The Red Eric by Robert Michael Ballantyne (cat reading book txt) 📕

the sailors did not or could not remember Albertino, she soon gave in, and styled her pet Jacko to the end of the chapter, with which piece of information we shall conclude _this_ chapter.


CHAPTER FOURTEEN.


RENCONTRE WITH SLAVE-TRADERS--ON BOARD AGAIN--A START, A MISFORTUNE, A GHOST STORY, A MISTAKE, AND AN INVITATION TO DINNER.

On the evening of the second day after the capture of Jacko, as the canoe was descending the river and drawing near to the sea-coast, much to the delight of everyone--for the heat of the interior had begun to grow unbearable--a ship's boat was observed moored to the wharf near the slave-station which they had passed on the way up. At first it was supposed to be one of the boats of the _Red Eric_, but on a nearer approach this proved to be an erroneous opinion.

"Wot can it be a-doin' of here?" inquired Tim Rokens, in an abstracted tone of voice, as if he put the question to himself, and therefore did not expect an answer.

"No doubt it's a slaver's boat," replied the trader; "they often come up here for cargoes of niggers."

"Och! the blackguards!" exclaimed Phil Briant, all his blood rising at the mere mention of the horrible traffic; "couldn't we land, capting, and give them a lickin'? I'll engage meself to put six at laste o' the spalpeens on their beam-ends."

"No, Phil, we shan't land for that purpose; but we'll land for some gunpowder an' a barrel or two of plantains; so give way, lads."

In another moment the bow of the canoe slid upon the mud-bank of the river close to the slaver's boat, which was watched by a couple of the most villainous-looking men that ever took part in that disgraceful traffic. They were evidently Portuguese sailors, and the scowl of their bronzed faces, when they saw the canoe approach the landing-place, showed that they had no desire to enter into amicable converse with the strangers.

At this moment the attention of the travellers was drawn to a gang of slaves who approached the wharf, chained together by the neck, and guarded by the crew of the Portuguese boat. Ailie looked on with a feeling of dread that induced her to cling to her father's hand, while the men stood with folded arms, compressed lips, and knitted brows.

On the voyage up they had landed at this station, and had seen the slaves in their places of confinement. The poor creatures were apparently happy at that time, and seemed totally indifferent to their sad fate; but their aspect was very different now. They were being hurried away, they knew not whither, by strangers whom they had been taught to believe were monsters of cruelty besides being cannibals, and who had purchased them for the purpose of killing them and eating their bodies. The wild, terrified looks of the men, and the subdued looks and trembling gait of the women showed that they expected no mercy at the hands of their captors.

They hung back a little as they drew near to the boat, whereupon one of their conductors, who seemed to be in command of the party, uttered a fierce exclamation in Portuguese, and struck several of the men and women indiscriminately severe blows with his fists. In a few minutes they were all placed in the boat, and the crew had partly embarked, when Phil Briant, unable to restrain himself, muttered between his teeth to the Portuguese commander as he passed--

"Ye imp o' darkness, av I only had ye in the ring for tshwo minits--jist tshwo--ah thin, wouldn't I polish ye off."

"Fat you say, sare?" cried the man, turning fiercely towards Briant, and swearing at him in bad English.

"Say, is it? Oh, then _there's_ a translation for ye, that's understood in all lingos."

Phil shook his clenched fist as close as possible to the nose of the Portuguese commander without actually coming into contact with that hooked and prominent organ.

The man started back and drew his knife, at the same time calling to several of his men, who advanced with their drawn knives.

"Ho!" cried Briant, and a jovial smile overspread his rough countenance as he sprang to a clear spot of ground and rolled up both sleeves of his shirt to the shoulders, thereby displaying a pair of arms that might, at a rapid glance, have been mistaken for a pair of legs--"that's yer game, is it? won't I stave in yer planks! won't I shiver yer timbers, and knock out yer daylights, bless yer purty faces! I didn't think ye had it in ye; come on darlints--toothpicks and all--as many as ye like; the more the better--wan at a time, or all at wance, it don't matter, not the laste, be no manes!"

While Briant gave utterance to these liberal invitations, he performed a species of revolving dance, and flourished his enormous fists in so ludicrous a manner, that despite the serious nature of the fray the two parties were likely to be speedily engaged in, his comrades could not restrain their laughter.

"Go it, Pat!" cried one.

"True blue!" shouted another.

"Silence!" cried Captain Dunning, in a voice that enforced obedience. "Get into the canoe, Briant."

"Och! capting," exclaimed the wrathful Irishman, reproachfully, "sure ye wouldn't spile the fun?"

"Go to the canoe, sir."

"Ah! capting dear, jist wan round!"

"Go to the canoe, I say."

"I'll do it all in four minits an' wan quarter, av ye'll only shut yer eyes," pleaded Phil.

