Chapter XV: The Cruise of the Wave. The Action with the Slaver (2)

So saying, Pegtop, Chew Chew, and Yampea, each shouldered two muskets apiece, and betook themselves to the after part of the schooner, where they forthwith set themselves to scour, and oil, and clean the same, in a most skilful manner. I expected the breeze would have freshened as the day broke, but I was disappointed; it fell, towards six o’clock, nearly calm. Come, thought I, we may as well go to breakfast; and my guests and I forthwith sat down to our morning meal. Soon after, the wind died away altogether--and “out sweeps” was the word; but I soon saw we had no chance with the chase at this game, and as to attacking him with the boats, it was entirely out of the question; neither could I, in the prospect of a battle, afford to murder the people, by pulling all day under a roasting sun, against one who could man his sweeps with relays of slaves, without one of his crew putting a finger to them; so I reluctantly laid them in, and there I stood looking at him the whole forenoon, as he gradually drew ahead of us. At length I piped to dinner, and the men having finished theirs, were again on deck; but the calm still continued; and seeing no chance of it freshening, about four in the afternoon we sat down to ours in the cabin. There was little said; my friends, although brave and resolute men, were naturally happy to see the brig creeping away from us, as fighting could only bring them danger; and my own feelings were of that mixed quality, that while I determined to do all I could to bring him to action, it would not have broken my heart had he escaped. We had scarcely finished dinner, however, when the rushing of the water past the run of the little vessel, and the steadiness with which she skimmed along, shewed that the light air had freshened.

Presently Tailtackle came down. “The breeze has set down, sir; the strange sail has got it strong to windward, and brings it along with him cheerily.”

“Beat to quarters, then, Tailtackle; all hands stand by to shorten sail. How is she standing?”

“Right down for us, sir.”

I went on deck, and there was the Guineaman about two miles to windward, evidently cleared for action, with her decks crowded with men, bowling along steadily under her single-reefed topsails.

I saw all clear. Wagtail and Gelid had followed me on deck, and were now busy with their black servants inspecting the muskets. But Bang still remained in the cabin. I went down. He was gobbling his last plantain, and forking up along with it most respectable slices of cheese, when I entered.

I had seen before I left the deck that an action was now unavoidable, and judging from the disparity of force, I had my own doubts as to the issue. I need scarcely say that I was greatly excited. It was my first command: My future standing in the service depended on my conduct now, and, God help me, I was all this while a mere lad, not more than twenty one years old. A strange indescribable feeling had come over me, and an irresistible desire to disburden my mind to the excellent man before me. I sat down.

“Hey day,” quoth Bang, as he laid down his coffee cup; “why, Tom, what ails you? You look deuced pale, my boy.”

“Up all night, sir, and bothered all day,” said I; “wearied enough, I can tell you.”

I felt a strong tremor pervade my whole frame at this moment; and I was impelled to speak by some unknown impulse, which I could not account for nor analyze.

“Mr Bang, you are the only friend whom I could count on in these countries; you know all about me and mine, and, I believe, would willingly do a kind action to my father’s son.”

“What are you at, Tom, my dear boy? come to the point, man.”

“I will. I am distressed beyond measure at having led you and your excellent friends, Wagtail and Gelid, into this danger; but I could not help it, and I have satisfied my conscience on that point; so I have only to entreat that you will stay below, and not unnecessarily expose yourselves. And if I should fall--may I take this liberty, my dear sir,” and I involuntarily took his hand,--“if I should fall, and I doubt if I shall ever see the sun set again, as we are fearfully overmatched” Bang struck in.

“Why, if our friend be too big--why not be off then? Pull foot, man, eh?--Havannah under your lee?”

“A thousand reasons against it, my dear sir. I am a young man and a young officer, my character is to make in the service--No, no, it is impossible--an older and more tried hand might have bore up, but I must fight it out. If any stray shot carries me off, my dear sir, will you take”--Mary, I would have said, but I could not pronounce her name for the soul of me--“will you take charge of her miniature, and say I died as I have”--a choking lump rose in my throat, and I could not proceed for a second; “and will you send my writing desk to my poor mother, there are letters in”--the lump grew bigger, the hot tears streamed from my eyes in torrents. I trembled like an aspen leaf, and grasping my excellent friend’s hand more firmly, I sunk down on my knees in a passion of tears, and wept like a woman, and fervently prayed to that great God, in whose almighty hand I stood, that I might that day do my duty as an English seaman. Bang knelt by me. Presently the passion was quelled. I rose, and so did he.

“Before you, my dear sir, I am not ashamed to have....”

“Don’t mention it my good boy--don’t mention it; neither of us, as the old general said, will fight a bit the worse.”

I looked at him. “Do you then mean to fight?” said I.

“To be sure I do--why not? I have no wife,”--he did not say he had no children--“Fight? To be sure I do.”

