A Middy of the Slave Squadron Part 4

I believe, Purchase, that you were cut adrift last night, either by the individual who spun the yarn, or by some emissary or emissaries of his who have a lurking-place somewhere in this neighbourhood; and, if the truth could be got at, I believe it would be found that the schooner which we saw come out of this river on the day before yesterday--and which the captain was led to believe was a decoy intended to draw us off the coast--was actually chock-full of slaves!"

"By Jove!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed Purchase. "What a very extraordinary idea!"

"I don't think so at all," cut in Hoskins, before Mr Perry could reply.

"It may seem so to you, Purchase, because it has just been presented to you, fresh and unexpectedly, as it were. But when we arrived at King Olomba's town yesterday morning, and found neither slaves nor barrac.o.o.n there, I must confess that I was visited by some such suspicion as that of which Captain Perry has just been speaking, although in my case it did not take quite such a concrete and connected form. To my mind there is only one thing against your theory, sir," he continued, turning to the skipper, "and that is the existence of the factory on the lagoon."

"Yes," agreed the captain, "I admit that to be somewhat difficult to account for. And yet, perhaps not so very difficult either; because if the fellows who gave Captain Harrison the information upon which he acted happened to have a grudge against the owners of that factory they would naturally be more than glad if, while groping about in search of the imaginary slavers and barrac.o.o.n, we should stumble upon the real thing and destroy it. All this, however, is mere idle conjecture, which may be either well founded or the opposite; but there is one indisputable fact about this business, which is--unless Mr Purchase is altogether mistaken, which I do not for a moment believe--that the _Psyche_ was last night cut adrift from her anchors and wrecked by somebody who must have a lurking-place in this immediate neighbourhood; and I intend to have a hunt for that somebody to-morrow."

CHAPTER FIVE.

THE BATTLE OF THE SAND SPIT.

As the evening progressed it became evident to me that our new captain had developed a very preoccupied mood; he fell into long fits of abstraction; and often answered very much at random such remarks as happened to be addressed to him. He appeared to be turning over some puzzling matter in his mind; and at length that matter came to the surface and found expression in speech.

"Mr Purchase," he said, "I have been trying to put two and two together--or, in other words, I have been endeavouring to find an explanation of the puzzle which this business of the wreck of the _Psyche_ presents. I can understand quite clearly that poor Captain Harrison was deliberately deceived and misled by certain persons in Sierra Leone in order that the ship might be cast away. But why _here_ particularly? For if my theory be correct that the supposed decoy schooner actually sailed out of this river with a full cargo of black ivory, there must certainly be a barrac.o.o.n somewhere close at hand from which she drew her supplies; and the people who planned the destruction of the sloop could scarcely have been so short-sighted as to have overlooked the fact that such a happening would leave us here stranded in close proximity to a slave factory which, presumably, they would be most anxious should remain undiscovered by us. That is the point which I cannot understand; and I have come to the conclusion that my theory with regard to the schooner must be altogether wrong, or there must be something else in the wind--that, in short, the wreck of the sloop is only a part instead of the whole of their plan."

"But what about the barrac.o.o.n which you destroyed to-day, sir?" asked Purchase. "Might not that be the place from which those fellows draw their supplies of slaves?"

"It might, of course," admitted the skipper; "but, all the same, I do not believe it was. For the people who supplied Captain Harrison with false information would surely know enough of him and his methods to be certain that, failing to find anything in the nature of a slave factory at King Olomba's town, we should not leave the river again until we had thoroughly explored it; and if they knew the river at all they would also know that the factory on the Camma Lagoon could scarcely be overlooked by us. No; in my own mind I feel convinced that the factory which we destroyed to-day was not the one in which those fellows are interested; there is another one somewhere in the river; and I will not leave until I have discovered and destroyed it. But that only brings me back to the point from which I started, and once more raises the question, Why did they cast us away within a few miles of this other factory which I am persuaded exists? Is it that the place is so strongly fortified that they are confident of our inability to take it?

Or is there something else at the back of it all, of which we have not yet got an inkling?"

Purchase shook his head hopelessly. "Upon my word, sir," he answered, "it is quite impossible for me to say. When you come to put the matter like that it becomes as inexplicable as a Chinese puzzle. What is your own opinion?"

