Ran Away to Sea

Chapter Forty Five

During all these deliberations not one word was said about the five hundred unfortunate wretches between decks! It is a question whether even a thought was spent upon them, except by myself, perhaps by Ben Brace, and most likely the captain of the Pandora. But if the skipper thought of them, it was from no motives of humanity. Profit and loss were the only considerations that had any interest for him, and if he was thinking of the poor creatures with regret, it was not any regret for the horrid fate they were likely to meet with, but solely on account of the pecuniary loss he would sustain by their destruction!

I feel certain that, up to the moment when their future plans had been fully discussed and agreed upon, not one of that reckless crew had given thought to the situation of the blacks. Had these human beings been so many head of cattle, they could not have entered less into the calculations that had been made; for they were not considered at all. Not one drop of water had been apportioned to their use. No suggestion of such a thing had been afforded – it would have been ridiculed as preposterous.

It was only after everything had been settled, that mention was made of them. Then a rough fellow cried out, in a tone of mock surprise, that smacked of a disgusting levity: —

“Thunder an’ ’oun’s! what’s to be done with the niggers!”

“Ay, ay,” shouted several, in a breath; “what is to be done with ’em? There’s no water for them – that’s sartin.”

“Why, what can be done?” responded an inhuman monster. “Chuck ’em overboard!”

“Dunder an’ blitz!” exclaimed a ferocious German, who appeared pleased with the idea; “dhat is de besht blan – wees not can do petter dhan to glear ’em out from de sheep.”

“Pe Gar!” cried the Frenchman, Le Gros, “it be von great big drown – von grand splash in ze vater —Sacr-r-r-é!”

I cannot describe the feelings I had in listening to this conversation. These men were actually serious, and yet jesting. It is almost too horrid to be credible, and yet it is true!

But they were serious – I knew they were – and I expected every minute to hear that this horrible suggestion was adopted, and that the blacks were to be thrown overboard!

But the villains were not unanimous; and for a length of time they continued to discuss the question in the same half-serious, half-jocular way. It was awful to listen to that inhuman debate!

The slave-captain’s wishes, however, were opposed to throwing his cargo overboard; and, notwithstanding the mutinous disposition of the men, he had still authority enough to carry the point. He was obliged however, to humiliate himself by resorting to argument. His speech was characteristic; and throughout the whole of it, there was not one word about humanity.

He alleged that the niggers could only die, anyhow, and a few days could make no difference to them. Neither could it signify to them (the crew) whether the blacks died of thirst or by drowning. They could throw them overboard, after the breath was out of them, all the same. But some of them might live it out. He had known niggers to stand it a long while without water – they could hold out much longer than white men – for in this respect they resembled the ostriches, camels, and other animals of their own country, that could go for whole weeks without drinking! No doubt many of them would die, and therefore be lost to him; but they would not die if they could help it, and there were still the chances that a good many would stick it out (these were the captain’s words) till they had made land, or overhauled some vessel; and though they might be pretty far gone (another phrase of the speaker), a drink of water would set their stomachs all right again. So ran the ruffian speech.

He further proceeded to point out to his audience the destitute condition that he and they would be in, should they reach the Brazilian coast without a cargo. There would be no bounty – no spending-money – nothing; whereas, if they could only get there with even a portion of the negroes alive – even one out of five (a hundred out of the whole lot) – there would still be a large sum realised; and he promised that he would be liberal to all hands.

It was absurd, therefore, to talk of flinging the cargo overboard. They could do no harm as they were; there could arise no danger, since they would keep the blacks securely under hatches; and, therefore, in every way it was better to let these hold out as long as they could, and take chance of bringing some of them to a market. Such was the skipper’s speech; and I have followed his phraseology as nearly as I remember it. It was an awful harangue, and my heart sickened within me as I listened to it.

Meanwhile, the ill-starred victims who were the subject of these deliberations were, happily for themselves, still ignorant of the horrid fate with which they were threatened. A few of them, whose gaunt faces looked up through the grating, may have noticed that something was amiss; but, ignorant both of the language and ways of their tyrant gaolers, they could not possibly have known the danger in which their lives were now placed.

Alas! alas! they would soon learn – too soon. Soon would they experience the agony of thirst; soon would they feel its horrid cravings.

