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Updated: May 29, 2025
Disgusting as was the sight, I was glad to see it, for I felt that men in their condition would never notice the absence of Simpson or myself from the brigantine, still less that of the unaccustomed faces of those of the Bangalore's crew who had joined me and were now snugly concealed aloft.
When a few fathoms away from the brigantine, however, where in the darkness our movements were not likely to attract a too curious attention, first one oar and then another was laid in until all had been laid in but one; and this one we shifted aft, sculling the boat with it not to the Bangalore's larboard gangway, at which the other boats were working, but under the ship's stern and to her starboard mizen channels, where we made her fast, and cautiously scrambled up on to the poop, one by one.
The men on board the Francesca, woke up a little at Jose's order, and soon had the last boat unloaded and the decks clear; the slaves were then ordered on deck, the Bangalore's boats cast adrift, the sweeps rigged out, and, with I think the most fervent emotion of gratitude and delight that I had ever experienced, I at length had the satisfaction of seeing the brigantine stir sluggishly against the background of the star-spangled heavens, turn her bows slightly away from us, and finally glide off, with a quiet, gentle, scarcely-perceptible motion, in a westerly direction.
At this moment Simpson rejoined me, bringing with him three more of the Bangalore's crew; and while I was talking to them the other two men those whom Simpson had previously discovered came forward from the hatchway, where they had been lending a hand to strike the booty down into the hold, and informed me that they had found and spoken to eight of their shipmates, at work at the gangway and hatchway, all of whom were quite ready and more than willing to join me at any moment when the signal should be given.
To release the pair was but the work of a moment; after which, having directed the doctor to hasten to the cuddy and attend to the colonel's injuries, I made a survey of the decks with the result that fourteen more of the Bangalore's crew were found, of whom six were dead, and eight more or less seriously wounded; the latter were removed to their bunks in the forecastle forthwith and attended to by Mr Grant, the surgeon, as soon as he had dressed the wounds of Colonel Maynard and two other passengers.
Mendouca must have felt himself a second Kidd, for the ship was almost as rich a prize as one of the old Acapulco galleons; there were bales of rich silks and shawls, spices, caskets of gems, ingots of gold, exquisite embroidered muslins, and I know not what beside goods of a value sufficient, it seemed to me, to make every rascal on the books of the Francesca rich for the remainder of his life, although they were of course unable to take more than a comparatively small quantity of the Bangalore's entire cargo.
Mendouca, I must mention, had already compelled the Bangalore's surgeon to dress his wound for him; and now, having given his orders to one of the men whom he considered the most reliable and trustworthy of his crew, he returned to the Francesca, and, with the aid of his son Pedro, was got into his bunk, where I could hear him from time to time grinding his teeth in agony, although, such was the spirit of the man, not a groan would he permit to escape him.
A little further inquiry elicited the information that our party now comprised all the survivors of the Bangalore's crew who had, so to speak, made a virtue of necessity and shipped under Mendouca in order to save their lives; there being four others who had shipped willingly, and whom it had, therefore, been deemed inexpedient to approach with a proposal to join us, lest, in their zeal for their new chief, they should refuse and betray us all.
The sun had set, and the velvet dusk of the tropics was closing down upon the scene, when at length the Bangalore's boats were hoisted out, and the work of transhipping the booty began.
Our arrangements, therefore, were soon made; and this done, we sauntered away to the hatchway, singly and by twos at a time, and began to lend a hand in getting the plunder out of the boats and sending it below. Presently the Bangalore's long-boat came alongside, loaded down to the gunwale with booty, and manned by half-a-dozen Spaniards who were so drunk that they could scarcely stand.
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