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Updated: May 16, 2025
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.
Of course, after my possibly foolhardy threat there was but one thing to do, and I did it forthwith, hitting out with my whole strength, catching the boatswain fair between the eyes, and rolling him over like a ninepin. "Ha, ha! well hit!" exclaimed Mendouca, laughing heartily at the sight of the boatswain as he reeled and fell under the feet of the negroes.
"If that craft's spars and rigging happen to be good she will turn the turtle with them, and probably not one of them will escape!" "It is a just punishment upon them for rising against the crew," exclaimed Mendouca savagely; "but if I had only succeeded in laying hands upon them I would have inflicted a worse punishment upon them than drowning. I would have ah! look at that!
Mendouca laid down the telescope, walked to the binnacle, and peered intently for a moment at the compass. "Keep her way two points more to the southward," he ordered the helmsman.
I have said that the morning was brilliantly fine, and so it was; but I had noticed even when I first went on deck, that there was a certain pallor and haziness in the blue of the sky, the appearance of which I did not altogether like; and when after breakfast we went on deck Mendouca with his sextant in his hand, for the purpose of finding the ship's longitude our first glance aloft showed us that a large halo had gathered round the sun, and certain clouds that had risen above the horizon were carrying windgalls in their skirts.
"A boat!" exclaimed Mendouca anxiously, when the man had told what he had seen. "Are you quite sure?" "As sure as I am that I am now standing here speaking to you, senor," answered the man, in a tone of conviction. "Jose saw it also.
"You may take your oath that Captain Mendouca won't run the risk of leavin' her afloat to be picked up and took into port, where her passengers could tell what tales they liked about him and his doin's. She'll be scuttled, sir, and left to go down with all them passengers in her, the same as that unfortunit' Portugee brig was that we took the slaves out of.
I was more anxious on my own behalf than on that of the others, for their absence was scarcely likely to be noted by their drunken comrades until the next morning, while, as for me, should Mendouca take it into his head to require my presence, it would no sooner be reported to him that I was not to be found than he would have a very shrewd suspicion of what had happened; and I felt convinced that, with my knowledge of the enormities that he had perpetrated on that dreadful day, he would never willingly suffer me to escape from him alive.
Mendouca made it a rule to vary the diet of the slaves as much as possible on these three articles, one or the other of which was given every third day, he having found that the poor wretches thus thrived better, and took their food with more enjoyment than when fed during the entire voyage upon one kind of food only; and whenever the weather was sufficiently moderate to permit of it, he always had one-half of the slaves on deck for an airing during the time that the other half were being fed below, thus allowing room for the men who dispensed the food and water to move about, and also for the slaves to use their hands in the process of feeding; and on the particular morning of which I am now writing it was unspeakably moving and pathetic to note, as I did, the feverish eagerness and longing with which the unhappy creatures waited and watched for the arrival of the moment when they might come on deck and breathe for a few brief minutes the pure and to them cool and refreshing outer atmosphere.
"In the first place, the brigantine is named the Francesca after my mother; she hails from Havana; and is commanded by my father, Don Fernando de Mendouca; and you were brought here by him, when he found you lying apparently dead upon the deck of the Requin after your people had been driven off and compelled to beat a retreat." "What?" I exclaimed. "Driven off? Compelled to retreat?"
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