During the night a little air of wind sprang up from the eastward which
carried us out clear of the Mona Passage, and when day dawned we found
ourselves with a clear horizon all round the ship. At noon we wore
round to retrace our steps, and by sunset we were within a dozen miles
of the spot we had occupied at the same hour on the previous evening.
The day, for a wonder, had passed almost pleasantly; there had been no
flogging; Captain Pigot had scarcely showed himself on deck, except for
a few minutes after breakfast and again at noon; and the officers of the
watches, glad to be freed from his obnoxious presence, had been careful
not to unnecessarily hurry and badger the men whilst carrying on the
duty of the ship. The only circumstance which, to my mind, seemed
disquieting, was the unusual demeanour of the men, who performed their
work, steadily enough indeed, but in a moody, unnatural silence,
wearing, meantime, a gloomy, preoccupied air, whilst they at the same
time--at least so it appeared to me--seemed to be, one and all, in a
restless, anxious, watchful frame of mind, as though they were in
momentary expectation of something happening. I could not at all
understand this state of things, which was something quite new, for,
notwithstanding the skipper's intolerable tyranny, there were a few of
the men--and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the
ship--who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful
demeanour, and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded
by the captain's absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a
quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their
next neighbour. To-day, however, this sort of thing was conspicuously
absent; and I was at first disposed to attribute the unwonted gloom to
the men's horror and regret at the lamentable accident of the previous
evening. But that, I felt again, would scarcely account for it; for,
however sincere may be Jack's attachment to his shipmates whilst they
are alive and with him, they are no sooner dead and buried than, from
his quickly acquired habit of promptly casting behind him all
disquieting memories, he forgets all about them and their fate.
At length, as the day wore on and drew to a peaceful close, my
misgivings, such as they were--and they were, after all, so slight as
scarcely to deserve mention--passed away; and at eight bells I retired
to my hammock with a dawning hope that perhaps, after all, the
collective remonstrance of the officers was about to bear good fruit.
My mind being thus at rest, I at once sank into a profound sleep, from
which I was abruptly startled by a loud noise of some kind, though what
it was I could not for the moment make out. Almost immediately
afterwards, however, I heard it again--a loud furious combined shout of
many voices from the fore part of the ship. Feeling instinctively that
something was wrong, I leaped from my hammock--as also did Courtenay, my
only companion in the berth--and began hurriedly to search for my
clothes by the dim light of the smoky lamp which hung swaying from the
deck-beam overhead. Before, however, I had time to do more than don my
socks, a grizzled weatherbeaten main-topman named Ned Sykes made his
appearance in the doorway of the berth, with a drawn cutlass in his hand
and a pair of pistols in his belt. He looked intently at us both for a
moment, and then said, in a gruff but kindly tone of voice:
"Muster Lascelles, and Muster Courtenay, ain't it? Ha! that's all
right; I reckoned I should find you two young gen'lemen here, safe
enough. Now, you two, just slip into your hammicks again as fast as you
knows how, and stay there until I gives you leave to get out of 'em."
"Why, what is the matter, Ned? What is all the row about?" asked
Courtenay, with wide-staring, horrified eyes. For, by this time, the
shouting and yelling were tremendous, and accompanied by a loud
thumping, rumbling sound, produced, as we afterwards ascertained, by the
shot which the men were flinging about the decks.
"The matter is just this here, young 'un," replied Ned, entering the
berth and seating himself on a chest, "The hands for'ard has made up
their minds not to have no more such haccidents as them two that
occurred last night; nor they ain't a-goin' to have no more floggin' nor
bully-raggin', so they've just rose up and are takin' possession of the
ship--Aha! I'm terrible afeard that means bloodshed," as a piercing
shriek echoed through the ship. "Now," he continued, seeing that we
evinced a strong disinclination to return to our hammocks, "you just
tumble into them hammicks and lie down, _quick_; you couldn't do a
morsel of good, e'er a one of yer, if you was out there on deck--you'd
only get hurted or, mayhap, killed outright,--and I've been specially
told off to come here and see as neither of yer gets into trouble;
you've both been good kindly lads, you especial, Muster Lascelles--
you've never had your eyes open to notice any little shortcomin's or
skylarkin's on the part of the men, nor your tongues double-hung for to
go and report 'em, so the lads is honestly anxious as you sha'n't come
to no harm in this here rumpus."
