“All right,” observed Hemming, “it will take some time before they get their whole cargo on board; then we’ll be up and at them.” It now grew rapidly dark, and although Jack could no longer clearly see the proceedings on board the felucca, they could hear the seamen shouting, the blacks crying out occasionally, the splash of the long oars of the rafts, and the rattling of ropes and blocks as it was made fast alongside. They listened attentively. So calm was the night that every sound could be heard, and they could almost distinguish what the Spaniards were saying on board the slaver. There was no fear but that they would easily catch her, for though she had of course sweeps they could pull three knots to her one. Never did anyone feel more certain of a prize.
“Does it not strike you that they are a long time getting the slaves on board?” said Jack at last to his superior.
“Why, yes, they are somewhat; but it is extraordinary how many poor wretches they will stow away between decks in those small craft; but they take some time packing,” answered Hemming in a whisper. “Probably, too, the raft is small, and doesn’t carry many at a time.” They waited some time longer till the former sounds continued which showed that the raft was still going backwards and forwards.
“I cannot make it out,” muttered Hemming; “the villains are a long time about their work. They little dream that we are close to them, or they would be rather smarter about it.”
Some time longer passed, and then Jack proposed returning to his look-out place to try and make out what was occurring. It was no easy undertaking, scrambling along over the slippery rocks in the dark, with a chance, if he lost his hold, of a tumble into some dark deep pool, or of getting jammed in some crevice, or perhaps being caught by some prowling ground shark or other monster of the ocean. However, he reached the point at which he aimed, but he had not been there a minute before he heard that peculiar sound of heavy blocks working, cheep, cheep, cheep. He made out clearly the tall pointed lateen sails of the felucca rising from her decks, and then the sound of the windlass working reached his ears; while a breeze, not felt below and every moment increasing, fanned his cheeks. He hurried back as fast as he could to the boat. As he sprung on board, he exclaimed, “The felucca is under weigh, and there’s a breeze off the land.”
In a moment the crew threw up their oars, the boat was shoved off from the rocks, and emerging from their hiding place, away she started in chase of the slaver. The felucca had, however, in the meantime got out her sweeps, her white sails were spread from her long tapering yards, swelling out with the breeze, and off she rapidly glided from the shore.
“Ah, ah!” said Jack; “the fellows do not know that the frigate is in the offing, and even if we cannot catch them they are certain to run under her guns.”
“Oh, no fear!” observed Hemming; “I wish that we had not waited so long though; but one way or the other she is certain to become our prize.”
* * *
* * *
Chapter Twenty One.
On flew the felucca, urged by sails and oars. The Ranger’s boat dashed after her.
“Give way, my lads, give way,” cried Hemming; not that his crew required the slightest inducement to pull as hard as they could lay their backs to the oars.
The felucca had got considerably the start, and was going through the water somewhat faster than the man-of-war’s boat; the more also she drew off the land the stronger she got the breeze.
“There’s no use longer attempting concealment,” cried Hemming, “the chances are she has made us out already. Get a blue-light ready, Adair. The frigate will see it by this time, and be on the look-out for her. Rogers, see to the gun forward. You may be able to send a shot into the felucca and knock away a spar perhaps.”
These orders were promptly obeyed. While Jack sprang forward to fire the gun, Adair’s blue-light, blazing up, cast a lurid glare over the figures of the crew as they tugged at their oars, and which also extended far away across the surface of the ocean, while at the same moment the sharp report of the gun broke the hitherto almost perfect silence of the night. Jack could not see whether his shot had taken effect, but he had some hopes that it had. Again, at Hemming’s order, he fired, while, as soon as the first blue-light had gone out, Adair lighted another. Their eyes all the time were ranging the offing to try and discover the whereabouts of the frigate.
“There is her light, sir,” shouted Jack from forward, and when their own blue-light grew dim, hers was seen shining like a star floating on the water in the far distance.
Thus they went on, burning blue-lights, at longer intervals though than at first, and firing shot after shot at the felucca. The slaver bore it at first without attempting to return the compliment; but at length, when Rogers hoped that he had hit her, her captain seemed to lose patience, and she opened fire on the boat in return. The latter, however, especially in the night, offered too small an object to be easily hit. Still one shot came whistling over their heads, and another struck the water close to them, showing them, as Paddy said, that they were comfortably within range.
“I think that I have winged her,” shouted Jack; “if so, even should the breeze increase, and she escape from us, the frigate will get hold of her.”
Thus time sped on, the frigate and her boat showing at intervals their blue-lights, while the slaver, caught between them, continued pretty rapidly firing away at the latter. Still Hemming, at all events, did not feel at all certain that the felucca would be caught. Though the light on her deck could be seen, she was growing more and more indistinct as she increased her distance from them. At last she ceased firing. The breeze, too, was increasing.
“Do you still see her, Rogers?” asked Hemming.
What Hemming thought he did not say. Some grave suspicions crossed Jack’s mind.
