The Pirate Slaver

THE PIRATE SLAVER, A STORY OF THE WEST AFRICAN COAST, BY HARRY
COLLINGWOOD.



CHAPTER ONE.

THE CONGO RIVER.

"Land ho! broad on the port bow!"

The cry arose from the look-out on the forecastle of her Britannic
Majesty's 18-gun brig _Barracouta_, on a certain morning near the middle
of the month of November, 1840; the vessel then being situated in about
latitude 6 degrees 5 minutes south and about 120 east longitude. She
was heading to the eastward, close-hauled on the port tack, under every
rag that her crew could spread to the light and almost imperceptible
draught of warm, damp air that came creeping out from the northward. So
light was the breeze that it scarcely wrinkled the glassy smoothness of
the long undulations upon which the brig rocked and swayed heavily while
her lofty trucks described wide arcs across the paling sky overhead,
from which the stars were vanishing one after another before the advance
of the pallid dawn. And at every lee roll her canvas flapped with a
rattle as of a volley of musketry to the masts, sending down a smart
shower from the dew-saturated cloths upon the deck, to fill again with
the report of a nine-pounder and a great slatting of sheets and blocks
as the ship recovered herself and rolled to windward.

The brig was just two months out from England, from whence she had been
dispatched to the West African coast to form a portion of the
slave-squadron and to relieve the old _Garnet_, which, from her
phenomenal lack of speed, had proved utterly unsuitable for the service
of chasing and capturing the nimble slavers who, despite all our
precautions, were still pursuing their cruel and nefarious vocation with
unparalleled audacity and success. We had relieved the _Garnet_, and
had looked in at Sierra Leone for the latest news; the result of this
visit being that we were now heading in for the mouth of the Congo,
which river had been strongly commended to our especial attention by the
Governor of the little British colony. Our captain, Commander Henry
Stopford, was by no means a communicative man, it being a theory of his
that it is a mistake on the part of a chief to confide more to his
officers than is absolutely necessary for the efficient and intelligent
performance of their duty; hence he had not seen fit to make public the
exact particulars of the information thus received. But he had of
course made an exception in favour of Mr Young, our popular first luff;
and as I--Henry Dugdale, senior mid of the _Barracouta_--happened to be
something of a favourite with the latter, I learned from him, in the
course of conversation, some of the circumstances that were actuating
our movements. The intelligence, however, was of a very meagre
character, and simply amounted to this: That large numbers of African
slaves were being continually landed on the Spanish West Indian islands;
that two boats with their crews had mysteriously disappeared in the
Congo while engaged upon a search of that river for slavers; and that a
small felucca named the _Wasp_--a tender to the British ship-sloop
_Lapwing_--had also disappeared with all hands, some three months
previously, after having been seen in pursuit of a large brig that had
come out of the river; these circumstances leading to the inference that
the Congo was the haunt of a strong gang of daring slavers whose capture
must be effected at any cost.

It was for this service that the _Barracouta_ had been selected, she
being a brand-new ship especially built for work on the West African
coast, and modelled to sail at a high speed upon a light draught of
water. She was immensely beamy for her length, and very shallow,
drawing only ten feet of water with all her stores and ammunition on
board, very heavily sparred--_too_ heavily, some of us thought--and, as
for canvas, her topsails had the hoist of those of a frigate of twice
her tonnage. She was certainly a beautiful model of a ship--far and
away the prettiest that I had ever seen when I first stepped on board
her--while her speed, especially in light winds and tolerably smooth
water, was such as to fill us all, fore and aft, with the most
extravagant hopes of success against the light-heeled slave clippers
whose business it was ours to suppress. She was a flush-decked vessel,
with high, substantial bulwarks pierced for nine guns of a side, and she
mounted fourteen 18-pounder carronades and four long nine-pounders, two
forward and two aft, which could be used as bow and stern-chasers
respectively, if need were, although we certainly did not anticipate the
necessity to employ any of our guns in the latter capacity. Our crew,
all told, numbered one hundred and sixty-five.