The next day was a busy one aboard The Gentle Hand. All the boats were gotten out early, and the barque headed in shore again. We had stood off at night, for fear of a current setting us into the breakers, and we did not care to let go an anchor.
By two bells (nine o’clock) in the forenoon, we were close in to the bar at the river mouth, the breeze giving us way at the rate of about five knots, but, as we drew under the land, it became puffy and showed signs of dying out altogether. It was decided not to go in any closer, so the foreyards were left full, the main backed, and the forestaysail hauled amidship, heaving the barque to with a slight reach to the southward.
Pretty nearly all hands tumbled into the boats and rowed through the broiling sunshine for the beach, it being the captain’s object to get all the cargo aboard at once, and stand off to work along to the eastward.
249By noon the first boat-load of the poor creatures arrived. There were fourteen of them closely packed and manacled in the bottom of the craft. As they drew nearer, they set up a chattering like a crowd of monkeys, and the Guinea in charge rapped them severely over the head with a stout stick, bidding them be quiet. Their white eyeballs and teeth shone in contrast to their skins, and the excitement they were undergoing made them show both eyes and teeth much more than usual, giving them a strange, wild look. Streaks of mud and filth showed upon their black bodies. The men had little kinky beards upon their chins and lips, and the women had huge bunches of wool on their heads, which were simply great nests of dirt and vermin. Poor creatures, they were hardly human, but for all that I felt sorry for them when I thought of the ’tween-decks of the barque under that torrid sun.
Henry hustled them on deck, and Jorg, with a couple of men, sent them below at once to get them out of the way. By eight bells, we had the crowd below, where they kept chattering until Gull went among them with a long whip, and touched them up lustily whenever they made a noise. Martin, Anderson, Bill, Shannon, and myself went in for the last boat-load.
The heat was terrible, and the breeze was almost imperceptible after the bar was crossed, making all 250hands quiet and sullen with the exertion. Inside the river mouth the same glaring quiet prevailed, broken only now and then by the sound of a gull’s scream, the dull, heavy rumble of the swell only adding to the desolate stillness.
“’Tis a good coast for the business,” said Martin, in a low tone to the long sailor, who was rowing stroke oar. I held the tiller, and had charge, but Martin appeared to think my rating did not command silence, and I let him speak.
The fellow Shannon only looked over his shoulder up the turbid stream that flowed around the distant point of marsh in the direction of the heavy forest beyond.
“What better place d’ye want? ’Twould be a good one to find ye in that glade,” continued the Scot.
“There’s mighty little water on the bar, Scotty,” said Shannon. “What the devil would become of yer ship, I wanter know?”
“Lighten her more, lighten her. Take out her guns and ballast. She’d be a floatin’ fort until ye were ready to go to sea full o’ niggers. Mon, mon, na mon-o’-war c’u’d come after ye, an’ as fer small boats--hoot!” And he gave a cry of contempt at the idea.
“Joust whin would ye do these things, friend Martin?” asked Bill.
251“Shut up, ye square-head. Keep silence when men are speakin’, or I’ll be fer whollopin’ ye the minit we hit the beach,” growled Martin.
Then they rowed on in the heat without a word, the regular clank of the oar-locks sounding over the glassy surface of the stream with the regularity of the ticking of a clock.
We ran the boat up near the “factory,” and the villainous Guinea in charge brought down the last instalment of the slaves. Some of them were young girls barely in their teens, but all without any clothing whatever. The sun would have flayed a white man and cooked him to death in half an hour, but they appeared not to suffer with the heat. Some of the girls were made to spring into the river, with a line attached, in order that they might get a last bath before entering the hell in store for them. One tried to remain under water and drown herself; at least the Guinea feared that was her design, for he hauled her in hand over hand, and administered several whacks to brace her up, while I sat and tried to invent some new opprobrious epithet to call him, finally exhausting the English language without apparent effect.
One girl, who had left behind her brother and relatives, on account of their not coming up to Yankee Dan’s standard of fitness for a middle passage, was tearful and sad. This poor creature was 252flung into the water, and held by a strapping black buck, who used a bunch of grass to scrub her clean. Her piteous screams had no effect on him, so, when my patience was quite exhausted by the heat, I seized an oar. He was bending over, and wore nothing but a gee-string. The swing of the oar landed fair on his buttocks with all the weight and strength I could put into it, and he shot forward with a crack, making a very creditable dive into deep water. It was only because payment had not been complete that bloodshed was averted when he arose, for he made straight for his rifle, which had to be forced from him by half a dozen pirates as fierce and powerful as himself. Finally we had the crowd all aboard, and shoved off for the barque, meeting the boat with the Portuguese fellow, who had gone aboard for the pay, just as we cleared the breakers.
Arriving aboard, we soon had the blacks below, and, as payment had been made in gold for our cargo, we had nothing further to do with the scoundrels on the beach. The yards were swung, and we stood offshore to take advantage of the light breeze and work along the coast to the eastward, in the hope of picking up the rest of our cargo before some prying ship-of-war should overhaul us. For several days we worked along without any luck. One or two places Dan knew of had been deserted since the law against slaving had begun to be enforced, and 253we had to row in through a heavy surf to find this out. This caused the loss of one boat and the drowning of a sailor named Tom, an English cockney chap of little account. During this part of the cruise, I had much to do on the poop, keeping the battery in order and ready for instant action. I saw something of the life aft, and the feeling between Mr. Curtis and Hicks, which had shown itself that night in the town of Funchal. These two men, whose interests were identical, seldom spoke directly to each other now, and only when the trader’s daughter appeared on deck did they show anything but polite hatred in their speech. Curtis was sarcastic, and Hicks was almost as savage by the time we reached Lagos and ran in to finish loading. Miss Allen seemed to avoid both as much as possible, although it was quite evident that she favoured the bolder of the two adventurers. Curtis was anything but a coward, but Hicks had a certain reckless gallantry about him that could hardly fail to attract.
Forward I had been entertained several times by Martin’s brutal jests regarding affairs aft, and, as the girl had always been civil to me, it was all I could do not to chastise the rogue for his foul tongue. My apparent apathy, however, gave him cause to believe I favoured him, and soon he spoke of things that caused me to pay attention and watch him more closely.