"What the h—l d'ye think you're about?"
"Preventing a slave mutiny!" says I.
"What? You skulldng rascal!" He flourished a pistol at me. "You shift your d—-d butt up here, directly, d'ye hear?" So reluctantly I dropped the wench and went cautiously up the ladder again, poking my head out to see what was what.
I'm no judge of naval warfare, but by the way the hands were serving the port guns we were in the thick of a d––d hot running fight. The twelve-pounders were crashing and being reloaded and run out again like something at Trafalgar, and although from time to time there was the shuddering crack of a shot striking us, we seemed to be taking no great harm; the deck watch were tailing onto a line while Sullivan was yelling orders to the men aloft. He bawled at me, so I scrambled out and tailed on to the line, and out of the corner of my eye I saw the sloop running across our bows, her broadside popping away like fury, and the scream and crash of shot just overhead sent me diving for the scuppers. I fetched up against the rail with a crash, wondering why the blazes I'd been fool enough to come out from cover just because Sullivan told me to — instinct, I suppose — and then there was a rending crackle from overhead, something hit the deck with an almighty crash, and somebody fell on top of me. I pushed him off, and my hand came away sticky with blood. Horrified, I watched as the body rolled into the scuppers; it had no head, and blood was pouring out of the neck stump like a fountain.
All this had happened in a matter of minutes. I climbed unsteadily to my feet and looked around. A great tangle of cordage and splintered timber lay between the main and mizzen masts; looking up I saw that our main top mast had come away, and for a moment I felt the ship floundering and rolling helplessly. Someone was shrieking beneath the wreckage, and Sullivan was jumping forward with an axe and a dozen men at his heels to try to clear the tangle away. Beyond them Spring was at the wheel, hat jammed down as usual, but his orders were lost in the crash of one of our port guns.
What happened in the next five minutes I barely remember; I know that we were hit again, and for a time you could hardly see across the deck for acrid powder smoke. I crouched beside the rail, palpitating, until the clearing party came dragging their mass of wreckage and I had to jump away as they bundled it overside. Our guns had stopped firing, and presently I was aware the Yankee wasn't firing either, so I chanced a look.
Somehow, after that brief holocaust, a semblance of order bad been restored. The gun crews were standing by their pieces, Sullivan was by the mizzen, volleying commands to the topmen, and Spring was at the wheel, The Yankee sloop was astern, limping, with her foresail all askew, but the brig was ploughing along like thunder; in our injured condition even I could see she would be with us in no time at all, And then, no doubt, she would batter us to pieces — or take us, with slaves aboard, and that would be prison, and possibly the gallows. I felt the bile coming up in my throat.
And then I heard Spring's voice, raised in a bellow of anger.
"You'll do as you're d––d well told, mister. Now, get those yellows up on deck, with their shackles on! Lively, d—n you, d'ye hear?"
Sullivan, his hat gone, seemed to be protesting, but Spring silenced him with another bellow, and presently the hands were driving up the yellow girls, fastening leg irons about their ankles and herding them together by the mizzen mast. Spring and Sullivan were by the wheel, the latter pointing to the brig, which was overhauling us fast.
"We'll have her shooting us up in five minutes!" he was shouting. "We can't run, skipper; we can't fight! We're crippled, d—nit!"
"We can fight, mister!" Spring's scar was flaming. "We've settled the sloop, haven't we? What's that but a measly brig? D'ye want me to strike to her?"
"Look at her!" cries Sullivan. "She's got thirty guns if she's got one!" I always knew he was a sensible chap.
"I'll fight her, though," says the idiot Spring. "I haven't made this cruise to be towed into New Orleans by that pack of longshore loafers! But we'll make that nigger rubbish safe first — and if we fight and fail there won't be a black hide aboard to show against US. Now — get the chain into 'em!"
Sullivan looked as though he would burst. "It won't do! They're too d––d close — they'll see 'm drop, won't they?"
"What if they do? No niggers, no felony — they can make what they like of the ship, with the d––d equipment law, but they can't lay a hand on you or me! Now, I'm telling you, mister get that chain rove through!"
I made nothing of this, until four of the hands came running aft, dragging a massive chain, which they laid by the starboard rail. Then they herded the wenches over, and began to pass the chain between their legs, above the shackles, so that it linked them all together. They made the chain fast with rope to the end slaves in the line, then forced the girls to lie flat with their feet up, and by main force lifted the chain until it lay along the rail.
"Steady, there!" bawls Spring. "Now — hold it, so, till I give the word."
I don't bilk at much: I watched them blowing sepoys from the ends of guns at Cawnpore with a keen interest, and I ate my dinner at Peking an hour after the massacre, but I confess that Spring's method of disposing of incriminating evidence made me gulp. The wenches screamed and writhed in terror; once that chain was pushed over they would be hurtled across the rail by its weight, and in the sea they would sink like stones, And then, if the Balliol College was taken — well, what slaves do you mean, captain? I'd heard of it being done,30 and I remembered Sullivan's story of the Dago who set his ship on fire. But for all Spring's confidence, I couldn't believe it would wash; the Yankee brig must have half a dozen glasses trained on us; they could swear to murder done and seen to be done, and then it was the gallows for certain.
Funk-stricken though I was, I could think at least. Spring obviously hoped he could fight the Yankee off, and save his liberty and his slaves at the same time; he'd only push 'em over in the last extremity. I was sure Sullivan was right; we couldn't hope to fight the brig. Somehow that madman had to be stopped, or he'd have all our heads in the noose.
If there's one thing that will make my limbs work in a crisis, it is the thought of self-preservation. I'd no notion of what I intended, but I found myself, unheeded in the excitement, walking across to the chest of arms that had been broken out by the main mast. Two of the hands were loading and priming pistols and passing them out; I took a couple, one a double-barrelled piece, and thrust them into my belt. Then, seeing all eyes were fixed either on the pursuing brig or the line of squealing unfortunates shackled by the rail, I dropped down the main hatch on to the slave deck.
I still didn't know what I was going to do; I remember thinking, as I stood there in an agony of uncertainty, this is what comes of dabbling in politics and playing vingt-et-un with spinsters. I had some frenzied notion of making my way aft through the main bulkhead door, which was open now that the slave-deck was in a wholesome condition, finding Mrs Spring in the main cabin, and appealing to her; I knew it was a lunatic thought, but I found myself scampering through anyway, pulling up by the after companion, swithering this way and that, cursing feebly to myself and racking my brains over what to do next.