SHE DESCRIBES THE SEIZURE OF THE SHIP BY THE CONVICTS
My head was full of Tom, of that change into fierceness which I had
noticed in his whispers, and I dwelt upon his sad, wild saying that
I did not know his heart, by which he meant that his heart had been
transformed by the wrong that had been done him and by his punishment
and sufferings. Never had I felt madder than when I thought of him. I
put my hands together, and prayed that if the convicts rose they would
successfully seize the ship.
My blood was so hot and the heat of the atmosphere so great that I
could not rest. I opened the porthole and put my face into it for the
coolness of the air, and for a long while listened to the pleasant,
rippling sounds of the water gently broken, and to the gushing of
water from the decks and the noise of men’s voices high aloft, and
sounding as though the tones came across the sea. The moon was on the
other side, but the stars were again plentiful, many meteors sailed in
delicate trails of light, and the sea-line ran black against the sheet
lightning that played behind it. The dew-laden night-breath fanned my
face and cooled me, and by this time having thought myself into some
composure of mind I laid my head down and slept.
I was awakened by Frank; day had broken, and on looking through the
porthole I saw that it was a fine clear morning, and that the ocean
trembled with the brushing of a small wind. I might be sure that
nothing had as yet happened; but I was so agitated, felt so cold and
pale, that I expressly lingered, hoping to rally, till I suddenly heard
the vulgar voice of Mr. Stiles bawling my name, on which I went out
quickly.
‘Look here, young man,’ cried Mr. Stiles, ‘if you’re a-going to skulk
after this here fashion I shall have to send ye forward with a message
to Mr. Balls. D’ye think I’m a-going to do your work?’ And for some
time he continued to abuse me, calling me a little idle beast of a
stowaway, a worthless, loafing young sojer, and the like. I glanced at
him and perceived that his eyes were inflamed and his complexion of a
strange unwholesome dye; he had evidently drunk heavily overnight in
his terror, and the fumes of the drink were still in his head.
I gave him no heed, but went to my work as usual, and presently
wanting water walked to the forecastle for a bucketful instead of to
the after-pump, as I wished to see what was going on forward. I took
a bucket from the rack near the mainmast and went along the alley; a
gang of convicts were scrubbing the main-deck and waist, and another
gang were washing themselves in a row near the fore-and-aft barricade.
The doctor, who always rose very early, almost as soon as the convicts
turned out, stood at the quarter-deck gate looking at the prisoners
cleaning the planks.
The last man in the line of those who were washing themselves was
Barney Abram; on catching my eye as he lifted his ugly face out of the
bucket he smiled, winked and made a singular gesture, the significance
of which I could not gather. His back was upon the captains or warders,
and the look he gave me was unobserved. I faintly smiled as if I
understood him, though I did not, and went on to the forecastle.
The head pump was worked by one or two ordinary seamen; the others were
passing buckets along to the boatswain and his mates on the main-deck.
I delayed to press forward and fill my bucket, as I wished to look
around me, and made as though I waited for a chance, in case I should
be watched. The sun was up; the eastern sky was full of pink splendour.
I saw no clouds, and the light wind was almost directly aft. The ship
floated along very slowly. I had an eye by this time for sea-signs and
guessed we should have a calm presently by the glassy appearance of the
horizon. I heard men calling out on high, and, directing my eyes aloft,
perceived that the main-topgallantmast had been wrecked to the height
of the masthead--that is to say, the royal yard still lay across, but
the mast had been splintered just above it and showed a foot or two of
ragged fangs.
One of the seamen near me said that a hot morning’s job lay before
them. Would they make an all-hand business of sending a new
topgallantmast aloft?
The other answered: ‘A brimstone hot job it’s going to be, you take
your haffidavy, matey! All hands or no hands, a bleedin’ hot job’s
afore some of us, roastin’ as the lightning that’s blasted that spar!’
He laughed low and spat and wiped his lips on his wrist.
I knew the speaker by his voice as one of the two seamen whose talk I
had overheard. The other stared up at the splintered topgallantmast. It
was clear that he was not in the secret.