"I haven't been able to form one at all," answered the skipper. "But the matter is puzzling enough to convince me that it would be folly on our part to a.s.sume that the casting away of the ship is the beginning and ending of the adventure; therefore we will neglect no precautions, Mr Purchase, lest we find ourselves landed in an even worse predicament than our present one. Our first and most important precaution must be to maintain a strict watch throughout the night. It need not be a very strong watch, but it must be a vigilant one; therefore each watch will be kept under the supervision of an officer who will be responsible for the vigilance of the men under him. Moreover, all hands must see that their muskets and pistols are loaded and ready for instant action; for it would not be a very difficult matter to surprise this camp of ours sometime during the small hours. Just come outside with me and let us take a look round."

The result of the above conversation and the "look round" was an arrangement that the night was to be divided into five watches of two hours each, beginning at eight o'clock in the evening and ending at six o'clock in the morning; each watch to consist of twelve men, fully armed, who were to act as sentries, half of them being detailed to watch the river in the neighbourhood of the boats, while the other half kept watch and ward over the land approach to our encampment, being stretched across the narrow isthmus in open order from the water's edge on the river-side to that on the sea-side. Each watch was commanded by an officer, with a midshipman under him; and the general orders were to fire a single shot at the first sign of anything of an alarming character, and then retire upon the camp, if an attack should threaten to cut off the outpost from the main body.

The first watch was taken by the captain, with me for his subordinate; and I was given the command of the party of six guarding the sh.o.r.e approach to the camp, while the skipper took the party mounting guard near the boats, as it was his opinion that if danger threatened it was most likely to come by way of the river.

My instructions were to march my men out to a distance of not more than two cables' lengths from the camp, and there take such cover as might be possible. At first sight it did not appear that there was the least bit of cover of any description available, for the spit or peninsula on which we were encamped was just bare sand for a distance of fully a mile from the spot whereon our camp was pitched, and then there began a growth of scrubby bush which gradually became more dense as one proceeded in a southerly direction; but I solved the difficulty by causing each man to scoop a little pit for himself in the loose sand, in which it was easy for him to crouch perfectly concealed particularly as there was no moon, and the light from the stars was not strong enough to reveal objects at a distance much beyond a quarter of a mile.

The first, second, and third watches pa.s.sed uneventfully; but the fourth watch was little more than half through when--about a quarter after three o'clock in the morning--the whole camp was roused from its slumbers by the sound of musket-shots, one from the party guarding the boats and the river approach, quickly followed by three in rapid succession from the contingent that occupied the sand pits stretched across the neck of the peninsula. Then three or four more shots from the river party spurted out, and it began to dawn upon us that the matter threatened to be serious. Of course none of us had thought of discarding any of our clothing that night, the second shot therefore had scarcely pealed out upon the night air before we in the camp were upon our feet, with our weapons in our hands, and all drawn up in regular array ready for the next move in the game, with the skipper in command.

"Where are Mr Fortescue and Mr Copplestone?" demanded the captain, looking about him, as soon as the first momentary bustle was over.

"Here I am, sir," answered I, stepping forward and mechanically touching my hat; and "Here I am, sir," answered Tom Copplestone, suddenly appearing from nowhere in particular.

"Mr Fortescue," ordered the captain, "take to your heels and run out to Mr Nugent as fast as you can; ascertain from him the reason for the firing from his party; ask him whether he requires any a.s.sistance; and then return to me with his reply as quickly as possible. Mr Copplestone, you will run down to the boats with a similar message to Mr Marline."

Away we both went, as fast as we could lay legs to the ground, Copplestone down-hill toward the river beach, and I along the sand spit, making upward gradually toward the ridge as I ran. Running in that fine, heavy sand was, however, horribly exhausting work, especially to one whose only mode of taking exercise was to stump the lee side of the quarter-deck during his watch, and I was soon so completely blown that, with the best will in the world to hurry, I was brought to walking pace.

But before I had made twenty fathoms from my starting-point two more shots rang out from the party by the boats, and a moment later one of the boat guns began to speak. I looked out over the river, striving to discover what the disturbance was about, and thought I could dimly make out several dark blurs on the faintly shimmering surface of the water, which I conjectured must be canoes, but I could not be sure; meanwhile my business was not with them, whatever they were, but with Nugent and his party, from whom, as I struggled along, two more musket-shots cracked out almost simultaneously. Then, down by the river-side, a second shot roared from a boat gun, and this time before the ringing report of the piece died away I distinctly heard a crash followed by loud shrieks and much splashing out somewhere on the surface of the river. A few seconds later, panting and gasping for breath, I staggered up to a figure which I had made out standing upright and motionless on the crest of the spit, and found it to be Nugent, with his drawn sword tucked under his right arm while with both hands he held his night gla.s.s to his eye.

