Poor Paddy suffered very great pain from his hurt. The only remedy anyone on board could think of applying was oil, and with that they continued to bathe it liberally, as it did just as well afterwards to burn in the lamps. The wet season was not yet over. Day after day they had torrents of rain, so that no one on board had a dry rag on their backs. The schooner too grew more and more leaky, and the cargo of tobacco more and more rotten, till the odour arising from it was scarcely bearable, and at length they were completely driven out of their cabin. Often they wished to heave it overboard, but they dared not; for had they done so the vessel, already somewhat crank, would certainly have capsized. Still, whenever the two midshipmen could get a glimpse of the sun they took their observations, and they found that they were making progress, though slowly, to the northward.
“Can you believe it, Paddy?” exclaimed Murray; “you have been on board here upwards of three months, and four have passed away since I was placed in command of her. Still my motto is ‘persevere’, and I intend to stick to it.” Right gallantly did the little crew follow his example.
A few days after this, on taking their observations, they found that they had in this last twenty-four hours made good no less than forty miles, and two days after that they went over fifty miles of ground. This put all hands in good spirits; and Adair’s leg getting better, he was once more able to move about as before. They even began to fancy that all their trials were over, and that they should make an easy passage to Sierra Leone; but they were mistaken. That very evening the sky gave signs of a change of weather; the wind began to moan in the rigging, white crests rose on the summits of the seas, which increased rapidly in size as they rolled tumultuously around them. All the canvas was closely reefed when the gale came down upon the schooner. She stood bravely up to it on her course till it increased in strength, the lightning darting from the clouds with a vividness, and the thunder rattling and crashing with a fury, which no one on board had ever before experienced. Sometimes so intense was the heat of the electric fluid as it passed round and about them, that they expected to be actually scorched by it if they happily escaped being struck dead. The rain all the time came down in torrents, leaking through the deck and half filling the vessel, which was also letting in the water at every seam.
They had thus not a moment for rest, for they soon found it necessary to keep the pumps going all the time. At length the gale ceased, but it left them in a deplorable condition, with the leaks much increased and the sails in tatters. All the canvas had been expended, and it seemed impossible to repair them, till they bethought them of the monkey-skins in the hold, and as soon as the wind fell they were lowered down, and all hands turned to for the purpose of mending them with this novel contrivance.
“We shall do very well now,” exclaimed Adair, when once more they were set. “But my friend Queerface does not seem quite to understand the joke of seeing his brothers and sisters stretched out there before him, and I should say feels remarkably uncomfortable in his own skin lest we should some day think it necessary to make use of his hide in the same way.”
For three or four days they ran on to the northward, when down came another gale upon them, which gave every sign of being heavier even than the first.
“I will have no man’s life exposed unnecessarily to this fearful lightning,” exclaimed Murray, as flash after flash darted vividly around them.
Night had just come on. Between the intervals of the flashes the darkness was such as could be felt. Adair attempted to expostulate, and, the rest would gladly have disobeyed orders; but Murray was firm, and insisted on being left alone as before.
“Well, my dear fellow, mind you don’t go to sleep,” observed Adair, as with the crew, Queerface, and the two parrots, he dived down into the noisome little cabin.
Hour after hour Murray gallantly stood to the helm, the little schooner dashing through the foaming seas, for he judged it better to keep her on her course than to heave her to. Terrifically the thunder rolled. Crash succeeded crash almost without cessation, while the lightning darted from the sky and played with even more fearful vividness round the little vessel than on the former night. Still Murray undaunted stood at his post with perfect calmness. Though he scarcely expected to escape, it was not the calmness of despair or stoicism, but that which the most perfect trust in God’s mercy and all-just government of human affairs can alone give. “If He thinks fit to call me hence, His will be done,” he repeated to himself over and over again during that dreadful night. Several times Adair, anxious for his safety, lifted a little scuttle which had been contrived in the skylight, and enquired how he got on, and at times wondered at the fearless tone in which he replied. Still the danger of foundering was to be feared, for, what with the torrents of rain from the skies, and the opening leaks, the little vessel was rapidly filling with water. Dawn was at length breaking and the wind was decreasing, when, as Murray looked around, he thought he saw a vessel to windward bearing down upon them. Just at that instant a cry arose from below that the schooner was sinking, and Adair and the crew leaped on deck. The pump was instantly rigged, and they worked away at it with a will. Still the water appeared to be gaining on them. On came the stranger. She was a large and fine schooner. As the wind had decreased she was making sail; rapidly she neared them. There could be little doubt from her appearance that she was a slaver. To offer any resistance, should she wish to capture them, would be out of the question. Their hearts sank within them. Just then the glitter of some gold lace on the cap of an officer standing on the schooner’s poop caught Adair’s eye. He seized his telescope, and directly afterwards a cheer came down to them, as the schooner, shooting up into the wind, prepared to heave-to.