The sailor’s extraordinary speech left me in no doubt that the attempt
to seize the ship would be made, and soon. Not a hint of anything
wrong, of anything brewing, was to be discovered. Never had the ship
worn a quieter, peacefuller face as she floated along this morning
over the smooth, light blue of the tropic sea, bathed in the early
silver sunshine, her canvas gleaming like silk, softly lifting and
hollowing, and all right with her save that splintered masthead. They
were washing down the poop; I saw Will and others hard at work with
their scrubbing-brushes; a sentry stood at the head of each ladder, and
the captain was now on deck looking up at the injured mast and talking
about it with the ship’s carpenter. A single sentry, as heretofore,
stood at the quarter-deck gate, another at the main-hatch door, a third
on the forecastle; thus the decks were guarded by five armed soldiers,
as usual. Those who were off duty lounged with the women and a few
children near the booby-hatch, waiting to get their breakfast. The
convict cooks were at work in their galley, as I might guess from the
smoke which blew from its chimney.
The fate of the ship was in my hands--her fate and the lives and
fortunes of a crowd of people! A fierce, wild pride, a wicked
exultation swelled my heart. There was yet time! The captain was on
the poop; I had but to measure the length of the deck to acquaint him
with what I knew, and the ship would be saved. And sooner than speak, I
would have killed myself. The blood would be on the heads of those who
had unjustly sentenced and made a convict and a broken-hearted, ruined
man of my sweetheart. Whatever devil had been driven into him was in
me too; what he did I would do; what he wished would be my law; let
the change that had been worked in him be as frightful as you please,
I would lay down my life that he might get his liberty and escape
the horrors of the base and degrading term of servitude which he was
to complete in a distant land. Yes, I could have saved the ship by
whispering a single sentence in the captain’s ear, and had a knife been
put into my hand, and had I been compelled either to speak or to stab
my heart, I vow to God I would have sheathed the knife in my breast
without an instant’s hesitation.
I was not more than five minutes upon the forecastle. Then drawing a
bucket of water, I went aft. Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Chimmo,
as was their habit in these sultry latitudes, quitted their cabins in
their dressing-gowns for a bath in the ship’s head. This refreshing
bath they obtained by standing under the pump, whilst their orderlies,
as I suppose you would call the soldiers who waited upon them, plied
the handle. They returned in twenty minutes, and disappeared in their
cabins to dress.
I helped Frank to drape the breakfast-table, but every instant my
eye was going toward the open door and windows which overlooked the
quarter-deck. My hands trembled; I frequently let things fall; and
three or four times Mr. Stiles swore at me for a clumsy young fool and
threatened me with Mr. Balls. Frank asked me what was the matter, and I
told him I supposed my nerves had been shaken by the storm.
I think it was about a quarter to eight when Captain Barrett and
the subaltern emerged from their berths. As they walked to the
companion-steps to go on deck, the captain and the doctor descended,
and the four came to a stand at the foot of the ladder and talked. I
strained my ear. Their chatter was of the lightest--the weather, the
wrecked topgallantmast, the soldier who had tumbled down in a fit and
who was now well.
Suddenly Mr. Masters, who was on the poop--whether in charge of the
watch or not, I can’t say--put his head into the skylight and cried out
in a voice loud with terror:
‘Captain Sutherland, the convicts are breaking out! Some of our men
have knocked the forecastle sentry down! Quick on deck! The main-hatch
sentry’s over-powered and the prisoners are pouring up!’
Just as he spoke a musket was fired--then a second. Some of the
women shrieked. A third musket was fired. This was followed by an
indescribable roaring noise of groans and yells, accompanied by the
sound of the tread of many feet. The captain and the doctor rushed on
deck, the two military officers to their cabins, out of which they
broke again in a twinkling, each man pulling a pistol out of its case
as he ran toward the companion-way and flinging the case down as he
bounded up the steps.
‘Here they are!’ shouted the steward, and, followed by Frank, he fled
to the steps which led to the poop.
