The Congo Rovers, page 30
A careful calculation, based upon our knowledge of the Black Venus’s extraordinary sailing powers, showed that we might look for her about half-past nine o’clock; and half an hour previous to that we began to make our preparations for according to her a suitable reception. The decks were cleared for action, the magazine was opened, arms and ammunition were served out to the crew, who were then sent to quarters; the guns were loaded each with a round-shot and a charge of grape on the top of it, and all the canvas was loosed and made ready for setting at a moment’s notice. Then all the sharpest eyes available in the ship were set upon the watch for our slippery foe, and we were ready.
The night-mists to which frequent reference has been made are, it ought to be explained, confined to the river itself; and though on such occasions as that of which we are now treating they are carried out to seaward by the land-breeze a few miles beyond the river’s mouth, they soon get dissipated; so that whilst in the river itself the fog may be so thick as to render it impossible to see further than half the ship’s length ahead, it will be perfectly clear at a distance of seven or eight miles outside. It was just upon the outer or seaward skirts of the fog-bank that we had taken up our station and were hovering to and fro.
The Virginia had just gone round, and was stretching to the southward upon the port tack, when, from my station on the heel of the bowsprit, I thought I detected a sudden thickening of the haze at a spot about three points on the weather-bow. Straining my eyes to their utmost I gazed intently into the darkness; the appearance became more pronounced, more defined every second, and as I watched it assumed the form of an irregularly-shaped truncated pyramid.
“Sail ho! broad on the weather-bow!” I exclaimed joyously; and in a moment half a dozen voices exultingly reiterated the cry of “Sail ho!”
Yes, there could be no mistake about it; for whilst the words were still upon our lips the apparition grew more substantial, assumed the misty outline of a ship in full sail, and finally shot out from among the fog-wreaths clear and well-defined—a brig running before the wind under studding-sails.
I hastened aft to where Smellie stood grasping the maintopmast backstay, and was greeted by him with the characteristic remark of:
“What a fellow he must be, and what nerve he must have! Fancy a man running out of that river and through the fog under studding-sails.” Then, turning to the helmsman, he said:
“Now we have him fairly, I think. Up with your helm, my man, and steer for his jib-boom end. Mr Costigan,”—to the first lieutenant—“make sail, if you please.”
“Oi, oi, sorr,” answered that worthy in a rich Hibernian brogue. “Let go and overhaul the fore and main clewgarnets; board the fore and main tacks and aft wid the sheets. Fore and main topmast-staysail and jib halliards, hoist away. Sheet home and set the fore and main-topgallant-sails, and be smart about it. Aisy now, there, wid that main tack; don’t ye see, you spalpeens, that the ship is bearin’ up. Man the braces, fore and aft; ease up to leeward and round in to windward as the ship pays off. Well of all, belay, and coil up. Misther Hawkesley, am I to have the pleasure of showin’ ye the way on board the hooker yonder?”
“Thanks, no, I think not, Costigan,” I answered with a laugh. “I propose to lend my valuable aid to the alter division of the boarders; you are a host in yourself, you know, and can manage very well without me. But I shall keep a look-out for you in the waist of the brig.”
“Very well, it’s there I’ll mate ye, young gintleman, or my name’s not Denis Costigan.”
And away hurried the impetuous Irishman to place himself at the head of the forward division of boarders.
The brig had sighted us almost as quickly as we had her, and she made one or two attempts to dodge us. But it was of no use, she had run into our arms, as it were; we were much too close together when the vessels became visible to each other to render anything like dodging at all possible; moreover Smellie, standing there on the breach of one of the guns, watched the chase with so unwavering an eye and met any deviation on her part so promptly with a corresponding swerve on the part of the Virginia, that Señor Madera soon scornfully gave up the attempt, and held steadily forward upon his course.
The sister brigs, for such they eventually proved to be, now running on almost parallel courses, soon narrowed the space between them to a bare hundred feet, the Virginia, however, having been so carefully steered as to give her a slight lead. This seemed to be the moment for which Señor Madera had waited, for he now suddenly threw open his ports, and without attempting the mockery of hoisting an ensign of any kind, poured into us the whole contents of his double-shotted starboard broadside, aiming high, however, with the evident hope of knocking away some of our more important spars. Our lower canvas was immediately riddled and a few unimportant ropes were cut; but beyond this we fortunately sustained no damage.
