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.
I was in the first lieutenant's watch, and happened to be on deck when the look-out reported land upon the morning upon which this story opens. I remember the circumstance as well as though it had occurred but yesterday, and I have only to close my eyes to bring the whole scene up before my mental vision as distinctly as a picture. The brig was, as I have already said, heading to the eastward, close-hauled, on the port tack, under everything that we could set, to her royals; but the wind was so scant that even the light upper sails flapped and rustled monotonously to the sleepy heave and roll of the ship, and it was only by glancing through a port at the small, iridescent air-bubbles that drifted astern at the rate of about a knot and a half in the hour that we were able to detect the fact of our own forward movement at all. We had 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 a scarcely-perceptible lightening of the sky along a narrow strip of the eastern horizon, in the midst of which the morning star beamed resplendently, while the air, although still warm, assumed a freshness that, compared with the close, muggy heat of the past night, seemed almost cold, so that involuntarily I drew the lapels of my thin jacket together and buttoned the garment from throat to waist. Quickly, yet by imperceptible gradations, the lightening of the eastern sky spread and strengthened, the soft, velvety, star-lit, blue-black hue paling to an arch of cold, colourless pallor as the dawn asserted itself more emphatically, while the stars dwindled and vanished one by one in the rapidly-growing light. As the pallor of the sky extended itself insidiously north and south along the horizon, a low-lying bank of what at first presented the appearance of dense vapour became visible on the Barracouta's larboard bow; but presently, when the cold whiteness of the coming day became flushed with a delicate tint of purest, palest primrose, the supposed fog-bank assumed a depth of rich purple hue and a clear-cut sharpness of outline that proclaimed it what it was--_land_, most unmistakably. The look-out was a smart young fellow, who had already established a reputation for trustworthiness, and he more than half suspected the character of the cloud-like appearance when it first caught his attention; he therefore kept his eye upon it, and was no sooner 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 the weather side of the deck from the binnacle to the gangway, with his hands clasped behind his back and his glance directed alternately to the deck at his feet and to the swaying main-royal-mast-head, quickly awoke from his abstraction at the cry from the forecastle, and, springing lightly upon a carronade slide, with one hand grasping the inner edge of the hammock-rail, looked long and steadily in the direction indicated.
"Ay, ay, I see it," he answered, when after a long, steady look he had satisfied 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 hand held flat and vertically, pointed toward the southern extremity of the distant land, held it there for a moment, and murmured--
"A point and a half--east-half-south, distant--what shall we say--twenty miles? Ay, about that, as nearly as may be. Mr Dugdale, just slip below 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 of which was hooked back wide open, permitting the cool, refreshing morning air that came in through the open scuttle free play throughout the full length of the rather circumscribed apartment in which Mr Robert Bates lay snoring anything but melodiously. Entering the cabin, I grasped the worthy man by the shoulder and shook him gently, calling him by name at the same time in subdued tones in order that I might not awake the occupants of the contiguous berths.
"Ay, ay," was the answer, as the snoring abruptly terminated in a convulsive snort: "Ay, ay. What's the matter now, youngster? Has the ship tumbled overboard during the night, or has the skipper's cow gone aloft to roost in the main-top, that you come here disturbing me with your `Mr Bates--Mr Bates'?"
"Neither, sir," answered I, with a low laugh at this specimen of our worthy master's quaint nautical humour; "but the first lieutenant directed me to let you know that the land is in sight on the port bow, bearing east-half-south, distant twenty miles."
"What, already?" exclaimed my companion, scrambling out of his cot, still more than half asleep, and landing against me with a force that sent me spinning out through the open doorway to bring up prostrate with a crash in the cabin of the doctor opposite, half stunned by the concussion of my skull against the bulkhead and by the avalanche of ponderous tomes that came crashing down upon me as the worthy medico's tier of hanging bookshelves yielded and came down by the run at my wild clutch as I stumbled over the ledge of the cabin-door.
"Murther! foire! thieves! it's sunk, burnt, desthroyed, and kilt intoirely that I am!" roared poor Blake, rudely awakened out of a sound sleep by the crashing fall of his pet volumes upon the deck and by a terrific thwack across the face that I had inadvertently dealt him as I fell. "Fwhat is it that's happenin' at all, thin? is it a collision? or is it a case of sthrandin'? or"--he looked over the edge of his cot and saw me sitting upon the deck, ruefully rubbing the back of my head while I vainly struggled to suppress my laughter at the ridiculous _contretemps_--"oh! so it's you, thin, is it, Misther Dugdale? Bedad, but you ought to be ashamed of yoursilf to be playin' these pranks--a lad of your age, that's hitherto been the patthern of good behaviour! But wait a little, my man--sthop till I tell the first liftinint of your outhrageous conduct--"
By this time I thought that the matter had gone far enough; more over, I had in a measure recovered my scattered senses, so I scrambled to my feet and, as I re-hung the book shelf and replaced the books, hurriedly explained to the good man the nature of the mishap, winding up with a humble apology for having so rudely broken in upon what he was pleased to call his "beauty shlape." Understanding at once that my involuntary incursion into the privacy of his cabin had been the result of pure accident, "Paddy," as we irreverently called him--his baptismal name was William--very good-naturedly accepted my explanation and apology, and composed himself to sleep again, whereupon I retreated in good order and re-entered the master's cabin. The old boy had by this time slipped on his breeches and coat, and was bending over the table with the chart of "Africa--West Coast" spread out thereon, and a pencil and parallel ruler in his hands. He indulged in one or two of the grimly humorous remarks that were characteristic of him in reference to my disturbance of the doctor's slumbers; and then, pointing to a dot that he had just made upon the chart, observed--
