the following evening, as the twilight was falling, the lads again gathered round the old sailor.
"well, lads," he began, "just as this other affair i was telling you about happened further down south, so the other was a goodish bit to the north. we were bound for the persian gulf, and i fancy the captain got wrong with his reckonings. he had had trouble before we sailed; had lost his wife sudden, i heard, and, more's the pity, he took to drink. he was the first and last captain as ever i sailed under as did it; for godstone & son were always mighty particular with their masters, and would not have a man, not for ever so, who was given to lifting his elbow. anyhow, we went wrong; and it is a baddish place to go wrong, i can tell you, is the mozambique channel. there was a haze on the water and a light breeze, and just about eight bells in the morning we went plump ashore—though none of us thought we were within a hundred miles of land. there was a pretty to-do, as you might fancy; but we had to wait until morning to see where we were; then we found, when the mist lifted a bit that we were on a low sandy coast.
"we had no doubt that we should get her off so we got the boats out and the hatches off, and began to get up the cargo. we worked hard all day, and thought we had got pretty well enough out of her, and were just going to knock off work[181] and carry out a couple of anchors and cables astern to try and heave her off, when there was a yell, and two or three hundred black fellows came dashing down on us with spears. they crept up so close before they showed, that we had no time to tumble into the boats before they were upon us. we made the best sort of fight we could, but that wasn't much. we had brought ashore muskets and cutlasses, but they had been left in the boats, and only a few of us had time to get hold of them before they were upon us. i cut and slashed as well as i could, but it was not for long; for a spear lodged in my shoulder just at the moment when a big native caught me a clip over the head with a club, and down i went.
"i fancy i was some time before i got my senses again. when i did i found that i was tied hand and foot, and was lying there on the sands, with three or four of our fellows in the same plight as myself. they all belonged to the jolly-boat in which i had come ashore. the other boat had made a shift to push off with some of its hands and get back to the ship; but i did not know that until afterwards, for i was lying down behind a hillock of sand and could not get a view of the sea. there were lots of natives about, and they seemed mighty excited. i could hear a dropping fire of muskets, and guessed that those on board were keeping up a fire on any who so showed themselves on the beach. the natives got more and more excited, and kept jabbering together and pointing away along the coast; and i guessed that some of their own craft were coming to attack the ship.
"presently i heard one of the guns, then another and[182] another. the shot didn't come whistling our way, so i had no doubt that the ship was attacked. for a quarter of an hour the firing went on—cannon and musketry. i could hear the yells of the natives and the shouts of our men, though i could see nothing. the natives round me were pretty near out of their minds with excitement; then they began to dance and yell, and all at once the firing ceased, and i knew that the niggers had taken the ship. i was afraid it would come to that; for you see they had lost pretty well a third of their crew in the fight on shore, and the niggers would never have ventured to attack if they had not been ten to one against them.
"we lay there all that night, and i believe i should have died of thirst if a nigger wench had not taken compassion on us and given us a drink. the next morning our ropes were undone. our first look when we got up was naturally towards the ship. there she lay, with a dozen native craft round her. her decks were black with niggers, and they were hard at work stripping her. no one paid much attention to us, for there was nowhere we could run to; and we sat down together and talked over our chances. we saw nothing of our shipmates; and whether they were all killed, or whether some of them were put aboard the native craft, i never knew. they were some days unloading and stripping the ship, and they had big quarrels over the division of the spoil. i think the fellows with boats did our natives out of their share, beyond what fell into their hands when they first attacked us. however, at last it was all done; then two chiefs came and had[183] a look at us, and one took me and tom longstaff, and another took the other two.
"we had not done badly for eating while we were on shore, for there was several barrels of pork and biscuits among the lot we had landed, and we were free to take as much as we wanted. the other bales and boxes were all broken open and the contents made up into packets, and tom and i and about sixty niggers, each with as much as he could stagger under, started away from the shore. it wasn't a long march, for their village lay only about six miles away. we knew it could not be far, because the women and children had come down to the beach two or three hours after the fight was over. we stopped here about a month, and then one morning the chief and four of his men started off with tom and me. we made three days' marches, such marches as i never want to do again. tom and i did our best to keep up; but the last day we were quite worn out, and if it hadn't been that they thumped us with their spears and prodded us up, we should never have done it.
"the place we got to was a deal bigger than the first village. we were left outside the biggest hut with the four fellows to guard us, while the chief went inside. presently he came out again with a chap quite different to himself. he was brown instead of being black, and dressed quite different; and having been trading up in the persian gulf i knew him to be an arab. he looked us over as if we had been bullocks he intended to buy, and then went into the hut again. a few minutes later our chief came out and made signs to us that[184] we belonged to the arab now, and then went away with his men, and we never saw him again. we had an easy time of it for the next week, and then the arab started with a number of carriers laden with goods for the interior.
