The Pirate Slaver Part 14

And while he was speaking I could also hear a voice--that, unless I was greatly mistaken, belonged to Young, the first luff of the _Barracouta_--exclaiming at no great distance--

"Pull starboard, back port; now back, hard, all, and let us pick up those poor fellows before the sharks get the scent of them! Easy all; steady, lads, steady; hold water! Now then, my hearties, lay hold of the oars and let us get you inboard sharp; we can't afford to lie here to be peppered. Help the wounded, those of you who are unhurt. That's your sort, Styles, bring him along here; is he still alive, do you think? All right, I have him! Now then, c.o.xswain, heave with a will, but don't hurt the poor fellow more than you can help. Gently, man, gently; now lift handsomely, so--"

_Crash_! the relentless broadside of the _Francesca_ again pealed forth, and again uprose that dismal wail of shrieks in testimony of its too terribly truthful aim. Frantic cheers and shouts of exultation burst from the lips of the slaver's crew, in the midst of which Mendouca's voice rang out--

"Now, stand by, men! here they come; but there is only one boat-load of them, and half their number must be killed or wounded. Stand by with your pikes, pistols, and cutla.s.ses, and let not one of them show his head above the rail. Give them a volley from your pistols as they range alongside, and then trust to cold steel for the rest. _Now_ is your time! Fire!"

And at the word there followed a tremendous popping of pistols, mingled with the yells of the men on deck, a British cheer that sent the blood tingling through my veins and made me anathematise my helpless condition, the sharp, ringing clash of steel upon steel, and a furious trampling of bare feet upon the planks overhead.

The scuffle continued for fully three minutes, and must have been very hot while it lasted, for all through the hubbub the cries and groans of the freshly-wounded were continuous. I could hear the dull crunching sound of the sharp cutla.s.ses shearing through bone and muscle, the shrill scream of agony, the heavy thud of bodies falling to the deck, oaths and execrations both in Spanish and in English, shouts of mutual encouragement, yells of deadly hatred, the ceaseless trampling of feet, and all the indescribable medley of sounds that accompany a sharp and stubbornly-contested hand-to-hand conflict; and in my feverish anxiety to share in the struggle I forgot all about Mendouca's warning, and dashed myself frantically against the stout cabin-door in an effort to burst my way out. Before, however, I could succeed the hurly-burly suddenly ceased, to be almost instantly followed by a yell of exultation from the crowd overhead as the hasty rattle and splash of oars proclaimed that the attacking party had been driven off.

"Now, men, to your guns again, quick! Load smartly and give them another broadside before they get out of range!" shouted Mendouca.

"Sweep them off the face of the water, if you can; let not one of them escape to tell the tale!"

A loud shout of exulting a.s.sent to this brutal exhortation pealed forth; and I heard the rumbling of the wheels on the deck as the guns were run in. This was more than I could endure; and again hurling myself furiously against the cabin-door, I at length succeeded in bursting it off its hinges. To emerge from the cabin and rush on deck was the work of a moment, and I reached the scene of action just as the loaded guns were being run out.

"Stop!" I shouted. "What are you about to do, men? You have utterly mistaken your captain's orders if you suppose he meant you to fire upon that boat! Order them to secure the guns," I continued, turning to Mendouca; "it surely _cannot_ be that you are going to allow the excitement of battle to betray you into the committal of a cold-blooded murder? You have beaten off your enemies, and they are in full retreat; let that satisfy you. Hitherto you have been _fighting_, and, as you are aware, the present state of the law is such that you are held justifiable in your act of self-defence; but should you fire upon that boat now it will be _murder_, and I swear to you that if you do I will testify against you for the deed, if I live so long. Man, have you no regard for _yourself_? Do you suppose that the captain of yonder brig will be content to take the beating off of his boats as a final settlement of this night's doings? I tell you he will follow you and hunt you to the world's end, ay, and _take_ you, sooner or later! And what do you suppose will be your fate if you murder that retreating boat's crew? Why, you will swing for the deed, as certainly as that you now stand there glaring at me!"