"Then the men have actually mutinied," said I--and there I stopped
short, for at that moment came the sound of a rush aft of many feet,
with shouts and curses, mingled with which I heard the loud harsh tones
of Captain Pigot's voice raised in anger. The _melee_, however, if such
there was, quickly swept aft, and there was a lull for perhaps two or
three minutes, followed by the sounds of a brief struggle on the
quarter-deck, a few shrieks and groans, telling all too plainly of the
bloody work going forward, and then silence, broken only now and then by
the sound of Farmer's voice, apparently issuing orders, though what he
was actually saying we could not distinguish.
During all this time Courtenay and I lay huddled up in our hammocks, too
terrified and horror-stricken to say a word. At length, after the lapse
of about an hour of quietness on deck, Sykes--after cautioning us most
earnestly not, on any account, to move from where we were until his
return--set out with the expressed intention of ascertaining how the
land lay. He was absent about a quarter of an hour; and on his return
he informed us in horrified accents that, out of all the officers of the
ship, there remained alive only Mr Southcott the master, the gunner,
the carpenter, Courtenay, myself--and Farmer, the master's mate, who, it
appeared, had taken a leading part in the mutiny, and had been elected
to the command of the ship. It was evident, from the scared and
horrified appearance and manner of our informant, that he had never
anticipated any of this awful violence and bloodshed, though he frankly
admitted that he had been a consenting party to the mutiny--the general
understanding being that the officers were all to be secured in the
first instance, and afterwards handed over as prisoners to the enemy--
and he hurriedly explained to us that, for his own safety's sake, it
would now be necessary for him to leave us and join the rest of the
mutineers without delay, but that he would return to us as soon as he
possibly could; and that, in the meantime, we were on no account to
leave the berth, or our lives would certainly be sacrificed.
After hearing such statements as these, no further warning was needed to
keep us two unhappy mids close prisoners for the rest of the night.
Further sleep was of course quite out of the question; so we hastily
dressed, and, closing the door of the berth, seated ourselves on a sea-
chest, where we passed the remainder of the night discussing the awful
tragedy which had so suddenly been enacted, comparing notes as to our
mutual forebodings of some such disaster, and, lastly, wondering what
would be the ultimate fate of ourselves and the few other surviving
officers.
At length, after what appeared to be a very eternity of suspense and
anxiety, steps were heard approaching the berth; and, upon our throwing
open the door, Sykes, somewhat the worse for liquor, made his
appearance, hailing us, in tones of obviously forced joviality, with:
"Well, what cheer, my fighting cocks--my bully bantams? How goes it?
Hope your honours has passed a comfortable night," with a ghastly grin
at his own facetiousness. Then, with considerably more seriousness of
manner, he continued:
"Well, young uns, Farmer--or _Mister_ Farmer, I should say--has been
axing arter you, and his instructions am that you may now go 'pon deck.
But--hark 'e, my bullies, keep your weather eyes a-liftin' and a stopper
upon your tongues. Whatsomever you may happen to see don't you be led
away into indulgin' in any onpleasant remarks upon it; nor don't you go
for to try and talk over any of the lads into `returning to their duty,'
or any rot of that sort; for so sure as either of you attempts anything
like that, so surely will you get your brains blowed out. The ship's
took--what's done is done--and neither you nor nobody else can make or
mend the job; the men is in a mighty ticklish humour, I can tell 'e, and
if you wants to save your precious carcasses you'll have to walk mighty
carcumspect. And that's the advice and opinion of a friend, all free,
gratis, and for nothink. Now, come along, my hearties; show a leg!"
