Black Ivory - Robert Michael Ballantyne (web ebook reader TXT) 📗

In writing this book, my aim has been to give a true picture in outline of the Slave Trade as it exists at the present time on the east coast of Africa.

In order to do this I have selected from the most trustworthy sources what I believe to be the most telling points of "the trade," and have woven these together into a tale, the warp of which is composed of thick cords of fact; the woof of slight lines of fiction, just sufficient to hold the fabric together. Exaggeration has easily been avoided, because--as Dr Livingstone says in regard to the slave-trade--"exaggeration is impossible."

If the reader's taste should be offended by finding the tragic and comic elements in too close proximity I trust that he will bear in remembrance that "such is life," and that the writer who would be true to life must follow, not lead, nature.

I have to acknowledge myself indebted to Dr Ryan, late Bishop of Mauritius; to the Rev. Charles New, interpreter to the Livingstone Search Expedition; to Edward Hutchinson, Esquire, Lay Secretary to the Church Missionary Society, and others, for kindly furnishing me with information in connexion with the slave trade.

Besides examining the Parliamentary Blue-books which treat of this subject, I have read or consulted, among others, the various authoritative works to which reference is made in the foot-notes sprinkled throughout this book,--all of which works bear the strongest possible testimony to the fact that the horrible traffic in human beings is in all respects as bad at the present time on the east coast of Africa as it ever was on the west coast in the days of Wilberforce.

I began my tale in the hope that I might produce something to interest the young (perchance, also, the old) in a most momentous cause,--the total abolition of the African slave-trade. I close it with the prayer that God may make it a tooth in the file which shall eventually cut the chains of slavery, and set the black man free.

R.M. Ballantyne.

1873


CHAPTER ONE.


SHOWS THAT A GOOD BEGINNING MAY SOMETIMES BE FOLLOWED BY A BAD ENDING.

"Six feet water in the hold, sir!"

That would not have been a pleasant announcement to the captain of the `Aurora' at any time, but its unpleasantness was vastly increased by the fact that it greeted him near the termination of what had been, up to that point of time, an exceedingly prosperous voyage.

"Are you sure, Davis?" asked the captain; "try again."

He gave the order under the influence of that feeling which is styled "hoping against hope," and himself accompanied the ship's carpenter to see it obeyed.

"Six feet two inches," was the result of this investigation.

The vessel, a large English brig, had sprung a leak, and was rolling heavily in a somewhat rough sea off the east coast of Africa. It was no consolation to her captain that the shores of the great continent were visible on his lee, because a tremendous surf roared along the whole line of coast, threatening destruction to any vessel that should venture to approach, and there was no harbour of refuge nigh.

"She's sinking fast, Mr Seadrift," said the captain to a stout frank-looking youth of about twenty summers, who leant against the bulwarks and gazed wistfully at the land; "the carpenter cannot find the leak, and the rate at which the water is rising shows that she cannot float long."

"What then do you propose to do?" inquired young Seadrift, with a troubled expression of countenance.

"Abandon her," replied the captain.

"Well, _you_ may do so, captain, but I shall not forsake my father's ship as long as she can float. Why not beach her somewhere on the coast? By so doing we might save part of the cargo, and, at all events, shall have done the utmost that lay in our power."

"Look at the coast," returned the captain; "where would you beach her? No doubt there is smooth water inside the reef, but the channels through it, if there be any here, are so narrow that it would be almost certain death to make the attempt."

The youth turned away without replying. He was sorely perplexed. Just before leaving England his father had said to him, "Harold, my boy, here's your chance for paying a visit to the land you've read and talked so much about, and wished so often to travel through. I have chartered a brig, and shall send her out to Zanzibar with a cargo of beads, cotton cloth, brass wire, and such like: what say you to go as supercargo? Of course you won't be able to follow in the steps of Livingstone or Mungo Park, but while the brig is at Zanzibar you will have an opportunity of running across the channel, the island being only a few miles from the main, and having a short run up-country to see the niggers, and perchance have a slap at a hippopotamus. I'll line your pockets, so that you won't lack the sinews of war, without which travel either at home or abroad is but sorry work, and I shall only expect you to give a good account of ship and cargo on your return.--Come, is it fixed?"

Need we say that Harold leaped joyfully at the proposal? And now, here he was, called on to abandon the `Aurora' to her fate, as we have said, near the end of a prosperous voyage. No wonder that he was perplexed.