"Have you finished?" he demanded, in a voice almost inarticulate with fury, his hand resting meanwhile upon the b.u.t.t of a pistol that was stuck in his sash.

"Yes," said I, "I have. That is to say, I have finished if I have succeeded in preventing the perpetration of an act of miserable cowardice that in your cooler moments would cause you to hate and despise yourself for the remainder of your life; not otherwise."

Slowly he removed his hand from the b.u.t.t of his pistol and, with a bitter laugh, drew a cigar from his pocket and lighted it.

"Secure the guns!" he shouted to his men. Then walking up to me and clutching me by the shoulder, he said--

"You have triumphed again. But I warn you that some day you will go too far, and pay for your temerity with your life. Do you know that while you were speaking you were actually tottering upon the very brink of the grave? Why I did not blow your brains out, I do not know. Boy, if you have any wish to live out your days, never taunt me with cowardice again! There, go below, and do not let me see you again until I have recovered my self-command, or even yet I shall do you a mischief."

"No," I said, "I will _not_ go below; it is my watch on deck, and I mean to keep it. I have no fear of your temper getting the better of you now, so I shall remain where I am--that is, if you will trust me with the charge of the deck. I am fresh, while you are f.a.gged with exertion and excitement, so it is for _you_ to go below and get some rest, not I."

Mendouca laughed again, this time quite genially, and said--

"Very well, let it be as you say; I _will go_ below and rest. And if it is any comfort to you to know it, I do not mind acknowledging _now_ that I am glad you intervened to prevent me from firing on that boat. Keep her as she is going and let the n.i.g.g.e.rs man the sweeps again; you are right about that brig, she will follow us to the world's end--if she can, so we must put all the distance possible between ourselves and her while this calm lasts."

And, repeating to the boatswain his orders respecting the manning of the sweeps, this singular man nodded shortly to me and dived out of sight down the companion-way.

In a few minutes a gang of slaves was again brought on deck and put to the sweeps; and steering a course of about south-south-west, we were soon once more moving through the water at a speed of about three knots.

This course was followed all through the night and up to eight o'clock the next morning, at which hour--one of the men having been sent aloft as far as the royal-yard to see whether any sign of the brig could be discovered, and having returned to the deck again with an intimation that the horizon was clear all round--the brigantine's position was p.r.i.c.ked off upon the chart and her head once more pointed straight for Cuba.

We had by this time traversed a distance of fully sixty miles under the impulsion of the sweeps alone, and everybody was anxiously watching for some sign of a coming breeze; yet, despite the already long continuance of the calm, the heavens were still as bra.s.s to us, clear, cloudless, blue as the fathomless depths beneath our feet, not the merest vestige of cloud to be seen, the mercury still persistently steady at an abnormal height, the sea as smooth and motionless as a sheet of gla.s.s, and not the smallest sign to justify us in hoping for any change. The heat was something absolutely phenomenal; the deck planking was so hot that we all had to wear shoes to protect our feet from being scorched; a gang of negroes was kept constantly at work drawing water with which to flood the deck; yet, despite this precaution, and despite, too, the awnings which were now spread fore and aft, the pitch in the seams of the planking became so soft that if I stood still for only a few seconds I found myself stuck fast. I pitied the unfortunate blacks from the bottom of my heart, for they were relentlessly kept toiling at those horrible sweeps without intermission all through the day, and that, too, upon a short allowance of water; but it was useless to interfere, for even I had begun to understand by this time that, unless the brigantine could be taken out of that awful region of apparently eternal calm, every one of us, black and white together, must inevitably perish miserably of thirst.