A mass of the convicts were coming toward the recess where the
soldiers’ arms were. Gaining the steerage hatchway in a leap or two,
I rushed into my cabin, and as I closed my door and bolted it I heard
the prisoners shouting as they swarmed into the cuddy. Their footsteps
thundered over my head. I saw myself in the wash-stand looking-glass,
and was as white as milk. I was only sensible now of the horror that
had seized me at the sight of the faces of the convicts. I stood with
my hand upon my heart, holding by the side of the upper bunk, breathing
fast and listening. But voices could not pierce the thickness of the
deck-plank. Nothing took my ear but the confused tread and shuffling
movements of feet overhead like to what I had heard when I lay in
hiding, only softer because of the carpets.
A horrid fancy seized me. Shots had been fired. Suppose Tom had been
wounded or killed! The handle of the door was violently tried and the
door shaken and beaten upon. I cried out: ‘Who’s that?’
‘Will Johnstone! Let me in!’
I rushed to the door and opened it, and Will entered. In the time that
the door lay open I heard a great shouting and hoarse roaring, distant,
as though a fierce struggle were happening on the main-deck, likewise
a single musket-shot. This I heard whilst I let Will in. He was deadly
white; his eyes were large and strange with a wild stare of horror.
For some moments he could utter no words.
‘Are you hurt?’ I exclaimed.
‘No, but I have seen--but I have seen--oh, the bloody villains! One
stabbed Chimmo in the throat, and they threw him overboard alive. He
levelled his pistol and shot a man. He was mad to do it. He stood no
chance. They wrenched the musket out of a sentry’s hand and bayoneted
him and tossed him into the sea, alive like the subaltern.’
Horror overcame the poor fellow. The memory of the shocking sights
seemed to paralyse him; his jaw moved, but he ceased to speak. I
was horror-stricken too, but not as he, for he had beheld what he
described. But impatience was rending my heart; I could not give him
time.
‘Have you seen Tom?’
He answered with a nod.
‘Is he safe?’
The poor lad dryly swallowed and wiped his blanched lips and said
huskily: ‘Yes; he told me to run to this cabin and keep with you. He’ll
be here soon. He stays to save Mr. Bates’s life.’
‘The convicts will not hurt us,’ said I. ‘Tom stipulated for our
safety.’
‘I guessed that,’ he exclaimed. ‘When they rushed upon the poop they
struck out and stabbed to right and left of them, but none offered
to hurt me. Butler stood on the ladder where the sentry had been
bayoneted.’
‘He didn’t do it?’ I shrieked.
‘No; it was a young convict with a purple face, who kept yelling like
a madman. Butler stood on the ladder and shouted to me, and I ran
to him. He put his arm round my neck and said: “Will, it’s a bloody
business. I could have stopped it by peaching, but they would have
killed me; and what was to become of Marian?” A line of convicts was
drawn across the quarter-deck, and they saw Butler with his arm round
my neck. He told me that he had seen you run into the steerage and that
I should find you in your cabin.’
He was now beginning to breathe with more freedom, and something of the
dreadful, staring look was passing out of his eyes. He listened and
then said: ‘They’ll not hurt us. Butler seems to have authority. Did he
plan this frightful business?’
‘No, but he would not hinder it. Why should he? He’s an innocent man,
and must have his liberty. Let those who swore his freedom away, who
sentenced him, who have ruined our lives and made him what he is, be
responsible for this.’
‘It couldn’t have happened,’ he exclaimed, ‘but for our men. Many
of them are as vile as the worst of the convicts. I was on the
poop and saw it all, and it was as quickly done as letting go a
topsail-halliards. The prisoners’ messmen massed themselves as usual
past the main-hatch at breakfast-time; I noticed some of our sailors
loafing near the convicts’ galley within leap of the main-hatch sentry.
I also saw a cluster of seamen standing close in the way of the
forecastle sentry’s walk. I heard a loud shout; I’ll swear it was the
prize-fighter’s voice. In an instant the forecastle sentry was knocked
down by the seamen; the main-hatch sentry was seized from behind
and disarmed by the sailors who rushed from the convicts’ galley.