By way of reply to this, Smellie, without removing his eyes from the chase, waved his hand gently to the helmsman; the wheel was put a half a dozen spokes or so over to port, and the Virginia slewed slightly more toward her antagonist.
“Now, steady men,” cautioned the skipper. “Do not fire until I give the word, then pour your broadside in upon her decks—not a shot below the sheer-strake for your lives.” I well knew of whom he was thinking when he said this; Antonia was doubtless in the cabin, and it was her safety for which he was thus careful. “And as soon as you have fired your broadside,” he continued, “draw your cutlasses and stand by to board. Are the grappling-irons all ready?”
“All ready, sir,” came the reply from the tars who were standing by to throw them, and then there ensued a few breathless moments of intense silence.
Gradually the two brigs neared each other, until the lap and swirl of the water along our antagonists’ sides could be distinctly heard. At that moment a rattling volley of small-arms was discharged from the Black Venus, and I saw Smellie start and reel on his elevated perch. The next instant, however, he had recovered himself, and once more waving to the helmsman, he gave the word:
“Fire!”
Prompt at the command, our broadside rattled out, and amid the crashing of timber and the shrieks of the wounded I felt the jar of collision between the two vessels.
“Heave!” shouted Smellie. “Boarders away!” And with a simultaneous spring fore and aft, away we went over the bulwarks and down on to the crowded decks of the Black Venus.
The fight was short but stubborn. Our antagonists fought with the desperate bravery of men who already felt the halters settling round their necks; but whoever heard of British tars yielding an enemy’s deck when once their feet were firmly planted upon it? Besides, almost every individual man among us felt that we had a long score of disappointments and floutings to wipe out, and steadily but irresistibly we drove the pirates into the waist of their ship, where, huddled closely together, it was impossible for them to use their arms effectively. Finally, Smellie and Madera, after several unsuccessful efforts to get at each other, managed to cross swords, and after a few rapid passes the latter fell, run through the body by the skipper. In the very act of falling, however, he whipped a pistol from his belt and aiming point blank at the skipper, fired, the ball passing through Smellie’s lungs. The poor fellow turned blindly, and with the blood spurting from his mouth reeled into my arms.
I knew very little of the fight after this, for summoning a couple of men I at once proceeded to remove the skipper on board his own vessel; but before we had got him fairly down on deck a cheer from our lads told us that victory had once more declared herself on our side, and that the redoubtable Black Venus was ours.
Getting Smellie below and into his cot with all speed, I waited until the arrival of the surgeon upon the scene, when, handing the patient over to his tender mercies, I hastened back on board the prize, and went straight below into her cabin. It was a magnificently furnished apartment, and fitted with every luxury, even to a guitar. But it was empty. Could it be possible that we had been deceived, after all, as to the circumstances of Doña Antonia’s abduction? Perhaps she was concealed somewhere. I shouted:
“Doña Antonia! Doña Antonia! are you here? Fear not; it is I—Dick Hawkesley. We have captured this vessel; Madera is wounded, if not slain outright; your father is at hand, and you are free.”
“Who calls?” I heard a voice—Madre Dolores’—exclaim from an adjacent berth, the door of which was closed. “Who calls?”
“I—Dick Hawkesley,” I replied. “Don’t you recognise my voice, Madre?”
“Ay, to be sure I do—rum” was the reply. A sound of the withdrawal of bolts followed; the door cautiously opened, and the Madre, with her eyes gleaming and a cocked pistol pointed straight in my direction, protruded her head through the opening. One look was sufficient. With a wild cry of delight she dashed the pistol to the floor, exploding it in the act, and sending the ball within a hair’s-breadth of my starboard ankle, and rushing forward flung her arms convulsively about my neck, pouring out a torrent of Spanish endearments between the kisses which the poor old soul liberally bestowed upon me. I submitted with a good grace for a moment, and then gently but firmly withdrew myself from her embraces, to meet the glance of Doña Antonia, who stood in the doorway of the state-room, looking on with a curiously mingled expression of fear, doubt, and amusement.
