The men’s dinner was just over, when once more everybody was put on the alert by hearing “Sail ho!” sung out from the mast-head.
“Where away?” asked Captain Lascelles, who was walking the deck at the time.
“Right ahead, sir,” was the answer.
The captain himself went aloft. When he came down again he told Mr Holt that he believed she was the identical ship they had chased the previous day. The frigate rapidly got up with her.
“How jolly to think that we shall catch her after all!” exclaimed Jack, as they got near enough to the chase to see halfway down her courses. “But what is the matter with her? She seems to have altered her course.”
“She is becalmed, to be sure,” answered Lieutenant Hemming, who heard the question. “Daddy Neptune has brought her up all standing, to place her as a punishment in our power. I only hope he will not make a mistake and becalm us till we get up to her.”
In another hour or less the stranger was seen floating in the middle of a shining sheet of water of silvery hue. Still the frigate carried on the breeze. It was a question whether the stranger would get it, and perhaps make a fresh start, leaving her pursuer in the lurch. The excitement on board the frigate became greater than ever when the stranger was seen, for there was no longer any doubt about her character. Her taunt masts, her square yards, the great hoist of her topsails, and her light cotton canvas, all showed her to be a slaver, probably combined with the occupation of a pirate. Gradually the wind decreased as the frigate neared her; when within about a couple of miles it fell a dead calm. Captain Lascelles gave a rapid glance round the horizon, and then ordered away the first and second cutters with a large whale boat, and directed the second and third lieutenants and one of the mates to join them. Jack and Terence got leave to accompany Mr Hemming. It was very evident from the appearance of the stranger that she would give them some tough work before they took her. With loud cheers the expedition shoved off from the frigate’s side and pulled away for the ship. The three boats contained altogether from five-and-thirty to forty hands. It was broad daylight. There would have been no use in disguising their intentions. If the slaver attempted to defend herself at all, they might well expect some desperate fighting, and from her appearance it could scarcely be expected that she would do otherwise. Hemming’s boat, which pulled the fastest, got the lead. The men, every now and then, gave a cheer to animate each other. They rapidly neared the slaver, as the smooth shining water bubbled and hissed under the boats’ bows. Oh, how hot it was, as the sun’s rays came directly down on their heads; but no one thought of the heat, and they laughed and joked as if they were employed in some amusing occupation.
“I say, Paddy, I think we could do a beefsteak brown on these stern-sheets,” observed Jack, putting his hand down by his side.
“That to be sure we might,” answered Terence. “And here comes the pepper for them,” he added, as the pirate sent a shower of round shot, grape, and canister flying around and stirring up the water on every side, though fortunately no one was hit.
“Give it them in return, my lads,” cried the second lieutenant; “marines, fire.”
The marines were not slow in obeying the order, and as the seamen bent to their oars they continued firing away as fast as they could load. The slaver’s crew had evidently hopes of crippling their adversaries, for they kept up a brisk and well-directed fire; but, hot as it was, the gallant British tars were undaunted.
“That dark ship has perhaps four or five hundred poor wretches under hatches whom it is our business to set free,” cried Lieutenant Hemming. “And then, my boys, if we do take her, what a lot of prize-money we shall get! Hurra! hurra!”
Hemming had been too long at sea not to know how to excite the spirit of seamen.
“We shall have some tough work, hurra, hurra! You’ll knock over some of those pirates, depend on it.”
Each officer excited his men by similar cries. Their only fear was that a breeze might spring up, and that the enemy might escape them. However, though they pulled hard, nearly half an hour passed from the time the first shot was fired till they got up to the ship.
“What an ugly set of cut-throats the fellows are,” said Adair, pointing to the people who crowded the pirate’s deck. “Let’s be at them, Jack.”
Jack was quite ready to respond to the proposal. The two other boats boarded on the starboard side, amid a hot fire of langrage of all sorts poured down upon them. Hemming pulled up on the port bow, sprung up the side, and soon fought his way upon deck. Jack and Adair were climbing in at one of the ports when the pirates fired the gun through it directly over their heads.
“Come on, Paddy, come on,” Jack sung out; but Adair had been knocked over into the bottom of the boat.