This terrible weather lasted all through that and the following day, during which, with torment indescribable from thirst and the lash of the boatswains' colts, the miserable slaves propelled the s.h.i.+p no less a distance than one hundred and fifty miles. Oh, how fervently I begged and entreated Mendouca to have mercy upon the unhappy creatures, and to at least give orders that they must be no more flogged, even if inexorable necessity demanded that they must be kept toiling at the sweeps. But the wretch was as adamant, he laughed and jeered at my sympathy with the poor creatures, and--as much, I believe, to annoy me as for any other reason--persistently refused to give the order, declaring that, since they would receive many a sound flogging when they got ash.o.r.e--if indeed they ever lived to reach it--it was just as well that they should learn to endure the lash at once. At which brutal statement I went temporarily mad, I think--at all events I did what looked like a thoroughly mad thing; I went on deck and, walking up to the boatswain, informed him that if he or his mate dared to strike a negro again I would knock them both down. Mendouca, highly amused at my heat and excitement on behalf of the negroes, had followed me on deck, probably to see what I would next do; and upon hearing this threat he called out, jeeringly--

"Look out, Jose, my man! Senor Dugdale has warned you, and you may be sure that if you strike one of those n.i.g.g.e.rs again he will carry out his threat!"

The boatswain saw at once how the land lay, and that Mendouca was only amusing himself at my expense; feeling confident therefore of his captain's countenance and protection, I suppose, he, for answer, raised his colt and smote the nearest negro a savage blow over the shoulders with it.

Of course, after my possibly foolhardy threat there was but one thing to do, and I did it forthwith, hitting out with my whole strength, catching the boatswain fair between the eyes, and rolling him over like a ninepin.

"Ha, ha! well hit!" exclaimed Mendouca, laughing heartily at the sight of the boatswain as he reeled and fell under the feet of the negroes.

"I warned you, Jose, my lad; and now you see the evil results of neglecting my warning! No, no," he hastily continued, starting to his feet; "put up your knife, man; that will never do! I cannot afford to spare Senor Dugdale--at least not just yet--ah! would you? Look out, Dugdale! bravo! well hit again! Serves you right, Jose; you should never draw your knife upon an unarmed man."

For the fellow had hastily scrambled to his feet, and, with his drawn knife in his hand, made a rush at me, his eyes blazing with fury. And, as the only way of defending myself at the moment, I had seized his uplifted right hand with my left, giving it a wrench that sent the knife spinning over the bulwarks into the sea, while with my right I again knocked him down.

"Now, Jose," exclaimed Mendouca, "that ends the matter; do you hear? I cannot spare Senor Dugdale, so if he is found with a knife between his ribs I shall hold you responsible for it, and I give you my solemn promise that I will run you up to the yard-arm and leave you there until it will not matter to you what becomes of your miserable carcase. And I hope that the thras.h.i.+ng you have received will make you use a little more discrimination in the use of your colt. If a n.i.g.g.e.r _won't_ work, _make_ him, by all means; but so long as they are willing to work without thras.h.i.+ng, leave them alone, I say. As for you, Dugdale," he continued, in English, "had I suspected that you really meant to carry out your threat, I would have taken steps to prevent it. I will not have my men interfered with in the execution of their duty. If they do not perform their duty to my satisfaction, _I_ will take such steps as may seem necessary for their correction, so you need not trouble yourself further in that direction. Why, man, if I were to give you a free hand, we should have a mutiny in less than a week. Moreover, you have made one deadly enemy by knocking Jose down, and you may consider yourself exceedingly fortunate if my authority proves sufficient to protect you from his knife. Take care you make no other enemies among the men, or I will not be answerable for your safety."