“Another gun, sir,” said Tailtackle, through the open skylight. Now all was bustle, and we hastened on deck. Our antagonist was a large brig, three hundred tons at the least, a long low vessel, painted black, out and in, and her sides round as an apple, with immensely square yards. She was apparently full of men. The sun was getting low, and she was coming down fast on us, on the verge of the dark blue water of the sea breeze. I could make out ten ports and nine guns of a side. I inwardly prayed they might not be long ones, but I was not a little startled to see through the glass that there were crowds of naked negroes at quarters, and on the forecastle and poop. That she was a contraband Guineaman, I had already made up my mind to believe; and that she had some fifty hands of a crew, I also considered likely; but that her captain should have resorted to such a perilous measure, perilous to themselves as well as to us, as arming the captive slaves, was quite unexpected, and not a little alarming, as it evinced his determination to make the most desperate resistance.

Tailtackle was standing beside me at this time, with his jacket off, his cutlass girded on his thigh, and the belt drawn very tight. All the rest of the crew were armed in a similar fashion; the small-arm-men with muskets in their hands, and the rest at quarters at the guns; while the pikes were cast loose from the spars round which they had been stopped, with tubs of wadding, and boxes of grape, all ready ranged, and every thing clear for action.

“Mr Tailtackle” said I, “you are gunner here, and should be in the magazine. Cast off that cutlass; it is not your province to lead the boarders.” The poor fellow blushed, having, in the excitement of the moment, forgotten that he was any thing more than captain of the Firebrand’s maintop.

“Mr Timotheus,” said Bang, “have you one of these bodkins to spare?”

Timothy laughed. “Certainly, sir; but you don’t mean to head the boarders, sir--do you?”

“Who knows, now since I have learned to walk on this dancing cork of a craft?” rejoined Aaron, with a grim smile, while he pulled off his coat, braced on his cutlass, and tied a large red cotton shawl round his head. He then took off his neckerchief and fastened it round his waist, as tight as he could draw.

“Strange that all men in peril--on the uneasiness, like,” said he, “should always gird themselves as tightly as they can.”

The slaver was now within musket-shot, when he put his helm to port, with the view of passing under our stem. To prevent being raked, we had to luff up sharp in the wind, and fire a broadside. I noticed the white splinters glance from his black wales; and once more the same sharp yell rung in our ears, followed by the long melancholy howl, already described.

“We have pinned some of the poor blacks again,” said Tailtackle, who still lingered on the deck; small space for remark, for the slaver again fired his broadside at us, with the same cool precision as before.

“Down with the helm, and let her come round,” said I; “that will do master, run across his stern--Out sweeps forward, and keep her there get the other carronade over to leeward--that is it--now, blaze away while he is becalmed--fire, small-arm-men, and take good aim.”

We were now right across his stern, with his spanker boom within ten yards of us; and although he worked his two stem chasers with great determination, and poured whole showers of musketry from his rigging, and poop, and cabin-windows, yet, from the cleverness with which our sweeps were pulled, and the accuracy with which we were kept in our position, right athwart his stern, our fire, both from the cannon and musketry, the former loaded with round and grape, was telling, I could see, with fearful effect.

Crash--“There, my lads, down goes his main-topmast--pepper him well, while they are blinded and confused among the wreck. Fire away--there goes the peak, shot away cleverly, close by the throat. Don’t cease firing, although his flag be down--it was none of his doing. There, my lads, there he has it again; you have shot away the weather fore topsail sheet, and he cannot get from under you.”

Two men at this moment lay out on his larboard foreyard-arm, apparently with the intention of splicing the sheet, and getting the clew of the fore-topsail once more down to the yard; if they had succeeded in this, the vessel would again have fetched way, and drawn out from under our fire. Mr Bang and Paul Gelid had all this time been firing with murderous precision, from where they had ensconced themselves under the shelter of the larboard bulwark, close to the taffrail, with their three black servants in the cabin, loading the six muskets, and little Wagtail, who was no great shot, sitting on the deck, handing them up and down.

“Now, Mr Bang,” cried I, “for the love of Heaven”--and may Heaven forgive me for the ill-placed exclamation--“mark these two men--down with them?”

Bang turned towards me with all the coolness in the world “What, those chaps on the end of the long stick?”

“Yes--yes,” (I here spoke of the larboard foreyard-arm,) “yes, down with them.”

He lifted his piece as steadily as if he had really been duck shooting.

“I say, Gelid, my lad, take you the innermost.”

“Ah!” quoth Paul. They fired--and down dropped both men, and squattered for a moment in the water, like wounded waterfowl, and then sank for ever, leaving two small puddles of blood on the surface.