The messmen threw down their breakfast utensils as a sort of second
signal; I watched and saw it all, Marian; quicker than I can talk the
convicts on deck made for the quarter-deck barricade-gate, and fast
as water pours through a scupper-hole the prisoners came streaming up
out of their quarters. The quarter-deck sentry levelled his piece and
fired, and a convict dropped. The convicts forced the gate; the sentry
bayoneted the first of them and was then knocked down; his musket was
wrested from him, and a brutal ruffian beat his head in with the stock
as the poor fellow lay on his back. The poop sentries fired at the
convicts as they burst through the barrier, but in a few moments the
prisoners got possession of the arms in the recess and swarmed up by
either ladder. Oh, it was a splendid, maddening, frightful sight to see
those two soldiers, one at each ladder, holding the steps against the
yelling mob until one was beaten down and killed as I have told you!’
‘Hark to the noise overhead!’ I cried. ‘The cuddy is full of men!’
Through the open porthole came faintly, like voices at a distance
across the water, sounds of the shouting on deck. The wind had dropped.
A sheet calm had fallen. Through the cabin window I saw the sea
stretching to its dim, hot confines in a vast spread of soft silver
blue, with scarce a breathing of swell to stir the ship.
‘What have they done with the captain?’ I asked.
‘As I ran to join Butler, a crowd of convicts gathered round the
captain and doctor, as though to force them off the poop. I don’t think
they hurt them.’
I asked some other questions. He had rallied, and now talked with
something of composure.
‘Hush!’ cried he suddenly. ‘There are people outside.’
The door of the cabin next mine was beaten. Mine was then hammered on.
‘Are you there, Johnstone?’
It was Tom, and in a heart-beat I threw open the door. Beside him stood
Mr. Bates, the chief officer of the ship. On my showing myself, Tom
extended his arms and gathered me to his breast and held me tight. I
broke into a little passion of sobs, but shed no tears.
‘You are free,’ I cried, drawing from him and grasping his hands and
looking into his dear eyes.
‘Not yet! Not yet!’ he answered hoarsely, as though his voice had been
strained by shouting. ‘But, dear heart, we are together and may talk
together now. Mr. Bates, step in.’
They were alone. He shut the door when the mate entered.
‘This is Marian Johnstone, the lady I was to have married, the lady who
accompanied me on board this ship in the East India Docks. She followed
me into this accursed vessel and, herself a woman of wealth and a lady
by birth, has waited at your table, stooped to the vile drudgery of
the cuddy, worked like a convict, associated with men no better than
convicts, that she might be in sympathy with me in my degradation.
May she find a reward!’ he cried, raising his hands and speaking in a
broken voice. ‘Do you stare, Mr. Bates? Why, yes, to be sure; she was a
boy and a cabin bottle-washer to your habit of thought down to a minute
ago. But the secret of her sex is yours. This is her cousin, Will.
Sir, on your honour, this lady is still a boy amongst us, and you know
nothing. Consider our company. Give me your hand upon it.’
Mr. Bates extended his hand, and Tom grasped it. The mate was a man of
a somewhat slow turn of mind. He looked at me hard whilst he retained
his grasp of my sweetheart’s hand, and said: ‘I have been thinking as
much for some time. There never was a boy with your skin and eyes.
Butler’s a lucky man!’
‘A wronged man!’ I cried.
‘I said so when I read the papers, and I’ve been saying it ever since
aboard this ship, as you know, Johnstone.’
‘She shipped as Simon Marlowe,’ said Tom, ‘and so she remains--that’s
understood. Mr. Bates, you stop here with her and Johnstone. I’ll
bring Abram and others presently. The wolves are tearing the cuddy to
pieces in their rage to eat and drink. No man’ll harm you as my friend.
You three are my friends--friends!’ he cried, and again he took me in
his arms and held me to him, then passionately broke away and said,
speaking fast and harshly and with a fierceness I had noticed in his
whispers: ‘They’ll not hurt you! The devils are helpless without me.
