Chapter V

When we boarded the slaver, we left on board our vessel the helmsman Peter Mangrave, the black quarter-master Pearl, five negroes who were on board as passengers, little Reefpoint, who was wounded, and Bangs, Gelid, and Wagtail. At the moment when I had given up all as lost, honest Pearl sprang on deck, his cutlass in his hand, accompanied by the five blacks and Peter Mangrave, whilst behind him came no less a person than Aaron Bangs, with the three negro servants, whom he had armed with pikes.

"Now Pearl, my beauty," cried Bangs, waving his cutlass, "give them a touch of their own lingo."

Immediately the black quarter-master called out:

"Coramantee Sheik Cowloo kokemoni pepulorum fir."

Which I afterwards found out meant, "See the Sultan Cowloo, the great ostrich, with a feather on his back as big as a palm leaf; fight for him, you dogs."

Immediately the blacks joined Bangs' party, and commenced so fierce an attack on their former masters, that they soon drove them down the hatchway, leaving half their number on the bloody deck, dead or dangerously wounded. But, driven to desperation, they still resisted, firing up the hatchway, and paying no attention to my repeated demands to them to surrender.

"God in Heaven!" cried Jigmaree, "that is the sound of hammers; they are freeing the blacks."

"If you unchain the negroes," cried I, in the Spanish language, "by the Heaven above us, I will blow you into the air, if I have to go with you. Stop, Spanairds! think madmen, what you are doing."

"Cover the hatches," cried Tailtackle.

But the covers must have been lost overboard, for they were nowhere to be found. The firing from the hold still continued.

"Loosen the gun, and load it with grape," cried I. "Forward with it, and fire down the hatchway."

The shot struck among the closely packed slaves, and a fearful, heart-rending cry rent the air. Oh God! I shall never forget it. Yet still the madmen continued their fire.

"Load, and fire again."

My men were now mad with rage, and fought more like devils than human beings.

"Once more, my lads," cried I; but this time they pushed the gun so madly forward, that both it and the carriage were precipitated with a fearful crash into the hold. At the same moment a cloud of smoke burst forth from the hold.

"They have fired the brig," cried Jigmaree. "Back to the schooner, or we shall be blown into the air like onion peels."

But the schooner had got loose, and was fast leaving us. Gelid, Wagtail, and Reefpoint, were on board; the latter, though badly wounded, had crept out of his hammock, and on deck. They made us understand, by signs, that they could not hoist the sails, and that, moreover, the rudder was shot away, and the vessel unmanageable in consequence.

"Up with the foresail, men," cried I; "hoist the foresail, and get the brig under way, or we are lost."

My men obeyed my orders with the calmness of desperation. I took hold of the wheel myself, and in a few moments we lay alongside of our vessel once more. It was high time, for already some hundred and fifty unfettered slaves had rushed on deck, and we had hardly time to spring on board, to escape the furious charge they made on us from the hinder part of the vessel. The murderous fire of grape shot they had endured, had made them perfectly mad with rage, and had they been able to get at us we should undoubtedly have been torn to pieces.

But the fire was quicker than they. The smoke, which rose like a pillar of clouds through the hatchway, was now mingled with red tongues of flame, which, like fiery serpents, twined themselves round the crackling masts and rigging, that shrivelled in their hot embrace. The sea, too, vied with its fierce brother element in destroying the ill-fated vessel. Either through our shots, or from the falling of the gun into its hold, some of the planks had been started, and the water rushed in in torrents. The flames increase, the guns become heated and go off, and at last the ship suddenly sinks from our view, whilst the loud and awful death-cry of five hundred helpless beings, imprisoned in the burning vessel, rings in our ears, curdling our blood, and seeming as if it would burst the very vault of Heaven with its appalling tones. It was a fitting knell to be rung over the slaver's grave.

And now the brilliant rays of the setting sun, streaming brightly over the waters, gild with an unearthly glare the whirling clouds of smoke, that rising towards the blue sky, grow fainter and fainter until they are lost in the clear ether. The sea no longer dances and flashes in the red light, as if exulting with the glee of fiends at the mortal agony of its victims. Calm and smooth as a polished mirror, it lies spread out over the spot where the slaver sank.

Suddenly a huge cloud of thick black smoke rises from the bosom of the deep. It mounts upward until it rivals in height our vessel's masts, and then it spreads itself over the scene like a sable pall, as if it would prevent the fumes of such unclean and hideous offering from rising to Heaven, and hurl them down on our accursed heads, as witnesses of the wrath of that Being, who has said: "Thou shalt not kill." And now for a moment all is still as the grave, and it seems to me that the air is too hot and close to breathe; it stifles me, and I feel like a second Cain.

At this moment a crowd of slaves, men, women, and little children, who had been drawn down by the sinking vessel, appeared struggling on the surface of the sea. The strongest cried like very devils in their despair, whilst the women and children, the weak and the helpless, gasped vainly for breath, and worn out by their efforts to sustain themselves above the water, sank at last to the bottom with a look of mute agony I shall never forget. Among the whole number, we did not see one of the ship's crew. Like desperate men, they had sunk with their vessel. We fished up about one half of the unhappy blacks, but the direst necessity compelled us to leave the rest of them, as it was impossible for us to take them on board. Oh that I could for ever blot this scene from my memory!

It chanced that among those saved, was a young and pretty girl, who, weak and exhausted, was lying on deck, her head resting on a block of wood. A powerful negro swam to that part of the vessel where she lay. Seeing him in the water, she sprang up and held out her hand to him, to help him on board. As he was about to grasp it, he was struck in the breast by a shot, and mortally wounded. With a shriek the poor girl sprang overboard, clasped him in her arms, and they sank together.

"Oh, woman, woman," said Aaron, "whatever may be the color of thy skin, thy heart is always the same."

Soon all was still again; here and there a wounded negro still struggled for a moment ere he sank into his watery grave. A few spars from the ill-fated vessel, were yet tossed about on the surface of the sea, whilst the blood-red rays of the setting sun poured a flood of light over the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn rigging of the schooner, lighting up the faces of the dead with an unearthly glare. At this moment some drops of rain fell from a passing cloud, like tears from the pitying eyes of an angel, who, sailing through the skies, had stopped for a moment in her flight to look down sorrowfully on the scene of desolation which man, the worm of a day, had caused in a moment of power and savage madness.

On a gun-carriage, close to me, sat Aaron, whilst the surgeon bound up a cut in his neck. He looked solemnly at me for a moment, and then pointing towards the brilliant luminary, which, as it sank beneath the waves, lit up the western sky with a crimson and golden light, said:

"Remember this morning, captain, and thank the Almighty, who whilst sending so many poor creatures to their final account, has in his great mercy permitted us to see the end of this fearful day. Oh, thank him, captain, that you have once more seen the sun set."