This occurred shortly before sunset, and all through the hot and breathless night the unhappy negroes were kept toiling at the sweeps in gangs or relays, the result being that when morning dawned the poor wretches seemed, one and all, to be utterly worn-out. Yet still there was no respite for them; and when I again attempted to remonstrate with Mendouca, that individual simply pointed to the serene, cloudless sky, with the blazing, merciless sun in the midst, and savagely asked whether I wanted all hands to perish of hunger and thirst. This occurred while we were at breakfast; and when we went on deck at the conclusion of the meal, my enemy the boatswain drew Mendouca's attention to the upper spars and sails of a s.h.i.+p just rising slowly above the horizon on our starboard bow. I never saw so sudden a change in a man's demeanour as took place in that of Mendouca when his eye rested upon that distant object; hitherto he had been growing every day more savage and morose, but now his good-humour suddenly returned to him, and, ordering the brigantine's head to be pointed straight for the stranger, he shouted, in the gladness of his heart--

"Hurrah, lads, there is relief for us at last! We shall find what we want--food and water--on board yon stranger, and also a way of persuading them to let us have it, or I am greatly mistaken!"

The significance of the last part of this remark was, to my mind, unmistakable. If he could not get by fair means what he wanted, Mendouca had already made up his mind to take it by force; in other words, to commit an act of piracy.

I was sorry for the crew of the unlucky craft, for I felt convinced that Mendouca would have but scant consideration for their future wants while satisfying his own; yet the sight of the stranger filled me with almost delirious delight, for here was a chance--if I could but contrive to avail myself of it--to make my escape from my present surroundings.

True, if I were permitted, or could contrive, to throw in my lot with those people yonder, I should probably have to face terrible suffering in the shape of hunger and thirst, but, after all, that would be less unendurable than my present situation; and I determined that, whatever might happen, I would certainly make an attempt to join them, always provided, of course, that the craft was honest, and not of a similar character to the _Francesca_.

As we neared the stranger she proved to be a handsome, full-rigged s.h.i.+p of about a thousand tons measurement, or thereabouts, and I thought that she had somewhat of the look of one of the new British clipper Indiamen that were just at this time beginning to supersede the old-fas.h.i.+oned, slow, lumbering tubs that had been considered the correct kind of thing by John Company; if she were, she would probably have a crew strong enough not only to successfully resist the demands of Mendouca, but also to protect me, should I be able by any pretext to get on board her. The difficulty, of course, would be to do this; but if, as I rather expected, Mendouca should elect to lay the _Francesca_, alongside the s.h.i.+p and endeavour to carry the latter by a _coup de main_, I would board with the rest, taking my chance of being run through or shot down in the attempt, and immediately place myself under the protection of the stranger's crew. It was of course easy enough to arrange this scheme in my own mind, but even a very slight deviation on Mendouca's part from the programme which I expected him to adopt might suffice to nullify it; nevertheless, it appeared probable that my surmise as to Mendouca's intentions would prove correct, for if he did not mean to lay the stranger aboard and carry her with a rush, I could scarcely understand the boldness with which he was approaching her in broad daylight, with his strongly-manned sweeps proclaiming to the most unsuspicious eye the dubious character of the brigantine.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN.

THE CAPTURE AND PLUNDERING OF THE 'BANGALORE,' INDIAMAN.

It was just six bells in the afternoon watch when we at length arrived within a distance of about half-a-mile of the stranger, which had by this time been unmistakably made out to be a British pa.s.senger s.h.i.+p of one of the crack lines; first by her having hoisted British colours some time before, and secondly by the crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen that, with the aid of the telescope, we could see congregated on her p.o.o.p. Mendouca also had hoisted the British ensign, and, to my supreme indignation, a man-o'-war's pennant, his object in doing so being, of course, to disarm suspicion as long as possible, and thus leave the s.h.i.+p only a very brief length of time to prepare for defence when our intention to attack her became no longer possible of concealment. I remonstrated with him upon this desecration of the colours that he had once fought and hoped to win fame under; but of course my remonstrance was quite useless, the rascal only laughed at me.

