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The Congo Rovers: A Story of the Slave Squadron

by Harry Collingwood · English · Gutenberg #21060 · 593,404 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: The Congo Rovers: A Story of the Slave Squadron

Author: Harry Collingwood

Illustrator: John Schönberg


        
Release date: April 13, 2007 [eBook #21060]

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/21060

Credits: Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE CONGO ROVERS: A STORY OF THE SLAVE SQUADRON ***




Produced by Nick Hodson of London, England




The Congo Rovers
A Story of the Slave Squadron

By Harry Collingwood
________________________________________________________________________
This book by Collingwood is a good story, but as your reviewer has said
elsewhere, told in a rather long-winded manner, and in the notably
Kingston style and format that Collingwood often adopts. Why not?
Kingston was dead before Collingwood started to write, and the style
had been proved to be what young readers of the era liked.

The format specifically is that the book starts with a young boy who is
suddenly offered a posting as a midshipman in a naval vessel about to
sail in a few days' time.  The boy accepts, and the story goes on from
there.
________________________________________________________________________
THE CONGO ROVERS
A STORY OF THE SLAVE SQUADRON

BY HARRY COLLINGWOOD

A Story of the Slave Squadron.



CHAPTER ONE.

MY FIRST APPEARANCE IN UNIFORM.

"Um!" ejaculated my father as he thoughtfully removed his double eye-
glass from his nose with one hand, and with the other passed a letter to
me across the breakfast-table--"Um! this letter will interest you, Dick.
It is from Captain Vernon."

My heart leapt with sudden excitement, and my hand trembled as I
stretched it out for the proffered epistle.  The mention of Captain
Vernon's name, together with the announcement that the subject-matter of
the letter was of interest to me, prepared me in a great measure for the
intelligence it conveyed; which was to the effect that the writer,
having been appointed to the command of the sloop-of-war _Daphne_, now
found himself in a position to fulfil a promise of some standing to his
dear and honoured friend Dr Hawkesley (my father) by receiving his son
(myself) on board the sloop, with the rating of midshipman.  The sloop,
the letter went on to say, was commissioned for service on the west
coast of Africa; and if I decided to join her no time should be lost in
procuring my outfit, as the _Daphne_ was under orders to sail on the --;
just four days from the date of the receipt of the letter.

"Well, Dick, what do you think of Captain Vernon's proposal?" inquired
my father somewhat sadly, as I concluded my perusal of the letter and
raised my eyes to his.

"Oh, father!"  I exclaimed eagerly, "I _hope_ you will consent to let me
go.  Perhaps I may never have another such an opportunity; and I am
_quite sure_ I shall never care to be anything but a sailor."

"Ah! yes--the old, old story," murmured my father, shaking his head
dubiously.  "Thousands of lads have told their fathers exactly the same
thing, and have lived to bitterly regret their choice of a profession.
Look at my life.  I have to run about in all weathers; to take my meals
when and how I can; there is not a single hour in the twenty-four that I
can call my own; it is a rare thing for me to get a night of undisturbed
rest; it is a hard, anxious, harassing life that I lead--you have often
said so yourself, and urged it as one of the reasons why you object to
follow in my footsteps.  But I tell you, Dick, that my life--ay, or the
life even of the poorest country practitioner, for that matter--is one
of ease and luxury compared with that of a sailor.  But I have said all
this to you over and over again, without convincing you; and I hardly
dare hope that I shall be more successful now; so, if you are really
quite resolved to go to sea, I will offer no further objections.  It is
true that you will be going to an unhealthy climate; but God is just as
well able to preserve you there as He is here; and then, again, you have
a strong healthy constitution, which, fortified with such preservative
medicines as I can supply, will, I hope, enable you to withstand the
malaria and to return to us in safety.  Now, what do you say--are you
still resolved to go?"

"Quite," I replied emphatically.  "Now that you have given your consent
the last obstacle is removed, and I can follow with a light heart the
bent of my own inclinations."

"Very well, then," said my father, rising from the table and pushing
back his chair.  "That question being settled, we had better call upon
Mr Shears forthwith and give the order for your uniform and outfit.
There is no time to lose; and since go you _will_, I would very much
rather you went with Vernon than with anyone else."

The above conversation took place, as already stated, in the breakfast-
room of my father's house.  My father was at that time--as he continued
to be until the day of his death--the leading physician in Portsmouth;
and his house--a substantial four-storey building--stood near the top of
the High Street.  The establishment of Mr Shears, "Army and Navy
Tailor, Clothier, and Outfitter," was situated near the bottom of the
same street.  A walk, therefore, of some ten minutes' duration took us
to our destination; and at the end of a further half-hour's anxious
consultation I had been measured for my uniform--one suit of which was
faithfully promised for the next day--had chosen my sea-chest, and had
selected a complete outfit of such clothing as was to be obtained ready-
made.  This important business concluded, my father departed upon his
daily round of visits, and I had the remainder of the day at my own
disposal.

My first act on emerging from the door of Mr Shears' establishment was
to hasten off to the dockyard at top speed to take another look at the
_Daphne_.  I had often seen the craft before; had taken an interest in
her, indeed, I may say, from the moment that her keel was laid--she was
built in Portsmouth dockyard--and had watched her progress to completion
and her recent launch with an admiration which had steadily increased
until it grew into positive _love_.  And now I was actually to have the
happiness, the _bliss_, of going to sea in her as an officer on her
first cruise.  Ecstatic thought!  I felt as though I was walking on air!

But my rapture received a pretty effectual damper when I reflected--as I
soon did--that my obstinate determination to go to sea must certainly
prove a deep disappointment, if not a source of constant and cruel
anxiety, to my father.  Dear old dad! his most cherished wish, as I knew
full well, had long been that I, his only son, might qualify myself to
take over and carry on the exceedingly snug practice he had built up,
when the pressure of increasing years should render his retirement
desirable.  But the idea was so utterly distasteful to me that I had
persistently turned a deaf ear to all his arguments, persuasions, ay,
and even his entreaties.  Unfortunately, perhaps, for the fulfilment of
his desires, I was born and brought up at Portsmouth; and all my
earliest recollections of amusement are, in some way or other, connected
with salt water.  Swimming and boating early became absolute passions
with me; I was never quite happy unless I happened to be either in or on
the water; _then_, indeed, all other pleasures were less than nothing to
me.  As a natural consequence, I soon became the intimate companion of
every boatman in the harbour; I acquired, to a considerable extent,
their tastes and prejudices, and soon mastered all the nautical lore
which it was in their power to teach me.  I could sail a boat before I
could read; and by the time that I had learned to write, was able to
hand, reef, and steer with the best of them.  My conversation--except
when it was addressed to my father--was copiously interlarded with
nautical phrases; and by the time I had attained the age of fourteen--at
which period this history begins--I was not only acquainted with the
name, place, and use of every rope and spar in a ship, but I had also an
accurate knowledge of the various rigs, and a distinct opinion as to
what constituted a good model.  The astute reader will have gathered
from this confession that I was, from my earliest childhood, left pretty
much my own master; and such was in fact the case.  My mother died in
giving birth to my only sister Eva (two years my junior); a misfortune
which, in consequence of my father's absorption in the duties of his
practice, left me entirely to the care of the servants, by whom I was
shamefully neglected.  But for this I should doubtless have been trained
to obedience and a respectful deference to my father's wishes.  The
mischief, however, was done; I had acquired a love of the sea, and my
highest ambition was to become a naval officer.  This fact my father at
length reluctantly recognised, and by persistent entreaty I finally
prevailed upon him to take the necessary steps to gratify my heart's
desire--with the result already known to the reader.

The sombre reflections induced by the thought of my father's
disappointment did not, I confess with shame, last long.  They vanished
as a morning mist is dissipated before the rising sun, when I recalled
to mind that I was not only going to sea, but that I was actually going
to sail in the _Daphne_.  This particular craft was my _beau-ideal_ of
what a ship ought to be; and in this opinion I was by no means alone--
all my cronies hailing from the Hard agreeing, without exception, that
she was far and away the handsomest and most perfect model they had ever
seen.  My admiration of her was unbounded; and on the day of her
launch--upon which occasion I cheered myself hoarse--I felt, as I saw
her gliding swiftly and gracefully down the ways, that it would be a
priceless privilege to sail in her, even in the capacity of the meanest
ship-boy.  And now I was to be a midshipman on board her!  I hurried
onward with swift and impatient steps, and soon passed through the
dockyard gates--having long ago, by dint of persistent coaxing, gained
the _entree_ to the sacred precincts--when a walk of some four or five
hundred yards further took me to the berth alongside the wharf where she
was lying.

Well as I knew every curve and line of her beautiful hull, my glances
now dwelt upon her with tenfold loving interest.  She was a ship-sloop
of 28 guns--long 18-pounders--with a flush deck fore and aft.  She was
very long in proportion to her beam; low in the water, and her lines
were as fine as it had been possible to make them.  She had a very
light, elegant-looking stern, adorned with a great deal of carved
scroll-work about the cabin windows; and her gracefully-curved cut-water
was surmounted by an exquisitely-carved full-length figure of Peneus'
lovely daughter, with both arms outstretched, as in the act of flight,
and with twigs and leaves of laurel just springing from her dainty
finger-tips.  There was a great deal of brass-work about the deck
fittings, which gleamed and flashed brilliantly in the sun; and, the
paint being new and fresh, she looked altogether superlatively neat, in
spite of the fact that the operations of rigging and of shipping stores
were both going on simultaneously.

Having satisfied for the time being my curiosity with regard to the hull
of my future home, I next cast a glance aloft at her spars.  She was
rigged only as far as her topmast-heads, her topgallant-masts being then
on deck in process of preparation for sending aloft.  When I had last
seen her she was under the masting-shears getting her lower-masts
stepped; and it then struck me that they were fitting her with rather
heavy spars.  But now, as I looked aloft, I was fairly startled at the
length and girth of her masts and yards.  To my eye--by no means an
unaccustomed one--her spars seemed taunt enough for a ship of nearly
double her size; and the rigging was heavy in the same proportion.  I
stood there on the wharf watching with the keenest interest the scene of
bustle and animation on board until the bell rang the hour of noon, and
all hands knocked off work and went to dinner; by which time the three
topgallant-masts were aloft with the rigging all ready for setting up
when the men turned-to again.  The addition of these spars to the length
of her already lofty masts gave the _Daphne_, in my opinion, more than
ever the appearance of being over-sparred; an opinion in which, as it
soon appeared, I was not alone.

Most of the men left the dockyard and went home (as I suppose) to their
dinner; but half a dozen or so of riggers, instead of following the
example of the others, routed out from some obscure spot certain small
bundles tied up in coloured handkerchiefs, and, bringing these on shore,
seated themselves upon some of the boxes and casks with which the wharf
was lumbered, and, opening the bundles, produced therefrom their
dinners, which they proceeded to discuss with quite an enviable
appetite.

For a few minutes the meal proceeded in dead silence; but presently one
of them, glancing aloft at the _Daphne's_ spars, remarked in a tone of
voice which reached me distinctly--I was standing within a few feet of
the party:

"Well, Tom, bo'; what d'ye think of the hooker _now_?"

The man addressed shook his head disapprovingly.  "The more I looks at
her the less I likes her," was his reply.

"I'm precious glad _I_ ain't goin' to sea in her," observed another.

"Same here," said the first speaker.  "Why, look at the _Siren_ over
there!  She's a 38-gun frigate, and her mainmast is only two feet longer
than the _Daphne's_--as I happen to know, for I had a hand in the
buildin' of both the spars.  The sloop's over-masted, that's what _she_
is."

I turned away and bent my steps homeward.  The short snatch of
conversation which I had just heard, confirming as it did my own
convictions, had a curiously depressing effect upon me, which was
increased when, a few minutes afterwards, I caught a glimpse of the
distant buoy which marked the position of the sunken _Royal George_.
For the moment my enthusiasm was all gone; a foreboding of disaster took
possession of me, and but for very shame I felt more than half-inclined
to tell my father I had altered my mind, and would rather not go to sea.
I had occasion afterwards to devoutly wish I had acted on this impulse.

When, however, I was awakened next morning by the sun shining
brilliantly in at my bed-room window, my apprehensions had vanished, my
enthusiasm was again at fever-heat, and I panted for the moment--not to
be very long deferred--when I should don my uniform and strut forth to
sport my glories before an admiring world.

Punctual almost to a moment--for once at least in his life--Mr Shears
sent home the uniform whilst we were sitting down to luncheon; and the
moment that I decently could I hastened away to try it on.

The breeches were certainly rather wrinkly above the knees, and the
jacket was somewhat uncomfortably tight across the chest when buttoned
over; it also pinched me a good deal under the arm-pits, whilst the
sleeves exhibited a trifle too much--some six inches or so--of my
wristbands and shirt-sleeves; and when I looked at myself in the glass I
found that there was a well-defined ridge of loose cloth running across
the back from shoulder to shoulder.  With these trifling exceptions,
however, I thought the suit fitted me fairly well, and I hastened down-
stairs to exhibit myself to my sister Eva.  To my intense surprise and
indignation she no sooner saw me than she burst into an uncontrollable
fit of laughter, and was heartless enough to declare that I looked "a
perfect fright."  Thoroughly disgusted with such unsisterly conduct I
mustered all my dignity, and without condescending to ask for an
explanation walked in contemptuous silence out of the room and the
house.

A regimental band was to play that afternoon on Southsea Common, and
thither I accordingly decided to direct my steps.  There were a good
many people about the streets, and I had not gone very far before I made
the discovery that everybody was in high good-humour about something or
other.  The people I met wore, almost without exception, genial smiling
countenances, and many a peal of hearty laughter rang out from hilarious
groups who had already passed me.  I felt anxious to know what it was
that thus set all Portsmouth laughing, and glanced round to see if I
could discover an acquaintance of whom I might inquire; but, as usual in
such cases, was unsuccessful.  When I reached the Common I found, as I
expected I should, a large and fashionably dressed crowd, with a good
sprinkling of naval and military uniforms, listening to the strains of
the band.  Here, for the first five minutes or so, I failed to notice
anything unusual in the behaviour of the people; but the humorous item
of news must have reached them almost simultaneously with my own arrival
upon the scene, for very soon I detected on the faces of those who
passed me the same amused smile which I had before encountered in the
streets.  I stood well back out of the thick of the crowd; both because
I could hear the music better, and also to afford any friend of mine who
might chance to be present an opportunity to see me in my imposing new
uniform.

It was whilst I was standing thus in the most easy and nonchalant
attitude I could assume that a horrible discovery forced itself upon me.
I happened to be regarding with a certain amount of languid interest a
couple of promenaders, consisting of a very lovely girl and a somewhat
foppish ensign, when I suddenly caught the eye of the latter fixed upon
me.  He raised his eye-glass to his eye, and, in the coolest manner in
the world, deliberately surveyed me through it, when, in an instant, a
broad smile of amusement--the smile which I by this time knew so well--
overspread his otherwise inanimate features.  I glanced hurriedly behind
me to see if I could discover the cause of his risibility, and, failing
to do so, turned round again, just in time to see him, with his eye-
glass still bearing straight in my direction, bend his head and speak a
few words to his fair companion.  Thereupon she, too, glanced in my
direction, looked steadfastly at me for a moment, and then burst into an
uncontrollable fit of laughter which she vainly strove to stifle in her
pocket-handkerchief.  For a second or two I was utterly lost in
astonishment at this unaccountable behaviour, and then all the hideous
truth thrust itself upon me.  They were laughing at _me_.  Having at
length fully realised this I turned haughtily away and at once left the
ground.

I hurried homeward in a most unenviable state of mind, with the
conviction every moment forcing itself more obtrusively upon me, that
for some inconceivable reason I was the laughing-stock of everybody I
met, when, just as I turned once more into the High Street I observed
two midshipmen approaching on my own side of the way, and some half a
dozen yards or so behind them a certain Miss Smith, a parlour boarder in
the ladies' seminary opposite my father's house--a damsel not more than
six or seven years my senior, with whom I was slightly acquainted, and
for whom I had long cherished a secret but ardent passion.

With that sensitiveness which is so promptly evoked by even the bare
suspicion of ridicule I furtively watched the two "young gentlemen" as
they approached; but they had been talking and laughing loudly when I
first caught sight of them, and although I saw that they were aware of
my presence I failed to detect the sudden change of manner which I had
dreaded to observe.  Whether they were speaking of me or not I could
not, of course, feel certain; but I rather fancied from the glances they
cast in my direction that they were.

As they drew nearer I observed that the eyes of one of them were
intently and inquiringly gazing into mine, and they continued so to do
until the pair had fairly passed me.  Being by this time in a decidedly
aggressive frame of mind I returned this pertinacious gaze with a
haughty and contemptuous stare, which, however, I must confess, did not
appear to very greatly intimidate the individual at whom it was
levelled, for, unless I was greatly mistaken, there was a twitching
about the corners of his mouth which suggested a strong, indeed an
almost uncontrollable disposition to laughter, whilst his eyes fairly
beamed with merriment.

As they passed me this individual half halted for an instant, passed on
again a step or two, and then turning abruptly to the right-about,
dashed after me and seized me by the hand, which he shook effusively,
exclaiming as he did so:

"It _is_--I'm _sure_ it is!  My _dear_ Lord Henry, how are you?  This is
indeed an unexpected pleasure!"

At this moment Miss Smith passed, giving me as she did so a little start
of recognition, followed by a bow and a beaming smile, which I returned
in my most fascinating manner.

I was once more happy.  This little incident, trifling though it was in
itself, sufficed to banish in an instant the unpleasant reflections
which a moment before had been rankling in my breast, for had not my
fair divinity seen me in the uniform of the gallant defenders of our
country?  And had she not also heard and seen me mistaken for a lord?
If this had no power to soften and subdue that proud heart and bring it
in sweet humility to my feet, then--well I should like to know what
would, that's all.

I allowed my fair enslaver to pass out of ear-shot, and then said to the
midshipman who had so unexpectedly addressed me:

"Excuse me, sir, but I think you are mistaking me for someone else."

"Oh, no, I'm not," he retorted.  "I know you well enough--though I must
say you are greatly altered for the better since I saw you last a year
ago.  You're Lord Henry de Vere Montmorenci.  Ah, you sly dog! you
thought to play a trick upon your old friend Fitz-Jones, did you?  But
what brings you down here, Montmorenci?  Have you come down to join?"

This was a most remarkable, and at the same time gratifying occurrence,
for I could not keep feeling elated at being thus mistaken for a noble,
and greeted with such enthusiasm by a most agreeable and intelligent
brother officer, and--evidently--a scion of some noble house to boot.
For a single instant an almost invincible temptation seized me to
personate the character with which I was accredited, but it was as
promptly overcome; my respect for the truth (temporarily) conquered my
vanity, and I answered:

"I assure you, my dear sir, you are mistaken.  I am _not_ Lord Henry de
Vere Montmorenci, but plain Richard Hawkesley, just nominated to the
_Daphne_."

"Well, if you persist in saying so, I suppose I must believe you,"
answered Fitz-Jones.  "But, really, the resemblance is most
extraordinary--truly remarkable indeed.  There is the same lofty
intellectual forehead, the same proud eagle-glance, the same haughty
carriage; the same--now, tell me, Tomnoddy, upon your honour as an
officer and a gentleman, did you ever in your life before see such an
extraordinary resemblance?"

"I never did; it is really most remarkable," answered the other
midshipman in a strangely quivering voice which, but for his solemn
countenance, I should have considered decidedly indicative of suppressed
laughter.

"It really is most singular, positively _marvellous_," resumed Fitz-
Jones.  Then he added hurriedly:

"By the way, do you know my friend Tomnoddy?  No!  Then allow me to
introduce him.  Lord Tomnoddy--Mr Richard Hawkesley, just nominated to
the _Daphne_.  And I suppose I ought also to introduce myself.  I am
Lord Montague Fitz-Jones.  You have, of course, heard of the Fitz-Jones
family--the Fitz-J-o-h-n-e-s's, you know?"

I certainly had not; nor had I, up to that moment, any idea that Lord
Tomnoddy was other than a mythical personage; but I did not choose to
parade my ignorance in such matters, so I replied by a polite bow.

There was silence between us for a moment; and then Fitz-Jones--or Fitz-
Johnes, rather--raised his hand to his forehead with a thoughtful air
and murmured:

"Hawkesley!  Hawkesley!  I'm _positive_ I've heard that name before.
Now, where was it?  Um--ah--eh?  Yes; I have it.  You're the handsome
heartless fellow who played such havoc with my cousin Lady Mary's
affections at the state ball last year.  Now, don't deny it; I'm
positive I'm right.  Do you know," he continued, glaring at me in a most
ferocious manner--"do you know that for the last six months I've been
looking for you in order that I might shoot you?"