"you would scarcely believe, lads, what we went through on that 'ere journey. many a time tom and i made up our minds to bolt for it; and we would have done it if we had had the least idea which way to go or how we were to keep alive on the journey. we had agreed when we started that we would do our best, and that we would not put up with any flogging. we didn't much care whether they killed us or not, for we would just as leave have died as passed our lives in that country with all its beastly ways. well, a couple of days after we had started, a big nigger driver who had been laying on his stick freely on the backs of the slaves came along, and let tom and me have one apiece. tom, who was nearest to him, chucked down his load and went right at him, and knocked him over like a ninepin.
"well, some of the other drivers or guards, or whatever they call them, ran up, and there was a tidy skrimage, i can tell you. it was ten minutes, i should say, before they got the best of us; and there was not one among them but was badly damaged about the figure-head. when they had got us down they laid it on to rights, and i believe they would have finished us if the arab had not come up and stopped it.
"'look here,' said i, when i was able to get up on to my feet again; 'we are ready to work just as[185] far as men can work, but if one of those niggers lays a finger on us we will do for him. you may cut us in pieces afterwards, but we will do for him.'
"i don't know whether the arab understood just what i said, but i think he got the gist of it. he spoke sharp to his men, and they never touched us afterwards. i could not quite make out what they were taking us for, because i can say honestly we were not much good at carrying—not half as good as one of the slaves. the first day or two we carried a good manful load. then our shoes went to pieces, and we got that footsore and bad we could scarcely crawl along, let alone carrying loads. tom said he thought that the arab was a-taking us to sell as curios to some fellow who had never seen white men before, and it turned out as he was right. after we had been travelling for nigh a month we came to a big village; and there was great excitement over our coming, and for two days there were feastings, while the arab sold part of his goods to the people for gold dust and ivory.
"the chief had come to look at us the day we arrived, and we had been packed away together in a little hut. the third day he came again with the arab, and made signs that i was his property now, while the arab told tom to go out and start with his caravan. it was a big wrench for us, but it were no good struggling against what was to be. so we shook hands and parted on it quietly, and what became of tom i have never heard from that day to this; but like enough he is dead years ago.
"well, it would be too long a story to tell you all that happened in the nine months i stopped in that[186] village. the chief was very proud of me, and used to show me off to his visitors. i had not such a very bad time of it. i used to make myself as useful as i could. i had been a handy sort of chap, and fond of carpentry, and i made a shift with what native tools i could get to turn out tables and chairs, and cupboards, and such like. all this time i was wondering how i was ever to get back again. i used to share a hut with another slave who had been captured in war. they generally sell them to the arab slave-dealers to take down to the coast, but this man was the son of a chief who had gone to war with the fellow who owned me, and had been killed; and he kept this chap as his slave as a sort of brag, i think.
"we got on very well together, and of course by the time we had been there six months i got to talk their lingo, and we agreed at last that we would try to make a bolt of it together. so one night—when it happened that there was a great feast in the village—we slipped away as soon as it got dark, and made south, our object being to strike one of the portuguese stations. we armed ourselves with bows and arrows, and spears; and as many yams as we could carry. it would make a book, lads, if i was to tell you all we went through before we got there. we travelled chiefly by nights; sometimes killing a deer, sometimes getting a few yams or heads of corn from the fields of the villages we passed. we had one or two skrimages, but fortunately never ran against any strong bodies of natives. by myself i should have died before i had been gone a fortnight but mwango was up to every dodge. he knew what[187] roots were good to eat, and what fruit and berries were safe. he could steal up to a herd of deer without frightening them, and was a first-rate hand in making pitfalls for game.
"i didn't keep no account of time, but it was somewhere about six weeks after we had started when we came down on the banks of a biggish river. we followed it down until, two or three days later, we came on a village. there we stole a canoe, and paddling at night and lying up in the day, we came after about a week to a portuguese post. there we were kindly received, and stopped for a month; and then i went down the river with some traders to the coast, while mwango took service with the portuguese. six weeks later i was lucky enough to get a ship bound for the cape, and there shifted into another for england. so that, young gentlemen, was the second time as i was off the books of godstone & son."
"thank you very much, joe. some day you must give us some more yarns about it, and tell us something of your life in the village and your journey."