Having arrived within the above-named distance of the s.h.i.+p, Mendouca ordered the sweeps to be laid in, and the slaves to be driven below and secured. This done, to my disgust his next order was to hoist out the boats--of which the _Francesca_, unlike most slavers, carried three; and as soon as they were in the water, the entire crew were armed, and the whole of them, except my especial enemy, Jose, and an Englishman--a very quiet, inoffensive fellow, whom I was surprised to find among a crew of such ruffians--were ordered down over the side. This completely upset my plans, for, of course, the only way now of reaching the stranger was by means of the boats, or by swimming; and while I would gladly have gone in one of the boats, and taken my chance of reaching the stranger's deck alive, I was not quite prepared to throw away my life in an unsuccessful effort to swim to the s.h.i.+p--for that is what it would have meant, the water being alive with sharks that had followed us, day after day, with alarming persistency, ever since we had taken to the use of the sweeps. Besides which, I should of course not have been permitted to make the attempt. Of course, had I chosen to tell a deliberate falsehood, and declared my readiness to throw in my lot with Mendouca and his crew, it is possible that I might have been given the command of one of the boats; but not even for the purpose of effecting my escape did I consider that such a course would be justifiable. So I had perforce to remain where I was, under the jealously watchful eye of Jose, if not of the Englishman also; Mendouca asking me ironically, as he went down the side last of all, whether I had no letters for home or elsewhere that I would like to forward by means of the stranger.

Now that the sweeps were laid in, and their everlasting grind and roll and splash were no longer heard, the silence of nature seemed so profound as to be almost awe-inspiring; there was literally not a sound to be heard save such as were caused by human agency, such as the movements and voices of the men in the boats, or the gasping sighs of the unhappy negroes cooped up below in the stifling hold. Occasionally a slight murmur of sound reached us from the distant s.h.i.+p; the call of an officer uttering a command, the "Yo-heave-oh" of the crew, or a gang of them, engaged upon some heavy job, and an occasional rumbling that to my ear sounded very much like that of carronade slides in process of being trained to bear upon some object. But if the s.h.i.+p was armed there was no sign of it, her sides being decorated with _painted_ ports only, so far as I could see. When, however, the boats had traversed about half the distance between the brigantine and the s.h.i.+p, a man appeared in the mizen rigging of the latter, and, hailing them in English in a voice which rendered his words perfectly audible to us on board the _Francesca_, demanded to know what they wanted. I saw Mendouca rise in the stern-sheets of his boat, and heard him make some reply, but I could not distinguish what it was, perhaps because he had intentionally made it unintelligible. Whatever the words may have been, they were clearly unsatisfactory; for the figure in the rigging waved its hand warningly, and shouted--

"Keep off, whoever you are; you are far too strong a party to be allowed to come alongside us; and I warn you that if you attempt to do so we shall fire upon you! If you have any legitimate business with us let _one_ boat, with a crew of not more than five, come alongside, and welcome; but we will not have the whole of you if we can help it, and I think we can!"

The boats had, up to this time, been paddling quietly and composedly along, the men evidently husbanding their strength for a final effort; but now, in response to a shout from Mendouca, they bent to their work, and sent the boats foaming along in a style for which I certainly should never have given them credit; they could scarcely have done better had they been the British man-o'-war's men that they had pretended to be; the oars bent, the water was churned into foam, and a miniature surge gathered under each boat's bow as the little craft was suddenly urged to racing speed. Then the figure in the s.h.i.+p's mizen rigging waved an arm, and stepped quietly down on to the p.o.o.p, which by this time was occupied only by a band of men--evidently pa.s.sengers--who, under the leaders.h.i.+p of a military-looking man, were handling their muskets and making ready to open fire. At the signal given by the individual who had just stepped out of the s.h.i.+p's rigging--and who was no doubt her captain-- eight hitherto closed ports in the stranger's bulwarks were suddenly thrown open, as many dark, threatening, iron muzzles appeared, and, at a second command, the whole eight blazed forth, and their contents, consisting of round-shot with a charge of grape on top of each, went hurtling through the air in the direction of the boats. The aim was excellent, the shot flas.h.i.+ng up the water all round the boats; but, so far as I could see, not a man among either of their crews was touched.