“There she is though. Starboard a little,” he sang out, “or we shall run into a tub with a light in it.”
“Oh, the scoundrels!” broke from many lips. Jack was about to douse the light, but Hemming told him to let it burn on. “It will serve as a beacon to us, and the felucca’s people will not know whether or not we have been deceived by it,” he observed.
It now became a question in which direction the slaver had gone. On they pulled, therefore, once more towards the frigate. Hemming wished to let Captain Lascelles know what had occurred, that he might thus steer a course on which he was most likely to come up with the slaver. With the increasing wind the boat would have little chance of overtaking the felucca, but by staying where they were the lieutenant hoped that they might possibly cut her off. The blue-lights and the flashes of the guns had dazzled their eyes, and the night seemed darker than ever. In vain Jack peered for some time into the darkness to make out the frigate. A thick bank of mist, blown off the land, lay upon the water. Suddenly, like a dark phantom stalking over the deep, the frigate’s hull, with her tall masts towering up into the sky, appeared, and he had barely time to shout out, “Port the helm, pull round the port oars,” before the boat was close under her bows, very narrowly escaping being run down. In another minute they were on the quarter-deck, and Hemming was reporting to Captain Lascelles all that had occurred. He suggested, that while the frigate stood after the felucca in one direction, he should be allowed to cruise in an opposite direction, to double the chances of falling in with her. All he wanted was a further supply of water, fuel, and provisions. To this the captain consented, and, the boat being furnished with what was required, Hemming and the two midshipmen again shoved off from the frigate’s side. Jack had of course his faithful rifle with him, and he felt pretty certain that, should he once get a sight of the enemy, he should be able to use it with good effect. “I have not the slightest compunction about picking off those slaving scoundrels,” he observed, as he was busily employed in loading his piece. “They seem to be completely lost to all sense of what is right and just, such perfectly abandoned sinners, that there can be no hope of their reforming; so I only feel as if I was destroying a wild beast to prevent it doing further mischief.”
“All very right,” observed Hemming; “most people act from more than one motive, and it’s well that both should be good. It’s enough for me that it’s my duty to kill the fellows if they don’t give in.”
It wanted still nearly an hour to daylight. The boat had lost sight of the frigate for some time. She had made good way to the northward under sail. At length, when the first faint streaks of sunlight were observed breaking forth over the land, Hemming ordered the sail to be lowered. By this they had a better chance of seeing the felucca without being seen. The lieutenant stood up and slowly moved round scanning every part of the horizon. The land breeze had now completely died away, and there was not a ripple on the water, though the slow-moving glassy undulations which came rolling in, and constantly rocking the boat, showed that they were not floating on an inland lake. Jack and Adair began to fear that the felucca was not in sight, when Hemming slowly sunk down into his seat again, saying quietly, as he cast eyes on the boat’s compass, “There she is, though; out oars. Starboard the helm a little, Rogers, west-north-west. That will do. Give way, my lads.”
Away glided the boat, urged on by sturdy arms, in the direction mentioned. After pulling some time, the light increased, and the tops of the felucca’s sails appeared above the limited horizon of the rowers. Once more Hemming stood up. The slaver lay perfectly becalmed. He ordered all hands to breakfast. The cocoa was quickly heated, and the meal was soon dispatched with good appetite. Then he allowed those who wished it to smoke for a few minutes, and once more, the oars being got out, away went the boat in the direction of the slaver.
Before long they themselves must have been seen from her deck; but, to his surprise, as Hemming looked at her through his glass, he saw that her sweeps were not got out, nor was any attempt made to escape. There she lay rocking slowly on the slow undulating water, as if no human being was on board to rule her course. As they drew closer still, only one person indeed was to be seen on her deck. He was walking up and down it with a glass tucked under his arm, apparently scarcely noticing their approach. Hemming naturally suspected treachery. He well knew that the slavers were capable of the greatest atrocity. He was, therefore, prepared for any emergency.
“Why, sir,” exclaimed Jack, as they got almost alongside, “I do believe that is my old acquaintance Don Diego. He’ll do us a mischief if he can.”
“Be ready, lads, to spring on board the moment the boat touches her side,” cried Hemming. Just before this three or four other men came up from below, rubbing their eyes as if lately awoke out of sleep. The bowman the next instant hooked on, and the British sailors, led by their officers, sprang on board. The slaver’s people ran forward and aft to get out of their way, except the man at first seen, whom Jack had no doubt was no other than the old pirate, Don Diego, as he called himself.
“Good morning, gentlemen,” said he, quite coolly, making the politest of bows to the lieutenant. “May I request to know what brings you on board here at this early hour in the morning?”
“You are known to be a slaver, and we have come to capture you,” answered Hemming bluntly.
“Ho, ho, ho,” cried the Don; “there may be two opinions about that! You British officers don’t go upon surmises. You want proofs, and you are welcome to all you can discover.”
