Now, if what I'm going to tell you had happened a week sooner, I should
have been on the look-out for it, or if it had come off a week later;
but, like many more such things, it came when it wasn't expected, and my
sails were took aback as much as anybody's.
Things had been going on more peaceably than usual--weather having been
hot, with light steady wind, which just took us easily through the water
with stunsails set alow and aloft. The heat had made the captain
sleepy, and he showed precious little on deck, while the mate, who
always took his tone from the skipper, used just to give an order or
two, and then make himself as comfortable as he could.
It was my watch one night with Sam Brown, Bill Smith, and a couple more.
Hot! it was one of the hottest nights I ever knew, and we were lolling
about over the sides, looking at the golden green water as it gently
washed by the bows as we just parted it, making only way enough for the
ship to answer her helm. Bill Smith had gone to take his trick at the
wheel, and, looking along the deck, you could just make out his face by
the binnacle-light shining up and around him. There was a faint glow,
too, up from the cabin skylights, and from where the ship's lanterns
flashed on the water, else it was a thick darkness everywhere, and us
sailing through it, and seeming to get nearer and nearer to some great
black heat, that made the perspiration stream out of you at every pore.
"'Nuff to bake 'em down below, Sam," I says, after we'd been quiet for a
good hour. "I fancy if I was there, I should be for coming up and lying
on the deck, where it's cooler."
"Cooler!" says one of them with us, "why, the planks are hot yet."
"But you can breathe," I says.
"Well, yes," says the other; "you _can_ get your breath."
Then we were quite still again for a piece, when Sam gives me a shove,
to call my attention to something.
"Well, what now?" I says.
"They're a-coming on deck," says Sam.
"They're in the right of it," I says; "and if--"
I got no more out, for there was a hand clapped over my mouth, and the
next moment I was at it in an up-and-down struggle with some one, but
not so hard but that I heard Sam Brown go down like a bullock upon the
deck; and then I shook myself free, ran to the mizen-shrouds, and sprang
up them like a cat; and, as soon as I was out of reach, leaned down and
listened.
There was no mistake about it: the ship had been taken with hardly so
much as a scuffle, and though I could not see more than a figure trot
quickly by one of the skylights, I could hear that the hatches were
being secured, and men posted there; and for a minute I felt sure that
we had been boarded in the darkness, and that I, one of the principal
men in the watch, had kept a bad lookout. Directly after, though, there
came a bit more scuffling and an oath or two, and I heard a voice that I
knew for Bill Smith's, and another that I could tell was Van's; and
then, like a light, it all came upon me that while we had been watching
out-board, there was an enemy in the ship, and the men had risen.
I wouldn't have it for a bit, feeling sure that I must have known of it;
but I was obliged to give in, for I heard next in the darkness a
hammering at the cabin doors, and the skipper's voice shouting to be let
out; and then came the mate's backing him up; then a pistol-shot or two,
and the shivering of glass, like as if the cabin skylight had been
broken; and then came Van's shrill voice, giving orders, and
threatening; and from the way the man spoke, I knew in a minute that
there had been a chained devil amongst us, and that he had broken loose.
As soon as I could pull myself together a bit, and get to think, I got
out my box, opens it and my knife, cuts a fresh bit of baccy, and then,
taking a good hold of the stay I was on, began to wonder what I'd better
do next. Staying where I was did very well for the present; but it
would not be such a great while before daybreak, and then I knew they
would see me, and, if I didn't come down, shoot me like a dog. I felt
sure that they had done for my two poor mates, for I could not hear a
sound of them; and seeing that joining the enemy below was out of the
question, what I had to do was to get to them in the cabin. But how?
There I was, perched up close to the top, with the yard swinging gently
to and fro; and between me and those I wanted to join, there was the
enemy. I felt puzzled; and in the midst of my thought, listening the
while as I was to the muttering of voices I heard below, I snapped-to
the lid of the steel box I had in my hand, and in the still night it
sounded quite sharp and clear.
"What a fool!" I said to myself, and crept in closer to the mast, for
the voices below ceased, and two pistol-bullets came whistling through
the rigging. Then there was a sharp whispering, and a couple more shots
were fired; but I did not move, for it would have been like directing
them where to aim. Then came Van's voice, as he shouted: "Fetch him
down!" And I knew from the way in which the rigging trembled, that some
of the enemy were coming up the shrouds to leeward and windward too.
"Hunt him overboard, if he won't give in," shouted Van, and I set my
teeth as I heard him; but there was no time to spare, and feeling about
for a sheet, I got hold of it, meaning to swing myself out clear, and
hang quite still, while they passed aloft, and then try for some
hiding-place where I could gain the deck. I held on tight for a moment,
and listened; and then in the darkness I could hear some one coming
nearer and nearer, when, letting go with my feet, I swung gently off,
and the next instant brushed up against something, when my heart gave a
great bound, for I had found the way to get down to them in the cabin.
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