I heard Mendouca cheer his men on, urging them to stretch out, and get so close to the s.h.i.+p, that by the time that the guns were again loaded, it would be impossible to depress the muzzles sufficiently to hit the boats; and the men responded with the nearest approach to a cheer that, I suppose, a Spaniard can give, pulling manfully the while. The s.h.i.+p's crew were, however, too quick for them, and managed to give them another broadside just before the boats got within the critical limit where it would have been impossible to touch them; and this time the discharge was very much more effective, a round-shot striking Mendouca's own boat square on the stem just at the water-line, destroying her bows and tearing several feet of her keel away, while the accompanying charge of grape bowled over three of her men and shattered Mendouca's left arm at the elbow. The crews of the other two boats suffered nearly as badly, one of them losing three men, while the other lost one man killed and five more or less severely wounded, besides having to stop and pick up Mendouca and his crew, his boat sinking almost immediately.

I thought that this severe punishment would have sufficed the Spaniards, and that they would have abandoned the attack, and so, I imagine, thought the skipper of the s.h.i.+p, for while they were in this perilous predicament, he magnanimously withheld his fire, giving them an opportunity to retire without further loss. And so they would, in all probability, had Mendouca been a born Spaniard. But, renegade as he was, the British blood in his veins still told, and, despite the anguish of his terrible wound, he no sooner found himself in the boat that picked him up than his voice again rang out almost as loudly and clearly as before, still urging his men to press forward, and reminding them that they were fighting for their lives, or--what was the same thing-- food and water. It was probably this reminder that turned the scale among the waverers, for at the mention of the word "water" they again seized their oars, and with a yell gave way for the s.h.i.+p. Evidently exasperated at this quite unexpected exhibition of determination on the part of the pirates, the little band on the p.o.o.p now opened a smart and very galling fire with their muskets upon the boats, and I saw three or four pairs of arms tossed skyward as the discharge rattled forth. But before the weapons of this little party of volunteers could be reloaded the boats were alongside the s.h.i.+p, the pirates dropped their oars, and made a simultaneous dash for the fore and main channels, and there instantly ensued a desperate _melee_ in which the popping of pistols was for the first half-minute or so a very prominent feature. I fully expected to see Mendouca and his crew driven back into their boats with a very heavy loss; but, to my astonishment and sorrow, I soon saw that they were more than holding their own, and in less than three minutes they had actually forced their way inboard, and the right was transferred to the s.h.i.+p's decks. It was evident that the British crew were now making a most determined and desperate resistance, for the fight was protracted to fully a quarter of an hour, the clink and clash of steel, the shouts of the combatants, and the cries of the wounded being distinctly audible to us on the deck of the _Francesca_. Then the hubbub suddenly lulled, and I heard cries for quarter, cries which, to my bitter grief, I knew to be the sure indication of defeat on the part of the British crew. Then utter silence fell upon the unfortunate s.h.i.+p for a few minutes, to be broken by the m.u.f.fled sound of women's shrieks, men's voices uplifted in fierce, impotent anger and denunciation, two or three pistol-shots that sounded as though they had been fired in the s.h.i.+p's cabin, and then silence again; an ominous, dreadful silence that to my foreboding mind might mean the perpetration of horrors to which those already enacted on the blood-stained decks were as nothing.