Somehow I did not feel very greatly alarmed at this belligerent speech,
and vanity having by this time conquered my natural truthfulness, I
determined to sustain my unexpected reputation as a lady-killer at all
hazards.  I therefore drew myself up, and, assuming my sternest look,
replied that I should be happy to give him the desired opportunity
whenever he might choose.

Fitz-Johnes' ferocious glare continued for a moment or two; then his
brow cleared, and, extending his hand, he grasped mine, shook the member
violently, and exclaimed:

"That was spoken like a gentleman and a brave man!  Give me your hand,
Hawkesley.  I respect you, sir; I esteem you; and I forgive you all.  If
there is one thing which touches me more than another, one thing which I
_admire_ more than another, it is to see a man show a bold front in the
face of deadly peril.  Ah! _now_ I can understand Lady Mary's
infatuation.  Poor girl!  I pity her.  And I suppose that pretty girl
who passed just now is another victim to your fascinating powers.  Ah,
well! it's not to be wondered at, I'm sure.  Tomnoddy, do you remember,
by the by--?"

But Lord Tomnoddy was now standing with his back turned toward us, and
his face buried in his pocket-handkerchief.  His head was bowed, his
shoulders were heaving convulsively, and certain inarticulate sounds
which escaped him showed that he was struggling to suppress some violent
emotion.

Lord Fitz-Johnes regarded his companion fixedly for a moment, then
linked his arm in mine, drew me aside, and whispered hastily:

"Don't take any notice of him; he'll be all right again in a minute.
It's only a little revulsion of feeling which has overcome him.  He's
frightfully tender-hearted--far too much so for a sailor; he can't bear
the sight of blood; and he knew that if I called you out I should choose
him for my second; and--you twig, eh!"

I thought I did, but was not quite sure, so I bowed again, which seemed
quite as satisfactory as words to Fitz-Johnes, for he said, with his arm
still linked in mine:

"That's all right.  Now let's go and cement our friend ship over a
bottle of wine at the `Blue Posts,' what do you say?"

I intimated that the proposal was quite agreeable to me; and we
accordingly wheeled about and directed our steps to the inn in question,
which, in my time, was _the_ place of resort, _par excellence_, of all
midshipmen.

Lord Tomnoddy now removed his handkerchief from his eyes; and, sure
enough, he _had_ been weeping, for I detected him in the very act of
drying his tears.  He must have possessed a truly wonderful command over
his features, though, for I could not detect the faintest trace of that
deep feeling which had overpowered him so shortly before; on the
contrary, he laughed uproariously at a very feeble joke which I just
then ventured to let off; and thereafter, until I parted with them both
an hour later, was the merriest of the party.

We arrived in due course at the "Blue Posts," and, walking into a
private parlour, rang for the waiter.  On the appearance of that
individual, Fitz-Johnes, with a truly lordly air, ordered in three
bottles of port; sagely remarking that he made a point of never drinking
less than a bottle himself; and as his friend Hawkesley was _known_ to
have laid down the same rule, the third bottle was a necessity unless
Lord Tomnoddy was to go without.  Lord Tomnoddy faintly protested
against the ordering of so much wine; but Fitz-Johnes was firm in his
determination, insisting that he should regard it as nothing short of a
deliberate insult on Tomnoddy's part if that individual declined his
hospitality.

After a considerable delay the wine and glasses made their appearance,
the waiter setting them down, and then pausing respectfully by the
table.

"Thank you; that will do.  You need not wait," said Fitz-Johnes.

"The money, if you please, sir," explained the waiter.

"Oh, ah! yes, to be sure.  The money."  And Fitz-Johnes plunged his hand
into his breeches pocket and withdrew therefrom the sum of twopence
halfpenny, together with half a dozen buttons (assorted); a penknife
minus its blades; the bowl of a clay tobacco pipe broken short off;
three pieces of pipe-stem evidently originally belonging to the latter;
and a small ball of sewing twine.

Carefully arranging the copper coins on the edge of the table he
returned the remaining articles to their original place of deposit, and
then plunged his hand into his other pocket, from which he produced--
nothing.

"How much is it?" he inquired, glancing at the waiter.

"Fifteen shillings, if you please, sir," was the reply.

"Lend me a sovereign, there's a good fellow; I've left my purse in my
other pocket," he exclaimed to Lord Tomnoddy.

"I would with pleasure, old fellow, if I had it.  But, unfortunately, I
haven't a farthing about me."

Thereupon the waiter proceeded deliberately to gather up the glasses
again, and was about to take them and the wine away, when I interposed
with a proposal to pay.

"No," said Fitz-Johnes fiercely; "I won't hear of it; I'll perish at the
stake first.  But if you really don't mind _lending_ me a sovereign
until to-morrow--"

I said I should be most happy; and forthwith produced the coin, which
Fitz-Johnes, having received it, flung disdainfully down upon the table
with the exclamation:

"There, caitiff, is the lucre.  Now, avaunt! begone!  Thy bones are
marrowless; and you have not a particle of speculation about you."

The waiter, quite unmoved, took up the sovereign, laid down the change--
which Fitz-Johnes promptly pocketed--and retired from the room, leaving
us to discuss our wine in peace; which we did, I taking three glasses,
and my companions disposing of the remainder.

Fitz-Johnes now became very communicative on the subject of his cousin
Lady Mary; and finally the recollection came to him suddenly that she
had sent him her miniature only a day or two before.  This he proposed
to show me, in order that I might pronounce an opinion as to the
correctness of the likeness; but on instituting a search for it, he
discovered--much to my relief, I must confess--that he had left it, with
his purse, in the pocket of his other jacket.

The wine at length finished, we parted company at the door of the "Blue
Posts;" I shaping a course homeward, and my new friends heading in the
direction of the Hard, their uproarious laughter reaching my ear for
some time after they had passed out of sight.



CHAPTER TWO.

I QUIT THE PATERNAL ROOF.

On reaching home I found that my father had preceded me by a few minutes
only, and was to be found in the surgery.  Thither, accordingly, I
hastened to give him an opportunity of seeing me in my new rig.

"Good Heavens, boy!" he exclaimed when he had taken in all the details
of my appearance, "do you mean to say that you have presented yourself
in public in that extraordinary guise?"

I respectfully intimated that I had, and that, moreover, I failed to
observe anything at all extraordinary in my appearance.

"Well," observed he, bursting into a fit of hearty laughter,
notwithstanding his evident annoyance, "_you_ may not have noticed it;
but I'll warrant that everybody else has.  Why, I should not have been
surprised to hear that you had found yourself the laughing-stock of the
town.  Run away, Dick, and change your clothes at once; Shears must see
those things and endeavour to alter them somehow; you can never wear
them as they are."

I slunk away to my room in a dreadfully depressed state of mind.  Was it
possible that what my father had said was true!  A sickening suspicion
seized me that it _was_; and that I had at last found an explanation of
the universal laughter which had seemed to accompany me everywhere in my
wanderings that wretched afternoon.

I wrapped up the now hated uniform in the brown paper which had encased
it when it came from Shears; and my father and I were about to sally
forth with it upon a wrathful visit to the erring Shears, when a
breathless messenger from him arrived with another parcel, and a note of
explanation and apology, to the effect that by some unfortunate blunder
the wrong suit had been sent home, and Mr Shears would feel greatly
obliged if we would return it per bearer.

The man, upon this, was invited inside and requested to wait whilst I
tried on the rightful suit, which was found to fit excellently; and I
could not avoid laughing rather ruefully as I looked in the glass and
contrasted my then appearance with that which I remembered it to have
been in the earlier part of the day.  Later on, that same evening, my
sea-chest and the remainder of my outfit arrived; and I was ready to
join, as had been already arranged, on the following day.

The eventful morning at length arrived; and with my enthusiasm
considerably cooled by a night of sleepless excitement and the
unpleasant consciousness that I was about, in an hour or two more, to
bid a long farewell to home and all who loved me, I descended to the
breakfast-room.  My father was already there; but Eva did not come down
until the last moment; and when she made her appearance it was evident
that she had very recently been weeping.  The dear girl kissed me
silently with quivering lips, and we sat down to breakfast.  My father
made two or three efforts to start something in the shape of a
conversation, but it was no good; the dear old gentleman was himself
manifestly ill at ease; Eva could not speak a word for sobbing; and as
for me, I was as unable to utter a word as I was to swallow my food--a
great lump had gathered in my throat, which not only made it sore but
also threatened to choke me, and it was with the utmost difficulty that
I avoided bursting into a passion of tears.  None of us ate anything,
and at length the wretched apology for a meal was brought to a
conclusion, my father read a chapter from the Bible, and we knelt down
to prayers.  I will not attempt to repeat here the words of his
supplication.  Suffice it to say that they went straight to my heart and
lodged there, their remembrance encompassing me about as with a seven-
fold defence in many a future hour of trial and temptation.

On rising from his knees my father invited me to accompany him to his
consulting-room, and on arriving there he handed me a chair, seated
himself directly in front of me, and said:

"Now, my dear boy, before you leave the roof which has sheltered you
from your infancy, and go forth to literally fight your own way through
the world, there is just a word or two of caution and advice which I
wish to say.  You are about to embark in a profession of your own
deliberate choice, and whilst that profession is of so honourable a
character that all who wear its uniform are unquestioningly accepted as
gentlemen, it is also one which, from its very nature, exposes its
followers to many and great temptations.  I will not enlarge upon these;
you are now old enough to understand the nature of many of them, and
those which you may not at present know anything about will be readily
recognisable as such when they present themselves; and a few simple
rules will, I trust, enable you to overcome them.  The first rule which
I wish you to take for your guidance through life, my son, is this.
Never be ashamed to honour your Maker.  Let neither false pride, nor the
gibes of your companions, nor indeed _any_ influence whatever, constrain
you to deny Him or your dependence upon Him; never take His name in
vain, nor countenance by your continued presence any such thing in
others.  Bear in mind the fact that He who holds the ocean in the hollow
of His hand is also the Guide, the Helper, and the defender of `those
who go down into the sea in ships;' and make it an unfailing practice to
seek His help and protection every day of your life.

"Never allow yourself to contract the habit of swearing.  Many men--and,
because of their pernicious example, many boys too--habitually garnish
their conversation with oaths, profanity, and obscenity of the vilest
description.  It _may_ be--though I earnestly hope and pray it will
not--that a bad example in this respect will be set you by even your
superior officers.  If such should unhappily be the case, think of this,
our parting moments, and of my parting advice to you, and never suffer
yourself to be led away by such example.  In the first place it is
wrong--it is distinctly _sinful_ to indulge in such language; and in the
next place, to take much lower ground, it is vulgar, ungentlemanly, and
altogether in the very worst possible taste.  It is not even _manly_ to
do so, though many lads appear to think it so; there is nothing manly,
or noble, or dignified in the utterance of words which inspire in the
hearers--unless they be the lowest of the low--nothing save the most
extreme disgust.  If you are ambitious to be classed among the vilest
and most ruffianly of your species, use such language; but if your
ambition soars higher than this, avoid it as you would the pestilence.

"Be always _strictly_ truthful.  There are two principal incentives to
falsehood--vanity and fear.  Never seek self-glorification by a
falsehood.  If fame is not to be won legitimately, do without it; and
never seek to screen yourself by a falsehood--this is mean and cowardly
in the last degree.  `To err is human;' we are all liable to make
mistakes sometimes; such a person as an infallible man, woman, or child
has never yet existed, and never will exist.  Therefore, if you make a
mistake, have the courage to manfully acknowledge it and take the
consequences; I will answer for it that they will not be very dreadful.
A fault confessed is half atoned.  And, apart from the _morality_ of the
thing, let me tell you that a reputation for truthfulness is a priceless
possession to a man; it makes his services _doubly_ valuable.

"Be careful that you are always strictly honest, honourable, and upright
in your dealings with others.  Never let your reputation in this respect
be sullied by so much as a breath.  And bear this in mind, my boy, it is
not sufficient that you should _be_ all this, you must also _seem_ it,
that is to say you must keep yourself far beyond the reach of even the
barest suspicion.  Many a man who, by carelessness or inexperience, has
placed himself in a questionable position, has been obliged to pay the
penalty of his want of caution by carrying about with him, to the end of
his life, the burden of a false and undeserved suspicion.

"And now there is only one thing more I wish to caution you against, and
that is _vanity_.  It is a failing which is only too plainly perceptible
in most boys of your age, and--do not be angry, Dick, if I touch the
sore spot with a heavy hand; it is for your own good that I do it--you
have it in a very marked degree.  Like most of your compeers you think
that, having passed your fourteenth birth-day, you are now a _man_, and
in many points I notice that you have already begun to ape the ways of
men.  Don't do it, Dick.  Manhood comes not so early; and of all
disagreeable and objectionable characters, save me, I pray you, from a
boy who mistakes himself for a man.  Manhood, with its countless cares
and responsibilities, will come soon enough; whilst you are a boy _be_ a
boy; or, if you insist on being a man before your time, cultivate those
attributes which are characteristic of _true_ manhood, such as fearless
truth, scrupulous honour, dauntless courage, and so on; but _don't_, for
Heaven's sake, adopt the follies and vices of men.  As I have said,
Dick, vanity is certainly your _great_ weakness, and I want you to be
especially on your guard against it.  It will tempt you to tamper with
the truth, even if it does no worse," (I thought involuntarily of Lady
Mary and my tacit admission of the justice of Lord Fitz-Johnes'
impeachment of me with regard to her), "and it is quite possible that it
may lead you into a serious scrape.

"Now, Dick, my boy--my dear son--I have said to you all that I think,
even in the slightest degree, necessary by way of caution and advice.  I
can only affectionately entreat you to remember and ponder upon my
words, and pray God to lead you to a right understanding of them.

"And now," he added, rising from his seat, "I think it is time you were
on the move.  Go and wish Eva good-bye, and then I will drive you down
to the Hard--I see Edwards has brought round the carriage."

I hurried away to the drawing-room, where I knew I should find my
sister, and, opening the door gently, announced that I had come to say
good-bye.  The dear girl, upon hearing my voice, rose up from the sofa,
in the cushion of which she had been hiding her tear-stained face, and
came with unsteady steps toward me.  Then, as I looked into her eyes--
heavy with the mental agony from which she was suffering, and which she
bravely strove to hide for my sake--I realised, for the first time in my
life, all the horror which lurks in that dreadful word "Farewell."
Meaning originally a benediction, it has become by usage the word with
which we cut ourselves asunder from all that is nearest and dearest to
us; it is the signal for parting; the last word we address to our loved
ones; the fatal spell at which they lingeringly and unwillingly withdraw
from our clinging embrace; the utterance at which the hand-clasp of
friendship or of love is loosed, and we are torn apart never perhaps
again to meet until time shall be no more.

My poor sister!  It was pitiful to witness her intense distress.  This
was our first parting.  Never before had we been separated for more than
an hour or two at a time, and, there being only the two of us, our
mutual affection had steadily, though imperceptibly, grown and
strengthened from year to year until now, when to say "good-bye" seemed
like the rending of our heart-strings asunder.

It had to be said, however, and it _was_ said at last--God knows how,
for my recollection of our parting moments is nothing more than that of
a brief period of acute mental suffering--and then, placing my half-
swooning sister upon the couch and pressing a last lingering kiss on her
icy-cold lips, I rushed from the room and the house.

My father had already taken his seat in the carriage; my luggage was
piled up on the front seat alongside the driver, and nothing therefore
remained but for me to jump in, slam-to the door, and we were off.

It seemed equally impossible to my father and to myself to utter a
single word during that short--though, in our then condition of acute
mental tension, all too long--drive to the Hard; we sat therefore dumbly
side by side, with our hands clasped, until the carriage drew up, when I
sprang out, hastily hailed a boatman, and then at once began with
feverish haste to drag my belongings off the carriage down into the
road.  I had still to say good-bye to my father, and I felt that I
_must_ shorten the time as much as possible, that ten minutes more of
such mental torture would drive me mad.

The boatman quickly shouldered my chest, and, gathering up the remainder
of my belongings in his disengaged hand, discreetly trotted off to the
wherry, which he unmoored and drew alongside the slipway.

Then I turned to my father, and, with the obtrusive lump in my throat by
this time grown so inconveniently large that I could scarcely
articulate, held out my hand to him.

"Good-bye, father!"  I stammered out huskily.

"Good-bye, Dick, my son, my own dear boy!" he returned, not less
affected than myself.  "Good-bye!  May God bless and keep you, and in
His own good time bring you in health and safety back to us!  Amen."

A quick convulsive hand-clasp, a last hungry glance into the loving face
and the sorrow-dimmed eyes which looked so longingly down into mine, and
with a hardly-suppressed cry of anguish I tore myself away, staggered
blindly down the slipway, tumbled into the boat, and, as gruffly as I
could under the circumstances, ordered the boatman to put me on board
the _Daphne_.



CHAPTER THREE.

THE TRUTH ABOUT FITZ-JOHNES.

"Where are we going, Tom?"  I asked, as the boatman, an old chum of
mine, proceeded to step the boat's mast.  "You surely don't need the
sail for a run half-way across the harbour?"

"No," he answered; "no, I don't.  But we're bound out to Spithead.  The
_Daphne_ went out this mornin' at daylight to take in her powder, and I
'spects she's got half of it stowed away by this time.  Look out for
your head, Mr Dick, sir, we shall jibe in a minute."

I ducked my head just in time to save my glazed hat from being knocked
overboard by the jibing mainsail of the boat, and then drew out my
handkerchief and waved another farewell to my father, whose fast-
diminishing figure I could still make out standing motionless on the
shore, with his hand shading his eyes as he watched the rapidly moving
boat.  He waved back in answer, and then the intervening hull of a ship
hid him from my view, and I saw him no more for many a long day.

"Ah, it's a sorry business that, partin' with friends and kinsfolk when
you're outward-bound on a long cruise that you can't see the end of!"
commented my old friend Tom; "but keep up a good heart, Mr Dick; it'll
all be made up to yer when you comes home again by and by loaded down to
the scuppers with glory and prize-money."

I replied somewhat drearily that I supposed it would; and then Tom--
anxious in his rough kindliness of heart to dispel my depression of
spirits and prepare me to present myself among my new shipmates in a
suitably cheerful frame of mind--adroitly changed the subject and
proceeded to put me "up to a few moves," as he expressed it, likely to
prove useful to me in the new life upon which I was about to enter.

"And be sure, Mr Dick," he concluded, as we shot alongside the sloop,
"be sure you remember _always_ to touch your hat when you steps in upon
the quarter-deck of a man-o'-war, no matter whether 'tis your own ship
or a stranger."

Paying the old fellow his fare, and parting with him with a hearty shake
of the hand, I sprang up the ship's side, and--remembering Tom's parting
caution just in the nick of time--presenting myself in due form upon the
quarter-deck, where the first lieutenant had posted himself and from
which he was directing the multitudinous operations then in progress,
reported myself to that much-dreaded official as "come on board to
join."

He was a rather tall and decidedly handsome man, with a gentlemanly
bearing and a well-knit shapely-looking figure, dark hair and eyes,
thick bushy whiskers meeting under the chin, and a clear strong
melodious voice, which, without the aid of a speaking-trumpet, he made
distinctly heard from one end of the ship to the other.  As he stood
there, in an easy attitude with his hands lightly clasped behind his
back and his eye taking in, as it seemed at a glance, everything that
was going forward, he struck me as the _beau-ideal_ of a naval officer.
I took a strong liking to him on the spot, an instinctive prepossession
which was afterwards abundantly justified, for Mr Austin--that was his
name--proved to be one of the best officers it has ever been my good
fortune to serve under.

"Oh, you're come on board to join, eh?" he remarked in response to my
announcement.  "I suppose you are the young gentleman about whom Captain
Vernon was speaking to me yesterday.  What is your name?"

I told him.

"Ah!  Hawkesley! yes, that is the name.  I remember now.  Captain Vernon
told me that although you have never been to sea as yet you are not
altogether a greenhorn.  What can you do?"

"I can hand, reef, and steer, box the compass, pull an oar, or sail a
boat; and I know the name and place of every spar, sail, and rope
throughout the ship."

"Aha! say you so?  Then you will prove indeed a valuable acquisition.
What is the name of this rope?"

"The main-topgallant clewline," I answered, casting my eye aloft to note
the "lead" of the rope.

"Right!" he replied with a smile.  "And you have the true nautical
pronunciation also, I perceive.  Mr Johnson,"--to a master's mate who
happened to be passing at the moment--"this is Mr Hawkesley.  Kindly
take him under your wing and induct him into his quarters in the
midshipmen's berth, if you please.  Don't stop to stow away your things
just now, Mr Hawkesley," he continued.  "I shall have an errand for you
in a few minutes."

"Very well, sir," I replied.  And following my new acquaintance, I first
saw to the hoisting in of my traps, and then with them descended to the
place which was to be my home for so many months to come.

