Page:The History of Slavery and the Slave Trade.djvu/353

 way, by breaking the suspected officer, and sending him forward at the same time that I threw his 'dog-house' overboard.

"I was now Without a reliable officer, and was obliged to call two of the youngest sailors to my assistance in navigating the schooner. I knew the cook and steward — both of whom messed aft — to lie trustworthy; so that, with four men at my back, and the blacks below, I felt competent to control my vessel. From that moment, I suffered no one to approach the quarter-deck nearer than the mainmast.

"It was a sweet afternoon when we were floating along the shores of Porto Rico, tracking our course upon the chart. Suddenly, one of my new assistants approached, with the sociability common among Spaniards, and, in a quiet tone, asked whether I would take a cigarillo. As I never smoked, I rejected the offer with thanks, when the youth immediately dropped the twisted paper on my map. In an instant, I perceived the ruse, and discovered that the cigarillo was, in fact, a billet rolled to resemble one. I put it in my mouth, and walked aft until I could throw myself on the deck, with my head over the stern, so as to open the paper unseen. It disclosed the organization of a mutiny, under the lead of the broken mate. Our arrival in sight of St. Domingo was to be the signal of its rupture, and for my immediate landing on the island. Six of the crew were implicated with the villain, and the boatswain, who was ill in the slave-hospital, was to share my fate.

"My resolution was promptly made. In a few minutes, I had cast a hasty glance into the arm-chest, and seen that our weapons were in order. Then, mustering ten of the stoutest and cleverest of my negroes on the quarter-deck, I took the liberty to invent a little strategic fib, and told them, in the Soosoo dialect, that there were bad men on board, who wanted to run the schooner ashore among the rocks and drown the slaves while below. At the same time, I gave each a cutlass from the arm-chest, and supplying my trusty whites with a couple of pistols and a knife a-piece, without saying a word, I seized the ringleader and his colleagues! Irons and double-irons secured the party to the mainmast or deck, while a drum-head court-martial, composed of the officers, and presided over by myself, arraigned and tried the scoundrels in much less time than regular boards ordinarily spend in such investigations. During the inquiry, we ascertained beyond doubt that the death of the mate was due to false play. He had been wilfully murdered, as a preliminary to the assault on me, for his colossal stature and powerful muscles would have made him a dangerous adversary in the seizure of the craft.

"There was, perhaps, a touch of the old-fashioned Inquisition in the mode of our judicial researches concerning this projected mutiny. We proceeded very much by way of 'confession,' and whenever the culprit manifested reluctance or hesitation, his memory was stimulated by a 'cat.' Accordingly, at the end of the trial, the mutineers were already pretty well punished; so that