We followed our well-meaning guide up the ladder to the quarter-deck,
where we found Farmer apparently awaiting our appearance. He was
standing or rather leaning in a wearied attitude against a gun on the
starboard side of the deck; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes gleamed
feverishly; he looked a good twenty years older than he had appeared to
be on the previous day; and, like a good many of the other mutineers, he
appeared to have been indulging somewhat freely in liquor. He roused
himself at our approach, and, seating himself in a negligent, careless
attitude on the breech of the gun, said:
"Good morning, young gentlemen. I am glad to see you both safe and
sound. Sykes has of course informed you of what has taken place--he had
my instructions to do so, as also to see that you were kept out of
harm's way last night. Now, what I have to say to you is this. You two
lads having invariably manifested kindness and sympathy for the men,
they were especially anxious that whenever the rising might take place
your lives should be spared. This has been done. You are alive and
unharmed this morning, whilst others have gone to render an account of
their manifold misdeeds--their countless acts of oppression and
cruelty--before that Judge in whose sight their lives are not one whit
more valuable than the lives of those whom they have goaded and driven
to death--ay, and to _worse_ than death--to such frantic desperation as
can only be allayed by the shedding of blood like water. Now, mark me
well, both of you; you have had neither part nor lot in this matter--
those who wished you well have so managed that, whether or no, you
should be kept strictly neutral throughout the affair; all those to whom
you owed obedience are either dead or prisoners; you are not asked or
expected to join us--we do not want you and should not care to have you
even if you were willing--you are therefore relieved from duty; and all
that is asked of you is that you shall interfere in no way, either by
word or deed, with the working of the ship or with our plans. If you
are agreeable to abide by this proposal, well and good; you will be
welcome to come and go as you like until we find it convenient to land
you; you will be allowed to occupy your former quarters, and your
rations will be regularly served out to you. But if on the other hand
you make the slightest attempt to communicate with the prisoners, or
endeavour in any way to seduce any of the men from their loyalty to the
rest, I will hang you both that same hour, one from each yard-arm. That
is understood and agreed to, is it not, men?" he continued, raising his
voice and appealing to the crowd of mutineers who had gathered round us.
"Ay, ay, that's agreed; that's fair enough," was the unanimous reply.
With that, Farmer waved his hand to us by way of dismissal; and
considerably thrown off our balance by the address to which we had just
listened, and by the terrible turn affairs had taken generally, we slunk
off to the poop, so as to be as far away as possible from the murderous
gang and from the ghastly puddles of coagulated blood about the quarter-
deck, which still bore witness to heaven against them.
At this moment a man on the forecastle electrified all hands by
shouting:
"Sail ho!"
I saw Farmer start from his seat on the gun as if shot, his flushed
features turned ashen pale, and for a moment his palsied lips refused to
give utterance to a sound.
"Sail ho!" repeated the man in a louder hail, thinking, I suppose, that
his first intimation had passed unnoticed. This second hail fairly
startled the men, and in a moment everything was bustle and confusion
and panic. It aroused Farmer too; he pulled himself together
sufficiently to respond to the hail with the usual question, "Where
away?" and, on receiving the reply, "Two points on the larboard bow,"
walked forward to personally inspect the stranger. We, of course,
likewise directed our glances in the specified direction; and there she
was, sure enough, a large ship, on the starboard tack, with every stitch
of canvas set that would draw, and steering a course which would take
her across our bows at a distance of about a mile.
"Bring me the spy-glass out of the cabin, somebody!" hailed Farmer from
the forecastle. The glass--a very powerful one and a favourite
instrument with the murdered captain--was handed him by one of the
quarter-masters, and he applied it to his eye. A breathless silence now
prevailed fore and aft for the stranger had all the look of a British
man-of-war, and everybody was waiting to hear what Farmer's verdict
would be. The inspection was a long-sustained and evidently anxious
one. At length, dropping the glass into the hollow of his arm Farmer
turned and said:
"Bring Mr Southcott on deck, and let us hear his opinion of yonder
hooker."
In a few minutes the master was escorted on deck by a couple of armed
seamen, and led forward to where Farmer was standing.
"Mr Southcott," said the mutineer, turning toward the individual
addressed, and perceptibly shrinking as their glance met, "be good
enough to take this glass, and let me know wha' you think of the
stranger yonder."