This was a tolerably roomy but very indifferently lighted cabin on the
lower or orlop deck, access to which was gained by the descent of a very
steep ladder.  The furniture was of the most meagre description,
consisting only of a very solid deal table, two equally solid forms or
stools, and a couple of arm-chairs, one at each end of the table, all
securely lashed down to the deck.  There was a shelf with a ledge along
its front edge, and divisions to form lockers, extending across the
after-end of the berth; and under this hung three small book-cases,
(which I was given to understand were private property) and a mirror six
inches long by four inches wide, before which the "young gentlemen"--
four in number, including myself--and the two master's mates had to
perform their toilets as best they could.  The fore and after bulkheads
of the apartment were furnished with stout hooks to which to suspend our
hammocks, which, by the by, when slung, left, I noticed, but a very
small space on either side of the table; and depending from a beam
overhead there hung a common horn lantern containing the most attenuated
candle I ever saw--a veritable "purser's dip."  This lantern, which was
suspended over the centre of the table, afforded, except at meal-times
or other special occasions, the sole illumination of the place.
Although the ship was new, and the berth had only been occupied a few
days, it was already pervaded by a very powerful odour of paint and
stale tobacco-smoke, which made me anxious to quit the place with the
least possible delay.

Merely selecting a position, therefore, for my chest, and leaving to the
wretched lad, whom adverse fortune had made the attendant of the place,
the task of lashing it down, I hastened on deck again, and presenting
myself once more before the first lieutenant, announced that I was now
ready to execute any commission with which he might be pleased to
intrust me.

"Very well," said he.  "I want you to take the gig and proceed on board
the _Saint George_ with this letter for the first lieutenant of that
ship.  Wait for an answer, and if he gives you a parcel be very careful
how you handle it, as it will contain articles of a very fragile
character which must on no account be damaged or broken."

The gig was thereupon piped away, and when she was in the water and her
crew in her I proceeded in my most stately manner down the side and
flung myself in an easily negligent attitude into the stern-sheets.

I felt at that moment exceedingly well satisfied with myself.  I had
joined the ship but a bare half-hour before; yet here I was, singled out
from the rest of the midshipmen as the fittest person to be intrusted
with an evidently important mission.  I forgot not only my father's
caution against vanity but also my sorrow at parting with him; my _amour
propre_ rose triumphant above every other feeling; the disagreeable lump
in my throat subsided, and with an unconscious, but no doubt very
ludicrous, assumption of condescending authority, I gave the order to--

"Shove off, and get the muslin upon her, and see that you crack on,
coxswain, for I am in a hurry."

"Ay, ay, sir," returned that functionary in a very respectful tone of
voice.  "Step the mast, for'ard there, you sea-dogs, `and get the muslin
on her.'"

With a broad grin, whether at the verbatim repetition of my order, or in
consequence of some pantomimic gesture on the part of the coxswain, who
was behind me--I had a sudden painful suspicion that it might possibly
be _both_--the men sprang to obey the order; and in another instant the
mast was stepped, the halliard and tack hooked on, the sheet led aft,
and the sail was all ready for hoisting.

"What d'ye say, Tom; shall us take down a reef!" asked one of the men.

"Reef?  No, certingly not.  Didn't you hear the gentleman say as how we
was to `crack on' because he's in a hurry?  Give her whole canvas,"
replied the coxswain.

With a shivering flutter and a sudden violent jerk the sail was run up;
and, careening gunwale-to, away dashed the lively boat toward the
harbour.

It was blowing fresh and squally from the eastward, and for the first
mile of our course there was a nasty choppy sea for a boat.  The men
flung their oil-skins over their shoulders, and ranging themselves along
the weather side of the boat, seated themselves on the bottom-boards,
and away we went, jerk-jerking through it, the sea hissing and foaming
past us to leeward, and the spray flying in a continuous heavy shower in
over the weather-bow and right aft, drenching me through and through in
less than five minutes.

"I'm afeard you're gettin' rayther wet, sir," remarked the coxswain
feelingly when I had just about arrived at a condition of complete
saturation; "perhaps you'd better have my oil-skin, sir."

"No, thanks," I replied, "I am very comfortable as I am."

This was, to put it mildly, a perversion of the truth.  I was _not_ very
comfortable; I was wet to the skin, and my bran-new uniform, upon which
I so greatly prided myself, was just about ruined.  But it was then too
late for the oil-skin to be of the slightest benefit to me; and,
moreover, I did not choose that those men should think I cared for so
trifling a matter as a wetting.

But a certain scarcely-perceptible ironical inflection in the coxswain's
voice, when he so kindly offered me the use of his jumper, suggested the
suspicion that perhaps he was quietly amusing himself and his shipmates
at my expense, and that the drenching I had received was due more to his
management of the boat than anything else, so I set myself quietly to
watch.

I soon saw that my suspicion was well-founded.  The rascal, instead of
easing the boat and meeting the heavier seas as he ought to have done,
was sailing the craft at top speed right through them, varying the
performance occasionally by keeping the boat broad away when a squall
struck her, causing her to careen until her gunwale went under, and as a
natural consequence shipping a great deal of water.

At length he rather overdid it, a squall striking the boat so heavily
that before he could luff and shake the wind out of the sail she had
filled to the thwarts.  I thought for a moment that we were over, and so
did the crew of the boat, who jumped to their feet in consternation.
Being an excellent swimmer myself, however, I managed to perfectly
retain my _sang-froid_, whilst I also recognised in the mishap an
opportunity to take the coxswain down a peg or two.

Lifting my legs, therefore, coolly up on the side seat out of reach of
the water, I said:

"How long have you been a sailor, coxswain?"

"Nigh on to seven year, sir.  Now then, lads, dowse the sail smartly and
get to work with the bucket."

"Seven years, have you?"  I returned placidly.  "Then you _ought_ to
know how to sail a boat by this time.  I have never yet been to sea; but
I should be ashamed to make such a mess of it as this."

To this my friend in the rear vouchsafed not a word in reply, but from
that moment I noticed a difference in the behaviour of the men all
round.  They found they had not got quite the greenhorn to deal with
that they had first imagined.

When at last the boat was freed of the water and sail once more made
upon her, I remarked to the coxswain:

"Now, Tom--if that is your name--you have amused yourself and your
shipmates at my expense--to your heart's content, I hope--you have
played off your little practical joke upon me, and I bear no malice.
But--let there be no more of it--do you understand?"

"Ay ay, sir; I underconstumbles," was the reply; "and I'm right sorry
now as I did it, sir, and I axes your parding, sir; that I do.  Dash my
buttons, though, but you're a rare plucky young gentleman, you are, sir,
though I says it to your face.  And I hopes, sir, as how you won't bear
no malice again' me for just tryin' a bit to see what sort o' stuff you
was made of, as it were?"

I eased the poor fellow's mind upon this point, and soon afterwards we
arrived alongside the _Saint George_.

I found the first lieutenant, and duly handed over my despatch, which he
read with a curious twitching about the corners of the mouth.

Having mastered the contents, he retired below, asking me to wait a
minute or two.

At that moment my attention was attracted to a midshipman in the main
rigging, who, with exaggerated deliberation, was making his unwilling
way aloft to the mast-head as it turned out.  A certain familiar
something about the young gentleman caused me to look up at him more
attentively; and I then at once recognised my recent acquaintance, Lord
Fitz-Johnes.  At the same moment the second lieutenant, who was eyeing
his lordship somewhat wrathfully, hailed him with:

"Now then, Mr Tomkins, are you going to be all day on your journey?
Quicken your movements, sir, or I will send a boatswain's mate after you
with a rope's-end to freshen your way.  Do you hear, sir?"

"Ay ay, sir," responded the _ci-devant_ Lord Fitz-Johnes--now plain Mr
Tomkins--in a squeaky treble, as he made a feeble momentary show of
alacrity.  Just then I caught his eye, and, taking off my hat, made him
an ironical bow of recognition, to which he responded by pressing his
body against the rigging--pausing in his upward journey to give due
effect to the ceremony--spreading his legs as widely apart as possible,
and extending both hands toward me, the fingers outspread, the thumb of
the right hand pressing gently against the point of his nose, and the
thumb of the left interlinked with the right-hand little finger.  This
salute was made still more impressive by a lengthened slow and solemn
twiddling of the fingers, which was only brought to an end by the second
lieutenant hailing:

"Mr Tomkins, you will oblige me by prolonging your stay at the mast-
head until the end of the afternoon watch, if you please."

As the answering "Ay ay, sir," came sadly down from aloft, I felt a
touch on my arm, and, turning round, found my second acquaintance, Lord
Tomnoddy, by my side.  As I looked at him I felt strongly inclined to
ask him whether _he_ also had changed his name since our last meeting.

"Oh, look here, Hawksbill," he commenced, "I'm glad you've come on
board; I wanted to see you in order that I might repay you the sovereign
you lent us the other day.  Here it is,"--selecting the coin from a
handful which he pulled out of his breeches pocket and thrusting it into
my hand--"and I am very much obliged to you for the loan.  I _really_
hadn't a farthing in my pocket at the time, or I wouldn't have allowed
Tomkins to borrow it from you--and it was awfully stupid of me to let
you go away without saying where I could send it to you."

"Pray do not say anything further about it, Mr --, Mr --."

"I am Lord Southdown, at your service--_not_ Lord Tomnoddy, as my
whimsical friend Tomkins dubbed me the other day.  It is perfectly
true," he added somewhat haughtily, and then with a smile resumed: "but
I suppose I must not take offence at your look of incredulity, seeing
that I was a consenting party to that awful piece of deception which
Tomkins played off upon you.  Ha, ha, ha! excuse me, but I really wish
you could have seen yourself when that mischievous friend of mine
accused you of--of--what was it?  Oh, yes, of playing fast and loose
with the affections of the fictitious Lady Sara, or whatever the fellow
called her.  And then again, when he remarked upon your extraordinary
resemblance to Lord--Somebody--another fictitious friend of his, and
directed attention to your `lofty intellectual forehead, your proud
eagle-glance, your--' oh, dear! it was _too_ much."

And off went his lordship into another paroxysm of laughter, which sent
the tears coursing down his cheeks and caused me to flush most painfully
with mortification.

"Upon my word, Hawksbill--" he commenced.

"My name is Hawkesley, my lord, at your service," I interrupted,
somewhat angrily I am afraid.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Hawkesley; the mistake was a perfectly genuine
and unintentional one, I assure you.  I was going to apologise--as I
_do_, most heartily, for laughing at you in this very impertinent
fashion.  But, my dear fellow, let me advise you as a friend to overcome
your very conspicuous vanity.  I am, perhaps, taking a most
unwarrantable liberty in presuming to offer you advice on so delicate a
subject, or, indeed, in alluding to it at all; but, to tell you the
truth, I have taken rather a liking for you in spite of--ah--ahem--that
is--I mean that you struck me as being a first-rate fellow
notwithstanding the little failing at which I have hinted.  You are
quite good enough every way to pass muster without the necessity for any
attempt to clothe yourself with fictitious attributes of any kind.  Of
course, in the ordinary run of events you will soon be laughed out of
your weakness--there is no place equal to a man-of-war for the speedy
cure of that sort of thing--but the process is often a very painful one
to the patient--I have passed through it myself, so I can speak from
experience--so _very_ painful was it to me that, even at the risk of
being considered impertinent, I have ventured to give you a friendly
caution, in the hope that your good sense will enable you to profit by
it, and so save you many a bitter mortification.  Now I _hope_ I have
not offended you?"

"By no means, my lord," I replied, grasping his proffered hand.  "On the
contrary, I am very sincerely obliged to you--"

At this moment the first lieutenant of the _Saint George_ reappeared on
deck, and coming up to me with Mr Austin's letter open in his hand,
said:

"My friend Mr Austin writes me that you are quite out of eggs on board
the _Daphne_, and asks me to lend him a couple of dozen."  (Here was
another take-down for me; the important despatch with which I--_out of
all the midshipmen on board_--had been intrusted was simply a request
for the loan of two dozen eggs!) "He sends to me for them instead of
procuring them from the shore, because he is afraid you may lose some of
your boat's crew."  (Evidently Mr Austin had not the high opinion of me
that I fondly imagined he had.) "I am sorry to say I cannot oblige Mr
Austin; but I think we can overcome the difficulty if you do not mind
being delayed a quarter of an hour or so.  I have a packet which I wish
to send ashore, and if you will give Lord Southdown here--who seems to
be a friend of yours--a passage to the Hard and off again, he will look
after your boat's crew for you whilst you purchase your eggs."

I of course acquiesced in this proposal; whereupon Lord Southdown was
sent into the captain's cabin for the packet in question; and on his
reappearance a few minutes later we jumped into the boat and went ashore
together, his lordship regaling me on the way with sundry entertaining
anecdotes whereof his humorous friend Tomkins was the hero.

We managed to execute our respective errands without losing any of the
boat's crew; and duly putting Lord Southdown on board the _Saint George_
again, I returned triumphantly to the _Daphne_ with my consignment of
eggs and handed them over intact to Mr Austin.  After which I dived
below, just in time to partake of the first dinner provided for me at
the expense of His Most Gracious Majesty George IV.

For the remainder of that day and during the whole of the next, until
nearly ten o'clock at night, we were up to our eyes in the business of
completing stores, etcetera, and, generally, in getting the ship ready
for sea; and at daybreak on the second morning after I had joined, the
fore-topsail was loosed, blue peter run up to the fore royal-mast head,
the boats hoisted in and stowed, and the messenger passed, after which
all hands went to breakfast.  At nine o'clock the captain's gig was sent
on shore, and at 11 a.m. the skipper came off; his boat was hoisted up
to the davits, the canvas loosed, the anchor tripped, and away we went
down the Solent and out past the Needles, with a slashing breeze at
east-south-east and every stitch of canvas set, from the topgallant
studding-sails downwards.



CHAPTER FOUR.

A BOAT-EXCURSION INTO THE CONGO.

Our skipper's instructions were to the effect that he was, in the first
instance, to report himself to the governor of Sierra Leone; and it was
to that port, therefore, that we now made the best of our way.

The breeze with which we started carried us handsomely down channel and
half-way across the Bay of Biscay, and the ship proving to be a regular
flyer, everybody, from the skipper downwards, was in the very best of
spirits.  Then came a change, the wind backing out from south-west with
squally weather which placed us at once upon a taut bowline; and
simultaneously with this change of weather a most disagreeable discovery
was made, namely, that the _Daphne_ was an exceedingly crank ship.

However, we accomplished the passage in a little over three weeks; and
after remaining at Sierra Leone for a few hours only, proceeded for the
mouth of the Congo, off which we expected to fall in with the _Fawn_,
which ship we had been sent out to relieve.  Proceeding under easy
canvas, in the hope of picking up a prize by the way--in which hope, so
however, we were disappointed--we reached our destination in twenty-
three days from Sierra Leone; sighting the _Fawn_ at daybreak and
closing with her an hour afterwards.  Her skipper came on board the
_Daphne_ and remained to breakfast with Captain Vernon, whom--our
skipper being a total stranger to the coast--he posted up pretty
thoroughly in the current news, as well as such of the "dodges" of the
slavers as he had happened to have picked up.  He said that at the
moment there were no ships in the river, but that intelligence--whether
trustworthy or no, however, he could not state--had reached him of the
daily-expected arrival of three ships from Cuba.  He also confirmed a
very extraordinary story which had been told our skipper by the governor
of Sierra Leone, to the effect that large cargoes of slaves, known to
have been collected on shore up the river, awaiting the arrival of the
slavers, had from time to time disappeared in a most mysterious manner,
at times when, as far as could be ascertained, no craft but men-o'-war
were anywhere near the neighbourhood.  At noon the _Fawn_ filled away
and bore up for Jamaica--whither she was to proceed preparatory to
returning home to be paid off--her crew manning the rigging and giving
us a parting cheer as she did so; and two hours later her royals dipped
below the horizon, and we were left alone in our glory.

On parting from the _Fawn_ we filled away again upon the starboard tack,
the wind being off the shore, and at noon brought the ship to an anchor
in nine fathoms of water off Padron Point (the projecting headland on
the southern side of the river's mouth) at a distance of two miles only
from the shore.  The order was then given for the men to go to dinner as
soon as that meal could be got ready; it being understood that,
notwithstanding the _Fawn's_ assurance as to there being no ships in the
river, our skipper intended to satisfy himself of that fact by actual
examination.  Moreover, the deserted state of the river afforded us an
excellent opportunity for making an unmolested exploration of it--making
its acquaintance, so to speak, in order that at any future time, if
occasion should arise, we might be able to make a dash into it without
feeling that we were doing so absolutely blindfold.

At 1:30 p.m. the gig was piped away; Mr Austin being in charge, with me
for an _aide_, all hands being fully armed.

The wind had by this time died away to a dead calm; the sun was blazing
down upon us as if determined to roast us as we sat; and we had a long
pull before us, for although the ship lay only two miles from the shore,
we had to round a low spit, called, as Mr Austin informed me, Shark
Point, six miles away, in a north-easterly direction, before we could be
said to be fairly in the river.

For this point, then, away we stretched, the perspiration streaming from
the men at every pore.  Fortunately the tide had begun to make before we
started, and it was therefore in our favour.  We had a sounding-line
with us, which we used at frequent intervals; and by its aid we
ascertained that at a distance of one mile from the shore the shallowest
water between the ship and Shark Point was about three and a half
fathoms at low water.  This was at a spot distant some three and a half
miles from the point.  Half a mile further on we suddenly deepened our
water to forty-five fathoms; and at a distance of only a quarter of a
mile from the point as we rounded it, the lead gave us fifteen fathoms,
shortly afterwards shoaling to six fathoms, which depth was steadily
maintained for a distance of eight miles up the river, the extent of our
exploration on this occasion.  On our return journey we kept a little
further off the shore, and found a corresponding increase in the depth
of water; a result which fully satisfied us that we need have no
hesitation about taking the _Daphne_ inside should it at any time seem
desirable so to do.

Immediately abreast of Shark Point is an extensive creek named Banana
Creek; and hereabouts the river is fully six miles wide.  On making out
the mouth of this creek it was our first intention to have explored it;
but on rounding the point and fairly entering the river, we made out so
many snug, likely-looking openings on the southern side that we
determined to confine our attention to that side first.

In the first place, immediately on rounding Shark Point we discovered a
bay at the back of it, roughly triangular in shape, about four miles
broad across the base, and perhaps three miles deep from base to apex.
At the further end of the base of this triangular bay we descried the
mouth of the creek; and at the apex or bottom of the bay, another.  The
latter of these we examined first, making the discovery that the mouth
or opening gave access to _three_ creeks instead of one; they were all,
however, too shallow to admit anything drawing over ten feet, even at
high-water; and the land adjoining was also so low and the bush so
stunted--consisting almost exclusively of mangroves--that only a partial
concealment could have been effected unless a ship's upper spars were
struck for the occasion.  A low-rigged vessel, such as a felucca, would
indeed find complete shelter in either of the two westernmost creeks--
the easternmost had only three feet of water in it when we visited it;
but the shores on either side consisted only of a brownish-grey fetid
mud, of a consistency little thicker than pea-soup; and the facilities
for embarking slaves were so utterly wanting that we felt sure we need
not trouble ourselves at any future time about either of these creeks.

The other creek, that which I have described as situated at the further
end of the base of the triangle forming the bay, was undoubtedly more
promising; though, like the others, it could only receive craft of small
tonnage, having a little bar of its own across its mouth, on which at
half-tide, which was about the time of our visit, there was only seven
feet of water.  Its banks, however, were tolerably firm and solid; the
jungle was thicker and higher; though little more than a cable's length
wide at its mouth, it was nearly a mile in width a little further in;
and branching off from it, right and left, there were three or four
other snug-looking little creeks, wherein a ship of light draught might
lie as comfortably as if in dry-dock, and wherein, by simply sending
down topgallant-masts, she would be perfectly concealed.  Mr Austin
would greatly have liked to land here and explore the bush a bit on each
side of the creek; but our mission just then was to make a rough survey
of the river rather than of its banks, so we reluctantly made our way
back once more to the broad rolling river.

