Pirate Slaver

Harry Collingwood

Description

If you're hopelessly landlocked and pining for some high-seas adventure, dive into The Pirate Slaver by Harry Collingwood. Readers of all ages will relish this action-packed tale that pits a British warship against the ingenious and bloodthirsty pirates who troll the waters off the coast of Africa.

Sujets

• Adventure (Guyana)
• Adventure

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 juin 2012
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775459385
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE PIRATE SLAVER
A STORY OF THE WEST AFRICAN COAST
* * *
HARRY COLLINGWOOD
 
*
The Pirate Slaver A Story of the West African Coast First published in 1895 ISBN 978-1-77545-938-5 © 2012 The Floating Press and its licensors. All rights reserved. While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
*
Chapter One - The Congo River Chapter Two - We Receive Some Important Intelligence Chapter Three - The Night Attack Chapter Four - Chango Creek Chapter Five - The 'Felicidad' Chapter Six - A Capture and a Chase Chapter Seven - The Slaver's Ruse Chapter Eight - Caught in a Cyclone Chapter Nine - The Governor's Communication Chapter Ten - A Disastrous Expedition Chapter Eleven - Don Fernando de Mendouca Chapter Twelve - An Awful Catastrophe Chapter Thirteen - How Mendouca Replenished His "Cargo" Chapter Fourteen - Mendouca Becomes Communicative Chapter Fifteen - The Affair of the 'Francesca' and the 'Barracouta's' Boats Chapter Sixteen - The Capture and Plundering of the 'Bangalore,' Indiaman Chapter Seventeen - I Escape from the Brigantine Chapter Eighteen - Re-Appearance of the 'Francesca' Chapter Nineteen - To the Congo Again Upon a Special Mission Chapter Twenty - Success the Fate of the Pirate Slaver
Chapter One - The Congo River
*
"Land ho! broad on the port bow!"
The cry arose from the look-out on the forecastle of her BritannicMajesty's 18-gun brig Barracouta , on a certain morning near the middleof the month of November, 1840; the vessel then being situated in aboutlatitude 6 degrees 5 minutes south and about 120 east longitude. Shewas heading to the eastward, close-hauled on the port tack, under everyrag that her crew could spread to the light and almost imperceptibledraught of warm, damp air that came creeping out from the northward. Solight was the breeze that it scarcely wrinkled the glassy smoothness ofthe long undulations upon which the brig rocked and swayed heavily whileher lofty trucks described wide arcs across the paling sky overhead,from which the stars were vanishing one after another before the advanceof the pallid dawn. And at every lee roll her canvas flapped with arattle as of a volley of musketry to the masts, sending down a smartshower from the dew-saturated cloths upon the deck, to fill again withthe report of a nine-pounder and a great slatting of sheets and blocksas the ship recovered herself and rolled to windward.
The brig was just two months out from England, from whence she had beendispatched to the West African coast to form a portion of theslave-squadron and to relieve the old Garnet , which, from herphenomenal lack of speed, had proved utterly unsuitable for the serviceof chasing and capturing the nimble slavers who, despite all ourprecautions, were still pursuing their cruel and nefarious vocation withunparalleled audacity and success. We had relieved the Garnet , andhad looked in at Sierra Leone for the latest news; the result of thisvisit being that we were now heading in for the mouth of the Congo,which river had been strongly commended to our especial attention by theGovernor of the little British colony. Our captain, Commander HenryStopford, was by no means a communicative man, it being a theory of histhat it is a mistake on the part of a chief to confide more to hisofficers than is absolutely necessary for the efficient and intelligentperformance of their duty; hence he had not seen fit to make public theexact particulars of the information thus received. But he had ofcourse made an exception in favour of Mr Young, our popular first luff;and as I—Henry Dugdale, senior mid of the Barracouta —happened to besomething of a favourite with the latter, I learned from him, in thecourse of conversation, some of the circumstances that were actuatingour movements. The intelligence, however, was of a very meagrecharacter, and simply amounted to this: That large numbers of Africanslaves were being continually landed on the Spanish West Indian islands;that two boats with their crews had mysteriously disappeared in theCongo while engaged upon a search of that river for slavers; and that asmall felucca named the Wasp —a tender to the British ship-sloop Lapwing —had also disappeared with all hands, some three monthspreviously, after having been seen in pursuit of a large brig that hadcome out of the river; these circumstances leading to the inference thatthe Congo was the haunt of a strong gang of daring slavers whose capturemust be effected at any cost.
