The Congo Rovers Part 20

"Um!" remarked the skipper meditatively; "it is strange, _very_ strange.

_I_ never noticed anything peculiar about the craft."

"The brig is now about half a mile distant, sir, and is making sail,"

reported Armitage at that moment, presenting himself again at the cabin door.

"Then wait until the hands are out of his rigging; then slip, and we will be after him. I intend to see to the bottom of this," returned the skipper sharply. "There is undoubtedly something wrong or poor Austin would have turned up on board before matters had reached this stage.

But, mind, let the work be carried on without an unnecessary sound of any kind."

As Armitage again withdrew and Smellie rose to his feet, Captain Vernon turned to me and said:

"I am very greatly obliged to you for the zeal and discretion you have manifested in this most delicate matter, Hawkesley; whatever comes of it I shall remember that you have acted throughout to the very best of your ability, not coming to me precipitately with a vague unconnected story, but waiting patiently until you had acc.u.mulated a sufficiency of convincing evidence for us to act upon; though, even now we must be very cautious as to what we do. And let me also add that Mr Smellie has spoken to me in the highest terms of your conduct throughout that trying time when you and he were ash.o.r.e together; indeed he a.s.sures me that to you, under G.o.d, he is indebted for the actual preservation of his life.

I have watched you carefully from the moment of your first coming on board, and I have been highly gratified with your conduct throughout.

Go on as you have begun, young sir, and you will prove an ornament to the service. And now, gentlemen, to business."

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN.

POOR AUSTIN'S FATE.

I hurried on deck, highly gratified at the very handsome compliment paid me by the skipper, and found that the hands were aloft, casting loose the canvas. Presently, without a word having been spoken above a whisper, or a shout uttered, they came down again; the topsail halliards were manned, the yards mast-headed, the jib run up, the cable slipped, and we were under weigh; the fog all the time being as thick as a hedge, so thick indeed that it was impossible to see the jib-boom end from the quarter-deck. Old Mildmay, the master, was conning the ship; but of course in such a fog it was all guess-work, and the old fellow was terribly nervous and anxious, as indeed was also Captain Vernon. It struck me that the ship might be better conned from aloft, and I stepped up to the skipper and with due modesty mentioned my idea.

"A very happy thought," exclaimed the master, who happened to overhear me. "I'll just step up as far as the crosstrees myself."

"Very good, Mr Mildmay; do so by all means," said Captain Vernon. "But the wind is light, and what little of it there is will carry the sound of your voice down to the brig if you hail the deck, and so apprise them of our approach. We must avoid that if possible; I want to get alongside the craft and take her by surprise, and we may have some trouble in accomplishing that if they suspect that we are after them.

The _Daphne_ is a fast ship, but so also is the brig, and I am by no means certain that she has not the heels of us. We must devise a little code of signals from you to the deck, so as to obviate any necessity for hailing. Can anyone suggest anything?"

A very simple plan had occurred to me whilst the skipper was speaking, and as no one else seemed to have a suggestion to make, I offered mine.

"If the pennant halliards were cast adrift down here on deck, sir, and held by one of us," I said, "Mr Mildmay could get hold of them aloft, and one tug upon them might mean 'port,' two tugs 'starboard,' and three 'steady.'"

"Excellent!" exclaimed the skipper, "and perfectly simple; we will adopt it forthwith, and you shall attend to the deck-end of the halliards, Mr Hawkesley, with Mr Keene and Mr Peters to pa.s.s the word from you along the deck to the helmsman. Place us in a good weatherly position, Mr Mildmay, if you please, so that when we run clear of the fog the brig may have no chance to dodge us."

"Ay ay, sir, never fear for me," answered Old Mildmay as he swung nimbly into the main rigging, and in a few seconds his body disappeared in the mist.

