A Middy of the Slave Squadron: A West African Story

"Phew!" ejaculated Mr Perry, first lieutenant of His Britannic Majesty's corvette _Psyche_, as he removed his hat and mopped the perspiration from his streaming forehead with an...

While we were awaiting the formal condemnation of the _Dona Isabella_ by the Mixed Commission, and the trial of her crew upon the charge of piracy, Captain Harrison, our skipper...

Distant about a mile from our hiding-place, there was, according to the captain's rough sketch map, a small peninsula enclosing a little bay, or creek, at the inner extremity of...

Our journey down the river was a very different affair from that of our upward passage; for whereas in the latter we had been compelled to force our way against an adverse curre...

As the evening progressed it became evident to me that our new captain had developed a very preoccupied mood; he fell into long fits of abstraction; and often answered very much...

"The launch, under sail, and with only about half a dozen hands in her, has just hove in sight from somewhere up the river. None of the other boats seem to be in company, but as...

My first act upon my return was, of course, to report the result of my reconnaissance to the captain, who, after hearing what I had to say, came to the conclusion that he would...

Having captured the Frenchmen, the next item on the programme was to so arrange matters that they might be at once transferred to other and more comfortable quarters--thus leavi...

Of course nothing of this was perceptible from my look-out in the crow's-nest; the only thing of a suggestive character that came to my notice was that when, looking through my...

Having arrived within pistol-shot of the chase, we hove-to to windward of her, lowered a boat, and I proceeded to board her. As we swept round under her stern, in order to reach...

By the time that all this had been accomplished, the wind had fallen away to a dead calm, and the only sounds audible were the creaking and groaning of the ship's timbers, the l...

To seize one of the long, heavy ash oars that formed part of the boat's equipment, fling the blade over the stern, and jerk the oar into the sculling notch, with the idea of scu...

The sounds of water being freely sluiced along the deck overhead, and of the vigorous use of holystones and scrubbing-brushes immediately following thereupon, awoke me on the fo...

I had been on duty as Leroy's deputy for two whole days when it fell to my turn to keep the middle watch, that is to say, the watch which extends from midnight to four o'clock i...

The order was promptly obeyed; and in a few minutes I found myself, heavily ironed, in the pitchy darkness of the lower hold, squatted disconsolately upon the bed of shingle whi...

How long I remained steeped in that delightful and refreshing sleep I did not then know; but when at length I awoke with a violent start the embers of the fire were merely smoul...

For the space of nearly a minute there now prevailed an intense silence while King Banda sat glowering at our party, and especially at me, in a manner that caused cold chills to...

"You must cure him--you _must, for your own sake, Dick_!" Exactly. In uttering those words Ama unconsciously disclosed how slight was her confidence in the influence over her fa...

We now had leisure to observe that the storm had so far passed away that there were big breaks in the canopy of cloud overhead and away to the eastward, through which the stars...

"Come on board, sir," remarked I, touching my cap as I passed in through the gangway of the _Eros_ and found myself face to face with Captain Perry and the master, who were walk...