"Stranger!" ejaculated Southcott. "Where away? Ah, I see her!" and he
took the glass from Farmer's extended hand.
"Well, what think you of her?" asked Farmer impatiently, after the
master had been silently working away with the glass for some two or
three minutes.
"One moment, please," answered Southcott with his eye still glued to the
tube; "I think--but I am not quite sure--if she would only keep just the
merest trifle more away--so as to permit of my catching a glimpse--"
"Sail ho!" shouted a man in the fore-top; "two of 'em, a brig and a ship
on the starboard beam, away in under the land there!"
Farmer unceremoniously snatched the glass away from the master and
levelled it in the direction indicated.
"Ay, ay, I see them," said he. "That is the _Drake_ nearest us, and the
_Favourite_ inshore of her. They are all right; we have nothing to fear
from them. It is this stranger here ahead of us that bothers me. Come,
Mr Southcott," he continued, "you ought to know something about her by
this time--you have been looking at her long enough; do you think you
ever saw her before?"
The master took the glass, had another long squint at the ship ahead,
then handed the instrument back to Farmer, with the answer:
"I decline to say whether I have or not."
"That is enough," said Farmer; "your answer but confirms me in my
conviction as to the identity of yonder frigate. It is the _Mermaid_.
Speak, sir, is it not so?"
"You are right, Farmer, it _is_ the _Mermaid_, thank God! and you cannot
escape. See! she is already hauling up to speak us; and in another
twenty minutes will be alongside. Now, sir, resign to me the command
which you have with so much violence and bloodshed usurped; and you,
men," he continued, turning round and in a loud voice addressing the
rest of the crew, "return at once to your duty. Support and assist me
in recovering the command of the ship, and I promise--"
"Silence!" roared Farmer, striking the master a heavy blow full in the
mouth with his clenched fist. "Seize him, you two," he continued to the
men who had charge of the prisoner, "and if he offers to speak again to
the men clap a belaying-pin between his teeth. My lads, you now know
the truth; yonder frigate is our old acquaintance the _Mermaid_. Mr
Southcott proposes that I should surrender the command of this ship to
him; and if I do so we all know what will follow. Most of us will
dangle at the yard-arm; and though, _through the royal clemency_," (with
a bitter sneer), "a few may be allowed to escape with a flogging through
the fleet, with left-handed boatswains' mates to cross the lashes--think
of that, men, and compare it with the mere two or three dozen at the
gangway which most of you have tasted since you joined the _Hermione_--
where is the man among you, I ask, who can point to himself and say, `I
shall be one of the _fortunate_ few?' No, no, my lads! after last
night's work there must be no talk of surrender; the ropes are already
round our necks, and as surely as we ever find ourselves beneath the
British flag again, so surely will those ropes be hauled taut and
ourselves bowsed up to the yard-arm. And, even if our lives could be
assured to us, what inducement is there to us to serve under British
bunting again? I say there is _none_. We must choose, then, between
two alternatives; we must either fight or fly. Which is it to be?"
The rest of the mutineers huddled together, evidently irresolute; each
man eagerly sought his neighbour's opinion, the _pros_ and _cons_ of
Farmer's question were hurriedly discussed, and I saw with inexpressible
delight that a good many of the men were more than half disposed to fall
in with the master's suggestion.
Mr Southcott must have seen this too, for he wheeled round upon Farmer
and exclaimed:
"Surely, Farmer, you are not mad enough to entertain the idea of
fighting the _Mermaid_? Why, man, you could not stand up before her for
five minutes with the men in their present undisciplined state and no
one but yourself to direct operations. Your defeat under such
circumstances is an absolute certainty; and think what would be the fate
of yourself and your misguided followers if taken in arms against the
flag under which they have sworn to serve. At present some at least of
them may hope for mercy if they will but--"
"Away with him! Take him below!" shouted Farmer, "and if he attempts to
open his mouth again put a bullet through his brains. Now, shipmates,"
he continued, as the master was hurried below, "make up your minds, and
quickly too; which will you have, the yard-rope or a pitched battle?"
"What occasion is there for either?" inquired a burly boatswain's-mate.
"There's more ways of killing a cat than choking of her with cream.
