Part 13 (1/2)
Then looking down the hold on the heaving ma.s.s of black humanity, he cried out, ”Hear me, you piratical rascals; if you don't make those poor negro fellows understand that we are their friends, and have come to set them free, we'll hang every one of you at your own yard-arms before ten minutes.” He knew that many of the crew understood English perfectly, indeed that some of them were English and Americans.
The pirates, finding that their plot was defeated, wisely came on deck, having explained to the slaves that no harm was going to happen to them.
As they came up they were secured by the manacles which they had prepared for their unhappy captives. Some time was thus employed, and at length a breeze sprang up, and the frigate was seen bearing down upon them. The prisoners looked very blank when they found that they were to be transferred to her. The gallantry of every one engaged was warmly commended by Captain Lascelles. Hemming got the command of the prize, and to their great delight Jack and Terence were allowed to remain in her. The frigate and her prize then made sail together for Sierra Leone. They kept close in with the land in the hopes of picking up another prize. Before, however, they got round Cape Palmas they met with a strong westerly gale, which compelled them to bring up in a sheltered bay, which is to be found some way to the eastward of it. The scenery was not very interesting. Near them was a narrow neck of sand, with a few palm-trees on it, and a muddy lagoon on the other side.
Still, men who have been long aboard are glad to find anything like firm ground on which to stretch their legs. Now the surgeon and the lieutenant of marines were constantly joking each other as to which of them possessed the greatest physical powers. If one boasted he had ridden fifty miles without stopping, the other had always gone ten miles farther. If one had leaped over a wide ditch, the other had leaped over one five feet wider, or if one said he had kept up a Scotch reel for an hour, the other had danced one for a quarter of an hour longer.
”I'll tell you what, doctor,” explained Lieutenant Stokes; ”I'll undertake to race you for a mile, each of us carrying another person on our backs.”
”Done,” cried Doctor McCan; ”it shall come off at once. I'll take Adair as my jockey; you can take whom you like.” Adair was the lightest mids.h.i.+pman on board, and the doctor thought that by getting him he had stolen a march on his military compet.i.tor.
”Agreed,” answered Lieutenant Stokes, c.o.c.king his squinting eye in the most ludicrous way. ”I'll take Rogers. He's a bit heavier than Adair, but I don't mind that. As you had the first choice of a rider, I must choose the ground. From the extreme end of that spit of land to the palm-trees near the neck is, I guess, about a mile.” This was said while the frigate and her prize were brought up on their voyage to Sierra Leone. Doctor McCan looked at the white spit of sand, and thought what heavy work it would be running over it; but he felt that he was in honour bound to keep to the proposed terms. A party was soon made up to go on sh.o.r.e, and all hands looked forward to the fun they expected to enjoy from the exhibition. They had first to pull alongside the prize to call for Rogers and Adair. Hemming gave them leave to go, and they of course were nothing loath to accept the invitation. What Captain Lascelles would have thought of the matter I don't know. He might have considered that the exhibition of an officer of marines racing with a mids.h.i.+pman on his back was somewhat subversive of discipline. There was no surf on the sh.o.r.e, and the boats landed without difficulty. The ground was measured by the umpires. It was from the end of the point round the palm-trees and back again about a quarter of the distance to make up the mile. The doctor felt the sand with his feet. It was very fine and soft, and he began to repent of his proposal.
”Now, gentlemen, take up your burdens and be ready at the starting-post,” said the master, who was chief umpire. They went to the ground, tossing up the mids.h.i.+pmen to make them sit comfortably on their backs.
”Now--one, two, three, and away you go!” cried the master.
Off they went, the marine officer prancing away with Jack in the pride of his strength, while the doctor ploughed his way steadily on through the sand, finding, even with Adair, that he had rather more flesh and blood to carry than was pleasant. Still Mr Stokes did not gain upon him. He too found that Rogers was no slight weight, though he was only a mids.h.i.+pman--as Jack said of himself, ”All that is of me is good.” For some time they were neck and neck. Hot enough they found it, for the sun was bright, the sand was soft, there was but little air, and what there was was in their backs. They were lightly clad, to be sure; but had they worn as little clothing as the most unsophisticated of negroes, they would have found it hot enough. They puffed, and they blew, and they strained, but still they persevered. At first neither Rogers nor Adair cared much about the matter, but they soon got as excited as the men who carried them, and eager for their respective steeds to win.
”I say, doctor,” observed Adair, after they had gone about half the distance, ”the sand inside of us there, along the lagoon, looks hard.
It would not take us much out of our way if we were to go there, and you would then get along famously.” Terence intended to give good counsel, and the doctor followed it. To his great delight he found the ground hard, and was getting on at a great rate. Jack urged Mr Stokes to take the same route.
”Stay a bit; all is not gold that glitters,” was the answer. ”That's treacherous sort of ground.”
”But see, see how magnificently they get along,” cried Jack, again wis.h.i.+ng that he had a bridle to guide his refractory steed.
