Sketches From My Life

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to ask my captain to again send me away with a force similar to that which I had under me before (with percussion caps this time), and allow me to station myself some fifty miles further down the coast. My request was granted, and away I went. This time, instead of

three mornings after my arrival, I discovered a sail on the very far horizon; a vessel evidently bound to the immediate neighbourhood I had chosen as my look-out place. The winds were baffling and light, as usual in the morning in these latitudes, where, however, there is always a sea-breeze in the afternoon. So, being in no hurry, I sauntered about the

ere within five yards, I pulled the trigger. The gun missed fire with the first barrel. The second barrel luckily went off, scattering the brains of the nearest dog, the whole charge having entered his mouth, and gone through the palate into his brain. This occurrence seemed to check the advance of the second brute, who, while hesi

ight in for the very spot where I had been concealed. Signal after signal was made to her by her friends on the shore, in the shape of lighted fires (not much avail in the daytime) and the hoisting of

snapped some of her lighter spars, thus throwing everything into confusion-confusion made worse by the fact that, with the view of immediate landing, two hundred or three hun

e said: 'If I had seen you five minutes before you would never have taken me. Now I am ruined.' I consoled him as well as I could and treated him well, as he really seemed half a gentleman, if not entirely one. I found about six hundred slaves, men and women and children, on board this vessel, who as they had made a very rapid an

icer in command of this vessel was of senior rank to my commander, he naturally took upon himself to organise another boat expedition, placing one of his own officers in command. With this

e shore with a fresh breeze. Our boats were painted like fishing boats, and our men disguised as fishermen, as usual; so, apparently occupied with our pretended business, we gradually approached the slave-vessel. My orders were strictly to follow the movements or action of my superior. Then I witnessed a gallant act, such as I have not seen surpassed during forty years of active service that I have gone through since that time. Lieutenant A.C., who was in the leading boat, a large twelve-oared cutter, edged pretty near to the advancing vessel, and when quite close under her bows one man seemed to me to spring like a chamois on board. I saw the boat from which the man jumped make an ineffectual attempt to get alongside the vessel, that was going at the rate of six miles an hour, and then drop astern. I h

going through the water. What he did was a glorious piece of pluck, that in these days would have been rewarded with the Victoria Cross as the least recompense they could have given to so gallant an officer. Poor fellow! all the reward he got, beyond the intense admiration of those who saw him, was a bad attack of

ho was alone on board the slaver. The reader will have seen that our business was boarding and fighting our enemy hand to hand. As I was making a jump on board I saw the white of the eye of a great black man turned on me; he brandished a huge axe, which I had a sort of presentiment was intended for me. I sprang as it were straight at my destiny, for as I grasped the gunnel down came