A Middy in Command | Page 6

visible from our deck, and it was
apparent that, in the strong breeze which was now blowing, we were
rapidly overhauling the schooner, while the brig was not only holding
her own with us, but had actually increased her distance, as she
gradually hauled to the wind, so as to allow us to run away to leeward
of her.

The pursuit of the schooner lasted all through the afternoon, and it was
close upon sunset when we arrived within range of her, and plumped a
couple of 24-pound shot clean through her mainsail, whereupon her
skipper saw fit to round-to all standing, back his topsail, and hoist
Spanish colours, only to haul them down again in token of surrender.
Whereupon Mr Seaton, our first lieutenant, in charge of an armed boat's
crew, went away to take possession of the prize, and since I was the
only person on board possessing even a passable acquaintance with the
Spanish language, I was ordered to accompany him.
Our prize proved to be the Dolores, of two hundred tons measurement,
with--as we had suspected--a cargo of slaves, numbering three hundred
and fifty, which she had shipped in one of the numerous creeks at the
mouth of the Congo on the previous day, and with which she was
bound for Rio Grande. Her crew were transferred to the Shark; and
then--the second lieutenant being ill and quite unfit for service--I was
put in command of her, with a crew of fourteen men, and instructed to
make the best of my way to Sierra Leone. My crew of fourteen
included Gowland, our master's mate, and young Sinclair, a first-class
volunteer, as well as San Domingo, the servant of the midshipmen's
mess, to act as steward, and the cook's mate. We therefore mustered
only five forecastle hands to a watch, which I thought little enough for
a schooner of the size of the Dolores; but as we hoped to reach Sierra
Leone in a week at the outside, and as the schooner was unarmed,
Captain Bentinck seemed to think that we ought to be able to manage
fairly well. By the time that we had transferred ourselves and our traps
to the prize it had fallen quite dark. The Shark therefore lost no time in
hauling her wind in pursuit of the strange brig, which by this time had
run out of sight, and of which the skipper of the Dolores professed to
know nothing beyond the fact that she was French, was named the
Suzanne, and was running a cargo of slaves across to Martinique.
CHAPTER TWO.
CAPTURED BY A PIRATE.
When, in answer to the summons of our 24-pounders, the captain of the

Dolores rounded-to and laid his topsail to the mast, he did not trouble
his crew to haul down the studding-sails, for he knew that his ship was
as good as lost to him, and the result was that the booms snapped short
off at the irons, like carrots, leaving a raffle of slatting canvas, gear, and
thrashing wreckage for the prize crew to clear away. Thus, although we
at once hauled-up for our port upon parting company with the Shark,
we had nearly an hour's hard work before us in the dark ere the
studding-sails were got in, the gear unrove and unbent, and the stumps
of the booms cleared away, and I thought it hardly worth while to get a
fresh set of booms fitted and sent aloft that night. We accordingly
jogged along under plain sail until daylight, when we got the
studding-sails once more upon the little hooker and tried her paces. She
proved to be astonishingly fast in light, and even moderate, weather,
and I felt convinced that had the wind not breezed up so strongly as it
did on the previous day, the Shark would never have overtaken her.
During the following two days we made most excellent progress, the
weather being everything that one could desire, and the water smooth
enough to permit of the hatches being taken off and the unfortunate
slaves brought on deck in batches of fifty at a time, for an hour each, to
take air and exercise, while those remaining below were furnished with
a copious supply of salt-water wherewith to wash down the slave- deck
and clear away its accumulated filth. It proved to be a very fortunate
circumstance that Captain Bentinck had permitted us to draw the negro
San Domingo as one of our crew, for the fellow understood the
language spoken by the slaves, and was able to assure them that in the
course of a few days they would be restored to freedom, otherwise we
should not have dared to give them access to the deck in such large
parties, for they were nearly all men, and fine powerful