The Don’s coolness rather staggered Hemming and the two midshipmen. Jack was certain that he had seen the slaves carried on board in Elephant Bay, and he had no doubt as to the felucca being the same vessel he had seen in Elephant Bay. To settle this point, they lifted off the hatches.
“I can, though,” said Hemming. “I have not the shadow of a doubt that, somehow or other, the Don got notice that we were in the neighbourhood, and that, as the slaves were taken in on one side of the vessel he sent them back again by the rafts over the other. Had we made a dash at the felucca at once, we should have found some of them on board, and she would have been condemned. We will be wiser in future.”
It was not till late in the evening that they fell in with the frigate. She kept cruising off the bay, and two other boats were sent in to watch for the felucca; but the old Don was too wary a bird to be thus easily caught, and nothing was seen of the felucca. Soon after this a steamer hove in sight, and her commander, coming on board the Ranger, informed Captain Lascelles of an unsuccessful attack having been made on Lagos; at the same time delivering to him dispatches from Mr Beecroft, the British Consul for the Bight of Benin, residing at Fernando Po, asking for further assistance. Sail was instantly therefore made for the northward, and, the wind holding favourable, they were not long before they got off the slave coast in the neighbourhood of the place proposed to be attacked. Great was the satisfaction expressed by all hands, both in the gun-room and midshipmen’s berth, and throughout the ship, at, the prospect of some real work being done. In the midshipmen’s berth, perhaps, the satisfaction was more vehemently expressed.
“There’s nothing like getting a real enemy right before you, and having an honest slap at him,” exclaimed Jack Rogers. “It is all very right hunting down those slave-dealers and chasing slavers, but the scoundrels are such slippery fellows, it is difficult work to get hold of them.”
“Or to keep them if you have got a grip of them,” observed Adair. “But, I say, does anybody know who it is we are going to fight, and what we are going to fight about?”
“Something about the slave trade,” said Hobson, one of the mates.
“The blacks hereabout want a thrashing, so we are going to lick them,” remarked Lister, another midshipman, who was never very exact in his notions.
Just then Murray, who had had, the forenoon watch on deck, came below. He was, on the point I have mentioned, a great contrast to Lister. He was forthwith applied to. “As soon as I have taken the sharp edge off my appetite I will tell you all I know about the matter,” he answered. The edge of people’s appetites on the coast is oot very sharp, in the dog days especially, so Murray was soon in a condition to begin.
“Now just look here,” he commenced, collecting some crumbs and bits of biscuit, which he began to place about on the table. “To the north and east of us is the slave coast. Inland, due north, or thereabouts, is Dahomey, the king of which is something like a king, for he can cut off his subjects’ heads at pleasure; he has got several regiments of Amazons, who fight most furiously, besides other troops armed with match-locks. To the east is the Yoruba country, and to the south, farther round the bay, is the kingdom of Benin. The Yoruba country is between the other two I have mentioned. Its chief river is the Ogun. At the mouth is Lagos, a large town held by an independent chief or king of considerable wealth and power. About seventy miles up is Abeokuta. Abeokuta is a very remarkable place. About twenty-five years ago the remnants of the inhabitants of a number of villages, which had been broken up by the attacks made on them for the purpose of carrying away these people as slaves, betook themselves to a large cavern on the banks of the Ogun, about seventy miles from the coast. In this place of concealment they remained for some time undiscovered, living on roots, and berries, and other natural productions of the ground, till they were joined by other fugitives from the hated slave-dealers. At length, their numbers increasing, they ventured forth from their cavern and began to cultivate the ground and to build themselves houses. They chose as their chief a liberal-minded, talented man, called Shodeke, and it is said that at present there are upwards of 80,000 people in their community. They have built a large town, which they have called Understone, or, in their own language, Abeokuta, in memory of the cave under which they first took shelter. Now, if the blockading squadron had never done more than what I am going to tell you about, they would have performed a very great and blessed work. Among the thousands of negroes they have captured and liberated were many hundreds who had been taken from the Yoruba country, and who were settled at Sierra Leone. Here many of them had grown rich, and a considerable proportion had been converted to Christianity. Among them was a man named in their language Adgai, but called in English Crowther. He had been embarked as a slave on board of a slaver at Badagry in 1822. That slaver was captured by one of our cruisers, and taken to Sierra Leone. At that place he was well educated, was converted, and ordained as a minister of the Gospel. Now several of the Yoruba natives I have spoken of, who had become possessed of property, purchased a vessel, and visited Lagos and Badagry to trade. At those places they heard of Abeokuta and the stand it had made against the slave trade. On their return to Sierra Leone, from the accounts they gave of the new settlement, a considerable number of their countrymen resolved to go there. Among the first was Mr Crowther. He is, I am assured, a man of high intellectual powers, and of eminent piety. He persuaded other Christian Africans to accompany him. Nearly the first people he met on arriving at the new city were his mother and sisters, and they were his first converts. The greater part of the inhabitants are now Christians, and Mr Crowther is engaged in translating the Bible into the Yoruba language.