A pull of a couple of miles close along the shore brought us to the
entrance of another creek, which for a length of two miles averaged
quite half a mile wide, when it took a sharp bend to the right, or in a
southerly direction, and at the same time narrowed down to less than a
quarter of a mile in width.  For the first two miles we had plenty of
water, that is to say, there was never less than five fathoms under our
keel; but with the narrowing of the creek it shoaled rapidly, so that by
the time we had gone another mile we found ourselves in a stream about a
hundred yards wide and only six feet deep.  The mangrove-swamp, however,
had ceased; and the grassy banks, shelving gently down to the water on
each side, ended in a narrow strip of reddish sandy beach.  The bush
here was very dense and the vegetation extremely varied, whilst the
foliage seemed to embrace literally all the colours of the rainbow.
Greens of course predominated, but they were of every conceivable shade,
from the pale delicate tint of the young budding leaf to an olive which
was almost black.  Then there was the ruddy bronze of leaves which
appeared just ready to fall; and thickly interspersed among the greens
were large bushes with long lance-shaped leaves of a beautifully
delicate ashen-grey tint; others glowed in a rich mass of flaming
scarlet; whilst others again had a leaf thickly covered with short white
sheeny satin-like fur--I cannot otherwise describe it--which gleamed and
flashed in the sun-rays as though the leaves were of polished silver.
Some of the trees were thickly covered with blossoms exquisite both in
form and colour; while as to the passion-plant and other flowering
creepers, they were here, there, and everywhere in such countless
varieties as would have sent a botanist into the seventh heaven of
delight.

That this vast extent of jungle was not tenantless we had frequent
assurance in the sudden sharp cracking of twigs and branches, as well as
other more distant and more mysterious sounds; an occasional glimpse of
a monkey was caught high aloft in the gently swaying branches of some
forest giant; and birds of gorgeous plumage but more or less discordant
cries constantly flitted from bough to bough, or swept in rapid flight
across the stream.

We were so enchanted with the beauty of this secluded creek that though
the time was flitting rapidly away Mr Austin could not resist the
temptation to push a little further on, notwithstanding the fact that we
had already penetrated higher than a ship, even of small tonnage, could
possibly reach; and the men, nothing loath, accordingly paddled gently
ahead for another mile.  At this point we discovered that the tide was
met and stopped by a stream of thick muddy fresh water; the creek or
river, whichever you choose to call it, had narrowed in until it was
only about a hundred feet across; and the water had shoaled to four
feet.  The trees in many places grew right down to the water's edge; the
roots of some, indeed, were actually covered, and here and there the
more lofty ones, leaning over the stream on either side, mingled their
foliage overhead and formed a leafy arch, completely excluding the sun's
rays and throwing that part of the river which they overarched into a
deep green twilight shadow to which the eye had to become accustomed
before it was possible to see anything.  A hundred yards ahead of us
there was a long continuous _tunnel_ formed in this way; and, on
entering it, the men with one accord rested on their oars and allowed
the boat to glide onward by her own momentum, whilst they looked around
them, lost in wonder and admiration.

As we shot into this watery lane, and the roll of the oars in the
rowlocks ceased, the silence became profound, almost oppressively so,
marked and emphasised as it was by the lap and gurgle of the water
against the boat's planking.  Not a bird was here to be seen; not even
an insect--except the mosquitoes, by the by, which soon began to swarm
round us in numbers amply sufficient to atone for the absence of all
other life.  But the picture presented to our view by the long avenue of
variegated foliage, looped and festooned in every direction with flowery
creepers loaded with blooms of the most gorgeous hues; and the deep
green--almost black--shadows, contrasted here and there with long arrowy
shafts of greenish light glancing down through invisible openings in the
leafy arch above, and lighting up into prominence some feathery spray or
drooping flowery wreath, was enchantingly beautiful.

We were all sitting motionless and silent, wrapped in admiration of the
enchanting scene, all the more enchanting, perhaps, to us from its
striking contrast to the long monotony of sea and sky only upon which
our eyes had so lately rested, when a slight, sharp, crackling sound--
proceeding from apparently but a short distance off in the bush on our
port bow--arrested our attention.  The boat had by this time lost her
way, and the men, abruptly roused from their trance of wondering
admiration, were about once more to dip their oars in the water when Mr
Austin's uplifted hand arrested them.

The sounds continued at intervals; and presently, without so much as the
rustling of a bough to prepare us for the apparition, a magnificent
antelope emerged from the bush about fifty yards away, and stepped
daintily down into the water.  His quick eye detected in an instant the
unwonted presence of our boat and ourselves, and instead of bowing his
head at once to drink, as had evidently been his first intention, he
stood motionless as a statue, gazing wonderingly at us.  He was a superb
creature, standing as high at the shoulders as a cow, with a smooth,
glossy hide of a very light chocolate colour--except along the belly and
on the inner side of the thighs, where the hair was milk-white--and
long, sharp, gracefully curving horns.  We were so close to him that we
could even distinguish the greenish lambent gleam of his eyes.

Mr Austin very cautiously reached out his hand for a musket which lay
on the thwart beside him, and had almost grasped it, when--in the
millionth part of a second, as it seemed to me, so rapid was it--there
was a flashing swirl of water directly in front of the deer, and before
the startled creature had time to make so much as a single movement to
save itself, an immense alligator had seized it by a foreleg and was
tug-tugging at it in an endeavour to drag it into deep water.  The deer,
however, though taken by surprise and at a disadvantage, was evidently
determined not to yield without a struggle, and, lowering his head, he
made lunge after lunge at his antagonist with the long, sharply-pointed
horns which had so excited my admiration, holding bravely back with his
three disengaged legs the while.

"Give way, men," shouted Mr Austin in a voice which made the leafy
archway ring again.  "Steer straight for the crocodile, Tom; plump the
boat right on him; and, bow-oar, lay in and stand by to prod the fellow
with your boat-hook.  Drive it into him under the arm-pit if you can;
that, I believe, is his most vulnerable part."

Animated by the first lieutenant's evident excitement, the men dashed
their oars into the water, and, with a tug which made the stout ash
staves buckle like fishing-rods, sent the boat forward with a rush.

The alligator--or crocodile, whichever he happened to be--was, however,
in the meantime, getting the best of the struggle, dragging the antelope
steadily ahead into deeper water every instant, in spite of the
beautiful creature's desperate resistance.  We were only a few seconds
in reaching the scene of the conflict, yet during that brief period the
buck had been dragged forward until the water was up to his belly.

"Hold water! back hard of all!" cried Mr Austin, standing up in the
stern-sheets, musket in hand, as we ranged up alongside the frantic
deer.  "Now give it him with your boat-hook; drive it well home into
him.  That's your sort, Ben; another like that, and he _must_ let go.
Well struck! now another--"

Bang!

The crocodile had suddenly released his hold upon the antelope; and the
creature no sooner felt itself free than it wheeled round, and, on three
legs--the fourth was broken above the knee-joint, or probably _bitten_
in two--made a gallant dash for the shore.  But our first lieutenant was
quite prepared for such a movement, had anticipated it, in fact, and the
buck had barely emerged from the water when he was cleverly dropped by a
bullet from Mr Austin's musket.  The boat was thereupon promptly
beached, the buck's throat cut, and the carcass stowed away in the
stern-sheets, which it pretty completely filled.  We were just about to
shove off again when the first lieutenant caught sight of a banana-tree,
with the fruit just in right condition for cutting; so we added to our
spoils three huge bunches of bananas, each as much as a man could
conveniently carry.

The deepening shadows now warned us that the sun was sinking low; so we
shoved off and made the best of our way back to the river.  When we
reached it we found that there was a small drain of the flood-tide still
making, and, the land-breeze not yet having sprung up, Mr Austin
determined to push yet a little higher up the river.  The boat's head
was accordingly pointed to the eastward, and, four miles further on, we
hit upon another opening, into which we at once made our way.

We had no sooner entered this creek, however, than we found that, like
the first we had visited, it forked into two, one branch of which
trended to the south-west and the other in a south-easterly direction.
We chose the latter, and soon found ourselves pulling along a channel
very similar to the last one we had explored, except that, in the
present instance, the first of a chain of hills, stretching away to the
eastward, lay at no great distance ahead of us.  A pull of a couple of
miles brought us to a bend in the stream; and in a few minutes
afterwards we found ourselves sweeping along close to the base of the
hills, in a channel about a quarter of a mile wide and with from three
to four and a half fathoms of water under us.  Twenty minutes later the
channel again divided, one branch continuing on in an easterly
direction, whilst the other--which varied from a half to three-quarters
of a mile in width--branched off abruptly to the northward and westward.
Mr Austin chose this channel, suspecting that it would lead into the
river again, a suspicion which another quarter of an hour proved
correct.

The sun was by this time within half an hour of setting, and Shark
Point--or rather the tops of the mangroves growing upon it--lay
stretched along the horizon a good eleven miles off, so it was high time
to see about returning.  But the tide had by this time turned and was
running out pretty strongly in mid-channel; the land-breeze also had
sprung up, and, though where we were, close inshore, we did not feel
very much of it, was swaying the tops of the more lofty trees in a way
which I am sure must have gladdened the hearts of the boat's crew; so
the oars were laid in, the mast stepped, and the lug hoisted, and in
another ten minutes we were bowling down stream--what with the current
and the breeze, both of which we got in their full strength as soon as
we had hauled a little further out from the bank--at the rate of a good
honest ten knots per hour.

The sun went down in a bewildering blaze of purple and crimson and gold
when we were within five miles of Shark Point; and, ten minutes
afterwards, night--the glorious night of the tropics--was upon us in all
its loveliness.  The heavens were destitute of cloud--save a low bank
down on the western horizon--and the soft velvety blue-black of the sky
was literally powdered with countless millions of glittering gems.  I do
not remember that I ever before or since saw so many of the smaller
stars; and as for the larger stars and the planets, they shone down upon
us with an effulgence which caused them to be reflected in long
shimmering lines of golden light upon the turbid water.

Presently the boat's lug-sail, which spread above and before us like a
great blot of ghostly grey against the starlit sky, began perceptibly to
pale and brighten until it stood out clear and distinct, bathed in
richest primrose light, with the shadow of the mast drawn across it in
ebony-black.  Striking the top of the sail first, the light swept
gradually down; and in less than a minute the whole of the boat, with
the crew and ourselves, were completely bathed in it.  I looked behind
me to ascertain the cause of this sudden glorification, and, behold!
there was the moon sweeping magnificently into view above the distant
tree-tops, her full orb magnified to three or four times its usual
dimensions and painted a glorious ruddy orange by the haze which began
to rise from the bosom of the river.  Under the magic effect of the
moonlight the noble river, with its background of trees and bush rising
dim and ghostly above the wreathing mist and its swift-flowing waters
shimmering in the golden radiance, presented a picture the dream-like
beauty of which words are wholly inadequate to describe.  But I am
willing to confess that my admiration lost a great deal of its ardour
when Mr Austin informed me that the mist which imparted so subtle a
charm to the scene was but the forerunner of the deadly miasmatic fog
which makes the Congo so fatal a river to Europeans; and I was by no
means sorry when we found ourselves, three-quarters of an hour later,
once more in safety alongside the _Daphne_, having succeeded in making
good our escape before the pestilential fog overtook us.  Our prizes,
the buck and the bananas, were cordially welcomed on board the old
barkie; the bananas being carefully suspended from the spanker-boom to
ripen at their leisure, whilst the buck was handed over to the butcher
to be operated upon forthwith, so far at least as the flaying was
concerned; and on the morrow all hands, fore and aft, enjoyed the
unwonted luxury of venison for dinner.

Mr Austin having duly reported to Captain Vernon that the river was
just then free of shipping, we hove up the anchor that same evening, at
the end of the second dog-watch, and stood off from the land all night
under easy canvas.



CHAPTER FIVE.

THE "VESTALE."

About three bells in the forenoon watch next morning the look-out aloft
reported a sail on the larboard bow; and, on being questioned in the
usual manner, he shouted down to us the further information that the
stranger was a brig working in for the land on the starboard tack under
topgallant-sails, and that she had all the look of a man-o'-war.

By six bells we had closed each other within a mile; and a few minutes
afterwards the stranger crossed our bows, and, laying her main topsail
to the mast, lowered a boat.  Perceiving that her captain wanted to
speak us, we of course at once hauled our wind and, backing our main
topsail, hove-to about a couple of cables' lengths to windward of the
brig.  She was as beautiful a craft as a seaman's eye had ever rested
on: long and low upon the water, with a superbly-modelled hull,
enormously lofty masts with a saucy rake aft to them, and very taunt
heavy yards.  She mounted seven guns of a side, apparently of the same
description and weight as our own--long 18-pounders, and there was what
looked suspiciously like a long 32-pounder on her forecastle.  She was
flying French colours, but she certainly looked at least as much like an
English as she did like a French ship.

The boat dashed alongside us in true man-o'-war style; our side was duly
manned, and presently there entered through the gangway a man dressed in
the uniform of a lieutenant in the French navy.  He was of medium height
and rather square built; his skin was tanned to a deep mahogany colour;
his hair and bushy beard were jet black, as also were his piercing,
restless eyes; and though rather a handsome man, his features wore a
fierce and repellent expression, which, however, passed away as soon as
he began to speak.

"Bon jour, m'sieu," he began, raising his uniform cap and bowing to Mr
Austin, who met him at the gangway.  "What chip dis is, eh?"

"This, sir, is His Britannic Majesty's sloop _Daphne_.  What brig is
that?"

"That, sair, is the Franch brigue of war _Vestale_; and I am Jules Le
Breton, her first leeftant, at your serveece.  Are you le capitaine of
this vaisseau?"

"No, sir; I am the first lieutenant, and my name is Austin," with a bow.
"Captain Vernon is in his cabin.  Do you wish to see him?"

At that moment the skipper made his appearance from below, and stepping
forward, the French lieutenant was presented to him with all due
formality by Mr Austin.

It being my watch on deck I was promenading fore and aft just to leeward
of the group, and consequently overheard pretty nearly everything that
passed.  The _Vestale_, it appeared from Monsieur Le Breton's statement,
had just returned to the coast from a fruitless chase half across the
Atlantic after a large barque which had managed to slip out of the Congo
and dodge past them some three weeks previously, and she was now about
to look in there once more in the hope of meeting with better fortune.
And, judging from the course we were steering that we had just left the
river, Monsieur Le Breton had, "by order of Capitane Dubosc, ventured
upon the liberte" of boarding us in order to ascertain the latest news.

The skipper of course mentioned our exploring expedition of the previous
day, assured him of the total absence of all ships from the river, and
finally invited him into the cabin to take wine with him.

They were below fully half an hour, and when they returned to the deck
the Frenchman was chattering away in very broken English in the most
lively manner, and gesticulating with his hands and shoulders as only a
Frenchman can.  But notwithstanding the animation with which he was
conversing, I could not help noticing that his eyes were all over the
ship, not in an abstracted fashion, but evidently with the object of
thoroughly "taking stock" of us.  It struck me, too, that his English
was too broken to be quite genuine--or rather, to be strictly correct,
that it was not always broken to the same extent.  For instance, he once
or twice used the word "the," uttering it as plainly as I could; and at
other times I noticed that he called it "ze" or "dee."  And I detected
him ringing the changes in like manner on several other words.  From
which I inferred that he was not altogether as fair and above-board with
us as he wished us to believe.  I felt half disposed to seize an early
opportunity to mention the matter to Mr Austin; but then, on the other
hand, I reflected that Monsieur Le Breton could hardly have any possible
reason for attempting to deceive us in any way, and so for the moment
the matter passed out of my mind.

At length our visitor bowed himself down over the side, throwing one
last lingering look round our decks as he did so, and in another five
minutes was once more on board his own ship, which, hoisting up her
boat, filled her main topsail, and, with a dip of her ensign by way of
"good-bye," resumed her course.

"Thank Heaven I've got rid of the fellow at last!" exclaimed Captain
Vernon with a laugh, when the brig was once more fairly under weigh.
"He has pumped me dry; such an inquisitive individual I think I never in
my life encountered before.  But I fancy I have succeeded in persuading
him that he will do no good by hanging about the coast hereabouts.  We
want no Frenchmen to help us with our work; and I gave him so very
discouraging an account of the state of things here, that I expect they
will take a trip northward after looking into the river."

We continued running off the land for the remainder of that day, the
whole of the following night, and up to noon next day, with a breeze
which sent us along, under topsails only, at a rate of about six knots
an hour.  On the following day, at six bells in the forenoon watch (11
a.m.), the look-out aloft reported a something which he took to be
floating wreckage, about three points on the port bow; and Mr Smellie,
our second lieutenant, at once went aloft to the foretopmast crosstrees
to have a look at it through his telescope.  A single glance sufficed to
acquaint him with the fact that the object, which was about six miles
distant, was a raft with people upon it, who were making such signals as
it was in their power to make with the object of attracting our
attention.  Upon the receipt of this news on deck Captain Vernon at once
ordered the ship's course to be altered to the direction of the raft, a
gun being fired and the ensign run up to the gaff-end at the same time.

It was a trifle past noon when the _Daphne_ rounded-to about a hundred
yards to windward of the raft, and sent away a boat to pick up those
upon it.  It was a wretched make-shift structure, composed of a spar or
two, some half-burned hen-coops, and a few pieces of charred bulwark-
planking; and was so small that there was scarcely room on it for the
fourteen persons it sustained.  It was a most fortunate circumstance for
them that the weather happened to be fine at the time; for had there
been any great amount of sea running, the crazy concern could not have
been kept together for half an hour.  We concluded from the appearance
of the affair that the castaways had been burned out of their ship; and
so they had, but not in the manner we supposed.  As we closed with the
raft it was seen that several sharks were cruising longingly round and
round it, and occasionally charging at it, evidently in the hope of
being able to drag off some of its occupants.  So pertinacious were
these ravenous fish that the boat's crew had to fairly fight their way
through them, and even to beat them off with the oars and stretchers
when they had got alongside.  However, the poor wretches were rescued
without accident; and in a quarter of an hour from the time of
despatching the boat she was once more swinging at the davits, with the
rescued men, most of whom were suffering more or less severely from
burns, safely below in charge of the doctor and his assistant.  Later
on, when their injuries had been attended to and the cravings of their
hunger and thirst satisfied--they had neither eaten nor drunk during the
previous forty-two hours--Captain Vernon sent for the skipper of the
rescued crew, to learn from him an account of the mishap.

His story, as related to me by him during the second dog-watch, was to
the following effect:--

"My name is Richards, and my ship, which hailed from Liverpool, was
called the _Juliet_.  She was a barque of three hundred and fifty tons
register, oak built and copper fastened throughout, and was only five
years old.

"Fifty-four days ago to-day we cleared from Liverpool for Saint Paul de
Loando with a cargo of Manchester and Birmingham goods, sailing the same
day with the afternoon tide.

"All went well with us until the day before last, when, just before
eight bells in the afternoon watch, one of the hands, who had gone aloft
to stow the main-topgallant-sail, reported a sail dead to leeward of us
under a heavy press of canvas.  I have been to Saint Paul twice before,
and know pretty well the character of this coast; moreover, on my first
trip I was boarded and plundered by a rascally Spaniard; so I thought I
would just step up aloft and take a look at the stranger through my
glass at once.  Well, sir, I did so, and the conclusion I came to was,
that though it was blowing very fresh I would give the ship every stitch
of canvas I could show to it.  The strange sail was a brig of about
three hundred tons or thereabouts, with very taunt spars, a tremendous
spread of canvas, and her hull painted dead black down to the copper,
which had been scoured until it fairly shone again.  I didn't at all
like the appearance of my newly-discovered neighbour; the craft had a
wicked look about her from her truck down, and the press of sail she was
carrying seemed to bode me no good.  So, as the _Juliet_ happened to be
a pretty smart vessel under her canvas, and in splendid sailing trim, I
thought I would do what I could to keep the stranger at arms'-length,
and when the watch was called, a few minutes afterwards, I got the
topgallant-sails, royals, flying jib, main-topgallant, royal, and mizen-
topmast-staysails all on the old barkie again, and we began to smoke
through it, I can tell you.  That done, I set the stranger by compass,
and for the first hour or so I thought we were holding our own; but by
sunset I could see--a great deal too plainly for my own comfort--that
the brig was both weathering and fore-reaching upon us.  Still she was a
long way off, and had the night been dark I should have tried to dodge
the fellow; but that unfortunately was no use; the sun was no sooner set
than the moon rose, and of course he could see us even more plainly than
we could see him.  At seven o'clock he tacked, and then I felt pretty
sure he meant mischief; and when, at a little before eight bells, he
tacked again, this time directly in our wake, I had no further doubt
about it.  At this time he was about eight miles astern of us, and at
midnight he ranged up on our weather quarter, slapped his broadside of
seven 18-pound shot right into us without a word of warning, and ordered
us to at once heave-to.  My owners had unfortunately sent me to sea with
only half a dozen muskets on board, and not an ounce of powder or shot;
so what could I do?  Nothing, of course, but heave-to as I was bid; and
we accordingly backed the main topsail without a moment's delay.  The
brig then did the same, and lowered a boat, which five minutes later
dashed alongside us and threw in upon our decks a crew of seventeen as
bloodthirsty-looking ruffians as one need ever wish to see.  We were,
all hands fore and aft, at once bound neck and heels and huddled
together aft on the monkey-poop, with two of the pirates mounting guard
over us, and then the rest of the gang coolly set to work and ransacked
the ship.  The fellow in command of the party--a man about five feet six
inches in height, square built, with deeply bronzed features and black
hair and beard--made it his first business to hunt for the manifest; and
having ascertained from it that we had amongst the cargo several bolts
of canvas, a large quantity of new rope, four cases of watches and
jewellery, and a dozen cases of beads, he first ordered me, in broken
English, to inform him where these articles were stowed, and then had
the hatches stripped off and the cargo roused on deck until he could get
at them.  When the beads, rope, canvas, and other matters that he took a
fancy to, amounting to six boat loads, had been transferred to the brig,
he informed me that I must point out to him the spot where I had
concealed the money which he knew to be on board.  Now it so happened
that I had _no_ money on board; my owners are dreadfully suspicious
people, and will not intrust _anybody_ with a shilling more than they
can help--and many a good fifty-pound note has missed its way into their
pockets through their over-cautiousness; but that's neither here nor
there.  Well, I told the fellow we had no money on board, whereupon he
whipped out his watch and told me out loud, so that all hands could
hear, that he would give us five minutes in which to make up our minds
whether we would hand over the cash or not; and if we decided _not_ to
do so he would at the end of that time set fire to the ship and leave us
all to burn in her.  And that's just exactly what he did."