The old fellow soon put us in the right course, and away we went, crowding sail after the invisible brig. An anxious half-hour followed, and then we ran out of the fog and found ourselves creeping along parallel with the land to the northward of the river-mouth, with the brig about half a mile ahead of us under every st.i.tch of canvas she could show to the freshening land-breeze. We had gained on her considerably, the master having kept a keen eye upon her gleaming upper canvas whilst piloting us out of the river and steering in such a direction as to very nearly cut her off altogether. He of course came down on deck as soon as we had cleared the fog, and Captain Vernon at once ordered the crew to quarters.

The men were not long in getting to their stations, and when all was ready a gun was fired after the flying brig, as a polite request for her to heave-to, and the ensign hoisted to the peak. I was naturally very anxious to see what notice would be taken of this, since the somewhat high-handed course we were taking with the craft had been adopted entirely upon the strength of my representations; and if the brig should, after all, turn out to be the _Vestale_ French gun-brig as she had pretended to be, our skipper might perhaps involve himself in a considerable amount of trouble. It was therefore with a sigh of real and genuine relief that I heard a shot come whistling close past us from the brig in reply to our own.

Captain Vernon, too, was evidently much relieved, for he e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed in tones of great satisfaction:

"Good! she has fired a shotted gun at us and refuses to show her colours. _Now_ my course is perfectly clear. Try the effect of another gun on her, Mr Armitage, and aim at her spars; she is skimming along there like a witch, and if we are not careful will give us the slip yet."

Armitage, who was in charge of the battery forward, upon this began peppering away at her in earnest; but though the shot made daylight through her canvas every time, no damage was done either to her spars or rigging, and it began to be only too evident that she was gradually creeping away from us. To make matters worse, too, her crew were just as smart with their guns as we were with ours, in fact a trifle more so, for before a quarter of an hour had pa.s.sed several of our ropes, fortunately unimportant ones, had been cut; and at length a thud and a crack aloft turned all eyes in that direction, to see the fore royal- mast topple over to leeward.

Captain Vernon stamped upon the deck in the height of his vexation.

"Away aloft, there, and clear the wreck," he exclaimed, "and, for Heaven's sake, Mr Armitage, see if you cannot cripple the fellow. Ten minutes more and he will be out of range; then 'good-bye' to him. I wish to goodness our people at home would condescend to take a lesson in shipbuilding from the men who turn out these slavers; we should then have a chance of making a capture occasionally."

Whilst the skipper had been thus giving vent to his rapidly-increasing chagrin, Smellie had walked forward; and presently I caught sight of him stooping down and squinting along the sights of the gun which had just been re-loaded and run out. A few seconds of anxious suspense followed, and then came a flash and a sharp report, followed the next moment by a ringing cheer from the men on the forecastle. The brig's fore-yard had been shot away in the slings.

The craft at once shot up into the wind and lay apparently at our mercy.

"Ram us alongside him, Mildmay," exclaimed the skipper in an ecstasy of delight. "Stand by with the grappling-irons fore and aft. Mr Smellie, stand by to lead a party on board him forward; I will attend to matters aft here."

It really looked for a moment as though we actually had the brig; but a chill of disappointment thrilled through me when I saw how splendidly she was handled. The man who commanded her was evidently equal to any emergency, for no sooner did the craft begin to luff into the wind than he let fly his after braces, shivered his main topsail, and hauled his head sheets over to windward, and--after a pause which must have sent the hearts of all on board into their mouths--the brig began to pay off again, until, by a deft and dainty manipulation of her canvas, she was actually got dead before the wind, when the main yard was squared and away she went once more but little the worse for her serious mishap.

If her skipper, however, was a thorough seaman, so too was old Mildmay.

That experienced veteran soon saw how matters were tending, and though he was unable to "ram" us alongside in accordance with Captain Vernon's energetically expressed desire, he placed the _Daphne_ square in the wake and to windward of the brig, and within half a cable's length of her, thus, to some extent, taking the wind out of her sails, the effect of which was that we immediately began to gain upon her.

