at the time of her capture, theyafterwards being found stowed below at the very bottom of her hold in aspace left for them among her water-leaguers, from which they couldeasily be raised on deck when required. Like her consorts, she had onboard a full cargo of slaves--numbering two hundred and forty, of whomabout one-fourth were women and children--when captured.
Our passage up the creek having been effected in the intense darkness ofan overcast and rainy night, it had of course been quite impossible forus to form any conception of the appearance of our surroundings; butnow, in the broad daylight and clear atmosphere of a fresh and brilliantmorning, every detail of the scene in the midst of which we foundourselves stood out with the most vivid distinctness, and I was not onlyastonished but delighted with the singularity and beauty of Nature'shandiwork that everywhere met my eye in this region of tropicalluxuriance. The three craft were the only evidences of man's intrusionupon the scene with which we were confronted; everything else was thework of Nature herself, untrammelled and uninterfered with; and itappeared as though in the riotous delight of her creative powers she hadput forth all her energies in the production of strange and curiousshapes and bewildering combinations of the richest and most dazzlingcolours. True, the water of the creek, which in consequence of thesheltering height of the bordering vegetation was glassy smooth, was sofully charged with mud and soil held in suspension that it resembledchocolate rather than water; but its rich brown colour added to ratherthan detracted from the beauty of the picture, harmonising subtly withthe brilliant greens, deep olives, and splendid purples of the foliage,and the dazzling white, yellow, scarlet, crimson, and blue of thetrailing blossoms that were reflected from its polished surface, as wellas the delicate blue of the sky into which it merged at a short distancefrom the vessels. Mangroves with their multitudinous and curiouslytwisted and gnarled roots and delicate grey-green foliage lined themargin of the creek on either hand, and behind them rose tall, featheryclumps of bamboo alternating with impenetrable thickets of bush, thefoliage of which was of the most variegated colours and curious forms,beyond which again rose the umbrageous masses of lofty trees, several ofwhich were clothed with blossoms of pure scarlet instead of leaves,while over all trailed the serpentine convolutions of gorgeous floweringcreepers. Euphorbias, acacias, baobabs, all were in blossom, and thefresh morning air was laden with delicious and almost overpoweringlyfragrant perfume. Wherever a slight break in the continuity
of themangrove belt permitted the river bank itself to be seen, the margin ofthe water was ablaze with tall orchids, whose eccentricities of formwere matched only by their unsurpassable beauty of colouring; and eventhe tall, luxuriant grasses contributed their quota to the all-pervadingloveliness of the scene by the delicate purple tints of their stamens;while the curious, pendent nests of the weaver-bird, hanging here andthere from the longer and coarser grass-stalks curving over the water,added a further element of strangeness and singularity to the picture.Brilliant-plumaged birds flashed hither and thither; kingfishers of allsizes perched solemnly upon the roots and overhanging branches of themangroves, intently watching the surface of the muddy water for the tinyripple that should betray the presence of their prey, or flitted lowathwart the placid, shining surface of the creek; bright-colouredparrots were seen clawing their way about the trunks of the more loftytrees, or winging their flight fussily with loud screams from branch tobranch; the cooing of pigeons was heard in every direction; and highoverhead, a small black spot against the deep, brilliant blue of thesky, marked the presence of a fishing eagle on the look-out for hisbreakfast.
In less than half-an-hour we had traversed the distance to the mouth ofthe creek, just before reaching which we were astonished to discover the_Barracouta_ hard and fast upon a sand-bank that lay just off theentrance, with her topgallant-masts struck, and her remaining boats inthe water, apparently engaged in the task of lightening her. Thecaptain looked terribly annoyed, but said nothing until we had roundedthe last point and come to an anchor near the spot at which we had leftthe _Barracouta_ on the previous night, when he ordered the gig to behauled alongside, and, directing me to accompany him, gave the word forus to pull to the stranded craft.