"i will think it over, master jim. it is a long time ago now, for i was not above six-and-twenty when it happened. but i will think it over, and see if i can call back something worth telling."
from that time onwards the boys had no reason to complain of dulness.
if the old man's memory ever played him false, his imagination never failed him. story followed story in almost unbroken sequence, so that between old joe's yarns and the ordinary duties of sea life the [188]time passed swiftly and pleasantly. after rounding the cape they had a spell of fine weather, until one morning when jack came on deck he saw land away on the port beam.
"there is ceylon," jim tucker said.
"i should like to land and have a day's ramble on shore there, jim. there would be something to see there with all that rich vegetation. a very different thing from the sands of egypt!"
"yes, and all sorts of adventures, jack. there are snakes and elephants and all sorts of things."
"i certainly should not care to meet snakes, jim, and i don't know that i should like wild elephants. still, i should like a ramble on shore. i suppose there is no chance of our getting nearer to the land."
"not a bit, jack. i heard mr. hoare tell arthur that it was very seldom we passed within sight of the island at all. sailors are not fond of land except when they are actually going to make a port. the further they keep away from it the better they are pleased."
"such splendid weather as this i should have thought it would have made no difference," jack said. "i should be glad if we were going to coast up the whole way. why, we have had nothing but a gentle regular wind ever since that storm off the cape."
"yes, but it may not last all the way, jack," mr. timmins, as he walked past and overheard the lad's words, said. "there is no place in the world where they have more furious cyclones than in the bay of bengal. happily they don't come very often. perhaps there is only one really very bad one in four or five years; but when there is one the destruction is [189]awful. islands are submerged, and sometimes, hundreds of square miles of low country flooded, the villages washed away, and a frightful loss of life. i have been in one or two sharp blows up the bay, but never in a cyclone; though i have been in one in the china seas. that was bad enough in all conscience."
the wind fell lighter as they made their way up the coast. they kept well out from the land, and had not sighted it since leaving ceylon. so light were the winds that it was some days before mr. timmins told them that they were now abreast of madras.
"how much longer shall we be before we are at the mouth of the hoogley, sir?"
"it depends upon the wind, lad. with a strong breeze aft we shall be there in three or four days. if we have calms we may be as many weeks."
another week of light baffling winds, and then the breeze died away altogether and there was a dead calm. the sun poured down with great force, but the sky was less blue and clear than usual. at night it was stiflingly hot, and the next morning the sun again rose over a sea as smooth as a sheet of glass.
"i wonder what the captain and the two mates are talking about so seriously," jack said as the three lads leant against the bulwarks in the shadow of the mainsail.
"i expect they are wondering whether the pitch won't melt off her bottom," jim tucker said with a laugh; "or what will happen if all the crew are baked alive. i am sure it is pretty well as hot as an oven."
"the sky looks rather a queer colour," jack said, [190]looking up. "you can hardly call it blue at all."
"no, it is more like a dull gray than blue," arthur hill said. "hallo! what is up, i wonder?"
the captain had disappeared in his cabin, and on coming out had said a few words to mr. timmins, who at once went to the edge of the quarter-deck and shouted "all hands to shorten sail." the vessel was under a cloud of canvas, for every sail that could draw had been set upon her to make the most of the light puffs of wind. some of the young seamen looked as if they could hardly believe their ears at the order; but jack heard one of the older sailors say to a mate as they ran up the ratlines, "what did i tell you half an hour since, bob: that like enough we should have scarce a rag on her by sunset."
the lads sprang up the ratlines with the men, for they took their share of duty aloft. arthur's place was in the mizzen, jim's in the main, and jack's in the fore-top. the stunsails were first got in, then the royals and topgallant-sails. the men were working well, but the captain's voice came up loud from the quarter-deck, "work steady, lads, but work all you can! every minute is of consequence!"
jack looked round the horizon, but could see nothing to account for this urgency. the sun was nearly overhead—a ball of glowing fire, and yet, jack thought, less bright than usual, for he could look at it steadily, and its circle was clear and well defined. from that point right away down to the horizon the dull heavy-looking sky stretched away unbroken by a single cloud.
as soon as the topgallant-sails were furled the upper spars were sent down, then the courses were clewed up and two of her jibs taken off her. "close[191] reef the topsails!" was the next order, and when this was done, and the men after more than an hour's work descended to the decks drenched with perspiration, the ship was under the easiest possible canvas—nothing but the three closely-reefed topsails, the fore-staysail, and a small jib. mr. hoare and the third mate had been aloft with the men, and as soon as all were on deck the work of coiling away ropes, ranging the light spars, and tidying up began.
