The Penang Pirate Part 7

"The boats were soon in the water, under our lee, the men shinning down into them by the falls, each chap with his cutla.s.s tucked into his waistband; and, in another moment, rounding under the stem of the _Dolphin_, and getting nearly swamped as we breasted the sea, we made for the dhow, that now lay about half a cable's-length from our vessel, which had drifted a bit astern.

"'Put your backs into the stroke!' sang out Captain Wilson from his gig--for I was in the cutter; and with grim earnestness we stretched out as hard as we could, gripping the water firmly and then pulling with all our strength. It was hard work against such a sea as was then running and in the face of the wind, which was still rising and more gusty than before; but we were soon alongside the chase, both the boats boarding her of course to leeward, although the captain in his gig dashed at the high p.o.o.p astern, while we in the cutter made for her bows, which lay lower in the water and would thus enable us to get more easily on board.

"Captain Wilson was right in his suspicions about the Arab skipper's surrender. Although he had waved that red rag of his to make-believe that he had given in, so that we might not give him a broadside as he probably expected--for of course he didn't know that we would not fire the big guns for fear of killing the poor slaves in the hold--no sooner had we got alongside than the beggars showed fight.

"I and another chap managed to grab hold of the bowsprit gear to haul ourselves up by into the fo'c'sle of the dhow, when chop came a cut that severed the ropes we had clutched, causing us to let go and drop back again into the bottom of the cutter with a thump that nearly knocked the bottom out of her, while another Arab shoved out the muzzle of a long matchlock right amongst us and fired it off so closely that the charge singed my whiskers. That did one good job, however, for it made us pretty angry, as you might imagine, and the whole cutter's crew tumbled aboard in a way that astonished them, I can tell you. They fought pluckily though, but they were more like mad cats than men, screaming and tearing us with their nails when we had knocked their long knives out of their hands and disarmed them. As for the skipper of the dhow, he was a perfect demon, and would have settled Captain Wilson had it not been for the c.o.xswain of the gig giving him a drive through with his cutla.s.s just as he had got our captain down and, kneeling on his chest, was preparing coolly to cut his throat with the keen curving scimitar that we had seen in his belt. Captain Wilson looked, sir, as pale as a ghost when he got on his feet again; for although he was as brave an officer as ever stepped, it does give a fellow a bit of a turn sometimes to be face to face with death, as he was then, and know that nothing, probably, can save you!

"When we had got the better hand of the slave crew, in which we did not quite get off scot-free, five of our men being killed outright and several wounded with ugly gashes from the sharp knives of the Arabs, we set about opening the hatches to release the slaves, who had all this while been kicking up a thundering row below, yelling and hollering as if they were all being murdered.

"Well, bless you! why, there were no less than three hundred and fifty crammed in the hold fore and aft on the two decks that were underneath the main one, and which had not four feet of s.p.a.ce between them; the people, men, women, and children, being packed together so close that you couldn't have got a sheet of paper edgeways between them. As for the smell; well, sir, I think you'd prefer that of a gas main just opened, or the foulest scent you could think of, to what we all smelt in the hold of that there dhow; for it seemed to smother us and make the strongest men aboard turn faint just like a girl does when she cuts her finger and sees the blood.

"After releasing half of them and bringing them up on the upper deck of the dhow, for there was not s.p.a.ce to let the whole of them out of the hold at once, we had to rig up the masts of the craft again so that she could make sail, the weather being too ticklish for the _Dolphin_ to take her in tow; although she did so for awhile, just in order to get a little further away from the coast, which was not too pleasant a neighbour with a north-east monsoon blowing and a heavy sea setting in towards the land.

"By the time we had rigged up jury-masts on the dhow it was dark, so, warning the prize-crew that was on board, of which I was one, to keep a sharp look-out and mind that our tow-rope didn't part, Captain Wilson went back to his own vessel--he wouldn't leave us till everything was ship-shape again with the slaver and everybody seemed comfortable-like; taking with him the majority of the Arabs who had been uninjured in the scuffle, and who might have tried perhaps to recapture the dhow from the small lot of men whom our captain was able only to spare to man her. Of course, there was very little chance of their attempting this now that their skipper was dead, the c.o.xswain's thrust with his cutla.s.s having lost the dark gentleman the 'number of his mess'; but still, after the treachery they had already shown, it was best to take all proper precautions to spoil any little game they might try on.

"During the night, the _Dolphin_ kept under easy steam head to sea, only just preventing us from drifting ash.o.r.e, as our tow-rope was hardly ever taut the whole time, for the wind blew so strongly still from the northward and eastward, the very direction we had to make for to reach Zanzibar with our prize, that it was impossible for the steamer to make any way against it, especially with the dhow in tow. The sea, too, was also very rough, breaking over the frail craft so frequently that we had to pack down all the slaves again below to prevent their being washed overboard.

