THE COMMANDER OF THE DHOW.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1612, 21 January 1903, Page 8

THE COMMANDER OF THE DHOW.

(By-Harold Bindloss.)

The events here narrated happened, according to Bos’n Evans, during the time when, because the East Africa Company had their hands over full inland, British gunboats, at a heavy cost to the nation, patrolled that strip 01 the Dark Continent’s unhealthy coast which still owns the Zanzibar Sultan’s suzerainty. They commenced their beat on the western shores of Africa, and when, though the decks were not washed with the river water the merchant seamen drink, their crews grew sim~, steamed south under the clean freshness of the Atlantic, through the great combers off the Cape, and then north by Zanzibar into the haunt of toe malaria once more. There they hunted' Muscat dhows, which, slinking into river mouth and foul lagoon, returned with cargoes of human misery, and sometimes caught them. More often their crews caught fever, but they had their successes, and once a tramp steamer’s bos’n rendered them valuable assistance. ' It was a very hot night when Evans lay in the stern of a boat moored under drooping palm fronds in an East African river. He chewed a black pipe, and dipped his bare feet in the water, while James Smithers, fireman, lately recovered from fever, who had no legitimate business in the boat, warbled plaintive ditties in the bo-ws. Astern, beyond the black palms fringing a lagoon, a half-moon rose redly out of silver haze, and the steamer the boat belonged to lay rolling somewhere outside the smoking shoals which cumbered the entrance to that waterway. Her skipper had gone inland to visit a German factory in this employers’ interest, and while they waited for him the boat’s crew, who, as Smithers said, had not been to sea without learning something, visited a native village in their own, and _ obtained sour palm wine. Evans explained they purchased it with tobacco. “Bet up on them bulrushes ; it hurts my inside,” he said. “Got no ear for music? Well, I can’t stand your kind, and I’ve always got a fist. I’m thinking our noble skipper has forgotten us.” “The old man is a greedy pig.” said someone. “It’s nice and snug he is, a-fillin’ himself with roast fowl, while we gets microbes for supper here. There’s no justice for a pore seaman — “We’ve heard that already,” broke in another man. “Tell us about, them slavers, Evans; you’ve been here before.” ■ .1! : Evans, who demanded the calabash first, was gifted with rather more than the mariner’s usual imagination, and the crew’s eyes glistened as they listened, to tales of dhows loaded deep with white as well as black ivory, prize money, and the finding of jewelled swords The bos’n told them in snatches, halting when he had made a point, and refusing to continue until the calabash was passed him. It went round afterwards, and, when it was empty, he announced, “That’s the end cf the stoiies.

“It’s true they are for once,” commented Smithers. “My brother fires in the navy ,an’ he told me. I could tell you better ones than Evans, an’ do it cheaper. What’s more, them slavers come up here, an’ the gunboat behind the point is layin’ for them.” There were eager queries, and when at last silence settled dow.n, the men glanced half-expectantly at the muddy river. It shimmered like burnished silver, and a hot breeze that set the palm tuf-ts rustling brought across the forest the thunder of the bar. But the boat lay in shadow under the tossing fronds, the filmy stream which strikes the White man down drifting past her. Her crew had suffered from African fever, which blunts the keenness of its victims’ wits, and sometimes destroys their reason. Now, why they lay in the boat’s bottom, with the moisture condensing upon them, their "temperature, as usual at night, rose a little. Suddenly one looking over the gunwale rubbed his dazzled eyes, for a black curve that was not a palm frond towered above the mangroves on the farther hank. It was silhouetted blackly against soft indigo, and he recognised the peak of a latino sail. Thereupon he poured river water on to the sleeping bos’n’s face, but when the latter sa.t up, meditating violence, there was a murmur in the boat, for a curiously shaped hull detached itself from the mangroves, and all could see the river froth against its hows. “Arab craft a-beating down!” somebody whispered hoarsely. “What can she he?”

“A slaver,” said Evans. .“ As sure as I’m a very hard-up sailor. She’ll be off like a witch before the land ' breeze when she rounds that bend. Cboke full of pore niggers, an’ worth hundreds in prize money!” The dhow came on, cleaving the muddy tide that tinkled about her, and staring in dead silence, the watchers could see a black figure perched high at her helm, and hear a wailing from the partly open hold. Then mere was a shout on her deck, followed by a moaning and a heavy thud, and Evans clinched a big fist as he said, “Givm’ some pore nigger his gruel!—the murdering beasts!” The dhow passed to windward of them, listing sharply t-o> the breeze, a daguerrotype’ of ebony sailcloth, straining cordage and inclined hull, with the moon behind her, and as she went by, the-white men sniffed the tnunistakeable bouquet of the kennelled African. She might also have crossed the Indian Ocean with much profit to- the Muscadine, but that a hollow-faced white man, slightly light-headed with fever, cried, “We could nail her before sh*> comes about again, and strike the gunboat’s skinner for something handsome. You heard the nigger squeal them Arabs was torturing? Out oars, and after her.”

