The Black Bar Part 4

Meanwhile everything possible was being tried to get another half knot of speed out of the _Nautilus_, which glided along under her cloud of sail, sending the water foaming in an ever-widening double line of sparkling water on either side. The hose was got to work, and the sails wetted, sheets were hauled more tightly home, and the captain and officers walked the decks burning with impatience as they scanned the distant schooner.

"If I was the skipper I'd be ready for him this time," said Mark to his companion.

"How? What would you do?"

"Have the boat's crew ready to drop down the moment the slaver captain pitched another poor fellow overboard. No, no," he added, quickly; "he'll never be such a wretch as to do that again."

"Oh, won't he just?" cried Bob, nodding his head, a great many times; "he'll go on chucking the whole cargo out one by one, just like the man did his gloves and things to the bear, for it to stop and smell them while he escaped. Here, I mean to go and save the next black chap, and then perhaps I shall look as c.o.c.ky as you do. Oh, what a wonderful chap you are, Van!"

Mark made a quick gesture, as if to hit out at his messmate, and then looked on in wonder as the captain ordered the cutter's crew back into the boat, and the men to the falls, ready in case the slaver captain should repeat his manoeuvre, while the guns were double-shotted and laid for the moment when the schooner would be once more within range.

"I say," whispered Bob, "don't the skipper look savage? I believe he'd send a broadside into the schooner if it wasn't for the slaves on board."

"Of course he would; he said so," replied Mark, and he went forward and then down below to where, by the dim light of a swinging lantern, he could see the wild eyes of the black as he lay in a bunk, ready to start up in dread as the lad approached.

"All right; be still," said the mids.h.i.+pman, laying his hand upon the man's shoulder, and pressing him back; "how are you?"

The man glared at him in silence, but made no sound.

"It's of no use to talk to you, I s'pose," continued Mark. "There, go to sleep. Perhaps we shall have some companions for you in the morning.

Hullo! begun again!"

For at that moment there was a dull roar and the jarring sensation of a gun being fired overhead, making the black start and look wonderingly about him.

"I say, that startled him," said Bob Howlett, who had stolen down behind his messmate, and had stood in the semi-darkness laughing at the black's astonishment. "What do you think of that, old chap? That's some of our private thunder. Large supply kept on the premises. There goes another! Here, Van, we mustn't stop below."

For a second report shook the deck, and the black tried to rise, but sank back from sheer weakness.

"Tell him it's all right, Van, and that he'd better go to sleep."

"How?" replied Mark.

"Ah, 'tis how! I say, what a shame for us to be sent on the west coast in such a state of ignorance. Here, all right, Ma.s.sa Sambo. Go to sleep. I say, do come on, Van, or there'll be a row."

The next minute the two lads were on deck, to find that they were rapidly overhauling the schooner, and they were just in time to hear the orders given as the boat was ready to be lowered.

"Come, Mr Howlett, where have you been?"

This from the first lieutenant.

Bob murmured some excuse, and sprang into the boat, which dropped out of sight directly, and then darted in again as the men bent to their stout ashen oars, and sent her rapidly in the schooner's wake, where Mark made out by the troubled water seen through his gla.s.s that another poor fellow had been tossed overboard by the slaver captain, for he rightly judged that no English officer would leave the black to drown.

He was quite correct in his judgment, for though Captain Maitland had fumed and declared that he would not give up the chance of capture for the sake of a black, when he felt that he might seize the schooner and put an end to the mischief she was doing probably year after year, he had his vessel's course stayed, and waited patiently for the return of the boat he had lowered.

The mission of this cutter was almost an exact repet.i.tion of the one in which Mark took part, Bob Howlett having the luck to seize the second drowning man, over whose body the boathook had slipped.

"And no wonder," growled the c.o.xswain afterwards. "He'd got on no duds, and I didn't want to stick the hook into his flesh."

While this was going on, the captain stamped above on one side of the quarter-deck, the first lieutenant on the other. For they kept as far apart as they could, and it was an understood thing amongst the junior officers that it would be to come in for the full force of an explosion to speak to either of them now.

"Pull, men, pull!" roared the first lieutenant through his speaking trumpet. "Mr Russell, do you want to keep us here all night?"

"Ay, ay, sir," came back from the boat.

"What?"

"No, no, sir; I beg your pardon. We've got the man."

"Got the man!" cried the captain, angrily; "do you think we have no gla.s.ses on board? Make haste, sir."

"Oh!"

"What's that?" cried the captain, sharply, for there had been the sound of a sharp crack, and Mark had uttered the cry.

"What's that, sir?" cried the lieutenant in a rage; "why it's Mr Vandean, sir, getting under my feet like a spaniel dog, and the moment I move he yelps out, sir."

"It wasn't your foot, sir," cried Mark sharply, for his head was stinging with pain. "You swung round your speaking trumpet, sir, and hit me."

"Silence, sir! how dare you, sir? You should get out of the way, sir,"

roared the first lieutenant.

"That will do, Staples," said the captain, calming down now. "Now, men, up with that boat."

The cutter was already swinging from the davits, while at a turn of the wheel the _Nautilus_ began to forge through the water again, and the men stood ready for another shot at the flying schooner.

Just then the cutter's crew lifted out the black they had rescued, and he too sank down helpless on the deck, half dead from exhaustion.

"That's one to me, Van," whispered Bob. "I saved that chap."

"Then you only half did it, Mr Howlett," said the doctor, who overheard him. "Let me finish."

"I say," whispered Bob, "what a nuisance it's getting, you can't say a word on board without somebody hearing. Hullo! what's the matter with your head?"

"Old Staples was in a pa.s.sion because you were so long, and hit me over the head with his speaking trumpet."

"Get out--and we weren't so long as you were first time. Russell said so. What was it? He wouldn't dare to hit you."

"But he did; swung round just when I was behind him."

"Serve you right for being behind him."

"What?" cried Mark, furiously.

"No, no, I mean serve him right for being before you."

"Less talking, young gentlemen," cried the officer of whom they were speaking, and he looked round at them so sternly that they separated, each hurrying to his post, and, gla.s.s in hand, watching the distant schooner.

"Look here, Mr Russell," said the captain, walking up to that officer, as, once more, they began to near the white-sailed vessel gliding along in the brilliant moonlight. "If that scoundrel tries his cowardly scheme again, I shall drop you to pick up the poor wretch, and keep on as hard as we can, or we shall lose her. Save the poor fellow, and then pull steadily after us. I think I can overhaul her in less than half-an-hour, and then I shall heave to, and wait for you to come aboard."