The moment the bow of the boat touched the beach the Kruboys, throwing their paddles overboard, jumped into the water, and seizing hold of the gunwale, ran us up high and dry on the beach out of the reach of the waves.
My father, who had watched me carefully during our passage through the breakers, said, “You’ll do, my boy. What do you think of an African beach now?”
“Why, father, it is lovely. I don’t know anything more delightful than flying in on the back of a wave as we did.”
“Yes, it’s delightful, certainly, but it’s dangerous. But now we must make haste to see if we can find anything of that fellow Pentlea.--You, Fore-topsail, tell four men to carry those things,” pointing to some packages of samples, “to Mr. Macarthy’s factory; and send two men to Billy Barlow and tell him to let his men bring his boat along the beach to where yours is, and come himself to me at the factory.”
The beach at Whydah was a curious sight to me. There were boats belonging to the different ships in the roads loading and discharging cargo; pigs and turkey-buzzards revelling in filth and garbage of all descriptions; gangs of slaves working under the orders of the officials of the king; Dahoman soldiers with flint-lock muskets, and men, black and white, mounted on little spirited ponies; the large factories of the European traders with their stockaded yards, those of the slave-dealers being distinguished by large barracoons attached to them; and the native town, which was a regular jumble of huts of all sorts and kinds, the houses of the caboceers and other great men standing up among them like line-of-battle ships among a lot of cock-boats. All made a picture very different from anything I had ever seen or dreamed of.
We soon reached Mr. Macarthy’s factory, and went up a flight of stairs into a wide veranda, where we found him dressed in a cool white suit, and employed in giving orders to some of his clerks, whom he dismissed as soon as he saw us.
“Good morning, Captain Baldwin; is this one of your sons?”
My father answered his salutation, and then asked him if he had any news of Pentlea.
“Not yet,” he said. “I have sent men to try to find out if they could get any news of him up at Souza’s factory, where he has gone; but they are a regular set of bad ones there, and would say anything. Why, not long ago they attacked my factory, and I had some trouble in beating them off; the caboceers have condemned them to pay me five puncheons of palm-oil, but I shall never get any of it. I have sent to the caboceers, and one will come here in the course of the day. Have you reported the case to the man-of-war?”