It was for this service that the Barracouta had been selected, shebeing a brand-new ship especially built for work on the West Africancoast, and modelled to sail at a high speed upon a light draught ofwater. She was immensely beamy for her length, and very shallow,drawing only ten feet of water with all her stores and ammunition onboard, very heavily sparred— too heavily, some of us thought—and, asfor canvas, her topsails had the hoist of those of a frigate of twiceher tonnage. She was certainly a beautiful model of a ship—far andaway the prettiest that I had ever seen when I first stepped on boardher—while her speed, especially in light winds and tolerably smoothwater, was such as to fill us all, fore and aft, with the mostextravagant hopes of success against the light-heeled slave clipperswhose business it was ours to suppress. She was a flush-decked vessel,with high, substantial bulwarks pierced for nine guns of a side, and shemounted fourteen 18-pounder carronades and four long nine-pounders, twoforward and two aft, which could be used as bow and stern-chasersrespectively, if need were, although we certainly did not anticipate thenecessity to employ any of our guns in the latter capacity. Our crew,all told, numbered one hundred and sixty-five.
I was in the first lieutenant's watch, and happened to be on deck whenthe look-out reported land upon the morning upon which this story opens.I remember the circumstance as well as though it had occurred butyesterday, and I have only to close my eyes to bring the whole scene upbefore my mental vision as distinctly as a picture. The brig was, as Ihave already said, heading to the eastward, close-hauled, on the porttack, under everything that we could set, to her royals; but the windwas so scant that even the light upper sails flapped and rustledmonotonously to the sleepy heave and roll of the ship, and it was onlyby glancing through a port at the small, iridescent air-bubbles thatdrifted astern at the rate of about a knot and a half in the hour thatwe were able to detect the fact of our own forward movement at all. Wehad been on deck just an hour—for two bells had barely been struck—when the first faint suggestion of dawn appeared ahead in the shape of ascarcely-perceptible lightening of the sky along a narrow strip of theeastern horizon, in the midst of which the morning star beamedresplendently, while the air, although still warm, assumed a freshnessthat, compared with the close, muggy heat of the past night, seemedalmost cold, so that involuntarily I drew the lapels of my thin jackettogether and buttoned the garment from throat to waist. Quickly, yet byimperceptible gradations, the lightening of the eastern sky spread andstrengthened, the soft, velvety, star-lit, blue-black hue paling to anarch of cold, colourless pallor as the dawn asserted itself moreemphatically, while the stars dwindled and vanished one by one in therapidly-growing light. As the pallor of the sky extended itselfinsidiously north and south along the horizon, a low-lying bank of whatat first presented the appearance of dense vapour became visible on the Barracouta's larboard bow; but presently, when the cold whiteness ofthe coming day became flushed with a delicate tint of purest, palestprimrose, the supposed fog-bank assumed a depth of rich purple hue and aclear-cut sharpness of outline that proclaimed it what it was— land ,most unmistakably. The look-out was a smart young fellow, who hadalready established a reputation for trustworthiness, and he more thanhalf suspected the character of the cloud-like appearance when it firstcaught his attention; he therefore kept his eye upon it, and was nosooner assured of its nature than he raised the cry of—
"Land ho! broad on the port bow!"
The first luff, who had been for some time meditatively pacing theweather side of the deck from the binnacle to the gangway, with hishands clasped behind his back and his glance directed alternately to thedeck at his feet and to the swaying main-royal-mast-head, quickly awokefrom his abstraction at the cry from the forecastle, and, springinglightly upon a carronade slide, with one hand grasping the inner edge ofthe hammock-rail, looked long and steadily in the direction indicated.
"Ay, ay, I see it," he answered, when after a long, steady look he hadsatisfied himself of the character of what he gazed upon. "Wheel,there, how's her head?"
"East-south-east, sir!" answered the helmsman promptly.
The lieutenant shut one eye and, raising his right arm, with the handheld flat and vertically, pointed toward the southern extremity of thedistant land, held it there for a moment, and murmured—
"A point and a half—east-half-south, distant—what shall we say—twentymiles? Ay, about that, as nearly as may be. Mr Dugdale, just slipbelow and let the master know that the land is in sight on the port bow,bearing east-half-south, distant twenty miles."
I touched my cap and trundled down to the master's cabin, the door ofwhich was hooked back wide open, permitting the co