The crew of the brig now worked at their stern-chasers with redoubled energy, and our running-gear soon began to suffer. But though we might to some extent have avoided this by sheering away on to one or other of the brig's quarters, the position we then held was so commanding that the skipper resolved to maintain it. "We must grin and bear it," said he, "it will not be for long; another five minutes will place us alongside. Edge down a trifle toward his port quarter, Mildmay, as though we intended to board him on that side, then, at the last moment, sheer sharply across his stern and range up on his starboard side, it _may_ possibly save us a broadside as we board. Mr Smellie, kindly load both batteries with round and grape, if you please; we will deliver our broadside and board in the smoke."

Within the specified five minutes we ranged up alongside the brig, delivered our broadside, receiving hers in return, her hands proving too smart to let us escape that; our grappling-irons were securely hooked into her rigging, and away we went on board her fore and aft, being perhaps a second ahead of the brig's crew, who actually had the hardihood to attempt to board _us_. We were stoutly met by as motley, and, at the same time, as ruffianly a set of men as it has ever been my lot to encounter; and a most desperate struggle forthwith ensued.

Captain Vernon of course took care to be first on board; but I stuck close to his coat-tails, and almost the first individual we encountered was no less a personage than our old acquaintance Monsieur Le Breton himself. He pressed fiercely forward and at once crossed swords with the skipper, who exchanged two or three pa.s.ses with him; but the two were soon separated by the surging crowd of combatants, and then I found myself face to face with him. I was by no means a skilled swordsman, and to tell the truth felt somewhat nervous for a moment as his blade jarred and rasped upon mine. By great good fortune, however, I succeeded in parrying his first thrust, and the next instant--how it happened I could not possibly say--he reeled backwards with my sword- blade right through his body. Leaving him dying, as I thought, on deck, I immediately pressed forward after the skipper, and for a few minutes was kept pretty busy, first with one antagonist and then another.

Finally, after a fiercely maintained struggle of some twelve minutes or so, the brig's crew began to give way before our own lads, until, finding themselves hemmed in on all sides, they flung down their arms and begged for quarter, which was of course given them. Upon this, seeing that the skipper and Smellie were both safe, I turned to go below, thinking that I should perhaps discover poor Austin in durance vile in one of the state-rooms. I descended the cabin staircase, and was about to pa.s.s into the saloon when I happened to catch sight, out of the corner of my eye, of some dark object moving in an obscure corner under the staircase. Turning to take a more direct look at it I to my great surprise discovered it to be Monsieur Le Breton, who, instead of being dead as I had quite imagined he must be, was alive, and, seemingly, not very much the worse for his wound. He carried a pistol in his hand, and was in the very act of lowering himself down through a trap in the flooring when I grasped him by the collar and invited him to explain his intentions. He quietly allowed me to drag him out of the opening, rose to his feet, and then suddenly closed with me, aiming fierce blows at my uncovered head--I had lost my hat somehow in the struggle on deck--with the heavy bra.s.s-mounted b.u.t.t of his pistol. In such an encounter as this I did not feel very much afraid of him, being tall for my age, and having developed a fair share of muscular strength since leaving England; but it was as much as I could do to hold him and at the same time prevent his inflicting some serious injury upon me.

His wound, however, told upon him at last, and I eventually succeeded in dragging him back to the deck, though not until after he had ineffectually emptied his pistol at me.

On regaining the deck I found our lads busy securing the prisoners, and Monsieur Le Breton was soon made as safe as the rest of them.

He was loudly protesting against the indignity of being bound, when Captain Vernon approached.

"Oh! here you are, Hawkesley!" he exclaimed. "I was looking for you, and began to fear that you had met with a mishap. Do me the favour to step below and see if you can discover anything of Mr Austin."

"I have already once been below with that object, sir," I replied; "but, discovering this man--Le Breton as he calls himself--acting in a very suspicious manner, I deemed it my duty to see him safe on deck before proceeding further in my quest."

"What was he doing?" asked the skipper sharply.