"He actually set fire to the ship!" said I.  "But of course he cast you
all adrift first, and gave you at least a _chance_ to save your lives?"

"I'll tell you what he did, sir," replied the merchant-skipper.  "When
the five minutes had expired he called for a lantern, and, when he had
got it, went round and examined each man's lashings with his own eyes
and hands, so as to make sure that we were all secure to his
satisfaction.  Then he ordered half-a-dozen bales of cotton goods to be
cut open and strewed about the cabin; poured oil, turpentine, and tar
over them; did the same down in the forecastle; and then capsized a cask
of tar and a can of turpentine over the most inflammable goods he could
put his hand upon down in the main hatchway; had the bottoms of all the
boats knocked out; took away all the oars; and then set fire to the ship
forward, aft, and in midships; after which he wished us all a warm
journey into the next world, and went deliberately down the side into
his boat.  The brig stood by us until we were fairly in flames fore and
aft, and then filled away on the starboard tack under all the canvas she
could show to it, leaving us there to perish miserably."

"And how did you manage to effect your escape after all?"  I inquired.

"Well, sir," the skipper replied, "the ship--as you may imagine, with a
cargo such as we had on board--burned like a torch.  In less than five
minutes after the pirates had shoved off from our side the flames were
darting up through companion, hatchway, and fore-scuttle, and in a
quarter of an hour she was all ablaze.  Luckily for us, the ship, left
to herself, had paid off before the wind, and the flames were therefore
blown for'ard; but the deck upon which we were lying soon became so hot
as to be quite unbearable; we were literally beginning to roast alive,
and were in momentary expectation that the deck would fall in and drop
us helplessly into the raging furnace below.  At last, driven to
desperation by the torture of mind and body from which I was suffering,
I managed to roll over on my other side; and there, within an inch of my
mouth, was a man's hands, lashed, like my own, firmly behind his back,
and his ankles drawn close up to them.  The idea seized me to try and
_gnaw_ through his lashings and so free him, when of course he would
soon be able to cast us adrift in return.  I shouted to him what I
intended to do, and then set to work with my teeth upon his bonds,
gnawing away for dear life.  When my teeth first came into contact with
the firm hard rope I thought I should never be able to do it--at least
not in time to save us--but a man never knows what he can do until he
tries in earnest, as I did then; and I actually succeeded, and in a few
minutes too, in eating my way through one turn of the lashings.  The man
then strained and tugged until he managed to free himself, after which
it was the work of a few minutes only to liberate the rest of us.  We
then hastily collected together such materials as we could first lay our
hands on, and with them constructed the raft off which you took us.  It
was a terribly crazy affair, but we had no time to make a better one.
And of course, as the ship was by that time a mass of fire fore and aft,
it was impossible for us to secure an atom of provisions of any kind, or
a single drop of water."

"What a story of fiendish cruelty!"  I ejaculated when Richards had
finished his story.  "By the by," I suddenly added, moved by an impulse
which I could neither analyse nor account for, "of what nationality was
the leader of the pirates?  Do you think he was a _Frenchman_?"

"Yes, sir, I believe he _was_, although he addressed his men in
Spanish," answered Richards in some surprise.  "Why do you ask, sir?
Have you ever fallen in with such a man as I have described him to be?"

"Well, ye--that is, not to my knowledge," I replied hesitatingly.  The
fact is that Richards' description of the pirate leader had somehow
brought vividly before my minds' eye the personality of Monsieur Le
Breton, the first lieutenant of the French gun-brig _Vestale_; and it
was this which doubtless prompted me to put the absurd question to my
companion as to the nationality of the man who had so inhumanly treated
him.  Not, it must be understood, that I seriously for a single instant
associated Monsieur Le Breton or the _Vestale_ with the diabolical act
of piracy to the account of which I had just listened.  We had at that
time no very great love of or respect for the French, it is true; but
even the most bigoted of Englishmen would, I think, have hesitated to
hint at the possibility of a French man-of-war being the perpetrator of
such a deed.

The mere idea, the bare suggestion of such a suspicion, was so absurd
that I laughed at myself for my folly in allowing it to obtrude itself,
even in the most intangible form, for a single moment on my mind.  And
yet, such is the perversity of the human intellect, I could not, in
spite of myself, quite get rid of the extravagant idea that Monsieur Le
Breton was in some inexplicable way cognisant of the outrage; nor could
I forbear sketching, for Richards' benefit, as accurate a word-portrait
as I could of the French lieutenant; and--I suppose on account of that
same perversity--I felt no surprise whatever when he assured me that I
had faithfully described to him the arch-pirate who had left him and his
crew to perish in the flames.  Indeed, in my then contradictory state of
mind I should have been disappointed had he said otherwise.  The man's
conduct--his stealthy but searching scrutiny of the ship; his endeavour,
as I regarded it, to mislead us with his broken English; and his
excessive curiosity, as hinted at by Captain Vernon, had struck me as
peculiar, to say the least of it, on the occasion of his visit to the
_Daphne_.  I had suspected _then_ that he was not altogether and exactly
what he pretended to be; and _now_ Richards' identification of him from
my description seemed to confirm, in a great measure, my instinctive
suspicions, unreasonable, extravagant, and absurd as I admitted them to
be.  My first impulse--and it was a very strong one--was to take Mr
Austin into my confidence, to unfold to him my suspicions and the
circumstances which had given rise to them, frankly admitting at the
same time their apparent enormity, and then to put the question to him
whether, in his opinion, there was the slightest possibility of those
suspicions being well-founded.

So strongly, so unaccountably was I urged to do this, that I had
actually set out to find the first lieutenant when reflection and common
sense came to my aid and asked me what was this thing that I was about
to do.  The answer to this question was, that with the self-sufficiency
and stupendous conceit which my father had especially cautioned me to
guard against, I was arrogating to myself the possession of superhuman
sagacity, and (upon the flimsy foundation of a wild and extravagant
fancy, backed by a mere chance resemblance, which after all might prove
to be no resemblance at all if Richards could once be confronted with
Monsieur Le Breton) was about to insinuate a charge of the most
atrocious character against an officer holding a responsible and
honourable position--a man who doubtless was the soul of honour and
rectitude.  A moment's reflection sufficed to convince me of the utter
impossibility of the same man being in command of a pirate-brig one day
and an officer of a French man-o'-war the next.  I might just as
reasonably have suspected the _Vestale_ herself of piracy; and _that_, I
well knew, would be carrying my suspicions to the uttermost extremity of
idiotic absurdity.  I had, in short--so I finally decided--discovered a
mare's nest, and upon the strength of it had been upon the very verge of
proclaiming myself a hopeless idiot and making myself the perpetual
laughing-stock of the whole ship.  I congratulated myself most heartily
upon having paused in time, and resolved very determinedly that I would
not further dwell upon the subject, or allow myself to be again lured
into entertaining such superlatively ridiculous notions.

Yet only four days later I was harassed by a temporary recurrence of all
my suspicions; and it was with the utmost difficulty that I combated
them.  I succeeded, it is true, in so far maintaining my self-control as
to keep a silent tongue; but they continued persistently to haunt me
until--but steady!  Whither away, Dick, my lad?  You are out of your
course altogether and luffing into the wind's eye, instead of working
steadily to windward, tack and tack, and taking the incidents of your
story as you come to them.

The incident which revived my very singular suspicions was as follows:--

Upon learning the full details of Richards' story, Captain Vernon had
come to the conclusion that the brig which destroyed the _Juliet_ was a
vessel devoted to the combined pursuits of piracy and slave-trading;
that she was, in all probability, one of the three vessels reported by
the _Fawn_ as daily-expected to arrive on the coast from Cuba; and that
it was more than likely her destination was the Congo.  He therefore
determined to make the best of his way back to that river, in the
sanguine hope of effecting her capture; after which he intended to run
down to Saint Paul de Loando to land the crew of the _Juliet_, Richards
having expressed a desire to be taken there if possible.

It was on the fourth day after we had picked up the _Juliet's_ crew, and
we were working our way back toward the mouth of the Congo, making short
tacks across the track of vessels running the notorious Middle Passage,
when the look-out aloft reported a sail about three points on the
weather-bow, running down toward us under a perfect cloud of canvas.  It
was at once conjectured that this might be Richards' late free-and-easy
acquaintance outward-bound with a cargo of slaves on board; and the
_Daphne_ was accordingly kept away a couple of points to intercept him,
the hands being ordered to hold themselves in readiness to jump aloft
and make sail on the instant that the stranger gave the slightest sign
of an intention to avoid us.  At the same time Mr Armitage, our third
lieutenant, proceeded aloft to the main topmast crosstrees with his
telescope to maintain a vigilant watch upon the motions of the
approaching vessel.

All hands were of course in an instant on the _qui vive_, the momentary
expectation being that the stranger would shorten sail, haul upon a
wind, and endeavour to evade us.  But minute after minute passed without
the slightest indication of any such intention, and very shortly his
royals rose into view above the horizon from the deck; then followed his
topgallant-sails, then his topsails, his courses next, and finally the
hull of the ship appeared upon the horizon, with studding-sails alow and
aloft on both sides, running down dead before the wind, and evidently
going through the water at a tremendous pace.

Every available telescope in the ship was now brought to bear upon the
craft, and presently her fore-royal and fore-topgallant-sail were
observed to collapse, the yards slid down the mast, and the sails were
clewed up, but not furled.  The next instant the French tricolour
fluttered out from her fore-royal-mast-head, the only position from
whence it could be made visible to us; and simultaneously with its
appearance the conviction came to us all that in the approaching vessel
we were about to recognise our recent acquaintance the _Vestale_.  Our
ensign, which was already bent on to the peak-halyards, was promptly run
up in response, whereupon the French ensign disappeared, to be instantly
replaced by a string of signals.  Our signal-book was at once produced,
our answering pennant run half-mast up, and we then began to read off
the following signal:

"Have you sighted?--"

Our pennant was then mast-headed to show that we understood; the flags
disappeared on board the Frenchman, and another batch was run up, which,
being interpreted, meant:

"Brig--"

This also was acknowledged, and the signalling was continued until the
whole message was completed, thus:

"Same tonnage as--"

"Ourselves--"

"Hull--"

"Painted--"

"All black--"

"Steering west-north-west?"

The final string of flags then disappeared, and the _Vestale's_
answering pennant directly afterwards showed just above her topgallant
yard, indicating that she had completed her signal and awaited our
reply.

The entire signal then, freely interpreted, ran thus:

"Have you sighted a brig of the same tonnage (or size) as ourselves,
with hull painted all black, steering a west-north-west course?"

We answered "No;" and, in our turn, inquired whether the _Vestale_ had
seen or heard of such a craft.

The French gun-brig was by this time crossing our bows, distant about
half a mile; her reply was accordingly made from her gaff-end, the fore-
topgallant-sail and royal being at the same time sheeted-home and mast-
headed.

It was to the following effect:

"Yes.  Brig in question sailed from Congo yesterday, six hours before
our arrival, with three hundred slaves on board."

By the time that this message had been communicated--by the slow and
tedious process then in vogue--the two vessels were too far apart to
render any further conversation possible, and in little more than an
hour after the final hauling-down of the last signal the _Vestale's_
main-royal sank beneath the verge of the western horizon, and we were
once more alone.



CHAPTER SIX.

IN THE CONGO ONCE MORE.

I have not yet, however, stated what it was in connection with our
encounter with the _Vestale_ which served to fan my fantastic suspicions
into flame anew, and, I may add too at the same time, mould them into a
more definite shape than they had ever before taken.

It was Richards' peculiar conduct and remarks.  He had manifested quite
an extraordinary amount of interest in our _rencontre_ with the
_Vestale_ from the moment of her being first reported from the mast-
head, evidently sharing the hope and belief, which we all at first
entertained, that the strange sail would turn out to be the brig which
had served him so scurvy a trick a few days before.

It was easy to understand the excitement he exhibited so long as this
remained a matter of conjecture, but when the conjecture proved to be
unfounded I fully expected his excitement, if not his interest, would
wane.  It did not, however.  He borrowed my telescope as soon as the
brig became fully visible from the deck, and, placing himself at an open
port, kept the tube of the instrument levelled at her until her topsails
disappeared below the horizon again.  I remained close beside him during
the whole time, and his excitement and perplexity were so palpable that
I could not refrain from questioning him as to the cause.

"I'll tell you, Mr Hawkesley," he replied.  "You see that craft there?
Well, I could almost stake my soul that she and the pirate-brig were
built on the same stocks.  The two craft are the same size to a ton,
I'll swear that; and they are the same model and the same rig to a
nicety.  It's true I was only able to closely inspect the other craft at
night-time, but it was by brilliant moonlight, and I was able to note
every detail of her build, rig, and equipment almost as plainly as I now
can that of the brig before us; and the two are sister-ships.  They
carry the same number of guns--ay, even to the long-gun I see there on
the French brig's forecastle.  The masts in both ships have the same
rake, the yards the same spread, and the running-gear is rove and led in
exactly the same manner.  The only difference I can distinguish between
the two ships is that yonder brig has a broad white ribbon round her,
and a small figure-head painted white, whilst the pirate-craft was
painted black down to her copper, and she carried a large black figure-
head representing a negress with a gaudy scarf wrapped about her waist."

"Um!"  I remarked.  "Lend me the glass a moment, will you?  Thanks!"

The _Vestale_ was, at the moment, just about to cross our fore-foot, and
was therefore about as near to us as she would be at all I focused the
telescope--a fine powerful instrument--upon her, and could clearly see
the weather-stains and the yellowish-red marks of rust in the wake of
her chain-plates upon the broad white ribbon which stretched along her
side.  Evidently that band of white paint had been exposed to sun and
storm for many a long day.  Then I had a look at her figure-head.  It
was a half-length model of a female figure, beautifully carved, less
than life-size, with one arm drooping gracefully downwards, and the
other--the right--outstretched, with a gilded lamp in the right hand.
That, too, was weather-stained, and the gilding tarnished by long
exposure.  Those pertinacious, half-formed suspicions, which Richards'
words had stirred into new life were refuted; and yet, as I have said, I
could _not_ shake them off, try as I would, and argue with myself as I
would, that they were utterly ridiculous and unreasonable.

"Look here, Mr Richards," said I; "if you really _are_ as positive upon
this matter as you say, I wish you would speak to Captain Vernon about
it; it might--and no doubt _would_--help us very materially in effecting
the capture of the pirate-brig.  We have seen the _Vestale_ twice, and
have had so good an opportunity to note her peculiarities of structure
and equipment that we shall now know her again as far off as we can see
her.  If, therefore, we should ever happen to fall in with a brig the
exact counterpart of the _Vestale_ in all respects, except as to the
matters of her figure-head and the painting of her hull, I should think
we may take it for granted that that brig will undoubtedly be the pirate
which destroyed the _Juliet_.  And you may depend upon it, my good sir,
that it is that identical craft that the _Vestale_ is now seeking."

"Ye-es, very likely--quite possible," he replied hesitatingly, and
evidently still labouring under the feeling of perplexity I had noticed.
Then, straightening himself up and passing his hand across his
forehead, as though to clear away the mental cobwebs there, he added:
"I'll go and speak to Captain Vernon about it at once."

And away he accordingly walked to carry out his resolve.

We stood on as we were going until eight bells in the afternoon watch
that day, when the ship was hove round on the larboard tack and a course
shaped for Saint Paul de Loando, our skipper having come to the
conclusion that the brig referred to in the _Vestale's_ signal was
undoubtedly the craft which we had been on our way back to the Congo to
look for, and that as, according to the gun-brig's statement, she was no
longer there, we were now free to proceed direct to Saint Paul to land
the burnt-out crew as soon as possible.

We entered the bay--upon the shore of which the town is built--about 10
a.m. on the second day after our last meeting with the _Vestale_, and,
anchoring in ten fathoms, lowered a boat, in which Mr Richards and his
crew were landed, Captain Vernon going on shore with them.  The skipper
remained on shore until 4 p.m., and when he came off it was easy to see
that he was deeply preoccupied.  The boat was at once hoisted in, the
messenger passed, the anchor hove up, and away we went again, crowding
sail for the Congo.  As soon as the ship was clear of the Loando reef
and fairly at sea once more, Captain Vernon summoned the first and
second lieutenants to his cabin, where the three remained closeted with
him for some time, indeed the two officers dined with him; but, whatever
the matter might be, neither Mr Austin nor Mr Smellie let fall a word
as to its nature, though it was evident from their manner that it was
deemed of considerable import.

When I turned in that night I felt very greatly dissatisfied with
myself.  Those outrageous suspicions, upon which I have dwelt so much in
the last few pages, seemed to be gathering new strength every day in
spite of my utmost endeavours to dissipate them, and that, too, without
the occurrence of anything fresh to confirm them.  I accordingly took
myself severely to task; subjected myself to a rigid self-examination,
looking the matter square in the face; and the conclusions to which I
came were--first, that I had allowed myself to be deluded into the
belief that the _Vestale_ herself was the craft which had committed the
act of piracy of which poor Richards and his crew were the victims; and
second, that I had been an unmitigated idiot for suffering myself to be
so deluded.  On going thoroughly over the whole question I was forced to
admit to myself that there was not a particle of evidence incriminating
the French gun-brig save what I had manufactured out of my own too vivid
imagination; and I clearly foresaw that unless I could get rid of, or,
at all events, conquer, this hallucination, I should be doing or saying
something which would get me into a serious scrape.  And, having at last
thus settled the question--as I thought--to my own satisfaction, I
rolled over in my hammock and went to sleep.

The breeze held fresh during the whole of that night; and the _Daphne_
made such good progress that by eight o'clock on the following morning
we found ourselves once more abreast of Padron Point at the entrance to
the Congo.  Sail was now shortened; the ship hove-to, and the men sent
to their breakfasts; the officers also being requested to get theirs at
the same time.

At 8:30 the hands were turned up, the main topsail filled, and, under
topsails, jib, and spanker, and with a leadsman in the fore-chains on
each side, the sloop proceeded boldly to enter the river, under the
pilotage of the master, who stationed himself for the purpose on the
fore-topsail yard.  This was a most unusual, almost an un-heard-of,
proceeding at that time, the river never having been, up to that period,
properly surveyed; so we came to the conclusion that there was something
to the fore a trifle out of the common; a conclusion which was very
fully verified a little later on.

It was just low water as we came abreast of Shark Point--which we passed
at a distance of about a mile--but we found plenty of water everywhere;
and, stretching across the river's mouth, the _Daphne_ finally entered
Banana Creek, and anchored in six fathoms close to a smart-looking
little barque of unquestionable American nationality.  The sails were
furled, the yards squared, ropes coiled down, and decks cleared up; and
then the first cutter was piped away, Mr Smellie at the same time
receiving a summons to the skipper's cabin.

The conference between the captain and the second lieutenant was but a
short one; and when the latter again appeared on deck he beckoned me to
him and instructed me to don my dirk, as I was to accompany him on a
visit to the barque.  Just as we were about to go down over the side
Captain Vernon appeared on deck, and, addressing the second "luff,"
said.

"Whatever you do, Mr Smellie, keep my caution in mind, and do not
provoke the man.  Remember, that if he _is_ an American--of which I have
very little doubt--we cannot touch him, even if he has his hold full of
slaves; so be as civil to him as you can, please; and get all the
information you can out of him."

"Ay, ay, sir; I'll do my best to stroke his fur the right way, never
fear," answered Smellie laughingly; and away we went.

