There were not a great many of the negroes; but by way
of making what there were understand that they were free, Vaughan had
had their handcuffs, and ankle-cuffs knocked off, and, for
convenience's sake, was putting them upon the rascals of the
schooner's crew. The negroes were, most of them, out of the hold, and
swarming all round the dirty deck, with a central throng surrounding
Vaughan and addressing him in every dialect, and _patois_ of a
dialect, from the Zulu click up to the Parisian of Beledeljereed.
As we came on deck, Vaughan looked down from a hogshead, on which he
had mounted in desperation, and said--
"For God's love, is there anybody who can make these wretches
understand something? The men gave them rum, and that did not quiet
them. I knocked that big fellow down twice, and that did not soothe
him. And then I talked Choctaw to all of them together; and I'll be
hanged if they understood that as well as they understood the
English."
Nolan said he could speak Portuguese, and one or two fine-looking
Kroomen were dragged out, who, as it had been found already, had
worked for the Portuguese on the coast at Fernando Po.
"Tell them they are free," said Vaughan; "and tell them that these
rascals are to be hanged as soon as we can get rope enough."
Nolan "put that into Spanish," that is, he explained it in such
Portuguese as the Kroomen could understand, and they in turn to such
of the negroes as could understand them. Then there was such a yell of
delight, clinching of fists, leaping and dancing, kissing of Nolan's
feet, and a general rush made to the hogshead by way of spontaneous
worship of Vaughan, as the _deus ex machina_ of the occasion.
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