It was not wholly philanthropy ana hatred of oppression, though the maligned seaman is a quaintly chivalrous person; neither was it avarice or instinctive love of the chase which prompted five sickly, reckless mariners to hurl the oars into the crutches, but most probably a combination of all these qualities. In any case, there was no time for reflection, and the boat snou forward, with white foam at her bows, as her crew laid back to the sturdy stroke, while the oar looms bout and creaked. From Evans’s description, -- must have been an inspiring sight, four set, white faces flung upwards, with teeth clenched, under the moon at each backward swing., the bulk of the dhow to windward behind them, her decks cumbered with a clamorous, scrambling crew, the rnsh of frothing water and, for all w-ere scantily dressed, the swelling of hard-strained muscles as the dripping blades swept forward with a rattle. Then there was a fresh yell from the dhow, a dead silence in the boat, until, seized with an inspiration as he swayat the helm, Evans cried, “Shout, ye wastrels, shout-!” . . It. was the breathless British cheer which probably decided the dusky skipper, who having seen the gunboat’s cut ters could never have guessed that five irresponsible merchant seamen, with m weapons but their knives, manned Uie boat which raced towards him. At least-, he cried out in panic, a canoe splashed overboard, the dhow’s sail thundered as she lumbered up into the wind, and there was a general exodus over her side, while, when the boat drove crashing against her planking, the canoe was haTf-way across the river, and odd swimmers’ heads dotted the water. The boat’s crew were on board next moment, bloodless victors, and Evans took the helm and command. “Give her her mainsheet while I get way on her,” he shouted, and presently tbe great yard dipped, swung round, _ and the huge curve of latine filled again as it rose It was not done without difficulty, though East and West marine tackles are much the same, and when the hows pointed clear of a point ahead a counsel was held. “If we stop here them fellows may come back, and then Ed sooner be somewhere else,” said Evans “Must have thought the Cormorant’s boat: n**r Majesty’s cutter by the way they bolted. This here vessel means, if you 1 tke to waste your money, oceans of beer, an’ me figurin’ as an African benefactor on some society’s gold-edge paper. So

the sooner we find the gunboat an trade her off the better. Jim Smithers being a useless mule on deck, will go down and give them pore niggers a drink.” , “I’ll be shot if I do,” answered the fireman. “Can’t we lower a bucket? It don’t smell good down there, anct some of them might jump out on me. Who’s been making the bos’n an Admiral lately?” , Evans solemnly cast his ragged cap upon the deck. “I was forgetting something,” lie said. “I confiscate tins vessel for catching slaves, and appoint myself her master until any man can show me a better. Now, tnat’s done m order ; is anybody anxious to start a mutiny?—Then, one cf you drop Smithers through the hatch, and jump after him to see that nobody hurts him. The rest lay to the tackles, and heave the latine flat. The nigger who cut that canvas knowed a little about fore-an - aft sailing.” The land breeze blew fresh and fair when they weathered the bend, and with sheets eased, the liglitly-built vessel drove across the lagoon, shouldering off its muddy waters in wrinkled frotuing folds, while the deep roar of breakers rang louder beyond the ahead. But, though there was moonlight above, all the swamps veio steaming, and when they reeled out towards the bar the laud breeze had streaked the waters with their sour, damp fevermist, so that at intervals the lurching craft drove through a filmy whiteness, which left bare only a contracted circle of tumbling* combers about her. She charged them with dipping bows,, which swam dripping aloft again, rolled as on J a vessel can when punning hard under a -high-peaked sail, and Evans stood at the helm with the cold sweat on his forehead, listening to> the trickle _or water pouring in through every opening seam, and endeavouring to retain command of her.

“She’s a-wandering all over the ocean,” he explained. “I’m not sure of tlie channel, an’ there won’t be much mast left in her if. we jibe that sail. Jump down and see if Smithers an the niggers is swimming yet. Ii once I get thTs museum safe alongside the gunboat I’ll start a tobacco shop, an’ never go back to sea.” _ , Dipping, wallowing, plunging, wasxied clean "by the lukewarm combers of the Indian Ocean, the dhow crossed the bar, and while with slanted deck she still climbed and sank.as she furrowed the steep swell, a voice came out of the haze: “Hillo, heave that craft to and wait until we board you,” it said. “It’s a bluejackets’ cutter, - growled Evans. “They’re wantin’ to rob ns of our lawful rights. Wve rescued these unfortunit savages, » were go n to stick to them tight until I ve „ the gunboat’s commander. b-o youn„ hoy Lootentanfc is a-gomg to say he to Aga'in a voice rang out a ■lop'u’s m n our own way, and don’t want no help ill oui OV, n t to come from anybody. D y° u „ a! Ts S ltlSae^XS.JTnfoi T d geln f s"n in the stern sheets wrth a Wg that started out o^sheer surprise He “ Ji-bore bullet or the Ssh o°f au elephant gun but never an “Wft E » tJs P ” he said “Kve pounds for the first man. on board yonder craft- Before him The dhow ioonicd sheer ing through the mist, the'swell under a bows hove up o -phe oars thrashcurve of towenu» Breeze blew slrong, 6d ’l brfore they reachcTher, lifting one 3& high out y of the fomn. detly belt of base. “There was aNvhite man steering her, sir” said a bewildered bluejacket, wonderin| if his eyes had played him a ffmtStio trick. “Never heard of nothing like this. ’ Are they pirates, sir, or which?” “Madmen, I think,” said his officer. “Anyway, she’s travelling down wind like a steamer, and there’ll be good coal burned before we see any more or her. Swing round smartly; t-iio sooner we’re on Board the better.” The dhow made better weather when she reached the smoother haven of open water and fearing smoking spit and shoal,’ Evans ran clear of the shore before he hauled his wind and stood south it. On the one hand, the Indian Ocean heaved dazzlingly under the moon on the other, drifting steam and a shadowy blurr marked the coast of Africa. The hot air that blew off from it was sour and sickly. Quriosity ana