A few words sufficed to fully explain to her the state of affairs, and then hastily enveloping her and old Dolores in the first wraps that came to hand, I conveyed them with all speed on board the Virginia and presented them to Don Manuel.
My story is now ended, or nearly so; my adventures on the Congo and the west coast terminating with the capture of the Black Venus; a few additional words, therefore, will suffice to fittingly dismiss the principal personages who have figured in this history, and to bring the history itself to a symmetrical conclusion.
We returned with our prize to Banana Creek, on the morning following the action, and there remained for a couple of days to bury the dead, and to refit. Don Manuel embraced this opportunity to make a flying visit to his house, from which he returned after an absence of a few hours only, bringing with him a small but solidly constructed and extremely heavy oak chest, which he explained to me in confidence contained his daughter’s dowry, and which eventually proved to be the receptacle of a goodly store of Spanish dollars.
From Banana Creek the two brigs proceeded in company to Sierra Leone, where the Black Venus was soon afterwards adjudicated upon and condemned as a pirate, my evidence and that of the other six survivors from the Daphne being accepted as conclusive of the fact that she had been guilty of at least one act of piracy; namely, in the case of the Highland Chieftain. Her crew were committed to prison upon heavy sentences, meted out in proportion to the comparative guilt of the parties; but additional evidence shortly afterwards cropping up—that of poor Richards of the Juliet amongst it—additional charges were preferred against them; and Madera, who proved to be the half-brother of the fictitious Monsieur Le Breton, late of the Virginia, with his officers and several of his men, suffered the penalty of death by hanging.
Smellie’s wound proving unexpectedly troublesome, he was ordered home that he might have the benefit of a more temperate climate to assist his recovery, and he accordingly took passage for London in a tidy little barque, the Lilian, Don Manuel and his daughter, with old Dolores, all of whom had gone on to Sierra Leone with us, also engaging berths in the same vessel. The survivors from the Daphne being also ordered home to stand their trial for the loss of that vessel, I thought I could not do better than secure one of the remaining berths in the Lilian’s cabin—the men being accommodated in the steerage. Thus we had the mutual pleasure of each other’s society all the way home.
The passage was a long but uneventful one, and by the time that we arrived in the Chops of the Channel Smellie’s wound had taken so favourable a turn that he was almost as well as ever, save and except for a little lingering weakness and shakiness in his lower spars, which, somehow, obstinately continued to need the assistance and support of Doña Antonia’s fair arm whenever the two promenaded the deck together. My gallant superior was extremely anxious to be married immediately on the ship’s arrival, and after the usual protestations and pleadings for delay with which engaged maidens delight to torment their lovers, Doña Antonia so far yielded as to consent to the wedding taking place on the earliest possible day after my trial, so that I might be present at the ceremony.
And this arrangement was duly carried out; the trial by court-martial being, of course, a mere form, from which I and my fellow-survivors emerged with a full acquittal, accompanied, in my case, by a few very gracious and complimentary remarks from the president on the manner in which I had conducted myself during my short period of service.
As for Smellie, he found himself fully confirmed in his rank of commander, with the gracious intimation that, in appreciation of his valued services, an appointment would be at his disposal whenever he felt himself sufficiently recovered to ask for it, which he did after a six months’ sojourn at home with his young wife. I sailed with him in the capacity of midshipman, and in the West Indies and elsewhere we passed through several stirring adventures together, the record of which may possibly be given in the future.
The End.
* * *
| Chapter 1 | | Chapter 2 | | Chapter 3 | | Chapter 4 | | Chapter 5 | | Chapter 6 | | Chapter 7 | | Chapter 8 | | Chapter 9 | | Chapter 10 | | Chapter 11 | | Chapter 12 | | Chapter 13 | | Chapter 14 | | Chapter 15 | | Chapter 16 | | Chapter 17 | | Chapter 18 | | Chapter 19 | | Chapter 20 | | Chapter 21 | | Chapter 22 |
* * *
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