“Now, master,” shouted I, “put the helm up and lay him alongside--there stand by with the grapplings--one round the backstay the other through the chainplate there--so,--you have it.” As we ranged under his counter “Mainchains are your chance, men--boarders, follow me.” And in the enthusiasm of the moment I jumped into the slaver’s main channel, followed by twenty-eight men. We were in the act of getting over the netting when the enemy rallied, and fired a volley of small arms, which sent four out of the twenty-eight to their account, and wounded three more. We gained the quarterdeck, where the Spanish captain, and about forty of his crew, shewed a determined front, cutlass and pistol in hand we charged them--they stood their ground. Tailtackle (who, the moment he heard the boarders called, had jumped out of the magazine, and followed me) at a blow clove the Spanish captain to the chine; the lieutenant, or second in command, was my bird, and I had disabled him by a sabre-cut on the sword-arm, when he drew his pistol, and shot me through the left shoulder. I felt no pain, but a sharp pinch, and then a cold sensation, as if water had been poured down my neck.

Jigmaree was close by me with a boarding-pike, and our fellows were fighting with all the gallantry inherent in British sailors. For a moment the battle was poised in equal scales. At length our antagonists gave way, when about fifteen of the slaves, naked barbarians, who had been ranged with muskets in their hands on the forecastle, suddenly jumped down into the waist with a yell, and came to the rescue of the Spanish part of the crew.

I thought we were lost. Our people, all but Tailtackle, poor Handlead, and Jigmaree, held back. The Spaniards rallied, and fought with renewed courage, and it was now, not for glory, but for dear life, as all retreat was cut off by the parting of the grapplings and warps, that had lashed the schooner alongside of the slaver, for the Wave had by this time forged a-head, and lay across the brig’s bows, in place of being on her quarter, with her foremast jammed against the slaver’s bowsprit, whose spritsail-yard crossed our deck between the masts. We could not therefore retreat to our own vessel if we had wished it, as the Spaniards had possession of the waist and forecastle; all at once, however, a discharge of round and grape crashed through the bridleport of the brig, and swept off three of the black auxiliaries before mentioned, and wounded as many more, and the next moment an unexpected ally appeared on the field. When we boarded, the Wave had been left with only Peter Mangrove; the five dockyard negroes; Pearl, one of the Captain’s gigs, the handsome black already introduced on the scene; poor little Reefpoint, who, as already stated, was badly hurt; Aaron Bang, Paul Gelid, and Wagtail. But this Pearl without price, at the very moment of time when I thought the game was up, jumped on deck through the bowport, cutlass in hand, followed by the five black carpenters and Peter Mangrove, after whom appeared no less a personage than Aaron Bang himself and the three blackamoor valets, armed with boarding-pikes. Bang flourished his cutlass for an instant.

“Now, Pearl, my darling, shout to them in Coromantee--shout;” and forthwith the black quartermaster sung out, “Coromantee Sheik Cocoloo, kockemony populorum fiz;” which, as I afterwards learned, being interpreted, is, “Behold the Sultan Cocoloo, the great ostrich, with a feather in his tail like a palm branch; fight for him, you sons of female dogs.” In an instant the black Spanish auxiliaries sided with Pearl, and Bang, and the negroes, and joined in charging the white Spaniards, who were speedily driven down the main hatchway, leaving one half of their number dead, or badly wounded, on the blood slippery deck. But they still made a desperate defence, by firing up the hatchway. I hailed them to surrender.

“Zounds,” cried Jigmaree, “there’s the clink of hammers they are knocking off the fetters of the slaves.”

“If you let the blacks loose,” I sung out in Spanish, “by the Heaven above us, I will blow you up, although I should go with you! Hold your hands, Spaniards! Mind what you do, madmen!”

“On with the hatches, men,” shouted Tailtackle.

They had been thrown overboard, or put out of the way, they could nowhere be seen. The firing from below continued.

“Cast loose that carronade there; clap in a canister of grape, so now run it forward, and fire down the hatchway.” It was done, and taking effect amongst the pent-up slaves, such a yell arose--oh God! oh God!--I never can forget it. Still the maniacs continued firing up the hatchway.

“Load and fire again.” My people were now furious, and fought more like incarnate fiends broke loose from hell than human beings.

“Run the gun up to the hatchway once more.” They ran the carronade so furiously forward, that the coaming, or ledge, was split off, and down went the gun, carriage and all, with a crash into the hold. Presently smoke appeared rising up the fore-hatchway.

“They have set fire to the brig; overboard!--regain the schooner, or we shall all be blown into the air like peels of onions!” sung out little Jigmaree.

But where was the Wave? She had broke away, and was now a cable’s length ahead, apparently fast leaving us, with Paul Gelid and Wagtail, and poor little Reefpoint, who, badly wounded as he was, had left his hammock, and come on deck in the emergency, making signs of their inability to cut away the halyards; and the tiller being shot away, the schooner had become utterly unmanageable.