There’s not a navigator amongst them. It was concerted I was to take
charge, and I do so on my own terms.’
‘What have they done with the captain?’ cried Mr. Bates.
‘He’s in the prisoners’ quarters along with the doctor and Captain
Barrett and the survivors of the guard. I fear the bad part of your
sailors more than the convicts. There must be no bloodshed. But
let them yell and roar. Give the mad spirits of the brutes time to
languish. They have their liberty, but it is not the liberty of the
shore, and they’ll not know what to do with it presently when they
sober down and look around. Marian, my brave heart!’ For the third
time he pressed me to him and stepped out, bidding us leave the door
unbolted and to stay till he returned.
His face was white, hard and wild; his manner that of one who is full
of rage and whose struggle to command it fills his eyes with the
light of madness. Mr. Bates gazed at me when the door closed upon my
sweetheart, and, plunging his hands in his pockets, said: ‘I owe him
my life. He locked me in my cabin, and a number of the convicts were
forcing the door when he thrust through and brought me out. He shouted:
“Men, I have three friends; two are youngsters below, this is the
third. You know our compact. You know who this man is. You have seen
him often enough. He is an old shipmate of mine and a friend, and if
a hair of his is harmed, you sail the ship yourselves.” The cuddy was
full of convicts; but there fell a silence whilst he roared this out.
He has a noble voice. He put his arm through mine and walked me to
the hatch. The devils fell away from me and started shouting on other
matters, as though I was out of it and concerned them no longer. He
saved my life. They’ve killed poor Masters. They would have killed me.’
‘Is the second mate dead?’ gasped Will.
‘Butler told me so. Masters showed fight when they killed the sentry
and rushed on to the poop, and he was cut down. So Butler told me as we
came here. The convicts got hold of the soldiers’ arms, and it was all
done out of hand. And what’s to become of the ship?’
‘What will they do with the captain and the doctor?’ said Will.
‘How many have been killed?’ I asked.
‘Three convicts were dropped by the sentries,’ answered Will. ‘Suppose
them dead. Then two soldiers. Then the lieutenant and Mr. Masters. The
tally’ll run to near half a score, sir,’ said he, looking at the mate.
‘And you’re a cousin of this lady?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘I’m no lady on board this ship. Pray take heed, sir!’ I cried.
‘She has nothing to do with this business!’ cried my cousin. ‘She was
afraid of losing sight of Captain Butler if she followed him in another
ship.’
The poor man durst not ask questions, for fear of offending me.
‘What noise is that?’ cried Will.
I heard a kind of pounding, like the stroke of a pump or the hitting
of timber. Mr. Bates put his head out of the door to listen. A dull,
confused tumult of voices came down the hatch--wild cries as of mad or
drunken delight; but I seemed to catch a level note in the hubbub, and
supposed that the first delirium and wild-beast-like transports were
passing.
Mr. Bates was about to shut the door, when he was arrested by a noise
of rushing feet. He looked out, and said: ‘Here’s a mob of convicts
streaming into the steerage!’
I pushed past him and took the door-handle from his grasp, opened the
door wide, and stood in the way. The convicts were abreast of me in
a moment, twenty or thirty of them. They shouted as they ran, using
language which has gone from my memory. I guessed they had come to
sack the cabins down here, from the nature of their shouts one to
another; but they roared so hoarsely, their oaths were so plentiful and
unintelligible, their speech so hard to understand, some of them being
of the provinces, that I could only conjecture their designs. My voice,
though contralto, was piercing and clear. I cried out: ‘Do you know who
we are?’
‘Ain’t they Butler’s lot?’ shouted one of them.
‘Yes, the three of us,’ I cried. ‘He’ll be here in a moment, along
with Barney Abram. We’re keeping out of the muddle above till you’ve
found out who’s your friends.’
‘It’s the spunky young devil as jawed the doctor,’ said a voice.