"Towards morning, the wind gradually lessened, showing signs of shifting, which was to be expected at the season, being near the end of March. The sea, too, calmed down a bit, but there was still a heavy ground-swell, and from all appearances it looked as if there was going to be a squall, the more especially as it began to rain heavily. I had been left by Captain Wilson in charge of the prize-crew, and this change in the weather made me feel somewhat uneasy of the tow-rope breaking from the increased strain there was now on it through the labouring of the dhow; for I thought it would be better for both the _Dolphin_ and ourselves that we should cast loose and each sail on her own account, as at this time of the year the south-west monsoon, which takes the place of the north-eastern 'kizkasi,' as it is cabled, or Indian trade-wind, generally sets in with a violent tornado blowing from off the land.

"Accordingly, as soon as daylight I hailed the steamer to send a boat aboard for me as I wished to speak to the captain. I had something more to tell him, however, than about my fears concerning the weather; for, while I was keeping watch during the night, I had heard some words dropped from the Arab prisoners on the foc's'le which I thought it best for him to know."

"Did you?" I said.

"Yes," said Ben, continuing his story. "While I was at Zanzibar I made it a point to study the lingo of the natives there, and had learned a good many words of the Kisawahili tongue, which is the _lingua Franca_ of the coast; and hearing these half-caste Arabs talking together I listened to what they said, for being a Feringhee in their eyes they did not think I could understand them. Of course I couldn't manage to stumble to everything I heard, some of their words being incomprehensible to me; but I gathered enough to learn that the dhow we had captured was in company with another one equally as large, loaded with slaves, that had got off clear and was now probably making its way towards the Persian Gulf out of reach of the _Dolphin_.

"This would be good news, I knew, for Captain Wilson; for, although the Arabs believed that this dhow had escaped us, if the _Dolphin_ at once went in pursuit of her in the right direction there was not the slightest doubt of her being able to overhaul her before she reached her destination, which was, I learned through the chatter of the prisoners, first to Mafiyah, as a sort of hiding-place until we should be reported out of the way, and then on to Muscat on the Arabian coast.

"I had no sooner got on board the _Dolphin_ in the dinghy sent for me, than, the skipper confirmed my own opinion as to the importance of the information I had obtained, although he said something which slightly damped my enthusiasm, in giving me a job I had not bargained for.

"'You've done quite right, Campion, my man,' said he, 'in not losing time. I am glad you hailed me when you did, for every hour is precious in getting up with a chase that has got such a good start. I shall take care to mention you in my despatches for your prompt a.s.sistance in giving me news of this vessel, as well as for your gallantry in the capture of the _Fatima_,'--that was the name of the one we had already taken, sir, and now had in tow.

"So far Captain Wilson quite flabbergasted me with his compliments and made me feel as proud as Punch; but his next words lowered me down a peg, I can tell you!

"'I'm sorry, however, I sha'n't be able to take you with me, Campion,'

he went on, 'to see the end of this other affair; for now that I have to start off in chase of the other slaver, which will take me off the station, where some of the little Mtpe dhows will be trying to make runs from the mainland, thinking the coast unguarded, I intend leaving the pinnace behind to cruise about the Comoro Islands until I get back with the _Dolphin_, and, as you are the only responsible man I could trust to take charge of the boat and crew, you must remain here. Pa.s.s the word at once for the boatswain to pipe away the pinnace and see that she is properly stowed and provisioned.'

"This was a good deal more than I had bargained for. I thought I should have been allowed to remain as prize-master of the _Fatima_ and sail her up to Zanzibar, as that was what the captain had hinted the night before. However, of course I put the best face I could on the matter, and contented myself with seeing that the water barricoes and stores were properly put on board the pinnace, while all the other men who had not to remain behind with me and the boat were in high glee getting ready for the fresh chase, the news being already whispered about in the messes--hoping that they would have just such another scrimmage again as they had had the day before at the capture of the _Fatima_.

"Captain Wilson did not 'let the gra.s.s grow under his feet,' as the saying goes--though it's rather a queer one for a seaman to use--in carrying out what he had decided on.

"Before the blazing African sun was an hour old, by which time too the rain had stopped falling, the second lieutenant of the _Dolphin_ was transferred to the command of the captured dhow, our 'First Swab' having been wounded, taking with him all the prisoners that had been previously removed to our vessel for safety, although they were now bound securely with ropes and had a guard set over them to prevent their doing mischief, besides some additional hands to navigate the _Fatima_--which, hoisting her big lugs on the jury-masts we had rigged up the previous evening, and casting off the _Dolphin's_ tow-rope, was soon standing up the coast on her way to Zanzibar, keeping well insh.o.r.e now, as that course was safest since the wind had changed.