The crew were fully aware of the state of matters. By the captain's orders they stood ready to lower the two largest boats, into which they had put much of their worldly goods and provisions as they could hold with safety.

"Port, port your helm," said the captain to the man at the wheel.

"Port it is, sir," replied the man at the wheel, who was one of those broad-shouldered, big-chested, loose-garmented, wide-trousered, bare-necked, free-and-easy, off-hand jovial tars who have done so much, in years gone by, to increase the wealth and prosperity of the British Empire, and who, although confessedly scarce, are considerately allowed to perish in hundreds annually on our shores for want of a little reasonable legislation. But cheer up, ye jolly tars! There is a glimmer of sunrise on your political horizon. It really does seem as if, in regard to you, there were at last "a good time coming."

"Port, port," repeated the captain, with a glance at the compass and the sky.

"Port it is, sir," again replied the jovial one.

"Steady! Lower away the boat, lads.--Now, Mr Seadrift," said the captain, turning with an air of decision to the young supercargo, "the time has come for you to make up your mind. The water is rising in the hold, and the ship is, as you see, settling fast down. I need not say to you that it is with the utmost regret I find it necessary to abandon her; but self-preservation and the duty I owe to my men render the step absolutely necessary. Do you intend to go with us?"

"No, captain, I don't," replied Harold Seadrift firmly. "I do not blame you for consulting your own safety, and doing what you believe to be your duty, but I have already said that I shall stick by the ship as long as she can float."

"Well, sir, I regret it but you must do as you think best," replied the captain, turning away--"Now, lads, jump in."

The men obeyed, but several of those who were last to quit the ship looked back and called to the free-and-easy man who still stood at the wheel--"Come along, Disco; we'll have to shove off directly."

"Shove off w'en you please," replied the man at the wheel, in a deep rich voice, whose tones were indicative of a sort of good-humoured contempt; "wot I means for to do is to stop where I am. It'll never be said of Disco Lillihammer that he forsook the owner's son in distress."

"But you'll go to the bottom, man, if you don't come."

"Well, wot if I do? I'd raither go to the bottom with a brave man, than remain at the top with a set o' fine fellers like _you_!"

Some of the men received this reply with a laugh, others frowned, and a few swore, while some of them looked regretfully at their self-willed shipmate; for it must not be supposed that _all_ the tars who float upon the sea are of the bold, candid, open-handed type, though we really believe that a large proportion of them are so.

Be this as it may, the boats left the brig, and were soon far astern.

"Thank you, Lillihammer," said Harold, going up and grasping the horny hand of the self-sacrificing sea-dog. "This is very kind of you, though I fear it may cost you your life. But it is too late to talk of that; we must fix on some plan, and act at once."

"The werry thing, sir," said Disco quietly, "that wos runnin' in my own mind, 'cos it's werry clear that we hain't got too many minits to spare in confabilation."

"Well, what do you suggest?"

"Arter you, sir," said Disco, pulling his forelock; "you are capting now, an' ought to give orders."

"Then I think the best thing we can do," rejoined Harold, "is to make straight for the shore, search for an opening in the reef, run through, and beach the vessel on the sand. What say you?"

"As there's nothin' else left for us to do," replied Disco, "that's 'zactly wot I think too, an' the sooner we does it the better."

"Down with the helm, then," cried Harold, springing forward, "and I'll ease off the sheets."

In a few minutes the `Aurora' was surging before a stiff breeze towards the line of foam which indicated the outlying reef, and inside of which all was comparatively calm.

"If we only manage to get inside," said Harold, "we shall do well."

Disco made no reply. His whole attention was given to steering the brig, and running his eyes anxiously along the breakers, the sound of which increased to a thunderous roar as they drew near.

"There seems something like a channel yonder," said Harold, pointing anxiously to a particular spot in the reef.

"I see it, sir," was the curt reply.

A few minutes more of suspense, and the brig drove into the supposed channel, and struck with such violence that the foremast snapped off near the deck, and went over the side.

"God help us, we're lost!" exclaimed Harold, as a towering wave lifted the vessel up and hurled her like a plaything on the rocks.

"Stand by to jump, sir," cried Disco. Another breaker came roaring in at the moment, overwhelmed the brig, rolled her over on her beam-ends, and swept the two men out of her. They struggled gallantly to free themselves from the wreck, and, succeeding with difficulty, swam across the sheltered water to the shore, on which they finally landed.

Harold's first exclamation was one of thankfulness for their deliverance, to which Disco replied with a hearty "Amen!" and then turning round and surveying the coast, while