“Another warm day, Jack,” cried Terence as they pulled away: “I wonder how much marrow we shall have left in our bones and how much fat outside them when we get home.”
Two hours and a half passed before they got up with the chase. The gig, from pulling best, was ahead. Jack did not grudge his messmate the honour, though he liked to be first when he could. The schooner with all her sweeps out, as the boats neared her, put her helm up, and tried to run them down, opening at the same time a sharp fire of musketry. They, however, were too quick for her, and, pulling on either side, each man seized his musket, and let fly in return. Loading again with the greatest coolness, as they passed her, they poured in another volley. The sweeps being rigged out, prevented them from climbing up by the chains.
“Never mind,” cried Jack, “let us try the quarters.” He pulled up to one quarter, Adair to the other, and before the slavers knew where they were going, the boats had hooked on, the seamen, led by their two gallant young officers, were springing over the low quarters of the schooner. Adair, however, got a severe lick on the shoulder, which would have sent him back into the boat had not one of his men given him a shove up: while Jack got an ugly gash on his arm from a cutlass, and would have had his head laid bare, had not Dick Needham’s trusty weapon interposed to save him. All this time the slaver’s crew were firing away down into the boats. One of the cutter’s men was shot, and fell over. A messmate, Brown, attempted to lift him up, but he sank down like a piece of lead.
“It’s all over with him,” cried Brown, springing over the bulwarks, and resolved to avenge him. It was too true. He had been shot through the heart. A like fate befell one of the gig’s crew. Still with diminished numbers the British fought on, but the odds were fearfully against them. They had, however, gained a footing on the slaver’s deck, and as they had cutlasses and pistols in their hands, which they well knew how to use, they felt themselves to be on equal terms with six times their number of the sort of mongrel wretches who made up the slaver’s crew. The latter at the same time seemed in no way daunted, and fought on with the greatest desperation. Hitherto, neither Jack nor Adair had made out who were the officers of the wretches opposed to them, for the smoke hung so thickly over the deck, crowded as it was with people of every hue and every variety of costume, that it was difficult to distinguish one from the other. At last Jack caught sight of a little man, urging on his companions. The voice too he had heard before. A puff of wind cleared away the smoke; Jack recognised his old enemy, Don Diego. The Don knew him also.
“Ah, ah, have you come to be killed?” sang out the little man with a horrid grin. “Cut him down, cut down the little spy, my men. He was one of those who destroyed our barracoons and deprived us of our property. The sea breeze will soon be up to us, and we may laugh at the frigate. Revenge, revenge!” Instigated by these shouts from their fierce chief, the slaver’s crew, uttering loud imprecations, made a desperate rush against the English, and Jack, in spite of the gallant defence made by those around him, found himself brought on his knee to the deck.
* * *
* * *
Chapter Seventeen.
Don Diego and his companions did not know what Englishmen were made of if they thought that they were going to win the day without a hard fight for it. Adair, wounded as he was, threw himself before Jack, and aided by Needham and some of his best men, pistoled some of the Spaniards and cut down others, hurraying so loudly, and charging so fiercely, that the rest, in spite of the little Don’s exhortations, gave way before them. They pushed on till they reached the mainmast, where a resolute stand was made by the slaver’s crew. During this time Jack recovered sufficiently again to join in the conflict. The little Don, seeing how things were going, rallied a number of his people around him, evidently prepared to make a stand to the last, and Jack, from what he had observed of his character, was fully convinced that he would make some desperate attempt to destroy them, even perhaps by blowing up the schooner and all on board.
“Keep an eye on that old wretch, and see that he does not get below,” sung out Jack to his men. “Mark him, Adair, he is the fellow who fired the mine, and nearly blew you all up.”
Fortunately the hatches of the schooner’s decks were open to give air to the unfortunate slaves confined below. They all the time were uttering the most fearful shrieks and cries, not knowing what was going to happen. Pressed backwards, several of the pirate’s crew were tumbled down the hatchways among the negroes, adding to the confusion and dismay below. Others, pressed by Jack, who was fighting his way forward on the starboard side, leaped overboard, and, to avoid the cold steel of the avenging British, found that death from the ravenous sharks to which they had consigned so many of their black fellow-creatures. Although some gave way, others kept rallying round the mainmast and so Adair had to keep them engaged to prevent them turning and attacking Jack in the rear. So hotly was he engaged, however, that he had no time to look about him. A loud shout made him turn his eyes for a moment forward, and then he saw Jack, who had gained the forecastle, waving his cutlass in triumph. The Spaniards immediately opposed to Terence, and who had hitherto shown a bold front, on hearing the shout, and seeing that their chance of victory was gone, threw themselves pell-mell down the hatchways among their companions, who had by this time regained their legs. What was bad, they had also kept possession of their arms, and began to fire upon the English. The seamen could easily have shot them, but the cowardly scoundrels retreated among the chained slaves, believing that their enemies would not dare to fire, for fear of wounding the poor blacks also. They counted, however, without their host. Never was there a cooler fellow than Dick Needham, and getting his musket ready, he ran forward, and judging where the Spaniards had stowed themselves, picked out a couple of them from the very middle of the blacks; then leaping down, cutlass in hand, followed by three of his shipmates, they very soon made the rest of the wretches cry out for quarter. When Jack and Terence looked around the deck they found it cleared—not a little to their surprise. What had become of Don Diego!
