Rough Passage to London(87)

“William Blackwood, Shipmaster, Charon.”

“Mr. Lowery, ask this man how this container came into his possession.”

The man’s eyes were now wide with fright. He began to speak in the singsong tonalities of the Igbo language. Lowery translated.

“Captain, he said he found it in the room on the big ship, the prison ship, he calls it, in a room with the big sleeping bed. He said he found it after all the white men fled the ship. I think he means the captain’s cabin, sir. He thinks it will give him power like the white man who owned it.”

Morgan was silent as he turned to look southward toward the horizon. It was as if he somehow expected to see the longboats that had carried Blackwood from the sinking slave ship. He took in a deep breath and pulled out one of his cigars. He thought of Hiram and he became remorseful. Then his thoughts turned to Abraham and he felt a rising tide of anger sweep over him. Ever so softly he murmured to himself, “I will find you, Abraham. I will find you. At the very least, I will find out what that man did to you.”





One day later, it was Ochoa who spotted a sail on the horizon.

“Where?” asked Morgan anxiously as he held the spyglass up to his eyes.

“A estribor, Capitán. Todavía lejos.”

The first mate soon spotted the tiny white sail to starboard. It was nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

“On the starboard beam, sir. She’s got her hull down, Cap’n.”

“How’s she headed?” Morgan asked.

“The same course as us, northeast.”

“How far away?”

“Maybe ten miles, but she’s moving up quickly.”

What concerned Morgan the most in these waters was that the pursuing ship could be a British Royal Navy gunship. The British had been increasing their patrols off the West African coast in search of slaving ships ever since the Emancipation Act was approved by royal decree. He had heard of several cases where English warships had seized American merchant ships and their legitimate cargoes off the African coast. The British Navy claimed “right of search” and “right of seizure” even though the Americans didn’t recognize these rights. He watched through his spyglass as the distant ship tacked once to get to the weather side of the packet and then to resume her line of pursuit. She was still miles away, but a sailor’s instinct told Morgan this ship was coming up too fast to be another merchant ship.

“Mr. Nyles, I trust the necessary repairs have been made.”

“Yes sir, Cap’n. What do you propose, Cap’n?” asked the first mate anxiously.

“We’ll wait and see if he can outsail us. Make ready the topgallant staysails as well as the jigger topmast staysail and the jigger topgallant staysail.”

Sail after sail was raised as Morgan tried to boost his ship’s speed by as much as a knot. He was taking a risk as the rigging had been severely strained by the storm. He could tell that despite the extra sails, the pursuing ship was gaining ground. He climbed up into the rigging with the spyglass and looked at the triangular sails that were headed his way. An unusual ship, he thought to himself, with the elegant look of a French corvette. She had three masts and lateen-style sails that rose to the highest point, and she appeared to be moving along to windward as fast or faster than a Baltimore clipper. He turned to Mr. Nyles.

“Whoever that is, he’ll be on top of us soon enough, and I warrant it’s not a merchant ship.”

The breeze was still relatively mild and Morgan called for more sail. He looked through his spyglass and gulped as he spotted the British colors flying off the mizzen sail.

“That’s a British sloop of war, Mr. Nyles.”

“Yes, sir,” Nyles replied. “Lately the British navy ships seem to have a particular fondness for anything flying the stars and stripes, no matter what the cargo.”

Morgan looked again through the spyglass, admiring the ship’s sleek hull steadily carving her way to windward.

“What kind of sloop of war is that, Mr. Nyles? I don’t recognize it.”

“I reckon that’s one of the Royal Navy’s experimental fore and aft rigs. They call it a ballyhoo. They were named after the garfish in the West Indies, hard to spot and hard to catch. Well named I would say.”

Morgan had never heard of these ships.

The three-masted sloop of war was coming up fast, heeled over sharply, the lee rail buried and the spray flying over the windward rail. He could now see that she was reasonably well armed. There was one long gun on a pivot in the ship’s bow, from the looks of it a long-barreled nine pounder. He could see the shiny epaulettes on either shoulder of the captain’s blue coat glittering in the morning sun. On the sides and the bow of the ship he saw the dull glare of the black cast-iron carronades mounted on slides fixed to the deck. From the looks of them, he thought there could be as many as six twelve pounders. Mr. Nyles had made the same observation. Suddenly a puff of white smoke emerged from the port bow off the British warship, followed quickly by a boom of cannon and then a splash of water one hundred yards in front of them.