“Huzza! huzza!” exclaimed Adair. “It’s all right—there can be no doubt of it!—There’s Jack Rogers himself.”
* * *
* * *
Chapter Twenty.
The big schooner and the Venus were soon hove-to, and, while the two vessels were bowing and bobbing away at each other, a boat was lowered from the quarter of the former, which came dashing over the seas urged by four stout hands towards them. Jack Rogers sat in the stern-sheets. He sprang on board and grasped Alick’s and Terence’s hands. For nearly a minute he could not speak. He looked at one and then at the other.
“My dear fellows, you do look terribly pulled down,” he exclaimed at length. “Still I am glad to see you even as you are. The truth is that it has been thought you were lost, when week after week passed and you did not appear. Many of them gave you up altogether, and thought that you and the schooner had gone to the bottom; but I never entirely lost heart. I couldn’t have borne it if I had, and I was certain that you would turn up somewhere or other. What have you been about?” Their story was soon told. “That’s just like you,” cried Jack, again wringing Murray’s and then Paddy’s hand. “You are right. A fellow should do anything rather than desert his colours. I am glad, indeed, that you’ve got safe through it. But, I say, the craft seems to be moving in a very uneasy way. What is the matter?”
“If we don’t keep the pumps going, that she’ll be going down in a few minutes,” put in Needham, touching his hat.
Jack called his crew out of the boat, and all hands set to work at the pumps. It was high time, for the crazy little craft was settling fast down in the water. Four fresh hands pumping away, while the rest baled, once more got the leaks under, and in a couple of hours, Jack returning on board his schooner, sail was made for Sierra Leone. The schooner was a prize lately captured by the Ranger, and Captain Lascelles had put Jack in charge of her to carry her up to Sierra Leone, while the frigate continued her cruise to the southward. He was to find his way back to the ship by the first man-of-war calling at the port. Jack wished very much that he could remain on board the Venus, to keep up, as he said, his friends’ spirits; but as he had two or three hundred slaves on board his prize, he had to return to her to preserve order. He promised, however, to stay by the Venus, come what might, and Alick and Paddy had no fear that he would desert them. He lent them a couple of hands to work at the pumps, but even with this assistance they had the greatest difficulty in keeping the schooner afloat.
“If another gale should spring up, I really do not think the craft would keep afloat an hour,” exclaimed Adair, with a ruthful countenance, after he had been pumping away for an hour, till he was, as he said, like Niobe, all tears, or a water nymph.
“Then we must let her sink,” answered Alick calmly. “We have done our best to keep her above water, though it would be hard to bear if, after all, we should be unable to carry her into Sierra Leone.”
“Never fear, Alick,” exclaimed Paddy warmly. “As long as any of us have life in our bodies, we’ll pump away, depend on that. If pumping can do it, we’ll keep the old craft afloat.”
Not the least anxious of the many anxious hours they had passed on board the Venus were those they had now to endure. Jack Rogers, however, kept close to them, so that they had no fear about their lives. It was with no slight satisfaction, therefore, that at length they heard the cry from the fore-topmast head of the Felicidade, Jack’s prize, of “land ahead”, and soon after the high cape of Sierra Leone hove in sight. They ran up the river about five miles, when they came to an anchor off Freetown, the picturesque capital of the colony. It is backed by a line of lofty heights of different shapes and sizes, which are covered to their summits with trees, and add much to the beauty of the scenery, the Sugarloaf rising in the distance behind them. The river immediately in front of the town forms a bay, which affords good anchorage to vessels of all classes. The town rises with a gentle ascent from the banks of the river, and presents a very good appearance for nearly a mile long, and the streets are broad and intersect each other at right angles. The town is open to the river on the north; but on the east, south, and west it is hemmed in by the wood-crowned hills, which are about a mile or so from it, the intervening space being filled up with undulating ground, forming altogether a scene of great beauty. Here and there in the distance could be seen the palm-thatched roofs of the cottages which form several villages scattered about on the sides of the hills, and all united by good roads.