Even at that moment was it drawing upon them; even then were they crying for water – for, in consequence of the discovery that had been made, their morning’s allowance had not yet been served to them; and water was always the thing they seemed most to covet and desire. Its scarcity was to them their greatest grief. Even at that moment, as I passed the hatchway, I could hear them calling for “water – water,” some in their native tongue, and others – in hopes of being better understood – in that language best-known along the African Coast – the Portuguese – repeating the word: —

“Agoa—agoa!”

Chapter Forty Six

Unhappy beings! I shuddered as I reflected on what was before them. They were to endure thirst in all its gradations – from the simple, scarce painful longing for water – which most of them already felt – to the extremest agony and torture which that appetite can inflict. But a few days before, I had myself experienced thirst; but what signified that compared to what they would be compelled to endure? Simply nothing – a mere foretaste, that enabled me to judge how terribly painful thirst may become. Yes; I shuddered as I reflected on what was before them!

Little did I dream how short was to be the period of their endurance. Little thought I, as I paced along the deck and listened to their cries for water, that their sufferings from thirst would soon be at an end.

It was not their destiny to die from the want of water. Alas! a far more horrible doom was in store for them – a doom that I almost shudder to recount.

As the day advanced, their cries for water – “agoa! agoa!” – became more frequent and plaintive. There were some who shouted in anger. Wondering why they had been denied their customary allowance, there were some who fancied it arose either from neglect on the part of their white tyrants – whom they saw moving about perfectly indifferent to their entreaties – or else from some capricious cruelty to torture and punish them! It is hard to say what might have been their imaginings; but many of them exhibited symptoms of fury amounting almost to frenzy. They approached the grating with gestures of menace, and endeavoured by main strength to force the strong woodwork from off the hatch. Some gnashed their teeth and frothed at the lips; beating their breasts with clenched fists, and yelling their native war-cries, until their voices echoed far over the waters!

To all these demonstrations the crew of the Pandora paid no heed – except that two sentries instead of one were placed over the hatchway where the male portion of the slaves were confined. This precaution was taken, because it was now deemed possible that the negroes might make their way upon deck; and, should they succeed in doing so in their infuriated state, woe to the white men who had hitherto ruled them!

Both sticks and bayonets were used freely upon the frantic creatures, until the carpenter with ready tools had strengthened the grating and battened it down, beyond the possibility of its being raised up, or broken by those who were striving underneath.

What added to the sufferings of the slaves, as also to the apprehension of the Pandora’s crew, was that the wind had suddenly ceased, and it had fallen to a dead calm.

The heat of the sun, no longer fanned by the slightest breeze, had grown intolerable. The pitch melted upon the ropes and in the seams of the deck; and every article, whether of hemp, wood, or iron, was as hot as if taken out of a fire. We had arrived in that part of the Atlantic Ocean, known among Spanish seamen as the “horse latitudes,” because that there, during the early days of Spanish adventure, vessels often got becalmed, and their cargoes of horses, dying of the heat, were thrown overboard wholesale. This is one of the explanations given for the singular appellation – though others have been assigned.

Into the “horse latitudes,” then, had the Pandora found her way; and the complete calm into which the atmosphere had all at once fallen was not only a source of suffering to all on board – but to the sailors an object of new apprehension.

On first discovering the shortness of the supply of water, a calm sea was the very thing they had most dreaded. A storm they feared not to encounter. Through that – even though the wind were dead ahead – they could still make way; but in a calm they could do nothing but lie quiet upon the hot bosom of the sleeping ocean, wasting their days and hours – wasting what was now more precious than all – their scanty supply of water.

One and all were terrified at the prospect. They were all men who had made many a trip across the line, and had run the torrid zone both eastward and westward. They could read well the indications of the sky; and from its present appearance most of them foresaw, and were not slow to foretell, a long-continued calm. It might last a week, perhaps twice or three times as long. Sometimes there is a month of such windless weather in these latitudes. If it continued only for the shortest of these periods, then, indeed, would they be in danger, and no wonder they were freshly apprehensive.

As the sun went down, his disc appeared red and fiery. There was not a cloud in the sky – not a curl upon the sea.

It was the last time that sun ever shone upon the Pandora– when morning came, that bad, but beautiful barque, was a wreck upon the sea – a field of floating fragments!

Chapter Forty Seven

You desire an explanation? You wish to know how the Pandora was destroyed?

In the closing passages of the preceding chapter, I ran ahead of my narrative. I shall now return to it.

The night came down still, but not silent; at least not silent on board the slave-ship. The cries of the ill-fated beings below still loaded the air – their voices growing hoarser and hoarser. The ruffians might cage their bodies, but they could not confine their tongues; and ever and anon rose that awful din, pealing along the decks, and echoing far out over the still bosom of the waters.