A couple of minutes later we shot alongside the barque; and Smellie and
I clambered up her side-ladder to the deck, where we were received by a
lanky cadaverous-looking individual arrayed in a by no means spotless
suit of white nankin topped by a very dilapidated broad-brimmed Panama
straw-hat.

"Mornin', gentlemen," observed this individual, in response to our
salutation; "powerful hot; ain't it?"

"Very," returned Smellie in his most amicable manner, "but"--pointing to
the awning spread fore and aft, "I see you know how to make yourselves
comfortable.  Your ship, I observe, is called the _Pensacola_ of New
Orleans.  I have come on board to go through the formality of looking at
your papers.  You have no objection, I presume?"

"Nary objection, stranger.  Look at 'em and welcome," was the reply.  "I
guess I'll have to trouble you to come below, though."

With this he led the way down the companion-ladder, and we followed;
eventually bringing-up on the comfortably-cushioned lockers of a fine
spacious airy cabin very nicely fitted up.

Seating himself opposite us, the skipper struck a hand-bell which stood
on the cabin table; in response to which summons a black steward, clad,
like his master, in dingy white, made his appearance from the
neighbouring pantry.  Our host thereupon formed his right hand into the
shape of a cup and raised it to his mouth, at the same time exhibiting
three fingers of his left hand; and the steward, nodding and grinning
his comprehension of the mute order, withdrew, to reappear next moment
with a case-bottle of rum, three glasses, and a water-monkey, or porous
earthen jar, full of what proved, on our pouring it out, to be a very
doubtful-looking liquid.

"Help yourselves, gentlemen," said our host, pushing the rum-bottle and
water-monkey towards us.  "I ain't got no wine aboard to offer you, but
the liquor is real old Jamaica, and the water is genuine Mississippi;
they make a first-grade mixture.  But perhaps you prefer to take your
liquor `straight;' I always do."

And he forthwith practically illustrated the process of taking liquor
"straight" by half-filling his tumbler with neat rum, which he swallowed
at a single gulp.  He then rose and retired to his state-room in search
of his papers; leaving us to sip our five-water grog meanwhile.

The papers were produced, examined, and found to be perfectly correct;
after which Smellie set himself to the task of "pumping" our new
acquaintance; without much result, though we certainly managed to obtain
one bit of valuable information from him.

"Whether there's slavers or no in this rivulet, I'll just leave you to
find out, stranger," he remarked, in answer to a question of Smellie's;
"I'm here about my own business, and you're here about yourn; you can't
interfere with me; and I won't interfere with you.  But I don't mind
tellin' you that if you'd been here five days ago you'd have had a
chance of nabbin' the _Black Venus_, the smartest slaver, I guess,
that's ever visited this section of our sublunary sphere."

"Indeed!" exclaimed Smellie eagerly.  "What sort of a craft is she?
What is she like?"

"She is a brig,"--I pricked up my ears at this, and so, too, I could
see, did Smellie--"of about three hundred tons register; long, and low
in the water; mounts fourteen guns, seven of a side, and a long 32-
pounder on her forecastle.  Has very tall sticks, with a rake aft; and a
tremendous spread of `caliker.'  And she's the fastest craft in all
creation.  _Your_ ship looks as if she could travel; but I 'low she
ain't a carcumstance to the _Black Venus_."

"How is she painted?" asked Smellie.  "Is she all black, or does she
sometimes sport a white riband?"

"Aha!" thought I; "that looks as though my suspicions are at last shared
by somebody else.  Richards' communication to the skipper has surely
borne fruit."

"Wall," replied the Yankee with a knowing twinkle in his eye, "_when she
sailed from here_ she was black right down to her copper.  But that
ain't much to go by; I guess her skipper knows a trick or two."

"You think, then, he might alter her appearance as soon as he got
outside?" insinuated Smellie.

"He might--and he mightn't," was the cautious reply.

"Um!" observed Smellie.  Then, as if inspired with a sudden suspicion,
he asked:

"Have you seen any men-o'-war in here lately?"

I could see by the knowing look in our Yankee friend's eyes that he read
poor Smellie like a book.

"Wall," he replied.  "Come to speak of it, there _was_ a brig in here a
few days ago that looked like a man-o'-war.  She were flyin' French
colours--when she flew any at all--and called herself the _Vestale_."

"Ah!" ejaculated Smellie.  "Did any of her people board you?"

"You bet!" was the somewhat ambiguous answer.  Not that the reply was at
all ambiguous in itself; it was the peculiar emphasis with which the
words were spoken, and the peculiar expression of the man's countenance
as he uttered them, which constituted the ambiguity; the _words_ simply
implied that the _Pensacola_ had been boarded; the _look_ spoke volumes,
but the volumes were written in an unknown tongue, so far as we at least
were concerned.

"What is the _Vestale_ like?" was Smellie's next question.

"Just as like the _Black Venus_ as two peas in a pod," was the reply,
given with evident quiet amusement.

"And how was _she_ painted?" persisted Smellie.  "Ah, there now,
stranger, you've puzzled me!" was the unexpected answer.

"Why?  Did you not say you saw her?" queried Smellie sharply.

"No, I guess not; I didn't say anything of the sort.  I was ashore when
her people boarded me.  It was my mate that told me about it."

"Your mate?  Can we see him?" exclaimed Smellie eagerly.

"Yes, I reckon," was the reply.  "He's ashore now; but you've only to
pull about five miles up the creek, and I calculate you'll find him
somewheres."

"Thanks!" answered Smellie.  "I'm afraid we can't spare the time for
that.  Can you tell me which of the two brigs--the _Vestale_ or the
_Black Venus_--sailed first from the river?"

"Wall, stranger, I'd like to help you all I could, I really would; but,"
with his hand wandering thoughtfully over his forehead, "I really
_can't_ for the life of me remember just now which of 'em it was."

The fellow was lying; I could see it, and so could Smellie; but we could
not, of course, tell him so; and we accordingly thanked him for his
information and rose to go, with an uncomfortable feeling that we had
received certain information, part of which was probably true whilst
part was undoubtedly false, and that we were wholly without the means of
distinguishing the one from the other.

We returned to the _Daphne_ with our information, such as it was; and
Smellie at once made his report to the skipper.  A consultation followed
in which the first lieutenant took part, and at the end of half an hour
the three officers reappeared on deck, and the captain's gig was piped
away.

Being suspicious, as I have already remarked, that something unusual was
brewing, I remained on deck during the progress of this conference, so
as to be at hand in the event of my services being required; and the
_Pensacola_ happening to be the most prominent object in the landscape,
she naturally came in for a large share of my attention during the
progress of the discussion above referred to.  She was flying no colours
when we anchored in such close proximity to her, a circumstance which I
attributed to the fact that she was, to all appearance, the only vessel
in the river, and I was, therefore, not much surprised when, a short
time after our visit to her, I observed her skipper go aft and run up
the American ensign to his gaff-end.  But I _was_ a little surprised
when he followed this up by hoisting a small red swallow-tailed flag to
his main-royal-mast-head.  I asked myself what could be the meaning of
this move on his part, and it did not take me very long to arrive at the
conclusion that it was undoubtedly meant as a signal of some sort to
somebody or other.  He was scarcely likely to do such a thing for the
gratification of a mere whim.  And if it was a signal, what did it
mean's and to whom was it made?  There was of course the possibility
that it was a prearranged signal to his absent mate; but, taken in
conjunction with the fact that it was exhibited almost immediately after
our visit to his ship, coupled with the other fact of his obvious
attempt to keep us in the dark with respect to certain matters, I was
greatly disposed to regard it rather as a warning signal to a vessel or
vessels concealed in one or other of the numerous creeks which we knew
to exist in our immediate vicinity.  Accordingly, on the reappearance of
the second lieutenant on deck, I stepped up to him and directed his
attention to the suspicious-looking red flag, and mentioned my surmises
as to its meaning.

"Thank you, Mr Hawkesley," said he.  "I have no doubt it _is_ a signal
of some kind; but what it means we have no possible method of
ascertaining, and, moreover, it suits our purpose just now to take no
notice of it.  By the way, are you anything of a shot?"

"Pretty fair," I replied.  "I can generally bring down a bird upon the
wing if it is not a very long shot."

"Then put your pistols in your belt, provide yourself with a fowling-
piece (I will lend you one), and be in readiness to go with us in the
gig.  We are bound upon a sporting expedition."

I needed no second invitation, but hurried away at once to make the
necessary preparations; albeit there was a something in Mr Smellie's
manner which led me to think that sport was perhaps after all a mere
pretext, and that the actual object of our cruise was something much
more serious.

A few minutes sufficed to complete my preparations, and when I again
stepped on deck, gun in hand, Captain Vernon and Mr Smellie were
standing near the gangway rather ostentatiously engaged--in full view of
the American skipper--in examining their gun-locks, snapping off caps,
and so on; whilst the steward was in the act of passing down over the
side--with strict injunctions to those in the boat to be careful in the
handling of it--a capacious basket of provisions with a snow-white cloth
protruding out over its sides.  The precious basket being at length
safely deposited in the gig's stern-sheets, I followed it down the side;
the second lieutenant came next, and the skipper bringing up the rear,
we hoisted our lug-sail, the sea-breeze blowing strongly up the river,
and shoved off; our motions being intently scrutinised by the Yankee
skipper as long as we could make him out.

We had scarcely gone a quarter of a mile before a noble crane came
sailing across our course with his head tucked in between his shoulders,
his long stilt-like legs projecting astern of him, and his slowly-
flapping wings almost touching the water at every stroke.

"There's a chance for you, Hawkesley," exclaimed our genial second luff;
"let drive at him.  All is fish that comes to our net so long as we are
within range of the Yankee's telescope; fire at everything you see."

I raised my gun, pulled the trigger, and down dropped the crane into the
water with a broken wing.

"Very neatly done," exclaimed the skipper approvingly.  "Pick up the
bird, Thomson,"--to the coxswain.

The unfortunate bird was duly picked up and hauled into the boat, though
not without inflicting a rather severe wound with its long sharp beak on
the hand of the man who grasped it; and we continued our course.

On reaching the mouth of the creek we hauled sharp round the projecting
point, and shaped a course up and across toward the opposite side of the
stream, steering for a low densely-wooded spit which jutted out into the
river some eight miles distant.  The tide, which was rising, was in our
favour, and in an hour from the time of emerging from the creek into the
main stream we had reached our destination; the boat shot into a water-
way about a cable's length in width, the sail was lowered, the mast
unstepped, and the men, taking to their oars, proceeded to paddle the
boat gently up the creek.

We proceeded up this creek a distance of about two miles, when, coming
suddenly upon a small branch, or tributary, well suited as a place of
concealment for the boat, she was headed into it, and--after proceeding
along the narrow canal for a distance of perhaps one hundred yards--
hauled alongside the bank and secured.



CHAPTER SEVEN.

MR. SMELLIE MAKES A LITTLE SURVEY.

Giving the gig's crew strict injunctions not to leave their boat for a
moment upon any consideration, but to hold themselves in readiness to
shove off on the instant of our rejoining them--should a precipitate
retreat prove necessary--Captain Vernon and Mr Smellie stepped ashore
with a request that I would accompany them.

The channel or canal in which the gig was now lying was about fifty feet
wide, with a depth of water of about eight feet at the point to which we
had reached.  Its banks were composed of soft black foetid mud in a
semi-liquid state, _so_ that in order to land it was necessary for us to
make our way as best we could for a distance of some two hundred feet
over the roots of the mangrove trees which thickly bordered the stream,
before we were enabled to place our feet on solid ground.

Beyond the belt of mangroves the soil was densely covered with that
heterogeneous jumble of parasitic creepers of all descriptions spoken of
in Africa by the generic denomination of "bush," thickly interspersed
with trees, many of which were of large size.  Path there was none, not
even the faintest traces of a footprint in the dry sandy soil to show
that humanity had ever passed over the ground before us.  It may be that
ours _were_ the first human footsteps which had ever pressed the soil in
that particular spot; at all events it looked very much like it, and we
had not travelled one hundred feet before we became fully impressed with
the necessity for carefully marking our route if we had the slightest
desire to find our way back again.  This task was intrusted to me, and I
accomplished it by cutting a twig half through, and then bending it
downwards until a long light strip of the inner wood was exposed.  This
I did at distances of about a yard apart all along our route, whilst the
skipper and Smellie went ahead and forced a passage for the party
through the thick undergrowth.

The general direction of our route was about south-south-west, as nearly
as the skipper could hit it off with the aid of a pocket-compass, and it
took us more than two hours to accomplish a journey of as many miles
through the thick tangled undergrowth.  This brought us out close to the
water's edge again, and we saw before us a canal about a cable's length
across, which the skipper said he was certain was a continuation of the
one we had entered in the gig.  About a mile distant, on the opposite
side of the canal, could be seen the tops of the hills which we had
noticed on the occasion of our first exploration of the river.

Here, as at the point of our landing, the banks of the canal consisted
of black slimy foetid mud, out of which grew a belt of mangroves, their
curious twisted roots straggling in a thick complicated mass of net-work
over the slime beneath.

The sun was shining brilliantly down through the richly variegated
foliage on the opposite bank of the stream, and lighting up the surface
of the thick turbid water as it rolled sluggishly past; but where we
stood--just on the inner edge of the mangrove-swamp--everything was
enshrouded in a sombre green twilight, and an absolute silence prevailed
all round us, which was positively oppressive in its intensity.

Breathless, perspiring, and exhausted with our unwonted exertions, we
flung ourselves upon the ground for a moment's rest, during which the
skipper and Smellie sought solace and refreshment in a cigar.  As for
me, not having at that time contracted the habit of smoking, I was
contented to sit still and gaze with admiring eyes upon the weird beauty
of my surroundings.

For perhaps a quarter of an hour my companions gave themselves up to the
silent enjoyment of their cigars, but at the end of that time the
skipper, turning to Smellie, said:

"I think this must be the creek to which we have been directed; but
there are so many of these inlets, creeks, and canals on this side of
the river--and on the other side also for that matter--that one cannot
be at all certain about it.  I would have explored the place thoroughly
in the gig, and so have saved the labour of all this scrambling through
the bush, but for the fact that if we are right, and any slave-craft
happen to be lurking here--as our Yankee friend's suspicious conduct
leads me to believe may be the case--there would be a great risk of our
stumbling upon them unawares, and so giving them the alarm.  And even if
we escaped that mischance I have no doubt but that they keep sentinels
posted here and there on the look-out, and we could hardly hope that the
boat would escape being sighted by one or other of them.  If there _are_
any craft hereabout, we may rest assured that they are fully aware of
the presence of the _Daphne_ in the river; but I am in hopes that our
_ruse_ of openly starting as upon a sporting expedition has thrown dust
in their eyes for once, and that we may be able to steal near enough to
get a sight of them without exciting their suspicions."

"It would be worth all our trouble if we _amid_ do so," responded
Smellie.  "But I don't half like this blind groping about in the bush;
to say nothing of the tremendously hard work which it involves there is
a very good chance, it seems to me, of our losing ourselves when we
attempt to make our way back.  And then, again, we are quite uncertain
how much further we may have to go in order to complete our search
satisfactorily.  Do you not think it would be a good plan for one of us
to shin up a tree and take a look round before we go any further?  There
are some fine tall trees here close at hand, from the higher branches of
which one ought to be able to get a pretty extensive view."

"A very capital idea!" assented the skipper.  "We will act upon it at
once.  There, now," pointing to a perfect forest giant only a few yards
distant, "is a tree admirably suited to our purpose.  Come, Mr
Hawkesley, you are the youngest, and ought therefore to be the most
active of the trio; give us a specimen of your tree-climbing powers.
Just shin up aloft as high as you can go, take a good look round, and
let us know if you can see anything worth looking at."

"Ay ay, sir," I responded; "but--" with a somewhat blank look at the
tall, straight, smooth stem to which he pointed, "where are the
ratlines?"

"Ratlines, you impudent young monkey!" responded the skipper with a
laugh; "why, an active young fellow like you ought to make nothing of
going up a spar like that."

But when we reached the tree it became evident that the task of climbing
it was not likely to prove so easy as the skipper had imagined; for the
bole was fully fifteen feet in circumference, with not a branch or
protuberance of any description for the first sixty feet.

The second lieutenant, however, was equal to the occasion, and soon
showed me how the thing might be done.  Whipping out his knife, he
quickly cut a long length of "monkey-rope" or creeper, and twisting the
tough pliant stem into a grummet round the trunk of the tree, he bade me
pass the bight over my shoulders, and then showed me how, with its aid,
I might work myself gradually upward.

Accordingly, acting under his directions I placed myself within the
bight, and tucking it well up under my arm-pits, slid the grummet up the
trunk as high as it would go.  Then bearing back upon it, so that it
supported my whole weight, I worked my body upwards by pressing against
the tree-trunk with my knees.  By this means I rose about two feet from
the ground.  Then pressing against the tree firmly with my feet I gave
the grummet a quick jerk upward and again worked myself up the trunk
with my knees as before.  In this way I got along very well, and after
an awkward slip or two, in which my knees suffered somewhat and my
breeches still more, soon acquired the knack of the thing, and speedily
reached the lowermost branch, after which the rest of my ascent was of
course easy.

On reaching the topmost branches I found that the tree I had climbed was
indeed, as the skipper had aptly described it, a forest giant; it was by
far the most lofty tree in the neighbourhood, and from my commanding
position I had a fine uninterrupted prospect of many miles extent all
round me, except to the southward, where the chain of hills before-
mentioned shut in the view.

Away to the northward and eastward, in which direction I happened to be
facing when I at length paused to look around me, I could catch glimpses
of the river, over and between the intervening tree-tops, for a distance
of quite twenty miles, and from what I saw I came to the conclusion that
in that direction the river must widen out considerably and be thickly
studded with islands, among which I thought it probable might be found
many a snug lurking-place for slave-craft.  On the extreme verge of the
horizon I also distinctly made out a small group of hills, which I
conjectured to be situate on the northern or right bank of the river.
From these hills all the way round northerly, to about north-north-west,
the country was flat and pretty well covered with bush; although at a
distance of from two to four miles inland I could detect here and there
large open patches of grass-land.  Bearing about north-north-west from
my point of observation was another chain of hills which stretched along
the sea-coast outside the river's mouth, and extended beyond the
horizon.  To the left of them again, or about north-west from me, lay
Banana Creek, its entrance about eleven miles distant, and over the
intervening tree-tops on Boolambemba Island I could, so clear was the
atmosphere just then, distinctly make out the royal-mast-heads of the
_Daphne_ and the American barque; I could even occasionally detect the
gleam of the sloop's pennant as it waved idly in the sluggish breeze.
Still further to the left there lay the river's mouth, with the ripple
which marked the junction between the fresh and the salt water clearly
visible.  Next came Shark Point, with the open sea stretching mile after
mile away beyond it, until its gleaming surface became lost in the ruddy
afternoon haze, and on the inner side of the point I could trace,
without much difficulty, the course of the various creeks which we had
explored in the boat on the occasion of our first visit.  Looking below
me, I allowed my eye to travel along the course of the stream or canal
which flowed past almost under my feet, and following it along I saw
that it forked at a point about three miles to the westward, and turned
suddenly northward at a point about three miles further on, the branch
and the stream itself eventually joining the river, and forming with it
two islands of about five and three miles in length respectively, the
larger of the two being that which we had so laboriously crossed that
same afternoon.

The view which lay spread out below and around me was beautiful as a
dream; it would have formed a fascinating study for a painter; but
whatever art-instincts may have been awakened within me upon my first
glance round were quickly put to flight by a scene which presented
itself at a point only some three miles away.  At that distance the
channel or stream below me forked, as I have already said, and at the
point of divergence of the two branches the water way broadened out
until it became quite a mile wide, forming as snug a little harbour as
one need wish to see.  And in this harbour, perfectly concealed from all
prying eyes which might happen to pass up or down the river, lay a brig,
a brigantine, and a schooner, three as rakish-looking craft as could
well be met with.  Their appearance alone was almost sufficient to
condemn them; but a huge barracoon standing in a cleared space close at
hand, and a crowd of blacks huddled together on the adjacent bank,
apparently in course of shipment on board one or other of the craft in
sight, put their character quite beyond question.

A hail from below reminded me that there were others who would feel an
interest in my discovery.

"Well, Mr Hawkesley, is there anything in sight, from your perch aloft
there, worth looking at?" came floating up to me in the skipper's voice.

"Yes, sir, indeed there is.  There are three craft in the creek away
yonder, in the very act of shipping negroes at this moment," I replied.

"The deuce there are!" ejaculated the skipper.  "Which do you think will
be the easier plan of the two: to climb the tree, or to make our way
through the bush to the spot?"

"You will find it much easier to climb the tree, I think, sir.  You can
be alongside me in five minutes, whilst it will take us nearly two
hours, I should say, to make our way to them through the bush," I
replied.