Happily, however, he was only “kilt”, as the Irish say; so he clambered up again, and quickly followed his friend, accompanied by Dick Needham, who had joined the Ranger, and another seaman.
Fortunate it was for the midshipmen that they had so stout and true a seaman as Dick Needham as their companion, for they encountered a desperate resistance from the pirates, and were instantly engaged in furious hand-to-hand combats. Meantime, so surrounded were they by their enemies, that they could not tell what had become of the rest of their shipmates. More than once they were nearly driven back through the port by which they had entered. Jack saved Adair from an ugly cut on the head, and Adair in return saved Jack from being run through the body by cutting down the pirate who was making the attempt to do it. Both of them, as well as Dick Needham, were nearly exhausted, and poor Tom Bowles, their companion, had received a wound which brought him to the deck, when Hemming’s voice was heard above their heads, and he leaped down from the forecastle off which he had driven the enemy. With loud cheers he led on his men; the pirates gave way before them. Then Lieutenant Collard and Randall were seen fighting their way from aft. The pirates looked about them, and seeing enemies on every side, gave way, some leaping below, and some throwing themselves overboard. Fully a dozen pirates were killed, and a still greater number were wounded. Many did not even ask for quarter. Others threw themselves on their knees as their captors followed them below, and entreated that their lives might be spared. The victory was not gained without loss. A marine and two seamen were killed, and five were wounded, a large proportion out of the number composing the expedition. No sooner were the decks cleared than a terrific howl was heard from below. Mr Hemming rushed to the hold; just at that moment a whole host of negroes were seen emerging from it. He was barely in time to drive them back again.
“I know the rascally slavers’ trick,” he exclaimed; “they have been telling the poor wretches that we are going to murder them; and if they had once gained the deck, we should have had no little difficulty in preventing them from murdering us.”
Then, looking down the hold on the heaving mass of black humanity, he cried out, “Hear me, you piratical rascals; if you don’t make those poor negro fellows understand that we are their friends, and have come to set them free, we’ll hang every one of you at your own yard-arms before ten minutes.” He knew that many of the crew understood English perfectly, indeed that some of them were English and Americans.
The pirates, finding that their plot was defeated, wisely came on deck, having explained to the slaves that no harm was going to happen to them. As they came up they were secured by the manacles which they had prepared for their unhappy captives. Some time was thus employed, and at length a breeze sprang up, and the frigate was seen bearing down upon them. The prisoners looked very blank when they found that they were to be transferred to her. The gallantry of everyone engaged was warmly commended by Captain Lascelles. Hemming got the command of the prize, and, to their great delight, Jack and Terence were allowed to remain in her. The frigate and her prize then made sail together for Sierra Leone. They kept close in with the land in the hopes of picking up another prize. Before, however, they got round Cape Palmas they met with a strong westerly gale which compelled them to bring up in a sheltered bay, which is to be found some way to the eastward of it. The scenery was not very interesting. Near them was a narrow neck of sand, with a few palm-trees on it, and a muddy lagoon on the other side. Still, men who have been long aboard are glad to find anything like firm ground on which to stretch their legs. Now the surgeon and the lieutenant of marines were constantly joking each other as to which of them possessed the greatest physical powers. If one boasted he had ridden fifty miles without stopping, the other had always gone ten miles farther. If one had leaped over a wide ditch, the other had leaped over one five feet wider; or if one said he had kept up a Scotch reel for an hour, the other had danced one for a quarter of an hour longer.
“I’ll tell you what, Doctor,” exclaimed Lieutenant Stokes; “I’ll undertake to race you for a mile, each of us carrying another person on our backs.”
“Done,” cried Doctor McCan; “it shall come off at once. I’ll take Adair as my jockey; you can take whom you like.” Adair was the lightest midshipman on board, and the doctor thought that by getting him he had stolen a march on his military competitor.
