OUR NINE-POUNDER.

BY GEORGE H. COOMER.

While I belonged to the whaling bark Hector, cruising in the Gulf of Guinea, and occasionally touching upon the coast, there would now and then come to our knowledge some incident connected with the slave-trade, and more than once our curiosity was excited by the sight of suspicious vessels.

We learned, among other things, that the most notorious craft of the slaver fleet was a Brazilian brig called the Dom Pedro, having a crew of seventy men, with a pivot twenty-four-pounder and four carronades.

Time after time this brig had been chased by the English cruisers, yet always escaped; and it was very evident that she must have poured golden fortunes into the hands of a number of unscrupulous individuals at Rio Janeiro.

Of such matters we often conversed in the forecastle, while the proximity of the African coast tended to vivify our conceptions of the secret and dreadful traffic of which we had heard and read so much.

Among our foremast hands were two colored men, both hailing from the New England sea-port where the bark belonged, and as well known there as the captain himself, although they had originally been slaves at the South. Recognized as "Black Abe" and "Yellow Jack," they ranked with the best of the Hector's crew; able, willing, and full of jollity. The idiom of the plantation still clung to them, but for years they had followed the sea, and each had a wife and family in our village.

It was with a marked abhorrence that the two blacks would advert to the villainous business of the coast, as if dreaming of some possible but very improbable contingency by which they themselves might yet be consigned to the ghastly hold of a slaver. Of course they could entertain no serious apprehension of the kind, yet the passing thought was natural; and more than once, under the shadow of some sultry African headland, or in view of a vessel of mysterious character, the simple fellows were teased by their white shipmates with good-natured jokes in this direction.

But how little did any of the bark's company imagine the episode which was in reality at hand!

The Hector having made a somewhat fortunate cruise wanted at length but one or two whales. In quest of these she ran up the Bight of Benin; and here, close in with the coast, we presently raised a large school.

Our three boats were lowered, and we commenced a long and weary chase, the wildness of the game making it almost impossible to arrive within striking distance.

The general direction of the pursuit being to windward, the bark could follow us only by short tacks, so that, after a time, her topmasts alone were visible above the horizon; and at sunset, the atmosphere having become somewhat hazy, she was wholly out of sight. Nor from the mate's boat, in which I was, could we discern either of the two others, so widely had the chase scattered the three consorts.

About five miles off, however, was a vessel of some kind, nearly or quite becalmed, which might be a merchantman, a whaler, a man-of-war, or perhaps something of more questionable character.

"I guess," said Mr. Gale, the mate, "that the old man and Mr. Orne have pulled back to the bark. At all events, we may as well give it up first as last, for it's—"

"There she blows!" called Yellow Jack, looking off to starboard. And "There she blows!" said Black Abe, as a second spout ascended, close to the first; for the two colored men were both of our boat's crew.

The whales, three in number, which had come to the surface not a quarter of a mile off, may have made a portion of the dispersed school we had pursued. This time they appeared unsuspicious, and we approached very near them. Our oars had been laid aside, and we had taken silently to our paddles, all of us standing carefully up, and each plying his noiseless implement.

Suddenly there was a rushing sound close beside us, a cataract of water tumbled against the boat, and a fourth whale, shooting his square head twenty feet high, "breached," as the sailors call the movement, not ten yards from our gunwale. Impelled toward us by his momentum, he fell with his under-jaw just grazing the side of our poor little craft.

Confused, or, as whalemen call it, "galleyed," by the accident of his position, the monster, instead of turning away from us, started straight on, overturning and crushing the boat, and leaving us in the water, his three hitherto motionless companions gliding off almost as rapidly as himself.

It was one of those accidents to which whalemen are always liable, and which no watchfulness can avert.

Six in number, we clung to the wreck of the boat, confident that the Hector would pick us up in the morning, should not the unknown vessel, which was still in sight, anticipate her in so doing.

As it grew dark, however, the stranger, who seemed to have scarcely any wind, and so but very gradually neared us, was lost to view. Presently a very faint concussion broke the evening air, and we knew that the Hector, perhaps some twelve or fifteen miles off, had fired her nine-pounder to make us aware of her position. Probably Captain Phillips, our commander, and Mr. Orne, the second mate, had long since returned to the vessel, where our own absence must cause some anxiety.

Twice after this during the night the signal was repeated. At length the day broke, and not more than a mile off we saw the becalmed stranger of the previous evening, with a light breeze just beginning to fill his sails.

As he came up within a cable's length of us, we were surprised at the number of his crew; and it was with a kind of startled curiosity that, as his vessel—a large, rakish, full-rigged brig—rolled lazily in the groundswell, we caught glimpses of a heavy cannon mounted amidships on her deck, so high that it could be fired over her low bulwarks.

She might have run directly for us, and taken us on board by means of lines, but her captain preferred rather to lower a boat. None of us liked the appearance of things, and all glanced instinctively at Black Abe and Yellow Jack.

From the mingled tongues upon the brig's deck, in several of which we were hailed, we judged her crew to be composed chiefly of Spaniards and Portuguese, with a sprinkling of English or Americans.

The boat was manned with armed sailors, and as she came up to us, one of her hands, who acted as spokesman in English for the others, commanded Jack and Abe to get on board of her. The poor terrified fellows refused; but the ruffians pricked them with their bayonets, and threatened them with instant death in case of further hesitation.