"Very well; hold on where you are then.  We will tackle the tree,"
returned the skipper.

And, looking down, I saw him and the second lieutenant forthwith whip
out their knives and begin hacking away at a creeper, wherewith to make
grummets to assist them in their attempt at tree-climbing.

In a few minutes the twain were alongside me, and--in happy
forgetfulness of the ruin wrought upon their unmentionables in the
process of "shinning" aloft--eagerly noting through their telescopes the
operations in progress on board the slavers.

"They seem very busy there," observed the skipper with his eye still
peering through the tube of his telescope.  "You may depend on it, Mr
Smellie, the rascals have got wind of our presence in the river, and
intend trying to slip out past us to-night as soon as the fog settles
down.  I'll be bound they know every inch of the river, and could find
their way out blindfold?"

"No doubt of it, sir," answered the second luff.  "But it is not high-
water until two o'clock to-morrow morning, so that I suspect they will
not endeavour to make a move until about an hour after midnight.  That
will enable them to go out on the top of the flood, and with a strong
land-breeze in their favour."

"So much the better," returned Captain Vernon, with sparkling eyes.
"But we will take care to have the boats in the creek in good time.  You
never know where to have these fellows; they are as cunning as foxes.
Please note their position as accurately as you can, Mr Smellie, for I
intend you to lead the attack to-night."

"Thank you, sir," answered Smellie delightedly; and planting himself
comfortably astride a branch, he drew out a pencil and paper and
proceeded to make a very careful sketch-chart of the river-mouth, Banana
Creek, and the creek in which the slavers were lying; noting the
bearings carefully with the aid of a pocket-compass.

"There, sir," said he, when he had finished, showing the sketch to the
skipper; "that will enable me to find them, I think, let the night be as
dark or as thick as it may.  How do you think it looks for accuracy?"

"Capital!" answered Captain Vernon approvingly; "you really have a
splendid eye for proportion and distance, Mr Smellie.  That little
chart might almost have been drawn to scale, so correct does it look.
How in the world do you manage it?"

"It is all custom," was the reply.  "I make it an invariable rule to
devote time and care enough to such sketches as this to ensure their
being as nearly accurate as possible.  I have devised a few rules upon
which I always work; and the result is generally a very near
approximation to absolute accuracy.  But the sun is getting low; had we
not better be moving, sir?"

"By all means, if you are sure you have all the information you need,"
was the reply.  "I would not miss my way in that confounded jungle to-
night for anything.  It would completely upset all our arrangements."

"To say nothing of the possibility of our affording a meal to some of
the hungry carnivora which probably lurk in the depths of the said
jungle," thought I.  But I held my peace, and dutifully assisted my
superior officers to effect their descent.

It was decidedly easier to go up than to go down; but we accomplished
our descent without accident, and after a long and wearisome tramp back
through the bush found ourselves once more on board the gig just as the
last rays of the sun were gilding the tree-tops.  The tide had now
turned, and was therefore again in our favour; and in an hour from the
time of our emerging upon the main stream we reached the sloop, just as
the first faint mist-wreaths began to gather upon the bosom of the
river.

I was exceedingly anxious to be allowed to take part in the forthcoming
expedition and had been eagerly watching, all the way across the river,
for an opportunity to ask the necessary permission; but Captain Vernon
had been so earnestly engaged in discussing with Smellie the details and
arrangements for the projected attack that I had been unable to do so.
On reaching the ship, however, the opportunity came.  As we went up over
the side the skipper turned and said:

"By the way, Mr Smellie, I hope you--and you also, Mr Hawkesley--will
give me the pleasure of your company to dinner this evening?"

Smellie duly bowed his acceptance of the invitation and I was about to
follow suit when an idea struck me and I said:

"I shall be most happy, sir, if my acceptance of your kind invitation
will not interfere with my taking part in to-night's boat expedition.  I
have been watching for an opportunity to ask your permission, and I hope
you will not refuse me."

"Oh! that's it, is it?" laughed the skipper.  "I thought you seemed
confoundedly fidgety in the boat.  Well--I scarcely know what to say
about it; it will be anything but child's play, I can assure you.
Still, you are tall and strong, and--there, I suppose I must say `yes.'
And now run away and shift your damaged rigging as quickly as possible;
dinner will be on the table in ten minutes."

I murmured my thanks and forthwith dived below to bend a fresh pair of
pantaloons, those I had on being in so dilapidated a condition--what
with the tree-climbing and our battle with the thorns and briars of the
bush--as to be in fact scarcely decent.

The conversation at the dinner-table that night was of a very animated
character, but as it referred entirely to the projected attack upon the
slavers I will not inflict any portion of it upon the reader.  Mr
Austin, the first lieutenant, was at first very much disappointed when
he found he was not to lead the boat expedition; but he brightened up a
bit when the skipper pointed out to him that in all probability the
slavers would slip their cables and endeavour to make their escape from
the river on finding themselves attacked by the boats; in which case the
cream of the fun would fall to the share of those left on board the
sloop.

Mr Smellie--who was at all times an abstemious man--contented himself
with a couple of glasses of wine after dinner, and, the moment that the
conversation took a general turn, rose from the table, excusing himself
upon the plea that he had several matters to attend to in connection
with the expedition.  As he rose he caught my eye and beckoned me to
follow him, which I did after duly making my bow to the company.

When we reached the deck the fog was so thick that it was as much as we
could do to see the length of the ship.

"Just as I expected," remarked my companion.  "How are we to find the
creek in such weather as this, Mr Hawkesley?"

"I am sure I don't know, sir," I replied, looking round me in
bewilderment.  "I suppose the expedition will have to be postponed until
it clears a bit."

"Not if I can prevent it," said he with energy.  "Although," he added, a
little doubtfully, "it certainly _is very_ thick, and with the slightest
deviation from our course we should be irretrievably lost.  Whereaway do
you suppose the creek to be?"

"Oh, somewhere in that direction!" said I, pointing over the starboard
quarter.

"You are wrong," remarked my companion, looking into the binnacle.  "The
tide is slackening, whilst the land-breeze is freshening; so that the
ship has swung with her head to the eastward, and the direction in which
you pointed leads straight out to sea.  Now, if you want to learn a good
useful lesson--one which may prove of the utmost value to you in after-
life--come below with me to the master, and between us we will show you
how to find that creek in the fog."

"Thank you," said I, "I shall be very glad to learn.  Why, you do not
even know its compass-bearing."

"No," said Smellie, "but we will soon find it out."  With that we
descended to the master's cabin, where we found the owner in his shirt-
sleeves and with a pipe in his mouth, poring over a chart of the coast
on which was shown the mouth of the river only, its inland course being
shown by two dotted lines, indicating that the portion thus marked had
never been properly surveyed.  He was busily engaged as we entered
laying down in pencil upon this chart certain corrections and remarks
with reference to the ebb and flow of the tidal current.

"Good evening, gentlemen!" said he as we entered.  "Well, Mr Smellie,
so you are going to lead the attack upon the slavers to-night, I hear."

"Yes," said Smellie, unconsciously straightening himself up, "yes, if
this fog does not baffle us.  And in order that it may not, I have come
to invoke your assistance, Mr Mildmay."

"All right, sir!" said old Mildmay.  "I expected you; I was waiting for
you, sir."

"That's all right," said the second lieutenant.  "Now, Mildmay," bending
over the chart, "whereabouts is the _Daphne_?"

"_There_ she is," replied the master, placing the point of his pencil
carefully down on the chart and twisting it round so as to produce a
black mark.

"Very good," assented Smellie.  "Now, look here, Mr Hawkesley, this is
where your lesson begins."  And he produced the sketch-chart he had made
that afternoon and spread it out on the table.

"You will see from this sketch," he proceeded, "that the _Daphne_ bore
exactly north-north-west from the tree in which we were perched when I
made it.  Which is equivalent to saying that the tree bears south-south-
east from the _Daphne_; is it not?"

I assented.

"Very well, then," continued Smellie.  "Be so good, Mr Mildmay, as to
draw a line south-south-east from that pencil-mark which represents the
_Daphne_ on your chart."

The master took his parallel ruler and did so.

"So far, so good," resumed the second lieutenant.  "Now my sketch shows
that the outer extremity of Shark Point bore from the tree north-west ¼
west.  In other words, the tree bears from Shark Point south-east ¼
east.  Lay off that bearing, Mildmay, if you please."

"Very good," he continued, when this second line had been drawn.  "Now
it is evident that the point where these two lines intersect must be the
position of the tree.  But, as a check upon these two bearings I took a
third to that sharp projecting point at the mouth of Banana Creek,"
indicating with the pencil on the chart the point in question.  "That
point bears north-west by north; consequently the tree bears from it
south-east by south.  Mark that off also, Mildmay, if you please."

The master did so, and the three lines were found to intersect each
other at exactly the same point.  "Capital!" exclaimed Smellie, in high
good-humour.  "That satisfactorily establishes the exact position of the
tree.  Now for the next step.  The slave fleet bears north-west ¼ west
from the tree; and the western entrance to the creek (that by which we
shall advance to the attack to-night) bears exactly north-west from the
same point.  Let us lay down these two bearings on the chart--thus.  Now
it is evident that the slave fleet and the entrance to the creek are
situate _somewhere or other_ on these two lines; the question
is--_where_?  I will show you how I ascertained those two very important
bits of information if you will step to my cabin and bring me the
telescope which you will find hanging against the bulkhead."

Intensely interested in this valuable practical lesson in surveying I
hurried away to do his bidding, and speedily returned with the glass, a
small but very powerful instrument, which I had often greatly admired.

Taking the telescope from my hand he drew it open and directed my
attention to a long series of neat little numbered lines scratched on
the polished brass tube.

"You see these scratches?" he said.  "Very well; now I will explain to
you what they are.  When I was a midshipman it was my good fortune to be
engaged for a time on certain surveying work, during which I acquired a
tolerably clear insight of the science.  And after the work was over and
done with, it occurred to me that my knowledge might be of the greatest
use in cases similar to the present.  Now I may tell you, by way of
explanation, that surveying consists, broadly, in the measurement of
angles and lines.  The angles are, as you have already seen, very easily
taken by means of a pocket-compass; but the measurement of the lines
bothered me very considerably for a long time.  Of course you can
measure a line with perfect accuracy by means of a surveyor's chain, but
I wanted something which, if not quite so accurate as that, would be
sufficiently correct, while not occupying more than a few seconds in the
operation of measurement.  So I set to work and trained myself to judge
distances by the eye alone; and by constant diligent practice I acquired
quite a surprising amount of proficiency.  And let me say here, I would
very strongly recommend you and every young officer to practise the same
thing; you will be surprised when you discover in how many unexpected
ways it will be found useful.  Well, I managed to do a great deal of
serviceable work even in this rough-and-ready way; but after a time I
grew dissatisfied with it--I wanted some means of measuring which should
be just as rapid but a great deal more accurate.  I thought the matter
over for a long time, and at last hit upon the idea of turning the
telescope to account.  The way I did it was this.  You have, of course,
found that if you look through your telescope at an object, say, half a
mile away, and then direct the instrument to another object, say, four
miles off, you have to alter the focus of the glass before you can see
the second object distinctly.  It was this peculiarity which I pressed
into my service as a means of measuring distances.  My first step was to
secure a small, handy, but first-rate telescope--the best I could
procure for money; and, provided with this, I commenced operations by
looking through it at objects, the exact distances of which from me I
knew.  I focused the glass upon them carefully, and then made a little
scratch on the tube showing how far it had been necessary to draw it out
in order to see the object distinctly; and then I marked the scratch
with the distance of the object.  You see," pointing to the tube, "I
have a regular scale of distances here, from one hundred yards up to ten
miles; and these scratches, let me tell you, represent the expenditure
of a vast amount of time and labour.  But they are worth it all.  For
instance, I want to ascertain the distance of an object.  I direct the
telescope toward it, focus the instrument carefully, and find that I can
see it most clearly when the tube is drawn out to, say, this distance,"
suiting the action to the word.  "I then look at the scale scratched on
the tube, and find that it reads six thousand one hundred feet--which is
a few feet over one nautical mile.  And thus I measure all my distances,
and am so enabled to make a really satisfactory little survey in a few
minutes as in the case of this afternoon.  You must not suppose,
however, that I am able to measure in this way with absolute accuracy; I
am not; but I manage to get a very near approximation to it, near enough
for such purposes as the present.  Thus, within the distance of a
quarter of a mile I have found that I can always measure within two feet
of the actual distance; beyond that and up to half a mile I can measure
within four feet of the actual distance; and so on up to ten miles,
which distance I can measure to within four hundred feet.

"And now to return to the business in hand.  My telescope informed me
that the slave fleet was anchored at a distance of eighteen thousand
three hundred feet (or a shade over three nautical miles) from the tree,
and that the western entrance to the creek is twenty-eight thousand nine
hundred feet (or about four and three-quarter nautical miles) from the
same spot.  We have now only to mark off these two distances on the two
compass-bearings which we last laid down on the chart: thus,"--measuring
and marking off the distances as he spoke--"and here we have the
position of the slavers and of the entrance to the creek; and by a
moment's use of Mildmay's parallel ruler--thus--we get the compass-
bearing of the entrance from the _Daphne_.  There it is--south-east by
east; and now we measure the distance from one to the other, and find it
to be--eight miles, as nearly as it is possible to measure it.  Thus,
you see, my rough-and ready survey of this afternoon affords us the
means of ascertaining our course and distance from the _Daphne_ to a
point for which we should otherwise have been obliged to search, and
which we could not possibly have hoped to find in the impenetrable fog
which now overspreads the river."

"Thank you, Mr Smellie," said I, highly delighted with the lesson I had
received; "if it will not be troubling you too much I think I must ask
you to give me a lesson or two in surveying when you can spare the
time."

"I shall be very pleased," was the reply.  "Never hesitate to come to me
for any information or instruction which you think I may be able to
afford you.  I shall always be happy to help you on in your studies to
the utmost extent of my ability.  But we have not quite finished yet,
and it is now, Mildmay, that I think _you_ may perhaps be able to help
us.  You see we shall have to pull--or sail, as the case may
be--_across_ the current, and it will therefore be necessary to make
some allowance for its set.  Now do you happen to know anything about
the speed of the current in the river?"

"Not half so much as I should like," replied the master; "but a hint
which the skipper dropped this morning caused me to take the dinghy and
go away out in mid-stream _to spend the day in fishing_--ha--ha--ha!
The Yankee had his glass turned full upon me, off and on, the whole
morning--so I'm told--and if so I daresay he saw that I had some fairly
good sport.  But I wasn't so busy with my hooks and lines but that I
found time to ascertain that the ebb-stream runs at a rate of about four
knots at half-tide; and just abreast of us it flows to seaward at the
rate of about one knot at half-flood; the salt water flowing _into_ the
river along the bottom, and the fresh water continuing to flow
_outwards_ on the surface.  Now, at what time do you propose to start?"

"About half-past nine to-night," answered Smellie.

Old Mildmay referred to a book by his side, and then said:

"Ah, then you will have about two hours' ebb to contend with--the last
two hours of the ebb-tide.  Now let me see,"--and he produced a sheet of
paper on which were some calculations, evidently the result of his
observations whilst "Sshing."  He ran over these carefully, and then
said:

"How long do you expect it will take you to cross?"

"Two hours, if we have to pull across--as I expect we shall," answered
the second lieutenant.

"Two hours!" mused the master.  "Two hours!  Then you'll have to make
allowance, sir, for an average set to seaward of two miles an hour all
the way across, or four miles in all."

"Very well," said Smellie.  "Then to counteract that we must shape our
course for a point four miles _above_ that which marks the entrance to
the creek--must we not, Mr Hawkesley?"

"Certainly," I said; "that is quite clear."

"Then be so good as to lay that course down on the chart."

I measured off a distance of four miles with the dividers, and marked it
off _above_ the mouth of the creek; then applied the parallel ruler and
found the course.

"It is exactly south-east," said I; "and it will take us close past the
southern extremity of this small island."

"That is quite right," remarked Smellie, who had been watching me; "and
if we happen to sight the land in passing that point it will be an
assurance that, so far, we have been steering our proper course.  But--
bless me,"--looking at his watch--"it is a quarter after nine.  I had no
idea it was so late.  Run away, Mr Hawkesley, and make your
preparations.  Put on your worst suit of clothes, and throw your pea-
jacket into the boat.  You may be glad to have it when we get into the
thick of that damp fog.  Bring your pistols, but not your dirk; a ship's
cutlass, with which the armourer will supply you, will be much more
serviceable for the work we have in hand to-night."

I hastened away, and reached the deck again just in time to see the men
going down the side into the boats after undergoing inspection.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

WE ATTACK THE SLAVERS.

The attacking flotilla was composed of the launch, under Mr Smellie,
with me for an _aide_; the first cutter, in charge of Mr Armitage, the
third lieutenant; and the second cutter, in charge of Mr Williams, the
master's mate; the force consisting of forty seamen and four officers--
quite strong enough, in Captain Vernon's opinion, to give a satisfactory
account of the three slavers, which, it was arranged, we were to attack
simultaneously, one boat to each vessel.

The last parting instructions having been given to Smellie by the
skipper, and rounded off with a hearty hand-shake and an earnest
exclamation of "I wish you success;" with a still more hearty hand-shake
and a "Good-bye, Harold, old boy; good luck attend you!" from Mr
Austin, the second lieutenant motioned me into the launch; followed me
closely down; the word to shove off was given, and away we went
punctually at half-past nine to the minute.

The fog was still as thick as ever; so thick, indeed, that it was as
much as we could do to see one end of the boat from the other; and,
notwithstanding the care with which, as I had had an opportunity of
seeing, the second lieutenant had worked out all his calculations, I own
that it seemed to me quite hopeless to expect that we should find the
place of which we were in search.  Nevertheless, we pushed out boldly
into the opaque darkness, and the boats' heads were at once laid in the
required direction, each coxswain steering by compass, the lighted
binnacle containing which had been previously masked with the utmost
care.  Our object being to take the slavers by surprise the oars were of
course muffled, and the strictest silence enjoined.  Thus there was
neither light nor sound to betray our whereabouts, and we slid over the
placid surface of the river almost as noiselessly as so many mist-
wreaths.

In so dense a fog it was necessary to adopt unusual precautions in order
to prevent the boats from parting company.  We therefore proceeded in
single file, the launch leading, with the first cutter attached by her
painter, the second cutter, in her turn, attached by her painter to the
first cutter, bringing up the rear.  The cutters were ordered to
regulate their speed so that the connecting rope between each and the
boat ahead should be just slack enough to dip into the water and no
more, thus insuring that each boat's crew should do its own fair share
of work at the oars.

Once fairly away from the ship's side we were immediately swallowed up
by the impenetrable mist; and for a considerable time the flotilla
glided gently along, without a sight or sound to tell us whether we were
going right or wrong; without the utterance of a word on board either of
the boats; and with only the slight muffled sound of the oars in the
rowlocks and the gurgle of the water along the boats' sides to tell that
we were moving at all.  The silence would have been oppressive but for
the slight murmuring swirl and ripple of the great river and the
chirping of the countless millions of insects which swarmed in the bush
on both banks of the stream.  The latter sent forth so remarkable a
volume of sound that when first told it was created by insects alone I
found my credulity taxed to its utmost limit; and it was not until I was
solemnly assured by Mr Austin that such was the case that I quite
believed it.  It was not unlike the "whirr" of machinery, save that it
rose and fell in distinct cadences, and occasionally--as if by
preconcerted arrangement on the part of every individual insect in the
district--stopped altogether for a few moments.  Then, indeed, the
silence became weird, oppressive, uncanny; making one involuntarily
shuffle nearer to one's neighbour and glance half-fearfully over one's
shoulder.  Then, after a slight interval, a faint, far-off signal
_chirp! chirp_! would be heard, and in an instant the whole insect-world
would burst into full chorus once more, and the air would fairly vibrate
with sound.  But the night had other voices than this.  Mingled with the
_chirr_ of the insects there would occasionally float off to us the
snarling roar of some forest savage, the barking call of the deer, the
yelping of a jackal, the blood-curdling cry of a hyena, the grunt of a
hippopotamus, the weird cry of some night-bird; and--nearer at hand,
sometimes apparently within a yard or so of the boats--sundry mysterious
puffings and blowings, and sudden faint splashings of the water, which
latter made me for one, and probably many of the others who heard them,
feel particularly uncomfortable, especially if they happened to occur in
one of the brief intervals of silence on shore.  Once, in particular,
during one of those silent intervals, my hair fairly bristled as the
boat was suddenly but silently brought up all standing by coming into
violent collision with some object which broke water directly under our
bows; the shock being instantly followed by a long moaning sigh and a
tremendous swirl of the water as the creature--whatever it was--sank
again beneath the surface of the river.