"Who goes there?" he demanded sharply, wheeling round and seizing his sword as he heard the noise of my panting behind him.

"Friend!" I answered. "The sk---captain desires to know why you are firing, out here, and whether you require any a.s.sistance."

"Oh! is that Fortescue? All right. Just take my night gla.s.s, will you, and sweep the face of the spit carefully at about two hundred yards distance from here. Then tell me if you can see anything," answered Nugent. "And, if it comes to that, why are the others firing, down by the boats?"

"Can't say for certain," I answered, as I took the proffered night gla.s.s and raised it to my eye, "but I believe some suspicious canoes or boats have hove in sight, and they are just giving them a hint to keep their distance."

"Ah! just so," returned Nugent. "Now _we_ are firing because, although we can't be absolutely certain in this darkness, we think that there is a body of men out there who would be not altogether disinclined to rush the camp, if we gave them the opportunity; so we are just potting at them--or what we fancy to be them--whenever we get a clear enough sight of them, just as a hint that we are awake. But as to a.s.sistance--n-no, I don't think we need any, at least not at present. Should we do so, later on, I will blow a blast on this whistle of mine." And he produced from his pocket a whistle possessing a particularly shrill and piercing note, with which he had been wont to summon Cupid to the midshipmen's berth aboard the _Psyche_, when that individual's presence had been needed with especial urgency.

"Well, d'ye see anything?" he demanded, after I had been peering through his gla.s.s for a full minute or more.

"I am really not at all certain whether I do, or not," I answered, still working away with the gla.s.s. "I thought, a moment or two ago, that I caught sight of something in motion for an instant, but it is so abominably dark, as you say, that--but stay a moment, what is that dark ma.s.s out there stretching across the ridge? I don't remember having noticed anything there before nightfall."

"Dark ma.s.s?" reiterated Nugent; "what dark ma.s.s d'ye mean? There is nothing out there, so far as I--"

"By Jingo! but there is, though, sir; I can see it myself now, wi' the naked eye!" exclaimed a seaman who was crouching in a sand pit a yard or so distant from where Nugent and I were standing. "There, don't ye see it, Mr Nugent, stretchin' athwart the back of the spit? Why, I can make it out quite distinctly."

"Give me the gla.s.s," demanded Nugent, s.n.a.t.c.hing the instrument from me and applying it to his eye. For some eight or ten seconds he peered intently through the tube, then exclaimed excitedly--

"Ah, now I have it. Yes, by Jove, Fortescue, you are right, there _is_ something out there; and it looks like--like--ay, and it _is_, too--a body of blacks creeping along toward us on their stomachs! Why, there must be hundreds of 'em, by the look of it; they reach right across the spit! Yes, we shall certainly want help, and plenty of it, to keep those fellows at arm's length. I thought it was only some twenty or thirty when I first made them out. Yes, cut away to the skipper, Fortescue, as hard as you can pelt; tell him what you've seen; and say that I shall be obliged if he will kindly send me as many men as he can spare. That disturbance down by the boats seems to have ceased, so he ought to be able to send us a pretty strong reinforcement."

"All right," I said; "I'll tell him, and then comeback with the men."

And away I went back through the heavy sand at racing pace, and delivered my message.

The captain listened patiently to my breathless and somewhat disconnected story, and then turned to Mr Purchase, who was standing close at hand, and said--

"Mr Purchase, have the goodness to take the entire port watch, and go out to Mr Nugent's a.s.sistance. But do not allow your men to fire away their ammunition recklessly, for we have very little of it. Let no man pull trigger until he is quite certain of hitting his mark."

"Ay, ay, sir!" answered Purchase. "Port watch, follow me." And away he and his following trudged into the darkness. I was making to join them, but the skipper happened, unfortunately, to see me, and called me back.

"No, no, Mr Fortescue," he said; "you and Mr Copplestone will please remain with me. I may want one or both of you to run messages for me presently."

So we remained. But I at once ranged up alongside Copplestone, for I was anxious to hear the news from Marline, down by the boats.