It seemed at length to grow unendurable, even to the men; and those, who had before advocated throwing the slaves overboard, once more proposed adopting this course. The unexpected obstruction from the calm now added force to their arguments. They alleged that there was no chance of the niggers holding out. They would all be dead in a couple of days – by suffocation as well as thirst – and why not settle the business at once? They had now to look out sharply for their own lives, and better they should not be bothered any longer with these squalling brutes. (This was literally the language of one of those who advocated the drowning of them.) It was enough to drive a man mad to hear them, and it would be only mercy to them (much the ruffian cared for mercy) to make short work of it, and then the poor devils would have it over at once. This was the compassionate speech of one.

Another followed in a like strain, and said, interrogatively, “After all what did it amount to? The cargo was not such a great matter so long as the ship was safe? What signified all the niggers had cost? What they might fetch was another matter; but a man could not call that a loss which he had never had; and, therefore, all the loss the skipper should sustain would be the original outlay. It wasn’t a million. He would soon repair the damage. Once they got the casks filled, they could return to Africa, and King Dingo was the man to find them a fresh cargo. Perhaps he would let them have it on credit, if they couldn’t do better (at this improbability several laughed); but the skipper need not go a begging for credit. He was not so easily broken up as that came to. If he himself was short, he had friends in Brazil – ay, and in Portsmouth, too – who would soon find him the rhino.”

The speech of this able logician turned the scale and settled the question; and, despite the protestations and entreaties of the slave-captain and one or two others, it was decided that the negroes should be thrown overboard!

A few minutes were now given to a discussion as to the mode of effecting this purpose; and it was finally agreed that the best way would be to remove a single bar from the grating – so that only one of the victims could come up at a time – and then, taking each aft out of sight of the hatchway – so that they might not be seen by the others – to seize one after another and cast them into the sea, whence there would be no fear of their returning. Doubtless many of them could not swim a stroke, and those that could would not swim long, amidst that multitude of voracious sharks that were beating around the barque!

The ruse of thus successively destroying the wretched victims, without making known to their companions below, originated in no ideas of mercy – it was a thought that sprang from simple convenience. The monsters knew that if those below were to get wind of the fate that awaited them above, they would no longer come on deck; and to have gone down amongst them to bring them up would have given trouble, and might have been attended with danger.

It was heartbreaking to listen to the details of their plan, and know that I could neither obstruct nor prevent it. Had I put in my voice, either to appeal or protect the unfortunates, it is likely enough I should have been myself the first morsel given to the sharks. I could do nought but suffer in silence.

Indeed, I am not sure, had it been in my power at that moment to prevent them from carrying out their design, whether it would have been right to interfere. Clearly it would not have served the cause of humanity. A death of some kind was certainly in store for these ill-starred beings – either a slow, lingering death by the torture of thirst, or one more rapid and far less cruel, such as that they were about to undergo. It might have been humanity to leave the ruffians to carry out their intent, and shorten the sufferings of their black victims by the easier death of drowning.

I had such a reflection at the moment, but I had no time to dwell upon it, for just then a rush of men towards the slave-hatchway told me that the monsters were actually on the way to carry out their diabolical purpose!

They were on their way, and would have proceeded in their intent. The carpenter was there with his axe to strike off one of the bars of the grating – he had already given a blow on the batten, another would have been enough – and then the horrid scene would have begun; but at that moment a cry came from the after-part of the vessel that caused the carpenter to suspend his work, and look up in dismay. Those who surrounded him were startled as well as he, and all looked aft with terror painted in their faces. One and all were terrified by that cry, and no wonder they were – it was the cry, of “fire!” The ship was on fire!

Chapter Forty Eight

At this cry all hands rushed toward the after-part of the vessel. I ran with the rest.

On reaching the quarter-deck we found the black cook, “Snowball,” in the hands of the captain and mate, who were beating him with thick ropes, and causing him to “sing out” at the top of his voice. Both were excited and angry – swearing loudly as they struck the blows – and already the man’s back exhibited the keenness of their vengeance.

Some of the sailors – still apprehensive about the cry of fire which they had heard – demanded an explanation, which was immediately given. “Snowball” had gone down to the store-room under the main cabin – for the purpose of drawing brandy from a large cask of this spirit that was kept there. The only access to the store-room was through a small hatch in the floor of the cabin itself; and, as it was bulk-headed off from the rest of the hold, of course the place was quite dark. For this reason the cook had carried with him, as he always did on such occasions, a lighted candle.

