Not merely, as it seemed, on account of his age and experience, but rather because of a certain superiority and greater energy of character, this old man was tacitly recognized as the spokesman of his party; he freely communicated all the information that Captain Hull required to hear, and by degrees he related all the details of his adventures.
He said that his name was Tom, and that when he was only six years of age he had been sold as a slave, and brought from his home in Africa to the United States; but by the act of emancipation he had long since recovered his freedom. His companions, who were all much younger than himself, their ages ranging from twenty-five to thirty, were all freeborn, their parents having been emancipated before their birth, so that no white man had ever exercised upon them the rights of ownership. One of them was his own son; his name was Bat (an abbreviation of Bartholomew); and there were three others, named Austin, Actaeon, and Hercules. All four of them were specimens of that stalwart race that commands so high a price in the African market, and in spite of the emaciation induced by their recent sufferings, their muscular, well-knit frames betokened a strong and healthy constitution. Their manner bore the impress of that solid education which is given in the North American schools, and their speech had lost all trace of the “nigger-tongue,” a dialect without articles or inflections, which since the anti-slavery war has almost died out in the United States.
Three years ago, old Tom stated, the five men had been engaged by an Englishman who had large property in South Australia, to work upon his estates near Melbourne. Here they had realized a considerable profit, and upon the completion of their engagement they determined to return with their savings to America. Accordingly, on the 5th of January, after paying their passage in the ordinary way, they embarked at Melbourne on board the Waldeck. Everything went on well for seventeen days, until, on the night of the 22nd, which was very dark, they were run into by a great steamer. They were all asleep in their berths, but, roused by the shock of the collision, which was extremely severe, they hurriedly made their way onto the deck. The scene was terrible; both masts were gone, and the brig, although the water had not absolutely flooded her hold so as to make her sink, had completely heeled over on her side. Captain and crew had entirely disappeared, some probably having been dashed into the sea, others perhaps having saved themselves by clinging to the rigging of the ship which had fouled them, and which could be distinguished through the darkness rapidly receding in the distance. For a while they were paralyzed, but they soon awoke to the conviction that they were left alone upon a half-capsized and disabled hull, twelve hundred miles from the nearest land. Mrs. Weldon was loud in her expression of indignation that any captain should have the barbarity to abandon an unfortunate vessel with which his own carelessness had brought him into collision. It would be bad enough, she said, for a driver on a public road, when it might be presumed that help would be forthcoming, to pass on unconcerned after causing an accident to another vehicle; but how much more shameful to desert the injured on the open sea, where the victims of his incompetence could have no chance of obtaining succour! Captain Hull could only repeat what he had said before, that incredibly atrocious as it might seem, such inhumanity was far from rare.
On resuming his story, Tom said that he and his companions soon found that they had no means left for getting away from the capsized brig; both the boats had been crushed in the collision, so that they had no alternative except to await the appearance of a passing vessel, whilst the wreck was drifting hopelessly along under the action of the currents. This accounted for the fact of their being found so far south of their proper course.
For the next ten days the negroes had subsisted upon a few scraps of food that they found in the stern cabin; but as the store room was entirely under water, they were quite unable to obtain a drop of anything to drink, and the freshwater tanks that had been lashed to the deck had been stove in at the time of the catastrophe. Tortured with thirst, the poor men had suffered agonies, and having on the previous night entirely lost consciousness, they must soon have died if the Pilgrim’s timely arrival had not effected their rescue.
All the outlines of Tom’s narrative were fully confirmed by the other negroes; Captain Hull could see no reason to doubt it; indeed, the facts seemed to speak for themselves.
One other survivor of the wreck, if he had been gifted with the power of speech, would doubtless have corroborated the testimony. This was the dog who seemed to have such an unaccountable dislike to Negoro.
Dingo, as the dog was named, belonged to the fine breed of mastiffs peculiar to New Holland. It was not, however, from Australia, but from the coast of West Africa, near the mouth of the Congo, that the animal had come. He had been picked up there, two years previously, by the captain of the Waldeck, who had found him wandering about and more than half starved. The initials S. V. engraved upon his collar were the only tokens that the dog had a past history of his own. After he had been taken on board the Waldeck, he remained quite unsociable, apparently ever pining for some lost master, whom he had failed to find in the desert land where he had been met with.
Larger than the dogs of the Pyrenees, Dingo was a magnificent example of his kind. Standing on his