Let's square dead away afore it and set stunsails alow and aloft, both
sides. I'll lay my life we run far enough away from the _Mermaid_ afore
sunset to dodge her in the dark."
"No good," dissented Farmer. "The _Mermaid_ could beat us a couple of
knots off the wind in this breeze."
"Ay, ay; that's true enough; she could so," assented a topman. "But we
have the heels of her on a taut bowline; so why not brace sharp up on
the starboard tack, pass between the islands, and then make for Porto
Rico?"
"What! and run the gauntlet of those two cruisers inshore there, as well
as take our chance of falling in with the _Magicienne_ and the
_Regulus_, which we know are knocking about somewhere in that direction!
Is that the best counsel you can give, Ben?"
"Well, then, let's haul close in with the land, set fire to the ship,
and take to the boats," answered Ben.
"And what then?" sneered Farmer.
"Why, land, to be sure, and take sarvice with Jack Spaniard," was the
reply.
"Why, man, do you suppose they would welcome us if we went to them
empty-handed?" asked Farmer. "No, no, that will never do. If we join
the Spaniards we must take the ship with us to ensure a welcome; and I'm
half inclined to think that will be the best thing we can do. But not
now; that must be thought over at leisure. Meanwhile, what is to be
done in the present emergency? We have no time for further argument.
Will you stand by me and obey my orders?"
"Ay, ay, we will, every man Jack of us, sink or swim, fight or fly," was
the reply from a hundred throats.
"That's well, my lads," exclaimed Farmer exultantly; "it shall go hard
but I will bring you through somehow. Starboard your helm, there," to
the man at the wheel; "let her come to on the larboard tack; to your
stations, men; let go the larboard sheets and braces, and round in on
the starboard. Smartly, my bullies; let's have no bungling, now, or
Captain Otway there will at once suspect that something is amiss.
That's well; ease up the lee topgallant and royal-braces a trifle; well
there of all; belay! Afterguard, muster your buckets and brushes and
wash down the decks. Roberts, go below with a gang and rouse the
hammocks on deck; and quarter-masters, see that they are snugly stowed.
Where's the signal-man? Bend the ensign on to the peak-halliards and
our number at the main; and main-top, there I stand by to hoist away the
pennant. Gunner, muster your crew; go round the quarters with them; and
see that everything is ship-shape in case we should have to make a fight
of it."
I was surprised to see how, as Farmer issued his orders in a tone of
authority, the instinct of discipline asserted itself; the men sprang to
their stations as nimbly and executed their several duties as smartly as
though Captain Pigot himself had been directing their movements. The
_Hermione_ was braced sharp up on the larboard tack and heading as near
as she would lay for the _Mermaid_, which was now about a point and a
half on our weather bow, about four miles distant, and nearing us fast;
whilst the _Favourite_ and the _Drake_ were stretching out from under
the land to join her.
Presently a string of tiny balls went soaring aloft to the _Mermaid's_
main-royal mast-head, to break abroad as they reached it and stream out
in the fresh morning breeze as so many gaily coloured signal flags.
"There goes the _Mermaid's_ bunting, sir!" sang out the signal-man, "she
is showing her number."
"Ay, ay, I see it," exclaimed Farmer. "And, by Heaven," he added, "it
never struck me until this moment that Pigot was senior captain. Hoist
away your ensign and pennant! up with the number! We are all right, my
hearties; I know how to trick them now."
He raised the telescope to his eye and brought it to bear upon the
_Mermaid_.
"All right," he exclaimed a few seconds later, "she sees our number--
haul down! Now signal her to chase in the north-eastern quarter.
Hurrah, my hearties, that's your sort! There goes her answering
pennant; and there she hauls to the wind on the starboard tack. That
disposes of her at all events. Now signal the _Favourite_ and _Drake_
to chase to the nor'ard; that will send them through the Mona Passage,
and leave us with a clear sea."
A quarter of an hour later the three cruisers which had caused the
mutineers so much uneasiness were thrashing to windward under every rag
they could spread; when Farmer bore up and ran away to the southward and
westward with studding-sails set on both sides of the ship.