"Obey orders, will you?" cried the captain, in a voice there was no mistaking.

Briant indignantly thrust his fists into his breeches pockets, and rolled slowly down towards the canoe, as--to use one of his own favourite expressions--sulky as a bear with a broken head.

Meanwhile the captain stepped up to the Portuguese sailors and told them to mind their own business, and let _honest_ men alone; adding, that if they did not take his advice, he would first give them a licking and then pitch them all into the river.

This last remark caused Briant to prick up his ears and withdraw his fists from their inglorious retirement, in the fond hope that there might still be work for them to do; but on observing that the Portuguese, acting on the principle that discretion is the better part of valour, had taken the advice and were returning to their own boat, he relapsed into the sulks, and seated himself doggedly in his place in the canoe.

During all this little scene, which was enacted much more rapidly than it had been described, master Jacko, having escaped from the canoe, had been seated near the edge of the wharf, looking on, apparently, with deep interest. Just as the Portuguese turned away to embark in their boat, Ailie's eye alighted on her pet; at the same moment the foot of the Portuguese commander alighted on her pet's tail. Now the tails of all animals seem to be peculiarly sensitive. Jacko's certainly was so, for he instantly uttered a shriek of agony, which was as quickly responded to by its adopted mother in a scream of alarm as she sprang forward to the rescue. When one unintentionally treads on the tail of any animal and thereby evokes a yell, he is apt to start and trip--in nine cases out of ten he does trip. The Portuguese commander tripped upon this occasion. In staggering out of the monkey's way he well-nigh tumbled over Ailie, and in seeking to avoid her, he tumbled over the edge of the wharf into the river.

The difference between the appearance of this redoubtable slave-buying hero before and after his involuntary immersion was so remarkable and great that his most intimate friend would have failed to recognise him. He went down into the slimy liquid an ill-favoured Portuguese, clad in white duck; he came up a worse-favoured monstrosity, clothed in mud! Even his own rascally comrades grinned at him for a moment, but their grins changed into a scowl of anger when they heard the peals of laughter that burst from the throats of their enemies. As for Briant, he absolutely hugged himself with delight.

"Och! ye've got it, ye have," he exclaimed, at intervals. "Happy day! who'd ha' thought it? to see him tumbled in the mud after all by purty little Ailie and Jacko. Come here to me Jacko, owld coon. Oh, ye swate cratur!"

Briant seized the monkey, and squeezed it to his breast, and kissed it-- yes, he actually kissed its nose in the height of his glee, and continued to utter incoherent exclamations, and to perpetrate incongruous absurdities, until long after they had descended the river and left the muddy Portuguese and his comrades far behind them.

Towards evening the party were once more safe and sound on board the _Red Eric_, where they found everything repaired, and the ship in a fit state to proceed to sea immediately.

His Majesty King Bumble was introduced to the steward, then to the cook, and then to the caboose. Master Jacko was introduced to the ship's crew and to his quarters, which consisted of a small box filled with straw, and was lashed near the foot of the mizzen-mast. These introductions having been made, the men who had accompanied their commander on his late excursion into the interior, went forward and regaled their messmates for hours with anecdotes of their travels in the wilds of Africa.

It is well-known, and generally acknowledged, that all sublunary things, pleasant as well as unpleasant, must come to an end. In the course of two days more the sojourn of the crew of the _Red Eric_ on the coast of Africa came to a termination. Having taken in supplies of fresh provisions, the anchor was weighed, and the ship stood out to sea with the first of the ebb tide. It was near sunset when the sails were hoisted and filled by a gentle land breeze, and the captain had just promised Ailie that he would show her blue water again by breakfast-time next morning, when a slight tremor passed through the vessel's hull, causing the captain to shout, with a degree of vigour that startled everyone on board, "All hands ahoy! lower away the boats, Mr Millons, we're hard and fast aground on a mud-bank!"

The boats were lowered away with all speed, and the sails dewed up instantly, but the _Red Eric_ remained as immovable as the bank on which she had run aground; there was, therefore, no recourse but to wait patiently for the rising tide to float her off again. Fortunately the bank was soft and the wind light, else it might have gone ill with the good ship.

There is scarcely any conceivable condition so favourable to quiet confidential conversation and story-telling as the one in which the men of the whale-ship now found themselves. The night was calm and dark, but beautiful, for a host of stars sparkled in the sable sky, and twinkled up from the depths of the dark ocean. The land breeze had fallen, and there was scarcely any sound to break the surrounding stillness except the lipping water as it kissed the black hull of the ship. A dim, scarce perceptible light rendered every object on board mysterious and unaccountably large.

"Wot a night for a ghost story," observed Jim Scroggles, who stood with a group of the men, who were seated on and around the windlass.

"I don't b'lieve in