"Hardly had the dhow got well off than the pinnace was lowered into the water alongside the steamer, her crew dropping in one by one, and I, of course, descending last. We had provisions and water on board to last us for six weeks, the usual time that boats are sent away from the vessels to which they belong on the east coast when cruising independently, as they all take it in turn to do; and Captain Wilson told me I was to hover about between Madagascar and the mainland in the Mozambique Channel until we might expect him back, which would be a month at farthest, even making allowances for his being detained at Zanzibar about the condemning of the slave-dhows which we had already captured and the one which he now hoped to get hold of.

"The _Dolphin_ then took us in tow till we were abreast of the Comoro Isles, when she cast us adrift, starting off up the channel full speed and steering north-east and by north, so as to get well out to sea before stretching in to the land towards Mafiyah, where she expected to pick up the slaver; while we, hoisting the sails of the pinnace, and taking it easy under the boat's awning that was spread fore and aft, bore away for Madagascar. Ah! sir, that was the commencement of an unfortunate voyage, for it was months before some of those that formed the pinnace's crew ever met their old shipmates again on board the _Dolphin_; the majority of those with me in the boat never met the hands we left on board the steamer again at all, nor will they till that great last day of all when the sea gives up its dead!"

"I suppose you refer to that time when you said you were capsized off the coast of Madagascar, eh?" said I, noticing that Ben Campion paused at this point.

"Aye," he replied; "but I'm afraid it'll take a precious long time to reel off the yarn concerning that period of the story!"

"Never mind, please go on," I replied. "Now you've begun and got so far, I'm sure I should like to hear the end of it."

"All right, then," he replied; but, before proceeding, he had to load up a fresh pipe, and while performing this interesting little operation he informed me, _en pa.s.sant_, that the _Dolphin_ he afterwards heard had succeeded in capturing the second dhow, and her first prize the _Fatima_ had safely reached Zanzibar; and, consequently, that his prize-money for both seizures was safe, the sum accrueing to him amounting to over 50, being subsequently paid over to him when he rejoined his ship some time afterwards--"and spent, too, long since," as he said.

These little matters, relevant and irrelevant, being thus disposed of, Ben continued his narrative as follows.

VOLUME TWO, CHAPTER THREE.

IN THE MOZAMBIQUE CHANNEL.

"Where was I, sir?"

"You had just been turned adrift from the ship, I think," said I, "and left to cruise on your own account--wasn't that so?"

"Ah! yes, I remember now, sir. Well, then, when the _Dolphin_ had got well away from us, leaving us poor chaps to our own resources, we in the pinnace, now well under her canvas, were sailing along on a course almost at right angles to that taken by our old ship, which somewhat took away from the nasty feeling of being sort of left behind, you know; but, we could not help watching her with longing eyes as she sped away northward under full steam and with all her fore-and-aft sails set that could draw, going fourteen knots at the least!

"It was a lovely morning that there--the loveliest I ever saw on the African coast; for there was no mist, and the rain having ceased, the strong sou'-westerly breeze that was blowing right offsh.o.r.e from the mainland tempered down the heat of the broiling sun, which only those who have been on the coast can have an idea of as to how intense it can be, while the pinnace was moving quickly through the water; and it was not long before the _Dolphin_ was hull down on the horizon, the white gleam of her upper canvas vanishing soon after. But, for a long time succeeding that, we could still see the smoke from her funnel spread out in the shape of a fan to leeward, where it was blown by the following wind right across the sky and was clearly apparent in the clear blue air above as well as reflected in the sea below. Then, too, that disappeared at length, and we were left alone in our little boat on the waste of waters!

"I tell you we did feel a bit melancholy and down in the dumps then, especially as all hands knew the errand on which the old ship had gone and felt that we were out of the fun! However, I did not give the men time to think of this too long; for, acting under the directions given me by the skipper, I steered the pinnace towards the coast to windward of the Comoro Islands, intending after dark to creep up under the lee of Saint Juan, where I'd been told the dhows mostly made for when the coast was clear; and, what with tr.i.m.m.i.n.g the sails and making taut the sheets, as well as stationing a special look-out in the bows and one in the stern behind me at the helm, I soon managed to turn the men's attention away from the _Dolphin_, though some of them still seemed chop-fallen, being new to boat cruising and not relishing the work.

"Of course, I knew in what a responsible position I was--almost like that of the captain of a ship; for, I could order the men to do anything I pleased, and if they disobeyed me have them tried for mutiny, while I had the right to attack and capture any native vessels I suspected of having slaves on board--so, soon after noon, when I piped all hands to dinner, I made them a little speech after the grub had been stowed away comfortably, pointing out that their circ.u.mstances were considerably better than they themselves appeared to think. In course, I said, our shipmates in the _Dolphin_ had a bit the advantage of us in starting off on another chase, with perhaps the chance of a second scrimmage at the end of it, the same as we had all had together on the previous evening; but then, I says, what we were doing was equally for the good of the service; and, besides, as soon as the steamer had overhauled the slaver she was after she would have to go back to that beastly Zanzibar in the thick of fever time, remaining there probably for weeks, until she got rid of the slaves from the captured dhows, while, on the contrary, we would be down here cruising about on the free open sea and enjoying ourselves!

