Ran Away to Sea by Mayne Reid

Author:Mayne Reid [Reid, Mayne]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Africa -- Juvenile fiction, Voyages and travels -- Juvenile fiction, Seafaring life -- Juvenile fiction, Sailors -- Juvenile fiction, Ships -- Juvenile fiction, Slave trade -- Juvenile fiction
Publisher: MOST Publishing
Published: 2007-12-12T16:00:00+00:00

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Chapter Thirty One.

The Pandora was now rapidly made ready for her voyage across the Atlantic. The carpenter had finished his bulkheads and hatch-gratings, and the men were daily engaged in emptying the salt-water out of the casks and refilling them with fresh—a somewhat slow and troublesome job.

While these preparations were going on, a messenger arrived at the factory of King Dingo Bingo, who brought with him a report that put his majesty into the most terrible state of uneasiness and alarm, and also produced a very similar effect upon the skipper of the Pandora.

The messenger, or messengers—for there were three of them—were negroes, of course. They were of the kind known as Kroomen; that is, a class of negroes found along most parts of the western coast of Africa, who are greatly addicted to the sea, and make excellent sailors when so employed. They are, in fact, the “boatmen” of the African coast, or “watermen,” if you prefer it, but not unfrequently they ship for a long voyage; and many vessels in the African trade are accustomed, when short of hands, to make up their crew from among these Kroomen.

Three of these Kroomen, then, had suddenly made their appearance in the river, with a report that spread consternation among the people of King Dingo Bingo and those of the Pandora.

What was this report?

It was that a British cruiser had called in at a station some fifty miles farther up the coast, and reported that she had been in chase of a large slave barque—that she had lost sight of the latter out at sea, but was still in search of her, and expected to find her to the south—that the cruiser only stopped at the above-mentioned port to take in water, and, as soon as that was accomplished, she should come down the coast and search every nook and inlet to find the slaver.

Most of this information had been given confidentially to the chief factor of the port, an Englishman, whose business lay in palm-oil, ground-nuts, ivory, and other African products, and who was not supposed to have any connection whatever with the slave-trade. On the contrary, he was one of those who lent his aid to its suppression: giving every assistance to the slave-cruisers, and being on terms of friendship and intimacy with their commanders.

But for all that, this comfortable John Bull was suspected—not by the aforesaid commanders, however—of having very amicable relations with his majesty King Dingo Bingo—so amicable that there were those who hinted at a sort of partnership existing between them!

Be that as it may, it is certain that the Englishman had sent the three Kroomen to warn King Dingo Bingo of his danger—for there was no secret made of this fact on board the Pandora. The Kroomen had ventured round the coast in a small sail-boat, and entered by the mouth of the river, having performed most part of the dangerous voyage in the night.

Their report, as I have said, produced consternation on all hands.

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