“The villain must have gone below, and will be blowing us all up!” exclaimed Terence, rushing aft.
Forward he certainly was not, or Jack would have seen him. They both, pistol in hand, rushed into the cabin, expecting to have a desperate encounter with the fierce little Spaniard. The door gave way before them.
“Hillo! the fellow is not here,” cried Jack.
“Then he’s concealed somewhere,” answered Paddy. “It’s very unpleasant to feel that any moment he may be sending us up like rockets into the sky. I wish that we could rout him out before he commits any mischief.”
Just then they were recalled on deck by the shout of one of their men. They hurried out of the cabin, and, looking over the quarter, they saw what they would have perceived before had they looked in the right direction. The Don, with six or seven of his followers, had jumped into their own gig, and was pulling away with might and main towards the shore. Jack and Terence first thought of following him in the cutter, but then there was the danger of the Spaniards left on board rising, and overpowering the rest of the English. He also would certainly not yield without a most desperate resistance.
“The Don will say that exchange is no robbery,” exclaimed Paddy; “we had better let him go. He has got our gig and we have got his schooner, and a very magnificent craft she is, with 400 or 500 slaves on board. We can well spare him the gig.”
Jack agreed to this, but suggested that if the sea breeze reached them soon, they might still catch the Don by the ear. Meantime they set to work to secure the slaver’s crew. Many of the villains had stowed themselves away among the slaves, and were endeavouring to let them loose, telling them that the English had come to murder them, and that their only chance of saving their own lives was to rush upon deck and to murder the English instead. Happily the attempt was discovered before many of the negroes were set at liberty, and the slaver’s crew were all knocked down, and having both hands and feet lashed together were brought on deck, and placed in a row under the bulwarks.
“A very pretty set of ruffians you look, too,” observed Terence, as he walked along the deck, surveying them. “I’m only glad you are there, and that I am on my feet with a good cutlass by my side, or my throat would not feel at all comfortable. I assure you I don’t wish you any further harm than that you should get your deserts as soon as possible.”
There were Spaniards, and Portuguese, and mulattoes, and even blacks, and, with shame be it spoken, one or two fellows who looked remarkably like Englishmen or Americans. Though the first could not have understood him, they all scowled fiercely at him, and, as he afterwards observed, it was a long time before he could get that row of hideous countenances out of his head. He had not time to think much about the matter just then, for Jack saw the breeze coming, and gave an order to trim sails to take advantage of it so as to go in pursuit of the gig with Don Diego in her. The frigate lay about eight miles off, and of course had not perceived the escape of the Don. She, being more in the offing, would get the sea breeze first. Jack and Terence watched her trimming sails, and then her white canvas began to bulge out, and on she came gliding proudly towards them. Not long afterwards they got the breeze. To tow the cutter would have impeded them, so they dropped her to be picked up by the frigate, and stood after the gig. Don Diego had got a long start, but still, from the gig pulling heavily, as they knew to their cost, they did not despair of overtaking her. Everything was done to increase the schooner’s speed, as it was important to get hold of one of the most daring slave-dealers and slave captains on the coast—a man whose head had grown grey in the vile traffic in which he was engaged, and who had already spent half a dozen fortunes made by it. As the breeze increased they felt sure that they were overhauling the gig, and their hopes of catching her before she reached the coast increased. So eager were they in watching the chase, that they scarcely looked at the frigate, which was just coming up with them. She stood on till she reached the cutter, in which lay the dead body of the poor fellow who had been shot when boarding the schooner. Instead, however, of stopping to pick her up, the frigate stood on after the slaver, every stitch of canvas which she could carry being spread to increase her speed.
“Paddy, I believe we will catch the Don after all,” exclaimed Jack, who had been watching the gig through a glass, and at the same time inspecting the coast beyond. “I can make out no creek for him to run into, and if he attempts to beach that boat he will be swamped to a certainty.”
“And serve him right too,” answered Terence. “But, hillo, what is that for?” As he spoke a shot fired from the frigate came whizzing over their heads. Another and another followed in rapid succession. One of them flew directly between their masts.
“I don’t like to heave-to, or we shall lose our chance of catching the Don,” observed Jack; “but this is getting rather too serious to be looked upon as a joke.” It was, indeed, for in another second, three or four more shots came crashing through the sails and against the spars of the schooner, one of which, the fore-topgallant yard, was shot away.