"I vill tell you, sare, vat I was doing," interrupted Le Breton recklessly. "I vas on my vay to ze _soute aux poudres_ to blow you and all ze people to ze devil to keep company wiz your inqueezatif first leftenant. And I would have done eet, too, but for zat pestilent midshipman, who have ze gripe of ze devil himself. _Peste_! you Eengleesh, you are like ze bouledogue, ven you take hold you not nevare let go again."

"There, Hawkesley, what do you think of that for a compliment?" laughed the skipper. "So, monsieur," he resumed, "you were about to blow us up, eh? Very kind of you, I'm sure. Perhaps you will increase our obligation to you by informing me what you have done with Mr Austin?"

"Done wiz him!" reiterated Le Breton with a diabolical sneer. "Why, I have sent him to ze bottom of ze creek, where I would have sent you all if you had not been too cautious to accept my polite invitation."

"Do I understand you to mean that you have _murdered_ him?" thundered the skipper.

"Yes," was the reckless answer; "drowned him or murdered him, call it what you will."

"You treacherous scoundrel!" e.j.a.c.u.l.a.t.ed the skipper hoa.r.s.ely; "you shall be made to bitterly account for this unprovoked outrage; clap him in irons," turning to the master-at-arms, who happened to be close at hand.

"Poor Austin!" he continued. "Your suspicions, Hawkesley, have proved only too correct; the craft is, unquestionably, a slaver--or worse. We must have her thoroughly overhauled; possibly some doc.u.ments of great value to us may be found stowed away somewhere or other. I'll see to it at once." And he forthwith dived below.

The prisoners having been secured, the dead and wounded were next attended to, the former being lashed up in their hammocks ready for burial, whilst the latter were carefully conveyed below to receive such attention as the surgeon and his a.s.sistant could bestow. The brig's loss was very severe, sixteen of her men having been killed and twenty- two wounded--princ.i.p.ally by our final broadside--out of a total of sixty hands. Our own loss was light, considering the determination with which the enemy had fought, amounting to only eleven wounded. As soon as a sufficiency of hands could be spared for the purpose, the brig's square canvas was furled, a prize crew was told off to take charge of her, and the two craft then made sail in company--the brig under her fore-and-aft canvas only--for the anchorage under Padron Point, where we brought up about a couple of hours later. Captain Vernon then returned to the _Daphne_ in the brig's gig, bringing with him a bundle of papers, and leaving Smellie in charge of the prize; an anchor-watch was set, and all hands then turned in, pretty well tired but highly elated at the result of our evening's work.

At daybreak next morning both vessels weighed and returned to their former berths in Banana Creek, the _Daphne_ picking up the cable which she had slipped on the previous night. The dead were then buried on the little island which lies on the east side of the creek; after which the carpenter and boatswain with their mates were set to work upon the necessary repairs to the brig. This craft now proved to be English built, having been turned out of a Sh.o.r.eham shipyard, and originally registered under the name of the _Virginia_; but how she had come to get into the hands of the individuals from whom we took her there was nothing to show. She was completely fitted for carrying on the business of a slaver; but from the nature of the goods discovered in her after hold--which was quite separate from her main hold--there could be no doubt that she had also done a little piracy whenever a convenient opportunity had presented itself.

I was sent away directly after breakfast that morning in charge of a couple of boats with orders to drag the creek for poor Mr Austin's body, and in little more than an hour we fortunately found it quite uninjured. The poor fellow had evidently been taken completely by surprise, a gag being in his mouth, and his hands manacled behind him, with a stout canvas bag containing two 18-pound shot lashed to his feet.

We took the body on board the _Daphne_, and it was at once conveyed below to his own cabin, pending the construction of a coffin, the ensign being at the same time hoisted half up to the peak.

This melancholy duty performed I was again sent away to drag for the anchor and cable slipped by the _Virginia_ on the previous evening, and these also I found, weighed, and conveyed on board the prize, where, under Smellie's able supervision, the work of repairing and refitting was going on apace.