‘This is my cabin,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to take in it. But what’s
your friend’s, he keeps, don’t he? Look here! I’ve been with you, if
not of you, and tasted every joy of yours but your irons, curse them!’
and with a swaggering, bouncing, rollicking manner I sprang to my bunk
and pulled out the convict mattress and pillow and flung them on the
deck. ‘No. 240,’ I cried, pointing, and forcing a shout of laughter.
Some of the convicts echoed that insane burst of merriment. Their
laughter was hideous with its note of raw hoarseness.
‘What’s that bundle there?’ cried one of them, a heavy-jawed,
low-browed ruffian.
‘Skins and yacks and dummies is it, my bulger? Where’s your pal?’ cried
another man.
‘Show out! Show out!’ roared a third voice.
‘It’s woman’s clothes. Look and then let them be,’ I cried, still
preserving my bouncing, dare-devil air.
They were elbowing in; the atmosphere was sickening with the fellows’
warm, hard breathing. Many of them, I judged, had got at the cuddy
stock of liquor. Will and the mate stood side by side in a corner.
Never shall I forget the show of faces that confronted me; men with
broken noses; one with a hare-lip; one with a diabolical squint. Some
were gray, two or three a flaming red. But the features and colour
counted for nothing; their looks were devilish and horrible, and the
prevailing expression an infuriate triumph of the basest spirits,
inflamed by drink and animated yet by the brutal and maddening lust of
plunder.
At this instant I heard Tom’s voice at the back of the crowd. He cried
out: ‘Is this fair? Is this how their promises are to be kept? What
have they done? Abram, help me to clear this cabin.’
The rearmost of the convicts were violently twisted out of the doorway;
as Tom forced his way in, the fellows reeled to the thrust of his
elbows. Abram was shouting: ‘Out, you cub! A bargid’s a bargid. You’ve
no right here!’ And whilst he shouted he lay about him, and some of the
men absolutely flew before the prodigious thrust of his arm, tumbling
others down as they bounded, until perhaps a dozen of the felons lay
sprawling in the passage outside the cabin door, cursing, roaring,
laughing and filling the place with the infernal din of a madhouse.
‘Is it all right with you, Marlowe?’ cried Tom passionately.
‘All right,’ I answered, ‘and right also with our two friends.’
‘Dow look here!’ exclaimed Barney Abram, whom I did not instantly
recognise, for he had removed his convict clothes and wore a long
pea-coat, cap and trousers belonging to Captain Sutherland. ‘Look
here!’ he exclaimed, addressing the convicts, who stood in a crowd at
the cabin door. ‘Our agreebet with Butler was that his two yug freds
was to be let alode. It was probised. Why dote you keep your word?
D’ye dow where y’ are? You’re at sea, and there’s dot a bad you cad
trust the ship to but Butler,’ and here he put his immense hand upon
Tom’s shoulder. ‘There’s a third party he’s asked our kideness for.
He shall have it. We owe hib do grudge. The chief bate of this ship’s
always beed a quiet bad. Did ady bad ever hear hib slig a hard word at
a prisoder? He’s Butler’s fred, ad that’s edough. Butler’s our fred,
ad’ll carry you in safety to where you bay scatter. Ate that what you
want?’
‘We never came ’ere to ’urt ’em,’ said one of the convicts.
‘D’ye know them now?’ shouted Tom. ‘Look, and tell all hands of you,
fore and aft, that these three are my friends and are not to be
molested. If they are not well used by you all, if the smallest injury
befalls them through any one of you, I instantly chuck the job of
navigating the ship. You may threaten me; you may torture me; you may
hang me. I’ll fling the navigating instruments overboard, and leave
the ship to drown you on a lee shore or to run foul of an English
man-of-war.’
I cannot express the savageness with which he spoke; the hatred and
contempt with which he surveyed the crowd of ugly rascals.
‘That’s plaid English! Are you satisfied?’ cried Barney Abram, clapping
his hands on his thighs and stooping and howling his words at them.
‘Come along, bullies! No use wasting time here!’ cried a voice.