"Well, Tommy," I said, "what was old Marline blazing away at? Whatever it was, he managed to hit it, for I heard the smash."

"Yes," answered Copplestone. "But it was more a case of luck than of good shooting, for it is as dark as a wolf's mouth. Some of his men, however, had eyes keen enough to see that there was a whole flotilla of boats, or canoes, or something of that sort, hovering in the river and manoeuvring in such a fashion as to lead to the suspicion that they had designs upon our boats, so he dosed them with a few charges of grape, which caused them to sheer off 'one time,' as Cupid is wont to remark.

What was the row with Nugent?"

"Lot of n.i.g.g.e.rs creeping along the spit on their stomachs toward him," I answered. "Got some idea of rushing the camp for the sake of the plunder in it, I expect. But now that Mr Purchase and the port watch have gone out to back him up I think we need not--hillo! that sounds like business, though, and no mistake."

My e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.n was caused by a sudden cracking off of some six or eight muskets, one after the other, closely followed by a heavy if slightly irregular volley, and the next instant the air seemed to become positively vibrant with a perfect pandemonium of shrieks, howls, yells, and shouts as of men engaged in close and desperate conflict. The skipper p.r.i.c.ked up his ears and clapped his hand to his sword-hilt; then he turned to where Tommy and I were standing close beside him.

"Mr Copplestone," he said, "take twenty men--the first you can pick-- and go with them to support Mr Marline, for I fancy he will need a little help presently. The rest of us are going out to support Mr Purchase and Mr Nugent."

"Ay, ay, sir," answered Tommy. He picked out the first twenty men he could lay hands on and taarched them off to join Mr Marline's "picnic,"

as he expressed it, and the rest of us went off at the double to take part in the scrimmage that was proceeding in the neighbourhood of the sand pits. And a very pretty scrimmage it was, if one might judge from the tremendous medley of sounds that reached us from that direction.

The firing was now very irregular and intermittent, but there was plenty of yelling and shrieking mingled, as we drew nearer to the scene of the fray, with sounds of gasping as of men engaged in a tremendous struggle, quick e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.i.o.ns, a running fire of forecastle imprecations, the occasional sharp order of an officer to "Rally here, lads!" dull, sickening thuds as of heavy blows crashing through yielding bones, and here and there a groan, or a cry for water. It was evident that the fight had resolved itself into a desperate hand-to-hand struggle; and it seemed to me that our lads were being hard put to it to hold their own.

But the worst feature of the whole affair, to my mind, was that the darkness was so intense that it was almost impossible to distinguish friend from foe.

We reached the scene of the struggle so much sooner than I had expected that it was impossible to avoid the conclusion that our people were being steadily forced back in the direction of the camp; and this I afterwards found to be correct; but the appearance of the skipper with his reinforcements soon put another face upon the matter. It was evident that the foe--consisting of some hundreds of negro savages had been under the impression that they were fighting the entire strength of the British, but when we came up they at once discovered their mistake, which, with the knowledge that, for aught they could tell, there might be further reinforcements waiting to take a hand in the game, somewhat damped their courage. Not by any means at once, however; indeed it was not for perhaps two or three minutes after our appearance upon the scene that the first actual check upon their advance occurred. For they appeared to number seven or eight to every one of us, and moreover they were all picked warriors in the very prime of life, brave, fierce, determined fellows, every one of them, and well armed with spear, shield, war-club, and, in some cases, a most formidable kind of battle- axe.

"Spread out right and left, and cut in wherever you can find room,"

ordered the skipper as we plunged, stumbling and gasping, into the midst of the fray. And there was no difficulty in obeying this order; for, narrow as the sand spit was, it was yet too wide for Mr Purchase and the port watch to draw a close cordon across it; there were gaps of a fathom or more in width between each of our men, and those gaps were rapidly widening as some poor wretch went down, transfixed by a broad- bladed spear, was clove to the shoulder by the terrific blow of an axe, or had his brains dashed out by a war-club. But as our contingent arrived each man chose an enemy--there was no difficulty in doing that-- and pulled trigger upon him, generally bringing him down, for we were too close to miss; after which it became literally a hand-to-hand fight, some using their discharged muskets as clubs while others flung them away and trusted to their cutla.s.ses, and one or two at least--for I saw them close alongside me--depended entirely upon the weapons with which nature had provided them, first dealing an enemy a knock-out blow with the clenched fist and then dispatching him with one of his own weapons.