The men in the launch were, like myself, considerably startled at the
circumstance, and one of them--an Irishman--exclaimed, in the first
paroxysm of his dismay:

"Howly ropeyarns! what was that?  Is it shipwrecked, stranded, and cast
away we are on the back of a say-crocodile?  Thin, Misther Crocodile,
let me tell yez at wanst that I'm not good to ate; I'm so sthrongly
flavoured wid the tibaccy that I'd be shure to disagray wid yez."

This absurd exclamation appealed so forcibly to the men's sense of the
ridiculous that it had the instant effect of steadying their nerves and
raising a hearty laugh, which, however, was as instantly checked by
Smellie, who, though he could not restrain a smile, exclaimed sharply:

"Silence, fore and aft!  How dare you cry out in that ridiculous
fashion, Flanaghan?  I have a good mind to report you, sir, as soon as
we return to the ship."

"_Who shall say how many of us will live to return_?"

"Merciful God! who spoke?" hoarsely cried the second lieutenant.  And
well he might.  The words were uttered in a sound scarcely above a
whisper, in so low a tone, indeed, that but for Smellie's startled
ejaculation I should almost have been inclined to accept them as
prompted by my own excited imagination; yet I saw in an instant that
every man in the boat had heard them and was as much startled as myself.
Who had uttered them, indeed?  Every man's look, as his horrified
glance sought his neighbour's face, asked the same question.  Nobody
seemed to have recognised or to be able to identify the voice; and the
strangest thing about it was that it did not appear to have been spoken
in the boat at all, but from a point close at hand.

The men had, with one accord, laid upon their oars in the first shock of
this new surprise, and before they had recovered themselves the first
cutter had ranged up alongside.

"Did anyone speak on board you, Armitage?" asked Smellie.

"No, certainly not," was the reply.

"Did you hear anyone speak on board the second cutter then?" followed.

"No; I heard nothing.  Why?"

"No matter," muttered the second lieutenant.  Then, in a low but
somewhat louder tone:

"Give way, launches; someone has been trying to play a trick upon us."

The men resumed their work at the oars; but an occasional scarcely heard
whisper reaching my ears and suggesting rather than conveying such
fragmentary sentences as "Some of us doomed"--"Lose the number of our
mess," etcetera, etcetera, showed that a very unfortunate impression had
been made by the strange incident.

As we proceeded the second lieutenant began to consult his watch, and at
last, turning to me as he slipped it back into his fob, he whispered:

"A quarter after tea.  We ought now to be close to Boolambemba Point,
but the fog keeps so dense that I am afraid there is no chance of our
sighting it."

The insect chorus had been silent for an unusually long time when he
spoke; but as the words left Smellie's lips the sounds burst out once
more, this time in startling proximity to our larboard hand.

"By George! there it is, though, sure enough," continued Smellie.  "By
the sharpness of the sound we must be close aboard of the point.  How is
her head, coxswain?"

Before the man could reply there came in a low murmur from the men
pulling the port oars:

"We're stirring up the mud here, sir, on the port hand."

And at the same moment, looking up, we became aware that the darkness
was deeper--more intense and opaque, as it were, on our port hand than
anywhere else.

"All right!" answered Smellie; "that is the point, sure enough, and very
prettily we have hit it off.  If we can only make as good a shot at the
mouth of the creek I shall be more than satisfied.  How have you been
steering, coxswain?"

"South-east, sir, as straight as ever I could keep her."

"That's all right.  South-east is your course all the way across.  Now
we are beginning to draw off from the point and out into mid-stream, and
there must be no more talking upon any pretence whatever.  The noise of
the insects will tell us when we are drawing in with the other bank.  On
a night like this one has to be guided in a great measure by sound, and
even the chirp of the grasshoppers may be made useful, Mr Hawkesley."

I murmured a whispered assent as in duty bound, and then all hands
relapsed into silence once more.

The men worked steadily away at the oars, not exerting themselves to any
great extent, but keeping the boat moving at the rate of about four
knots per hour.  According to our time-reckoning, and the fact that the
volume of sound proceeding from the southern bank of the river had
overpowered that from the northern bank, we had accomplished rather more
than the half of our passage across the stream, when, happening to raise
my head upon emerging from a brown study into which I had fallen, I
thought I caught a momentary glimpse of some object looming through the
fog broad on our port beam.  I looked more earnestly still, and
presently felt convinced that there _was_ something there.

Laying my hand on the second lieutenant's arm to call his attention, I
whispered:

"Can you see anything out there, sir, abreast of us on our port hand?"

Smellie looked eagerly in the indicated direction for some moments, and
then turning to the coxswain, whispered:

"Starboard--hard!"

The boat's helm was put over, her bows swept round; and then I was
certain _that we were being watched_, for as the launch swerved out of
her course the object became suddenly more distinct, only to vanish
completely into the fog next moment, however, its course being as
suddenly and promptly altered as our own, thus proving that there were
other eyes at least as sharp as ours.  But that single momentary glance
had been sufficient to show me that the object was a native canoe
containing three persons.

The second lieutenant was seriously disconcerted at this discovery, and
was evidently in great doubt as to whether it would be more prudent to
push on or to turn back.  If the occupants of the canoe happened to be
associated with the slavers, and had been sent out as scouts in
anticipation of an attack from us, then there could be little doubt that
it would be wiser to turn back, since a light craft like a canoe could
easily reach the creek far enough ahead of us to give the alarm, in
which case we should find a warm reception prepared for us; and in so
dense a fog all the advantage would be on the side of those manning the
slave fleet.

On the other hand, the _rencontre_ might possibly have been purely
accidental, and its occupants supremely indifferent to the movements of
ourselves and the slavers alike, in which case it would be not only
mortifying in the extreme but possibly fatal to Smellie's prospects in
the service if he allowed himself to be frightened out of the advantage
of so excellent an opportunity for effecting a surprise.

It was a most embarrassing problem with which he thus suddenly found
himself brought face to face; but with a brave man the question could
not long remain an open one; a few seconds sufficed him to determine on
proceeding and taking our chance.

The sounds from the shore now rapidly increased in intensity, and by and
by we suddenly found that they proceeded from both sides of the boats.
Smellie drew out his watch and consulted it by the light of the boat's
binnacle.

"Twenty minutes to twelve! and we are now entering the creek," he
whispered to me.

The slavers, we knew, were anchored about two miles up the creek, and
the conviction suddenly smote me that in another half-hour I should in
all probability be engaged in a fierce and deadly struggle.  Somehow up
to that moment I had only regarded the attack as a remote possibility--a
something which _might_ but was not very likely to happen.  I suppose I
had unconsciously been entertaining a doubt as to the possibility of our
finding the creek.  Yet, there we were in it, and nothing could now
avert a combat, and more or less bloodshed.  Nothing, that is, except
the exceedingly unlikely circumstance of our finding the birds flown.

Did I wish this?  Was I _afraid_?

Honestly, I am unable to say whether I was or not; but I am inclined to
acquit myself of the charge of cowardice.  My sensations were peculiar
and rather unpleasant, I freely admit; but looking back upon them now in
the light of long years of experience, I am disposed to attribute them
entirely to nervous excitement.  Hitherto my nostrils had never sniffed
the odour of powder burned in anger; I was about to undergo a perfectly
new experience; I was about to engage with my fellow-men in mortal
combat; to come face to face with and within arm's-length of those who,
if the opportunity occurred, would take my life deliberately and without
a moment's hesitation.  In a short half-hour I might be dying--or
_dead_.  As this disagreeable and inopportune reflection flashed through
my mind my heart throbbed violently, the blood rushed to my head, and my
breathing became so laboured that I felt as though I was stifling.
These disagreeable--indeed I might more truthfully call them _painful_--
sensations lasted in their intensity perhaps as long as five minutes,
after which they rapidly subsided, to be succeeded by a feverish longing
and impatience for the moment of action.  My excitement ceased; my
breathing again became regular; but the period of suspense--that period
which only a few minutes before had seemed so short--now felt as though
it were lengthening out to a veritable eternity.  I wanted to begin at
once, to know the worst, and to get it over.

I had not much longer to wait.  We had advanced about a mile up the
creek when a deep hoarse voice was heard shouting something from the
shore.

"Oars!" exclaimed Smellie; and the men ceased pulling.  "What was it the
fellow said?" continued the second lieutenant, turning to me.

"Haven't the slightest idea, but it sounded like Spanish," I replied.

The hail was repeated, but we could make nothing of it.  Mr Armitage,
however, who boasted a slight knowledge of Spanish, informed us--the
first cutter having by this time drifted up abreast of us--that it was a
caution to us to return at once or take the consequences.

"Oh! that's it, is it?" remarked Smellie.  "Well, it seems that we are
discovered, so any further attempt at a surprise is useless.  Cast the
boats adrift from each other, and we will make a dash for it.  Our best
chance now is to board and carry the three craft simultaneously with a
rush--if we can.  Give way, lads!"

The boats' painters were cast off; the crews with a ringing cheer
plunged their oars simultaneously into the water, and away we went at
racing speed through the dense fog along the channel.

We had scarcely pulled half a dozen strokes when the report of a musket
rang out from the bank on our starboard hand; and at the same instant a
line of tiny sparks of fire appeared on either hand through the thick
haze, rapidly increasing in size and luminosity until they stood
revealed as huge fires of dry brushwood.  They were twelve in number,
six on either bank of the channel, and were spaced about three hundred
yards apart.  So large were they that they rendered the fog quite
luminous; and it seemed pretty evident that they had been built and
lighted for the express purpose of illuminating the channel and
revealing our exact whereabouts.  I was congratulating myself upon the
circumstance that the dense fog would to a considerable extent defeat
their purpose, when, in an instant, as though we had passed out through
a solid wall, we emerged from the fog, and there lay the three slave-
craft before us, moored with springs on their cables, boarding-nettings
triced up, and guns run out, evidently quite ready to receive us.

The three craft were moored athwart the channel in a slightly curved
line, with their bows pointing to the eastward, the brig being ahead,
the schooner next, and the brigantine the sternmost of the line.  Thus
moored, their broadsides commanded the whole channel in the direction of
our advance, and could, if required, be concentrated upon any one point
in it.

"Hurrah!" shouted Smellie, rising to his feet and drawing his sword;
"hurrah, lads, there is our game!  Give way and go at them.  I'll take
the brig, Armitage; you tackle the brigantine, and leave Williams to
deal with the schooner.  Now bend your backs, launches; there is a glass
of grog all round waiting for you if we are alongside first."

"Hurroo! pull, bhoys, and let's shecure that grog annyhow," exclaimed
the irrepressible Flanaghan; and with another cheer and a hearty laugh
the men stretched themselves out and plied the stout ashen oars until
the water fairly buzzed again under the launch's bows, and it almost
seemed as though they would lift her bodily out of the water.

As for Armitage and Williams, they were evidently quite determined not
to be beaten in the race if they could help it.  Both were on their
feet, their drawn swords in their right hands, pistols in their left,
and their bodies bobbing energetically forward, in approved racing
fashion, at every stroke of the oars; whilst the voice of first one and
then the other could be heard encouraging their respective crews with
such exclamations as:

"Pull now! pull _hard!  There_ she lifts!  _Now_ she travels!  There we
draw ahead.  _Well_ pulled; again so," and so on, she men all the while
straining at the oars with a zeal and energy which left in the wake of
each boat a long line of swirling, foamy whirlpools.

We were within about eighty yards of the slavers--the launch leading by
a good half length--when a voice on board the brig uttered some word of
command, and that same instant--_crash_! came a broadside at us, fired
simultaneously from the three ships.  The guns were well-aimed, the shot
flying close over and all round us, tearing and thrashing up the placid
surface of the water about the boats, and sprinkling us to such an
extent that, for the moment, we seemed to be passing through a heavy
shower; yet, strange to say, no damage was done.

Before the guns could be again loaded we were alongside, and then
ensued--so far at least as the launch was concerned--a few minutes of
such desperate hand-to-hand fighting as I have never since witnessed.
We dashed alongside the brig in the wake of her larboard main rigging,
and as the boat's side touched that of the slaver every man dropped his
oar, seized his cutlass, and sprang for the main channels.  Here,
however, we were received so warmly that it was found utterly impossible
to make good our footing, the men springing up only to fall back again
into the boat wounded with pike-thrust, pistol-bullet, or cutlass-gash.
Smellie and I happened to make a dash for the same spot, but being the
lighter of the two I was jostled aside by him and narrowly avoided
tumbling overboard.  He succeeded in gaining a temporary footing on the
chain-plate, and was evidently about to scramble thence upon the sheer-
pole, when I saw a pike thrust out at him from over the topgallant
bulwarks.  The point struck him in the right shoulder, passing
completely through it; the thrust upset his balance, and down he came by
the run into the boat.  Our lads meanwhile were cutting and hacking most
desperately at the boarding netting, endeavouring to make a passage-way
through it, but unfortunately they had emptied their pistols in the
first rush, and, unable to reach their enemies through the netting, were
completely at their mercy.  In less than three minutes all hands were
back in the boat, every one of us more or less hurt, and no nearer to
getting on board than we had been before the beginning of the attack.

The cutters had evidently fared no better, for they were already hauling
off, discomfited; seeing which, Smellie, who seemed scarcely conscious
of his wound, reluctantly gave the order for us to follow their example,
which we promptly did.  Poor Smellie!  I pitied him, for I could see he
was deeply mortified at our defeat.  The three boats converged toward
each other as they hauled off, and as soon as we were within speaking
distance of them the second lieutenant inquired of Armitage and Williams
whether they had suffered much.

"We have one man killed, and I think none of us have escaped quite scot-
free," was Armitage's reply; whilst Williams reported that two of his
men were seriously hurt and seven others slightly wounded.

"Well," said Smellie, "it is evident that we can do nothing with them
unless we change our tactics.  We will, therefore, all three of us
attack the schooner, the two cutters boarding her, one on each bow,
whilst we in the launch will make a feint of attacking the brigantine,
passing her, however, at the last moment, and boarding the schooner aft.
Now--away we go!"

The boats upon this were quickly swept round, and off we dashed toward
our respective points of attack.  We were still fully a hundred yards
distant when another broadside was poured into us, this time with very
destructive effect so far as the launch was concerned.  We were struck
by no less than five nine-pound shot, two of which played havoc with our
oars on the starboard side, a third tore out about twelve feet of
planking and gunwale on the same side, and the remaining two struck the
boat's stem close together, completely demolishing the bows and, worst
of all, killing three men.

The launch was now a wreck and sinking.  Smellie, therefore, conceiving
it to be our best chance under the circumstances, gave orders to steer
straight for the schooner's main-chains.  We succeeded in reaching our
quarry before the boat sank, and that was all, the launch capsizing
alongside as we sprang from her gunwale to that of the schooner.  Very
fortunately for us, the two cutters had arrived nearly a minute before
us, and when we boarded the entire crew of the schooner was on her
forecastle fully occupied in the endeavour to repel their attack.
Taking advantage of this we quietly but rapidly slipped in on deck
through her open ports aft, and then made a furious charge forward,
attacking the Spaniards in their rear.  Our presence on board seemed to
take them considerably by surprise.  They wavered and hesitated, but,
incited by a burly ruffian who forced his way through the crowd, rallied
once more and attacked us hotly.  This was exactly what we wanted.  Our
fellows, by Smellie's order, contented themselves with acting for the
time being strictly on the defensive, giving way gradually before the
impetuous attack of the Spaniards, and drawing them by degrees away from
the forecastle.  A diversion was thus effected in favour of the cutters'
crews, of which they were not slow to avail themselves; and in less than
five minutes after the attack of the launch's crew our entire party had
gained a footing upon the schooner's deck.  Even then the Spanish crew
continued to fight desperately, inflicting several very severe wounds
upon our lads, until at last, thoroughly roused by such obstinacy, the
blue-jackets made such a determined charge that they cleared the decks
by actually and literally driving their opponents overboard.  Not that
this entailed much loss upon the Spaniards, however; for they all, or
very nearly all, swam either to the brig or the brigantine, where they
were promptly hauled on board.

On our side Smellie lost not a moment in availing himself to the fullest
extent of our partial victory.  He ordered the cutters to be dropped
under the schooner's stern, and whilst this was being done the springs
were veered away and hauled upon until the schooner was brought
broadside-on to her former consorts, now her antagonists.  This done our
lads went to the guns, double-shotted them, and succeeded in delivering
an awfully destructive raking broadside fore and aft along the decks of
both the brig and the brigantine.  The frightful outcries and the
confusion which ensued on board these craft assured us that our fire had
wrought a tremendous amount of execution among the men crowding their
decks; but they were too wise to give us an opportunity to repeat the
dose.  Their springs were promptly manned, and by the time that the
schooner's batteries were again loaded our antagonists had brought their
broadsides to bear upon us.

Once more was our double-shotted broadside hurled upon the foe, and
then, before our lads had time to run-in their guns, we received the
combined fire of the brig and the brigantine in return.  Through the
sharp ringing explosion of our antagonists' nine-pounders we distinctly
heard the crashing of the shot through the schooner's timbers, and
then--O God!  I shall never forget it--the piercing shrieks and groans
of mortal agony which uprose beneath our feet!  Not a man of us upon the
schooner's decks was injured by that terrible double broadside; for the
Spaniards, resolved to sink the craft, had depressed the muzzles of
their guns and sent their shot through the schooner's sides just above
the water-line on the one side and out through her bottom on the other,
regardless of the fact that _the vessel's hold was packed full of
slaves_.  The slaughter which resulted among these unhappy creatures,
thus closely huddled together, I must leave to the reader's
imagination--it was simply indescribable.

For a moment all hands of us on board the schooner were struck dumb and
motionless with horror at this act of cowardice and wanton barbarity;
then, with a yell of righteous fury our lads turned again to their guns,
which thenceforward were loaded and fired independently, and as rapidly
as possible.  The slavers on their part were not behindhand in alacrity,
and presently we received another broadside from the brig, closely
followed by one from the brigantine, the guns being in both cases aimed
as before, with similar murderous results, and with a repetition of
those heart-rending shrieks of agony and despair.

"My God!  I can't bear this!"  I heard Smellie exclaim, as the dying
shrieks of the negroes below again pealed out upon the startled air.
"Mr Williams, take half a dozen men below and free those unhappy
blacks.  I don't know whether I am acting prudently or not, but I cannot
leave them chained helplessly down there to be cut to pieces by the shot
of those Spanish fiends.  Let them come on deck and take their chance
with us.  Some of them at least may possibly effect their escape, either
in the schooner's boats or by swimming to the shore."

Williams lost no time in setting about his perilous work of mercy; and a
few minutes after his disappearance down the main hatchway the unhappy
slaves began to make their appearance on deck, where they first stared
in terrified wonder about them, and then crouched down helplessly on the
deck wherever they might happen to find themselves.

In the meantime the cannonade was kept briskly up on both sides, and
presently the Spaniards began to pepper us with musketry in addition.
The bullets, fired at short range, flew thickly about us; and the
casualties quickly increased, several of the unfortunate blacks falling
victims to the first discharge.  Seeing this, Smellie ordered the
schooner's boats, three in number, to be lowered and the slaves passed
into them.  This was done, our lads leaving the guns for a few minutes
for the purpose; but--will it be credited?  The Spaniards no sooner
became aware of our purpose than they directed their fire upon the boats
and their hapless occupants; so that we were compelled to quickly drag
the unhappy blacks back on board the schooner again, to save them from
being ruthlessly slaughtered.  The worst of it was, that though Williams
had succeeded in freeing many of them from the heavy chains with which
they were secured together in the schooner's hold, most of them still
wore heavy fetters on their ankles.  These we now proceeded to knock off
as fast as we could, afterwards pitching the poor wretches overboard--
with scant ceremony, I fear--to take their chances of being able to
reach the shore.  And during all this the Spaniards never ceased firing
upon us for an instant; so there we were in the midst of a perfect
hailstorm of round-shot and bullets; the air about us thick and
suffocating with the smoke from the guns, our only light the quick
intermittent flashes of the cannon and musketry; the whole atmosphere
vibrating with the roar and rattle of the fusillade, the shouts of the
combatants, and the shrieks of the wounded and dying; struggling with
the unhappy negroes who, driven almost frantic with the unwonted sights
and sounds around them, seemed quite unable to comprehend our
intentions, and resisted to the utmost our well-meant endeavours to pass
them over the ship's side into the water.

In the midst of all this tumult and confusion we were suddenly
confronted by an additional horror--Williams, badly wounded in the head
by a splinter, staggering on deck, closely followed by his men, with the
news that the schooner was rapidly sinking, and that it was impossible
to free any more of the blacks.

I glanced down the hatchway.  Merciful Heaven! shall I ever forget the
sight whic

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