“Agreed,” answered Lieutenant Stokes, cocking his squinting eye in the most ludicrous way. “I’ll take Rogers. He’s a bit heavier than Adair, but I don’t mind that. As you had the first choice of a rider, I must choose the ground. From the extreme end of that spit of land to the palm-trees near the neck is, I guess, about a mile.” This was said while the frigate and her prize were brought up on their voyage to Sierra Leone. Doctor McCan looked at the white spit of sand, and thought what heavy work it would be running over it; but he felt that he was in honour bound to keep to the proposed terms. A party was soon made up to go on shore, and all hands looked forward to the fun they expected to enjoy from the exhibition. They had first to pull alongside the prize to call for Rogers and Adair. Hemming gave them leave to go, and they of course were nothing loath to accept the invitation. What Captain Lascelles would have thought of the matter I don’t know. He might have considered that the exhibition of an officer of marines racing with a midshipman on his back was somewhat subversive of discipline. There was no surf on the shore, and the boats landed without difficulty. The ground was measured by the umpires. It was from the end of the point, round the palm-trees, and back again about a quarter of the distance to make up the mile. The doctor felt the sand with his feet. It was very fine and soft, and he began to repent of his proposal.
“Now, gentlemen, take up your burdens and be ready at the starting-post,” said the master, who was chief umpire. They went to the ground, tossing up the midshipmen to make them sit comfortably on their backs.
“Now, one, two, three, and away you go!” cried the master.
Off they went, the marine officer prancing away with Jack in the pride of his strength, while the doctor ploughed his way steadily on through the sand, finding, even with Adair, that he had rather more flesh and blood to carry than was pleasant. Still, Mr Stokes did not gain upon him. He too found that Rogers was no slight weight, though he was only a midshipman—as Jack said of himself, “All that is of me is good.” For some time they were neck and neck. Hot enough they found it, for the sun was bright, the sand was soft, there was but little air, and what there was was on their backs. They were lightly clad, to be sure; but had they worn as little clothing as the most unsophisticated of negroes they would have found it hot enough. They puffed, and they blew, and they strained, but still they persevered. At first neither Rogers nor Adair cared much about the matter; but they soon got as excited as the men who carried them, and eager for their respective steeds to win.
“I say, Doctor,” observed Adair, after they had gone about half the distance, “the sand inside of us there, along the lagoon, looks hard. It would not take us much out of our way if we were to go there, and you would then get along famously.” Terence intended to give good counsel, and the doctor followed it. To his great delight he found the ground hard, and was getting on at a great rate. Jack urged Mr Stokes to take the same route.
“Stay a bit; all is not gold that glitters,” was the answer. “That’s treacherous sort of ground.”
“But see, see how magnificently they get along,” cried Jack, again wishing that he had a bridle to guide his refractory steed.
All this time the umpires and other spectators were keeping up merry shouts of laughter.
“There they go,” shouted Jack; “they will be round the trees in no time.”
Just as he spoke there was a loud hullabaloo from Terence, echoed by the doctor. Over they both went head first, but the doctor’s heels did not follow, for they had stuck fast in the mud, into which poor Terence’s head plunged with a loud thud. The doctor heroically endeavoured to pull him out, but his own legs only stuck deeper and deeper. As the marine officer came up and passed by them he began capering about and neighing in triumph, while Jack barbarously enquired whether they would like to have a tow. At last Terence, covered with mud, black and most ill-odorous, scrambled out, and, by throwing to him the end of his handkerchief, contrived to haul out the doctor, who once more took him on his shoulders, and in sorry plight continued his course. Jack looked round and saw them coming just as Mr Stokes was about to round the palm-trees. He crowed loudly and waved his hand. It would have been wiser, however, if he had not begun to triumph so soon, for his steed’s foot catching in a fallen and half-hidden branch, over they both went, and were half-buried and almost stifled in the soft, hot sand. However they picked themselves up, and Jack mounting, away they went towards the goal where their friends were ready to receive them. Just as they got up to it, down came the gallant marine once more, but Jack stuck to his back, and on all-fours he crawled up to the winning-post. The poor doctor with Terence, as Jack said, like a huge baboon clinging behind him, came in soon after, and the doctor declared that it was the last time, with or without a jockey, he would ever run a race on the shores of Africa or anywhere else. In the afternoon the blacks in parties were taken on shore under an armed escort to bathe and exercise themselves; and the next day, the wind shifting, the frigate and captured slaver again made sail for their destination.
* * *
“The frigate is signalising to us,” said Jack one morning to Lieutenant Hemming, who had just come on deck. “She is going in chase of a sail to the southward. We are to continue our course for Sierra Leone.”