"We lost nothing by remaining there, I said. If our old ship took the slaver she was now chasing, why, we would share in the prize-money just the same as if we'd been on board her, without running the risk of any hard knocks or having some Arab's dagger cutting daylight into us; and if she didn't succeed in hunting down the dhow, which was more than likely, considering the long start the latter had got, why, then we would be well out of a wild-goose chase.

"In addition to such arguments," continued Ben, who sometimes spoke with a purity of diction that is much more common amongst seamen of the navy of to-day than it was in "the good old days" of our ancestors before education was much in vogue, "I hinted that n.o.body could say we might not pick up a slave-dhow down there on our own hook quite as good as the other one we could not go after; and if not, well, at all events we would have an easier time of it than if we had been kept on board the ship! There, as they knew, the skipper took jolly good care to serve us out full purser's allowance of drill if there was nothing else stirring; for it was beating to quarters, or small-arm exercise, or manning the big guns, and playing all such fancy tricks with us when he had no better work to keep us employed with between watches. I can tell you, I never saw such a hand as Cap'en Wilson for that. He used to say that the devil always found something for idle hands; and the way he went about remedying this reminded me of the old poetry lines I once heard a Yankee sailor call the 'Philadelphia Catechism'--

"'Six days shalt thou labour and do all thou art able, And on the seventh,--holystone the decks and sc.r.a.pe the cable!'

"These words of mine had such an effect on the men that I a.s.sure you, sir, they grew quite cheerful like, chatting and laughing together as they lolled about on the thwarts under the boat awnings that were spread fore and aft I allowed them to take it easy, with the exception of the hands having charge of the sheets of the sails and those on the look- out, as I don't think discipline is preserved any the better by keeping fellows continually on the stretch when there's nothing particular to do, merely to see them slaving their hearts out.

"Presently, the look-out forward said he thought he saw the white sail of a dhow close in to the island we were beating to windward of; and of course every one immediately must take it for granted that she's a contraband carrying slaves."

"I suppose you didn't undeceive them?" said I.

"Not I," replied Ben. "I was only too glad of the chance. It banished at once all thoughts of the old _Dolphin_ out of their heads better than all my palaver, for all hands were so anxious to come up with the strange craft that they themselves voted for taking to the oars, which I certainly wouldn't have ordered their doing in the terrible afternoon heat, as, while we were having our dinner, the wind had been gradually dying until it was now almost a dead calm, and the sails flapping against the masts, with the boat rocking on the heavy rolling swell that you always meet with out there when the sun is at the meridian."

"I thought you expected a tornado in the early morning?" I here suggested.

"Ah! never you mind about that," said Ben. "We haven't yet done with the east-coast weather, as you'll see presently. Howsomever, as I was saying," he continued, "I told them to take in the sails, being so minded, and rig out the oars. They didn't lose any time about it either, for as soon as I gave the order it was all haul down and furl up; and, getting a good grip of the water, they started pulling like madmen, putting their hearts into every stroke--although the day was so hot and sweltry that a fellow seemed to melt away into perspiration, even lying still in the stern-sheets of the boat, as I was, without moving a muscle.

"The craft which had been sighted by the look-out forward was a small Mtpe dhow well under the lee of the island and creeping along-sh.o.r.e, her light sails and the wider spread of canvas which her lateen rig permitted enabling her to take advantage of the slightest puff of air; while our heavy pinnace, with her small-cut sails hardly raised above the surface of the sea, so as to get the full force of the wind, required a strong breeze to move her at all, although then she had pretty fair speed.

"Now that the men had taken to the oars, however, we began to approach the stranger more rapidly; but she was over five miles off, and a pull of that length under a burning sun is no joke, I can a.s.sure you. Stroke after stroke, our plucky seamen kept at it in spite of the heat, one minute appearing to gain and then again to lose distance as a whiff of air would waft the dhow along; so that, it was not until nearly sunset that we got within gunshot, and could hail her to see what she was up to.

"'Now, Adams,' said I to the man in the bows, who had command of the seven-pounder boat-gun we had fixed there, 'I think we may invite the stranger gentleman to have a little chat. Fire away, my man, and make her come to.'

"All was ready, so without more ado he fired, the shot ricochetting across the prow of the Arab craft, which had by this time cleared the island and seemed making for Madagascar, that lay east and by south some three hundred miles off. At all events, the dhow was steering in that direction, with whatever wind there was on her beam, and she paid no attention to us at all apparently.