All this time the umpires and other spectators were keeping up merry shouts of laughter.
”There they go,” shouted Jack; ”they will be round the trees in no time.”
Just as he spoke there was a loud hullabaloo from Terence, echoed by the doctor. Over they both went head first, but the doctor's heels did not follow, for they had stuck fast in the mud, into which poor Terence's head plunged with a loud thud. The doctor heroically endeavoured to pull him out, but his own legs only stuck deeper and deeper. As the marine officer came up and pa.s.sed by them, he began capering about and neighing in triumph, while Jack barbarously inquired whether they would like to have a tow. At last Terence, covered with mud, black and most ill-odorous, scrambled out, and, by throwing to him the end of his handkerchief, contrived to haul out the doctor, who once more took him on his shoulders, and in sorry plight continued his course. Jack looked round and saw them coming just as Mr Stokes was about to round the palm-trees. He crowed loudly and waved his hand. It would have been wiser, however, if he had not begun to triumph so soon, for his steed's foot catching in a falling and half-hidden branch, over they both went, and were half buried and almost stifled in the soft hot sand. However, they picked themselves up; and, Jack, mounting, away they went towards the goal where their friends were ready to receive them. Just as they got up to it, down came the gallant marine once more, but Jack stuck to his back, and on all fours he crawled up to the winning-post. The poor doctor, with Terence, as Jack said, like a huge baboon clinging behind him, came in soon after; and the doctor declared that it was the last time, with or without a jockey, he would ever run a race on the sh.o.r.es of Africa or anywhere else. In the afternoon the blacks in parties were taken on sh.o.r.e under an armed escort to bathe and exercise themselves; and the next day, the wind s.h.i.+fting, the frigate and captured slaver again made sail for their destination.
”The frigate is signalising to us,” said Jack one morning to Lieutenant Hemming, who had just come on deck. ”She is going in chase of a sail to the southward. We are to continue our course for Sierra Leone.”
In a couple of hours the frigate was out of sight. There appeared to be every promise of fine weather.
Hemming's chief concern was for the blacks, who were sickly. Several had already died, and not a day pa.s.sed without four or five being added to the number. It was important, therefore, to make the pa.s.sage as quickly as possible. For this object the commanding officer kept probably more sail on the s.h.i.+p than she would otherwise have carried.
Jack one afternoon had charge of the watch; all seemed satisfactory. As he was taking a turn on deck, he saw d.i.c.k Needham hurrying towards him and pointing to the sea to leeward. It was a ma.s.s of white foam. He shouted out, ”All hands shorten sail!”
Hemming and Adair rushed out of the cabin. Hemming without speaking seized an axe, and began cutting away at the halyards; Adair and Jack followed his example. The crew flew into the rigging with their knives, but it was too late. The tornado was upon them; over went the s.h.i.+p; down, down she heeled. The seething water rushed in at her ports.
Shrieks and cries arose from the unhappy negroes confined below. Jack and Needham's first impulse was to knock off the hatches, and a few blacks sprang on deck before the sea closed over their heads.
”The s.h.i.+p is sinking, the s.h.i.+p is sinking,” was the cry fore and aft.
”Then a raft must be formed, my lads,” sang out Lieutenant Hemming.
”Never say die, while life remains.”
CHAPTER NINE.
WRECK OF THE SAN FERNANDO.
The heart of the bravest man may well sink within him when he hears the cry uttered, in accents of despair, ”The s.h.i.+p is sinking, the s.h.i.+p is sinking!” Rogers and Adair looked at each other, and thought that their last moments had really come. All the bright visions of the future which their young imaginations had conjured up, vanished in a moment.
Well might they, for the s.h.i.+p lay hopelessly on her side, with more than half her deck under water. There arose from every side shrieks and cries of terror. There were the distorted countenances of the blacks, as they crowded up the hatchway, through which the sea was pouring in torrents, while their own men, intent on preserving their lives to the last, were clambering up the bulwarks or working their way forward, which was the part of the s.h.i.+p the highest out of the water. Hemming, followed by the two mids.h.i.+pmen with axes in hand, endeavoured to gain the same part of the s.h.i.+p. It was no easy task. The howling wind blew with terrific violence around them, and the seething ocean bubbled up, and sent its fierce waves das.h.i.+ng over their heads. ”Oh, save me, save me!” cried Adair, as a sea struck him and washed him down the deck; but Hemming and Rogers caught the rope he had happily clutched and hauled him up again. At length they gained the forecastle, where most of their own crew had a.s.sembled and some few of the unfortunate blacks. They were the only survivors of the four or five hundred human beings who lately breathed the breath of life on board. Mr Hemming, looking round, saw that there was not a chance of the s.h.i.+p righting herself. He accordingly promptly issued orders for the formation of a raft. Such spars as were loose or could be got at, were hauled up on the forecastle. The topgallant masts and royals had been carried away, and fortunately still floated near; Jack saw them and got them hauled in.