A Middy in Command

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A Middy in Command
A Tale of the Slave Squadron
By Harry Collingwood
CHAPTER ONE.
OUR FIRST PRIZE.
The first faint pallor of the coming dawn was insidiously extending along the horizon ahead as H.M. gun-brig Shark--the latest addition to the slave-squadron--slowly surged ahead over the almost oil-smooth sea, under the influence of a languid air breathing out from the south-east. She was heading in for the mouth of the Congo, which was about forty miles distant, according to the master's reckoning.
The night had been somewhat squally, and the royals and topgallant-sails were stowed; but the weather was now clearing, and as "three bells" chimed out musically upon the clammy morning air, Mr Seaton, the first lieutenant, who was the officer of the watch, having first scanned the heavens attentively, gave orders to loose and set again the light upper canvas.
By the time that the men aloft had cast off the gaskets that confined the topgallant-sails to the yards, the dawn--which comes with startling rapidity in those latitudes--had risen high into the sky ahead, and spread well along the horizon to north and south, causing the stars to fade and disappear, one after another, until only a few of the brightest remained twinkling low down in the west.
As I wheeled at the stern-grating in my monotonous promenade of the lee side of the quarter-deck, a hail came down from aloft--
"Sail ho! two of 'em, sir, broad on the lee beam. Look as if they were standin' out from the land."
"What are they like? Can you make out their rig?" demanded the first luff, as he halted and directed his gaze aloft at the man on the main- royal-yard, who, half-way out to the yard-arm, was balancing himself upon the foot-rope, and steadying himself with one hand upon the yard as he gazed away to leeward under the shade of the other.
"I can't make out very much, sir," replied the man. "They're too far off; but one looks like a schooner, and t'other like a brig."
"And they are heading out from the land, you say?" demanded the lieutenant.
"Looks like it, sir," answered the man; "but, as I was sayin', they're a long way off; and it's a bit thick down to leeward there, so--"
"All right, never mind; cast off those gaskets and come down," interrupted Mr Seaton impatiently. Then, turning to me, he said:
"Mr Grenvile, take the glass and lay aloft, if you please, and see what you can make of those strangers. Mr Keene"--to the other midshipman of the watch--"slip down below and call the captain, if you please. Tell him that two strange sail have been sighted from aloft, apparently coming out from the Congo."
By the time he had finished speaking I had snatched the glass from its beckets, and was half-way up the weather main rigging, while the watch was sheeting home and hoisting away the topgallant-sails and royals. When Keene reappeared on deck, after calling the skipper, I was comfortably astride the royal-yard, with my left arm round the spindle of the vane--the yard hoisting close up under the truck. With my right hand I manipulated the slide of the telescope and adjusted the focus of the instrument to suit my sight.
By this time the dawn had entirely overspread the firmament, and the sky had lost its pallor and was all aglow with richest amber, through which a long shaft of pale golden light, soaring straight up toward the zenith, heralded the rising of the sun. The thickness to leeward had by this time cleared away, and the two strange sail down there were now clearly visible, the one as a topsail schooner, and the other as a brig. They were a long way off, the topsails of the brig--which was leading-- being just clear of the horizon from my elevated point of observation, while the head of the schooner's topsail just showed clear of the sea. The brig I took to be a craft of about our own size, say some three hundred tons, while the schooner appeared to be about two hundred tons.
I had just ascertained these particulars when the voice of the skipper came pealing up to me from the stern-grating, near which he stood, with Mr Seaton alongside of him.
"Well, Mr Grenvile, what do you make of them?"
I replied, giving such information as I had been able to gather; and added: "They appear to be sailing in company, sir."
"Thank you, that will do; you may come down," answered the skipper. Then, as I swung myself off the yard, I heard the lieutenant give the order to bear up in chase, to rig out the port studding-sail booms, and to see all clear for setting the port studding-sails--or stu'n'sails, as they are more commonly called. I had reached the cross-trees, on my way down, when Captain Bentinck again hailed