In a moment the convicts broke away. They burst into the cabin next
door and filled the pantry, and I heard them laughing and yelling as
they flung the food they found at one another and dashed the crockery
against the bulkhead. Tom shut the door.
‘Ad ’ow are you, yug gentlebud?’ said Abram, offering me his hand. ‘So
the doctor wadted to bake be your pal, eh? He preaches a good serbud,’
he added, shutting one eye and looking at Mr. Bates. ‘What d’ye thik of
this, sir, for a piece of orgadisatiod? Is it prettily badaged?’
‘It is grandly managed,’ said I, answering for the mate, who seemed
incapable of speech, and who stood staring at the repulsive, massive,
small-poxed face and wonderful figure of the prize-fighter with looks
of dread and aversion. ‘You, Mr. Abram, will have been the genius of
this splendid stroke.’
‘I thik I bay claib to ’ave ’ad a small ’ad in it,’ he answered, with
an indescribable smirk of self-complacency, as he gazed at Tom.
‘Hark at those brutes outside!’ cried my sweetheart. ‘There’ll be no
navigation, there’ll be nothing to be done with the ship if those
hell-hounds are not to be brought under some sort of government.’
‘You bust let theb howl it out of thebselves. They’ve got at the drik
and that’s dot going to quiet ’eb,’ said Abram. ‘Perhaps sub of theb
will be jubping overboard presedly, or going for each other with the
soldiers’ sballarbs; we’re rather duberous.’
He spoke with a great affectation of gentility and superiority. At any
other time I should have burst into a fit of laughter at the fellow’s
grotesque, genteel air, coupled with the indescribable leering smirk of
self-complacency that was fixed upon his pitted face.
‘Captain Butler, what use can you make of me?’ said Mr. Bates, finding
his voice on a sudden. ‘I owe you my life, and I want to prove myself
grateful, and I want to show myself grateful for Mr. Abram’s friendship
and protection.’
‘Let Mr. Bates go and take charge of the deck,’ said Tom, looking at
Abram.
Abram, with a cunning grin, shook his head. ‘Trust the ship to wud of
her bates! Reckon that he’s going to steer you to the port agreed upod
for our dispersal? He’ll wait upod you!’ said Abram.
‘The ship must be watched,’ said Tom. ‘Suppose a squall should burst
down upon us! Suppose something with paddle-wheels and a white pennant
flying should heave into sight!’ he added with an oath which I had
never before heard in his mouth, and looking Abram fiercely in the face
as he spoke. ‘How am I to teach these wretches common-sense? The ship
must be watched!’ he shouted. ‘Am I to be your only man? Is it to be a
twenty-four-hours’ look-out with me day after day until I bring you in
sight of the land we agree to make? Bates, you are still first mate of
this ship under me. You won’t go wrong. You’ll have no chance. I’d blow
out the brains of any man who’d imperil the liberty I’ve regained this
morning!’
His eyes flashed, his face filled with blood, he took a step and put
his arms round my neck and stood so, scarcely sensible, it seemed to
me, of what he did.
‘I’ll back you, Tom!’ said I. ‘The liberty you’ve this day got you’ll
keep.’
Abram burst out laughing. I felt, and was amazed to feel Tom’s
influence over this ruffian.
‘Your little fred’s got the spu’k, Butler,’ said he. ‘A bugful of it
wouldn’t hurt that lad there,’ he continued, nodding at Will.
‘He is my cousin,’ said I. ‘Don’t question his courage. He’s fresh from
seeing men butchered and thrown alive overboard. You are the greatest
fighter in all England, with the finest endurance and pluck of any
man that ever entered a ring; therefore, Mr. Abram, you have a soft
heart. Courage and kindness go hand in hand. Bear with that lad. He is
horror-stricken.’
‘Do deed for such sedsatiods, by warbler,’ said the prize-fighter,
grinning with gratification and stepping up to Will. ‘Give us your arb.
I’ll take yours, Bates. Dow let’s step od deck. I wadt air ad a drink.’