This silence prevailed for fully an hour, during which no sign of life was visible on board the s.h.i.+p; then arose the sound of hilarious shouts and drunken laughter; there was a sudden stir and commotion about the decks; a crowd of men gathered on the p.o.o.p, many of them with their hands bound behind them--as I could see with the aid of a telescope-- while others had their heads swathed in blood-stained bandages; a long plank was rigged out over the taffrail; and then Mendouca appeared to be making some sort of a speech. If such was the case the speech was a very brief one; and when it terminated a short pause ensued, and I saw that a few of the prisoners--perhaps three or four, as nearly as I could make out--were being released from their bonds. Then occurred another short pause, at the expiration of which a man was led forward, blindfolded, and guided to the inner extremity of the plank, along which I could see that they were urging him to walk. He advanced a few paces, paused, as though he had been addressed, and I distinctly saw him shake his head. As though this movement of the head were a prearranged signal, the inner end of the plank suddenly tilted up, and the unfortunate man, with a staggering movement as though to save himself fell with a resounding splash into the sea, where for a few seconds he seemed to struggle desperately. Not for long, however; the sharks that had been haunting us for so many days heard the splash, and after a few restless movements, as though unwilling to leave us, darted off toward the s.h.i.+p. I saw the horrid triangular fins cleaving the surface of the gla.s.sy water, each leaving its own delicate wedge-shaped wake spreading astern as it went, until the small ripples of the different wakes met and crossed each other; then, as the distance between them and their prey lessened, there was a sudden increase of speed which soon became a rush, the black fins merged toward each other, the water swirled round the drowning man, there was a single ear-piercing shriek of agony, and the poor wretch had disappeared.

This dreadful spectacle appeared to have had its desired effect, for I saw that several more of the prisoners were now being released from their bonds, the released men, one and all, slinking down off the p.o.o.p and away forward toward the forecastle. There were others, however-- fifteen in all, for I counted them--whose courage was not to be shaken even by this awful ordeal, and one after the other they boldly trod the fatal plank, and went to meet their dreadful doom! All honour to them, say I, for the lofty courage that enabled them to choose death rather than an ign.o.ble and crime-stained life.

Then there was another long pause, during which, as I afterwards learned, the _Francesca's_ crew were rummaging the s.h.i.+p--a homeward-bound Indiaman, named the _Bangalore_--and loading her decks with booty of every imaginable description, preparatory to its transfer to the brigantine. Mendouca, I must mention, had already compelled the _Bangalore's_ surgeon to dress his wound for him; and now, having given his orders to one of the men whom he considered the most reliable and trustworthy of his crew, he returned to the _Francesca_, and, with the aid of his son Pedro, was got into his bunk, where I could hear him from time to time grinding his teeth in agony, although, such was the spirit of the man, not a groan would he permit to escape him.

The sun had set, and the velvet dusk of the tropics was closing down upon the scene, when at length the _Bangalore's_ boats were hoisted out, and the work of trans.h.i.+pping the booty began. Mendouca must have felt himself a second Kidd, for the s.h.i.+p was almost as rich a prize as one of the old Acapulco galleons; there were bales of rich silks and shawls, spices, caskets of gems, ingots of gold, exquisite embroidered muslins, and I know not what beside--goods of a value sufficient, it seemed to me, to make every rascal on the books of the _Francesca_ rich for the remainder of his life, although they were of course unable to take more than a comparatively small quant.i.ty of the _Bangalore's_ entire cargo.

Nevertheless, they contrived to find room for a goodly proportion of the most costly and valuable contents of the vessel's hold, the transfer of which, and of as much food and water as they deemed necessary to their requirements, occupied the crew until midnight; for in Mendouca's absence, as may be supposed, they did not trouble to exert themselves overmuch. Moreover, a large proportion of them were in such a state of intoxication they scarcely knew what they were doing--my especial _bete-noir_ the boatswain among the number, he having seized an early opportunity to board the s.h.i.+p after Mendouca had been safely bestowed in his own cabin. I did not know this until told so by Simpson, the English man whom I have already mentioned as having been left on board the _Francesca_ that afternoon with the boatswain and myself, who added to his information--

"Better keep your weather-eye liftin', Mr Dugdale, sir; that Jose's full of spite as an egg's full of meat; he have never forgiven you for knockin' him down, and have swore over and over again to put his knife into you. And now that he's full of drink, and the skipper's on his beam-ends, he's just as likely as not to try it."

"Yes, I suppose he is. Thank you for the warning, Simpson," said I.