It was not clearly explained how he had mismanaged – for the black as well as most of the crew of the Pandora were, ever since the discovery about the water, in a state of half-intoxication. Even at that moment it was evident that both mate and captain were nearly drunk, and gave but half-coherent replies to the eager inquiries of the men – who were still under apprehensions from the cries of fire that summoned them aft.

The accident was afterwards explained by “Snowball” himself. It appeared that the brandy-cask was without a regular tap, or stopcock, and that the cook was in the habit of drawing the liquor through the bung-hole, by means of an ordinary dipper. Somehow or other – of course through the black’s drunken negligence – the burning candle had slipped from his fingers, and dropped right into the bung-hole; and, quick as a flash, the spirit had caught fire, and smoke and flame issued in volumes through the hole.

At first the cook, dreading chastisement, resolved not to make any alarm; but, coming on deck, provided himself as quickly as he could with a bucket of water. With this he returned, and, pouring the water into the cask, endeavoured by such means to stifle the flames. It was all to no purpose – the blue blaze flickered upward as before – each instant becoming stronger, as the brandy itself grew hotter and more of the spirit caught the fire.

It appeared that the cook had made several journeys back and forward from the store-room to the deck, before confessing to what had occurred, or warning any one of the peril in which the vessel was placed.

At length, however, his frequent passing to and fro with the water-bucket attracted the attention of the mate; and then the discovery was made that the brandy was on fire; for the black was now forced to confess the truth.

Then it was that the cry of fire was raised which had called the crew away from their demon purpose.

From the behaviour of the captain and his mate, it might have been supposed that the fire had been extinguished; and, for a time, such was the belief. Surely, before setting on to belabour the culprit as they were doing, they had seen that the fire was out? Such would have been the natural conclusion, and so everyone judged. It soon came out that they judged wrongly. The two officers were half-mad with drink and rage; and, without attempting to get the fire under, they had set upon the black and were expending their anger in blows, while the latter kept howling at the top of his voice, mingling with his cries for mercy the more startling cry of “fire!” It was this that had so suddenly alarmed the crew.

Was the fire out? or was it still burning? These were the questions that passed from mouth to mouth in quick and apprehensive utterance.

As soon as it was ascertained where it had occurred, a rush was made into the cabin – the men crowding together through the entrance, and treading upon one another’s heels in their haste to be assured of the truth and relieved of the terrible suspense – for there is no calamity on board a ship so much dreaded as fire.

The suspense of the Pandora’s crew was not of long duration. It became certainty – a certainty that the fire was not yet extinguished! On entering the cabin, they saw this at a glance. Thick sulphurous smoke was rising through the open hatchway, and the cabin was already filled with it. There must be fire to produce such a smoke, and fire still alive and active – for it was not the smoke of a fire that had been lately extinguished! No; it was still alive – still burning – still spreading and increasing! That was evident to all as soon as they entered the cabin, and saw the smoke issuing up through the hatchway.

But if there remained any doubt on the mind of any one it was soon removed; for, at that moment a loud explosion was heard in the store-room below – like a blank-shot or the bursting of a steam-boiler – and, almost simultaneous with the report, a gush of thick vapour, mingled with blue flame, came rushing up the hatchway.

Chapter Forty Nine

It needed no conjuror to explain that report. Every one knew what it meant. It was caused by the exploding of the strong iron-bound cask – burst open by the gas engendered by the fire within. Of course the spirit was now spilled over the floor of the store-room and everywhere on fire; so that every combustible article within reach – and of these there were many – would soon catch the flame. There were dry barrels of biscuits, and quantities of bacon, hams, with lard, oil, and butter. It was remembered that there was a barrel of pitch, too, close to where the brandy-cask had been kept. All these would catch freely and burn rapidly and readily – especially the barrel of pitch, the head of which was open. It was thought there was no gunpowder for, although there had been a large quantity of coarse blasting-powder aboard, it was part of the original freight, and had all been delivered to King Dingo Bingo in exchange for the slaves. So at least was it supposed at the time, and this hypothesis served a useful purpose – since it enabled the crew to act with more coolness than they would otherwise have done. There is no situation more calculated to destroy presence of mind than to be aboard a ship on fire, and to know that somewhere among the flames there is a barrel of powder.