"We want nothing of the rest of you," said the hard-featured villain who had first spoken; "your ship will pick you up by-and-by, and we can't be bothered with saving a parcel of blubber-hunters; but we take wool and ivory wherever we can find them."

The feeble resistance of the two colored men was speedily overcome, and, wounded and bleeding, they were dragged into the boat, Mr. Gale and the rest of us expostulating vainly as we lay helpless on the floating boards.

Poor Abe! poor Jack! we saw them forced up the gangway of the sharp, saucy brig, and driven upon her deck. It was a spectacle at which Mr. Gale shed tears of grief and rage, while the indignation of his remaining crew equalled his own. We thought of the families of the kidnapped men—the simple wives and the little dark children who would be looking for the two stout colored tars when the Hector should get home.

"That brig," said the mate, "I think, is the Dom Pedro. I would rather have lost all I shall make on this voyage than have had such a thing happen. The miserable, cowardly villains!"

A few hours later a boat from the Hector picked us up; but when we reached our vessel, the slaver was out of sight. With a freshening breeze, she had stood along the coast, the tall tree-tops of which were barely discernible from aloft, and would doubtless enter some neighboring inlet or river's mouth, where her living freight might be in waiting.

For three days on board the Hector little was talked of but our two hapless shipmates and their wretched fate. In the mean while, however, remaining upon the same cruising ground, we secured the amount of oil required to fill the vessel.

The last of our blubber was boiled out in the night; and at daybreak next morning we heard the report of guns, as if some vessel were pursued and fired upon by another.

As the sky lighted up, we made out a brig under full sail, standing directly toward us, and presently saw that she was chased by a ship. The firing, however, had now ceased; probably from the fact that the fugitive had widened the distance between herself and her pursuer. We were standing easily along under short sail, and the two strangers were rapidly coming up astern of us, each crowding all his canvas in the exciting trial of speed.

"That's the villain," cried Mr. Gale, looking steadily through his glass—"the very scoundrel that stole my men. But he'll get away, after all. That British sloop of war can't sail with him—he's run her out of gunshot already!"

All who had been in the mate's boat saw that the coming brig was indeed the kidnapper of poor Jack and Abe. Her low black hull and symmetrical spars were not to be mistaken.

Again the pursuing ship essayed two or three shots from her bow guns, but the distance was evidently too great, and once more she ceased firing. There could be no doubt that the piratical slaver would escape her, and the excitement and chagrin of our own crew became intense.

The fleeing vessel passed within a furlong of us, and was soon ahead. What a tempting mark she presented, with those long and tapering yards and jaunty topmasts!

Captain Phillips was a man of quick impulses and determined resolution. The scoundrels who had insulted him by stealing his men were close under his eyes, and almost within pistol-shot. The ship of war in chase could not cripple the brig by her distant fire. He glanced about the Hector's decks, and a bare possibility suggested itself.

"Get ready that nine-pounder!" he cried. "Mr. Orne, have up the powder. You'll find three or four cannon-balls down there too. And now bear a hand, for there's no time to lose."

Mr. Orne, taking with him a couple of the crew, ran below, and five minutes later, the long nine—an old but somewhat handsome gun—stood grimly ready for action, having within it a heavy charge of powder and two well-fitting balls.

The Hector's course was altered for the occasion, so that the gun could be brought to bear on the brig from what is called a "swing port," and then all save the captain stepped back while he arranged his aim.

"When I give the word," he said to Mr. Gale, who held the match, "don't lose a fraction of an instant—let her go at once."

How keenly he squinted along that trusty old gun! How carefully he raised or depressed its breech! Now it was an inch too high, now an inch too low.

"Ah! there! there!" he muttered; "no!—yes!—that's it!—just a little!—just a frac— Let her go!"

The gun almost parted its breech tackles with the recoil, as the charge burst from the muzzle, tearing our nerves with its noise.

"I haven't hit her!" cried the captain, springing to the side, and gazing almost wildly at the brig—"haven't touched her. Load up again! Where's your powder? Load up, load up!"

"Hold on, sir!" exclaimed Mr. Gale. "Look! look! What's the matter with her foretopmast? It's going, sir—it's going."

As he spoke, the foretopmast of the slaver leaned heavily to leeward; then, like a falling tree by a river's brink, went swashing into the water.

The game was up with the fast-sailing brig. Confounded by the disaster, her crew attempted no revenge upon us, as they might have done, with their pivot cannon; and in less than half an hour the Dom Pedro, as she proved to be, was a prize to the pursuing sloop of war. Both our nine-pound balls had taken effect aloft.

It was found that the Brazilian brig had on board no less than five hundred slaves, among whom, to our great joy, were discovered Black Abe and Yellow Jack. The captain of the British cruiser delivered over to us our two shipmates; while with the rest of the blacks, the prisoners, and the prize, he prepared to bear away for Sierra Leone, where the wretched Africans would once more breathe the air of freedom.

How happy were Abe and Jack! How they laughed and cried, danced and wept! And oh! the tales they told us of the miserable slave brig!

In two months thereafter we arrived home with a full ship; and when the Hector had been hauled in at the pier head, it did us all good to see four little colored children, followed by their mothers, come running down to the water-side to be folded in the arms of the warm-hearted fellows who so short a time before must utterly have despaired of such a meeting.

"Dar's de ole gun dat saved us," said Abe, to his little family, indicating the nine-pounder.

"An' dar's de man dat aimed it," responded Jack, with a grateful look toward Captain Phillips.

And so they went up the wharf.