an eccentric kindliness then prompted the crew to descend among the captives, where the fireman sat on an empty Birmingham-made bucket haranguing the trembling natives. One, who it appeared had served a white trader, freely translated his observations, and before descending his comrades paused to listen.

“It’s free men you are,” he sa>d. “You’ll be took to a place where you’lldo nothin’ for ever, an’ he fed like show pigs, an’ it was all mo as did it. You'll remember your benefactor, James E. Smithers ”

Dropping through the black opening overhead, a comrade alighted upon him heavily, and there was a howl from the amateur philanthropist, after which, when more water had been handed round, the united party proceeded tosearch the vessel for ivory. They did not find any, and returned aft wirli only two trophies, a sword of Eastern steel, with chased silver hilt, and a long-barrelled gun, whose stock was parquetted with ivory. The commander promptly annexed them. “I’ll take tthese, an’ keep them safo for yon/' he said. “Hunt ‘round next an’ "find where they boil the rice an’ yams. We’ll give the sorrowful heathen a decent feed.”

Somebody suggested that each should play the part of Admiral in turn, and the bos’n meanwhile attended to the cooking, hut the speaker kept in the background, for Evans’s fist was known to be heavy, and the rest went aft laughing, to feed the captives, while, when nobody could eat any more, the fireman, sitting beside the hollow of the open waist, sang strange songs to them. At last the sun swang up fiery red out of the sea, the land breeze grew fainter and fainter, and a black smoke .1 rail rose out of the, northern horizon. “That’s the gunboat,” said the bos’n reflectively. “It will make him eager if we let her go as she’s lyin’ an’ give the commander a run for his money. When he comes up you’ll keep your months shut- an’ not spoil things. I’ll - do the talking.’* _ . Half an hour later a little wlutepaint.ed steamer came rolling tluough. the green water as fast as steam and her topsails oould drive her, but the dhow held on, disregarding signals, until blue smoke curled up and a projectile splashed from ridge to ridge before her. Then Evans put his hehn down, and leaned upon it, as wilder a full head o. steam, with gunners at their quarters and red marines in line, the warship swept up to them. With propeller whirling hard astern she forged past, and a hail came down from the officei on her slanting bridge, “Keep your head to the wind until wc board you.” Then there was a gasp of • astonishment from the British naval crew as a dishevelled merchant seaman stood up on the stranger’s poop, answering boldly, “She’s our ship. We found her; but I’m open to let you have her reasonable. "if you come down handsome we’ll keep our mouths shut. She s choke, full of slaves. Can’t pfut it no- plainer, cart I?” • The young commander ground his heels into the bridge planks, for, contrary to all discipline, there was smothered laughter below, after which he said to the man beside him, “I Apologise, Allardice. Those are the maniacs who puzzled you ;• but I couldn't well help thinking you had seen double. Get the cutter over, and make sure of her this time.” Then he raised his voice—“ Hullo, oft*-board dhow! If you get away on her 111 Jive into you.” Twenty minutes later Evans, representing the self-constituted owners of the dhow,, who also, desired to come with him’' bad an interview with the giinfaout’s officers in. lier chart-room. ; but while what passed between them was never made wholly plain, the commander said in conclusion, “It was a plucky venture, as well as a mad one, and I don’t think you’ll be sorry eventually YO u left things to me, Meantime, 111 put you on board your steamer, and on my way back to" explore that- river look for your- skipper. He will probably have-a good deal to say to you. When the gunboat’s pinnace went inland the officer 1 ' in charge of her found the tramp steamer's master , sitting under a palm in a very eviß-temper, and when the lieutenant explained how he had come in search of him, the tunate skipper commented savage y. “I’ve been blistering here twelve mortal hours already without anytlnng to eat, and if you’ll take me hack 111 try to convince the idiots who marooned me they signed on as able seamen, and not as slave-hunters or philanthropists. The skipper kept his word, and several times during the rest of' the voyage Evans regretted he had not confined himself to his lawful business instead of commanding dhows. Although there is no official record of services rendered by a tramp steamer’s bos’n in connection with the capture of a slaver, tho

gunboat’s commander must have sent some token of his gratitude, for Evans’s wife presently set up a little shop, and on their return to England his comrades became mysteriously possessed of more money than * they could have earned at three pounds ten a month. Some used it wisely, and one who did not was set down as a lunatic by a constable, who listened sceptically to the romantic story about slavers and pirates he told him.