“What a pleasant place this would be to live in if it wasn’t for the yellow fever, and the coast fever, and a few other little disagreeables,” observed Adair to Murray as they stood on the deck of the Venus waiting for Jack Rogers, who was coming to take them on shore. Meantime Needham and the rest of the crew were still hard at work at the pumps to keep the craft afloat. The schooner’s sails being stowed, Rogers was soon alongside. With no little satisfaction they stepped into his boat. Just as they were shoving off, Queerface, who had hitherto been looking over the side chattering in the most voluble manner, made a spring and leaped in after them, and took his seat aft as if he thought himself one of them, as Paddy remarked. He looked about him in so comical a way that they all burst into fits of laughter; and when they tried to catch him to put him on board again, he leaped about so nimbly that they were obliged to give up the chase and allow him to accompany them on shore.
“If Master Queerface was asked, I have not the slightest doubt but that he would say there were four of us in the boat now,” said Paddy, laughing. “Just see what a conceited look the little chap puts on; eh, Master Queerface, you think yourself a very fine fellow now.”
“Kack, kack, kack,” went Queerface, looking about him in the most self-satisfied manner.
“Hillo, who comes here?” cried Jack, as the boat was nearing the shore. He pointed at the Venus, whence two large parrots were seen flying towards them.
“Those are my pets,” exclaimed Murray, laughing. “We should in England be looked upon as the advertising members of some travelling menagerie.”
When they got on shore, Queerface walked alongside Paddy with the greatest gravity, except that he every now and then turned round to grin at the little negro boys who followed, making fun at him in a way he did not approve of. One of them, more daring than the rest, tried to tweak him by the tail, when he made chase in so heroic a manner that he put them all to flight. Meantime Polly and Nelly, the parrots, kept flying above their heads, and occasionally alighting to rest on Murray’s shoulder. Sometimes, for a change, one of them would pitch on the head or back of Master Queerface, with whom they were on the most friendly terms. The dangers they had gone through together seemed to have united them closely in the bonds of unity. Thus the party proceeded till they reached the Governor’s house. They in vain tried to keep out Queerface and the parrots; but the Governor, hearing the disturbance, desired that all hands should be admitted. He was highly amused at the pertinacity with which the parrots and monkey stuck to their masters, and still more interested with the account Murray and Adair gave of their voyage. Indeed, they gained as they deserved, great credit for the way in which they had stuck to their vessel. All three midshipmen were treated with the greatest kindness by the residents at Freetown so that they had a very pleasant time of it, and were in a hurry for the arrival of a vessel to carry them back to their ships. They made friends in all directions, both among the higher as well as among the less exalted grades of society; indeed, they were general favourites. Even Queerface and Polly and Nelly came in for some share of the favour they enjoyed, for, although neither monkeys nor parrots can be said to be scarce in Africa, their talents were so great and of so versatile a character, that their society was welcomed, almost, Adair declared, as much as that of their masters. Queerface more than once, however, got into disgrace. The three midshipmen were spending the day at the house of a kind old gentleman a short distance from the town. It was as cool and airy a place and as pleasant an abode as could be found under the burning sun of Africa, surrounded with broad verandas, French windows, and Venetian blinds. The hour of dinner arrived, and all the family assembled in the dining-room, but Mr Wilkie, the host, did not make his appearance. They began to get anxious about him, and some of the ladies hurried off to call him, when at length he came up the room, laughing heartily, with a white nightcap on his head. “I must apologise, ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “but the truth is I wear a wig, a fact you are probably aware of; but while I was taking my siesta somebody came and took my wig away. Sambo and Julius Caesar and Ariadne have been hunting high and low and on every side without success; and, what is extraordinary, my dressing-gown disappeared at the same time. However, I hope that you will excuse me, for I thought it better to appear as I am than not at all; for, I confess, I have but two wigs, and my other one has been left at the barber’s to be refrizzled.”