“UP,--and let fall the foresail, men--down with the fore tack cheerily now--get way on the brig, and overhaul the Wave promptly, or we are lost,” cried I. It was done with all the coolness of desperate men. I took the helm, and presently we were once more alongside of our own vessel. Time we were so, for about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, whose shackles had been knocked off, now scrambled up the fore hatchway, and we had only time to jump overboard, when they made a rush aft; and no doubt, exhausted as we were, they would have massacred us on the spot, frantic and furious as they evidently were from the murderous fire of grape that had been directed down the hatchway.

But the fire was quicker than they. The smouldering smoke that was rising like a pillar of cloud from the fore hatchway, was now streaked with tongues of red flame, which, licking the masts and spars, ran up and caught the sails and rigging. In an instant, the fire spread to every part of the gear aloft, while the other element, the sea, was also striving for the mastery in the destruction of the doomed vessel; for our shot, or the fall of the carronade into the hold, had started some of the bottom planks, and she was fast settling down by the head. We could hear the water rushing in like a mill stream. The fire increased her guns went off as they became heated--she gave a sudden heel--and while five hundred human beings, pent up in her noisome hold, split the heavens with their piercing death-yells, down she went with a heavy lurch, head foremost, right in the wake of the setting sun, whose level rays made the thick dun wreaths that burst from her as she disappeared, glow with the hue of the amethyst; and while the whirling clouds, gilded by his dying radiance, curled up into the blue sky, in rolling masses, growing thinner and thinner, until they vanished away, even like the wreck whereout they arose,--and the circling eddies, created by her sinking, no longer sparkled and flashed in the red light--and the stilled waters where she had gone down, as if oil had been cast on them, were spread out like polished silver, shining like a mirror, while all around was dark blue ripple,--a puff of fat black smoke, denser than any we had yet seen, suddenly emerged with a loud gurgling noise, from out the deep bosom of the calmed sea, and rose like a balloon, rolling slowly upwards, until it reached a little way above our mastheads, where it melted and spread out into a dark pall, that overhung the scene of death, as if the incense of such a horrible and polluted sacrifice could not ascend into the pure heaven, but had been again crushed back upon our devoted heads, as a palpable manifestation of the wrath of Him who hath said--“Thou shalt not kill.”

For a few moments all was silent as the grave, and I felt as if the air had become too thick for breathing, while I looked up like another Cain.

Presently, about one hundred and fifty of the slaves, men, women, and children, who had been drawn down by the vortex, rose amidst numberless pieces of smoking wreck, to the surface of the sea; the strongest yelling like fiends in their despair, while the weaker, the women, and the helpless gasping little ones, were choking, and gurgling, and sinking all around. Yea, the small thin expiring cry of the innocent sucking infant tom from its sinking mother’s breast, as she held it for a brief moment above the waters, which had already for ever closed over herself, was there. But we could not perceive one single individual of her white crew; like desperate men, they had all gone down with the brig. We picked up about one half of the miserable Africans, and--my pen trembles as I write it--fell necessity compelled us to fire on the remainder, as it was utterly impossible for us to take them on board. Oh that I could erase such a scene for ever from my memory! One incident I cannot help relating. We had saved a woman, a handsome clear skinned girl, of about sixteen years of age. She was very faint when we got her in, and was lying with her head over a port--sill, when a strong athletic young negro swam to the part of the schooner where she was. She held down her hand to him; he was in the act of grasping it, when he was shot through the heart from above. She instantly jumped overboard, and, clasping him in her arms, they sank, and disappeared together. “Oh, woman, whatever may be the colour of your skin, your heart is of one only!” said Aaron.

Soon all was quiet; a wounded black here and there was shrieking in his great agony, and struggling for a moment before he sank into his watery grave for ever; a few pieces of wreck were floating and sparkling on the surface of the deep in the blood red sunbeams, which streamed in a flood of glorious light on the bloody deck, shattered hull, and torn rigging of the Wave, and on the dead bodies and mangled limbs of those who had fallen; while some heavy scattering drops of rain fell sparkling from a passing cloud, as if Nature had wept in pity over the dismal scene; or as if they had been blessed tears, shed by an angel, in his heavenward course, as he hovered for a moment, and looked down in pity on the fantastic tricks played by the worm of a day--by weak man, in his little moment of power and ferocity. I said something--ill and hastily. Aaron was close beside me, sitting on a carronade slide, while the surgeon was dressing a pike wound in his neck. He looked up solemnly in my face, and then pointed to the blessed luminary, that was now sinking in the sea, and blazing up into the resplendent heavens--“Cringle, for shame for shame--your impatience is blasphemous. Remember this morning and thank Him”--here he looked up and crossed himself--“thank Him who, while he has called poor Mr Handlead, and so many brave fellows to their last awful reckoning, has mercifully brought us to the end of this fearful day;--oh, thank Him, Tom, that you have seen the sun set once more!”