Part 23 (1/2)
”Here is a mint of gold,” cried Needham. ”I wonder them pirate chaps didn't try to walk off with it.”
”It shows what a fright they must have been in to leave it behind if they knew it was here,” answered Jack. ”However, we must shut the box up again. It is lawful prize-money, and will be divided in due proportions among all hands, that's one comfort.”
”By-the-by, Needham,” said Jack, after the box had been closed, ”it strikes me that old Don Diogo must have known that the gold is on board, and that makes him so anxious to get hold of the vessel to recover it.
Oh, how thirsty I am. For my part, just now, I would rather have a quart of water than that box of gold.”
”So would I, sir,” answered Needham; ”may be, though, we shall find it cooler on deck, where there is a breath of air.”
Fortunately Jack took Needham's hint. On looking towards the land the whole beach was covered with men carrying among them six or eight large canoes, while the little Don appeared as before on horseback, directing their movements. Jack, knowing the incentive which was influencing his enemies, and seeing the preparations made to attack the brig, might well have despaired of successfully resisting them. He and Needham were not people to sell their lives cheaply. As before, they loaded the bra.s.s guns, and all the muskets and rifles. He waited, however, to fire till the canoes were launched. Then he immediately opened on them. The canoes came on. Don Diogo was in one of them. He was eager probably to secure his gold. Jack took a steady aim at him, down he sank to the bottom of the canoe. Still that same canoe came on, and Jack fancied that he could see the old man's arm lifted up and still pointing at the brig. He could not bring himself to fire at him again, as he thus lay wounded and almost helpless. Needham, however, had marked the canoe; and, pointing his gun at her, let fly a whole shower of langrage about the heads of the negroes paddling in her. Many were knocked over; and the remainder, turning her round, made the best of their way to the beach. The other canoes stopped and wavered. Jack plied them well with bullets. The people on sh.o.r.e seemed to be beckoning them back. Jack bethought him of taking a glance seaward to ascertain if a.s.sistance was at hand, and there he saw the _Ranger_ under full sail, standing towards him. His danger was not yet over. The pirates made another desperate attempt to regain the brig, but were as gallantly repulsed as before, the negroes not being able to withstand the hot fire kept up on them.
Jack and Needham set up as loud a cheer as their parched throats would let them give, when, in a short time, they saw Hemming in a boat and Adair in another, approaching the brig. Fortunately she had taken the ground so softly that she was hove off that very evening. Adair, however, in consequence of the exertions he had gone through, was too ill to accompany Rogers in charge of her to Sierra Leone; and so Jack, much to his regret, had to go by himself, not forgetting his faithful rifle.
Meantime the _Ranger_ stood to the southward. Adair had got almost well: he was on the lookout aloft, when his eye fell on a dark object floating on the water. At first he thought it might be a rock, then a dead whale. At length he felt convinced that it was a vessel, either capsized or with all her canvas lowered. He descended below, and reported the circ.u.mstance to Captain Lascelles. The s.h.i.+p was steered towards the object, and his last conjecture was found to be the right one. As they got close to the vessel, a small schooner, one person only was seen walking the deck.
”That's a mids.h.i.+pman, sir,” said Adair to Mr Hemming. ”And I can't make him out quite, but he looks very like Alick Murray.”
The frigate was hove-to, a boat was lowered, in which Adair went; and sure enough, Alick Murray was the person seen. He looked ill and thin.
”My dear fellow, how do you come to be this in plight?” asked Terence, as he jumped on board the little craft.
”It's a long story,” said Murray. ”We took her to the southward off Benguela, and Captain Grant put me in charge of her to carry her to Sierra Leone. She had the fever on board, I have no doubt, at first.
It broke out the other day after we parted company with the _Archer_, and one after the other my poor fellows died. A black man and boy, whom we took in the prize, are the only survivors, and they are still below sick with the disease. I have been waiting in hopes of their getting well and strong enough to make sail to proceed on my voyage. I'll give you a fuller history another time.”
”The best thing you can do is to let the little craft go her own way, and come on board us,” observed Adair.
”What, Paddy, would you counsel such a course?” exclaimed Murray.
”Captain Grant put me in charge of the vessel to carry her to Sierra Leone, and while I've life in me that is what I am bound to do.”
”Then, old fellow, I'll go with you, if Captain Lascelles will let me,”
answered Terence, warmly. ”That's settled; I'll go on board and get leave, and bring Dr McCan to have a look at your people, and to leave some physic for them to take.”
Away went Terence. He had a hard battle to fight with his captain, who, however, expressed his admiration of the spirit evinced by Murray.
Needham and Wa.s.ser, and another man and a boy, were directed to go on board to act as crew. Dr McCan came on board the schooner: and having prescribed for Murray and his two negroes, and p.r.o.nounced them in a fair way of recovery, took his departure. Murray then made sail and shaped a course for Sierra Leone, much happier than he had been for a long time.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.
AN ADVENTUROUS VOYAGE.
Who would not rather command a gunboat, or even a despatch vessel or fire-s.h.i.+p, than be a junior lieutenant, mate, or mids.h.i.+pman on board a line-of-battle s.h.i.+p or the smartest frigate afloat? Such were Murray's feelings as he and Adair paced the deck of the somewhat unseaworthy little schooner of which he had been placed in charge by Captain Grant.
While he stood away towards Sierra Leone, the _Ranger_ continued her course to the southward.
”I can't say much for your accommodation,” observed Terence, after they had stood watching the fast-receding frigate, and Murray had shown him over his craft.
”I won't boast of it, and if I had to fit out a yacht, I should choose something better,” answered Murray, laughing. The whole cabin was only eight feet long, and though it was five high in the centre, under a raised skylight, it was scarcely more than three at the sides, which being right aft, it decreased rapidly as the stern narrowed. There was a fore-peak, in which the two poor negroes lay, but there was no room in it for more people, so that the rest of the crew were obliged to live in the after-cabin. Adair certainly did not know the discomforts to which he was subjecting himself when he undertook to accompany Murray. Not a particle of furniture was there in the cabin, the beams and sides were begrimed with dirt and c.o.c.kroaches, and a considerable variety of other entomological specimens crawled in and out of every crevice in the planks, and found their way among all the provisions, as well as into every mess of food cooked on board.
The schooner was laden with tobacco and monkey-skins, which latter she had taken on board at one of the ports, in exchange for some of her tobacco, the remainder of which she was about to barter for slaves.