“We must signalise them, and beg them to be aisy,” cried Terence. “But, hillo, I say, Jack, who could have left that abominable flag flying at the peak?” There, sure enough, at the peak of the schooner flew out the often disgraced flag of Spain.
“We’ll haul it down, and settle that point afterwards,” said Jack, suiting the action to the word and hauling down the flag. He was but just in time to save the schooner from a tremendous peppering, which the frigate, now ranging close up astern, had prepared for her. Jack ran up the rigging nearest the frigate, and pointed ahead to show that he was chasing something; indeed, by that time the gig when looked-for must have been seen clearly from the deck of the frigate.
“I am glad we did not fire into you, my lads,” shouted Captain Lascelles through his speaking-trumpet. “You’ve done well—very well, but why did not you haul down the slaver’s flag?”
“We’d so much to do, we never saw it, sir,” shouted Jack in return. “There’s the slaver’s captain—we’re after him.”
“Stand in as close as you can, but don’t get on shore, though,” cried the captain.
“Aye, aye, sir,” answered Jack, well pleased to follow the orders given.
The frigate stood on for some distance after the gig, but she had to be hove-to that the depth of water might be ascertained, and this gave the Don an advantage of which he did not fail to profit. Though guns were continually fired at him, the gig was too small an object at that distance to enable even the best of marksmen to hit her with any certainty. When the frigate hove-to, the schooner once more passed her. Nearer and nearer she drew to the shore.
“We must take care not to wreck our well-won prize,” observed Jack to Terence, and a lead and line having been found, he wisely sent a hand into the chains, to heave it as soon as he had rounded the schooner to. Well was it that he did so, for in a very few minutes more the schooner would have been on shore. It was provoking, however, to see the wicked old Spaniard pulling on triumphantly. They watched the gig as long as they could with their glasses. She disappeared amid a cloud of foaming surf, which seems ever, even in the calmest weather, to be breaking on that shore. They thought she must have been swamped, but again they saw a dark object emerge on the other side, and they fancied that they could make out several little dots, which might have been men, moving over the white sandy beach.
“The old fellow has escaped us now, but we will still have him some time or other—depend on that,” said Jack, shutting up his glass. “However, we have destroyed his barracoons, and now we’ve captured his schooner—that’s one consolation. He can’t love us, though.”
Truly, indeed, did Don Diego nourish a bitter desire for revenge against the British generally, and the officers and the crew of the Ranger especially, which he was one day destined to have an opportunity of gratifying to the full. The frigate’s studding-sails being rigged in, she, with her prize in company, shaped a course for Sierra Leone. Both Jack and Terence had been so severely handled when boarding (though they did not feel much of their wounds during the excitement of chasing the Don) that it was necessary for them to return on board the frigate to be under the doctor’s hands, while another officer was put in charge of the prize. This was a great disappointment, but Captain Lascelles promised them that they should have command of the next prize the frigate might take. Having seen the prize some way on her course, the Ranger stood back to her cruising-ground to the southward. In consequence of head-winds and calms she made but slow progress, and thus some weeks slowly passed away after the events I have described, before her people had much work to do. This was a great advantage, as it enabled Jack and Terence and the sick and wounded men to recover, away from the noxious air of the coast. One of the chief amusements of the officers on board the Ranger, whenever there was a calm, was firing at a mark with three or four rifles which they had on board. Many of them thus became capital shots. Jack Rogers, who had from his childhood almost been accustomed to firearms, soon proved himself, from his correct eye and perfect calmness, one of the best. One of the lieutenants, who had two rifles, in generous mood one day offered one as a prize to any person on board who could strike a target floating at 100 yards from the ship ten times out of twenty. It was doubtful whether anybody would do it, Enfield rifles being then unknown. Jack did it, and, greatly to his delight, won the rifle. After that, no one was so indefatigable as he in practising with it. Once having become an adept in the science of shooting, he was most anxious to put his knowledge into practice, but Captain Lascelles was not very willing to allow him to go away in a boat with only half a dozen hands, as he wished, to seek for adventures. At length it became advisable to communicate with King Bom-Bom, whose prisoner Jack had been, and as both he and Terence knew the river, they were ordered to proceed up it, to deliver the message, and to return as soon as possible. I ought to have said that Wasser had attached himself to his old friend Hemming, and had entered regularly as a seaman on board the frigate. A very steady and careful lad he was too. He now went with the expedition to act as interpreter. The boat crossed the bar safely. Several traders were in the river exchanging Manchester goods and cutlery for palm-oil, ivory, gold-dust, and other articles of value. King Bom-Bom received the midshipmen most politely, and gave them a handsome feast, though, as Paddy remarked, the cookery was rather dubious. He then frankly assured them that he was growing far richer as an honest trader, keeping a monopoly of the chief articles himself by the by, than he had by all his connections with the slave-dealers, taking into account the occasional burning of his barracoons, and the hot water in which he was continually kept. Of course King Bom-Bom was a sensible fellow, and saw things in their true light.
