SHE LISTENS TO THE CONVICTS DEBATING
Tom and the prize-fighter talked together whilst Mr. Bates got the
boats alongside and superintended the stowage of provisions and water
in them. I went into the shadow of the awning to get out of the heat
of the sun and to remove myself from Tom, that we might not be seen
together constantly. Some of the ringleaders, as I must term the
fellows whom the convicts undoubtedly regarded as heads or chiefs under
Tom or Abram, joined my sweetheart and the prize-fighter, and the air
speedily hummed with the eager, animated talk of the crowd. Will joined
me, and we watched the long-boat. She had gone about a mile, and they
had hoisted the sail for the shelter of its shadow. It hung like a
sheet of silver from its yard, without a stir, so smooth was the sea,
so still the air. The soldiers continued to sweep the boat along; the
oars glanced like hairs of silver as they rose and fell.
Will went to the binnacle to judge of the course the boat was making.
The scoundrel seaman who grasped the wheel growled out with a low,
coarse laugh and in a cursing voice some remark I did not catch.
‘You wouldn’t have said that yesterday,’ exclaimed Will, and came back
to me without taking further notice of the miscreant. ‘They are heading
due west,’ said he. ‘I don’t suppose they will make up their minds till
the other boats join them.’
‘What is the nearest land?’
‘The Brazilian coast. But the nearest is a long way off. There’s but a
small chance for them outside of being picked up. And yet what a lump
of a boat she is compared with the gig! When is she to be provisioned?
And when are we to get away? And when we’ve got away, what’s going to
happen? Good angels, I wish we were both at Stepney!’
‘Leave everything to Tom,’ said I, ‘and do as he tells you.’
He looked at me with a mutinous eye, went to the rail and stared over
the side. Tom and the council of convicts had left the poop. I peered
through the skylight; the cuddy was empty, the table covered with
fragments and remains of food with broken china and broken bottles and
glasses, and the deck scarcely fit to walk on for the wounding stuff
that strewed it. I went to the break of the poop to see what they were
about on the main-deck. Both quarter-boats were alongside and a gang
of convicts were stowing them. The decks were filled with the people,
who, since the departure of the long-boat, had grown orderly. The mass
of them conversed in knots; groups hung about the galleys. They had
discovered pipes and tobacco--tobacco there would be in plenty for the
guard and the crew, and possibly a stock of pipes. A number of the
convicts had pipes in their mouths, and their profound enjoyment of the
tobacco, after months and, perhaps, years of penitential abstinence,
undoubtedly helped to keep them quiet.
The sun stood something to the left of north, and the tall, motionless
spaces of canvas on high cast shadows over the decks, and betwixt the
rails the high noon was endurable. A thick, sickly smell of roasted
paint rose from the ship’s side. If you put your hand upon the exposed
wood or any piece of metal, you were burnt as though you touched hot
iron. I thought to myself: If these unhappy wretches should run short
of water! If this calm should hold them motionless here for days and
perhaps for weeks! For calms often serve ships so in these parts, as I
had heard my father and his sea friends tell. I sought to compute the
number on board, and, allowing for those who were presently to leave
the ship, I calculated we should muster hard upon two hundred and fifty
souls. When Tom left them, what would the miserable creatures do? But,
then, what was that to me? All I cared for was that Tom should come
off with his life and be a free man, no longer a degraded criminal,
clanking in irons, to be mangled by the cat, perhaps, at the will of
any ferocious Tasmanian ruffian who might take a dislike to him.
The convicts had seized the ship. One had but to look toward the now
distant long-boat to appreciate the felons’ estimate of human life.
I could not pity them when I thought of how they would have kept the
women and children and of the havoc they had wrought below, and when I
looked at their faces, recalled their songs and oaths in drink, their
bestial speech, and saw the plunder on their vile backs.
Tom and Abram and a little crowd of men stood near the gangway. My
sweetheart looked on. He gave no orders. Poor Mr. Bates did all the
work of superintendence, and watched the convicts as they slung the
provisions and water for the seamen into the quarter-boats. When this
work was ended, some cries were raised; the throngs of people gathered
about the main-hatch and filled the quarter-deck; the armed malefactors
formed a lane as before, but this time the fiddler did not make his
appearance.
A hoarse voice at the main-hatch summoned the fellows below to come up,
and one after another the crew arrived. The huge one-eared boatswain,
with his staring, glassy eyes, scowled round him with daring, defiant
looks. Abram stood in the gangway and he halted every man ere passing
him over the side to say: ‘You cad stop with us if you like. We’re
short of worki’g ’a’ds and we’ll treat you as one of us. What’ll you
do?’
Mr. Balls made no answer; he passed sullenly on; so did the sailmaker
and carpenter. Mr. Stiles, with a bewildered look at the convicts and
then through the gangway at the white gleam of sea visible there, wiped
his face on the sleeve of his convict jacket and said: ‘Where might you
be bound to, sir?’
Some one cried out: ‘That bloke was the ship’s steward. He’s of no use.’
‘Over you go,’ said Abram, giving Mr. Stiles a dab with his immense
hand between his shoulder-blades, and the steward went with a run to
the gangway and disappeared down the ladder.
Two of the sailors agreed to remain. Will, who had come to my side,
told me that they were the poorest, most skulking and worthless of the
forecastle hands. The convicts, however, cheered when these fellows
said they would stay, and the armed men opened to let them pass into
the crowd. Will’s fellow-apprentices looked up at him as they went to
the boat, and one made a face as though to express his disgust at what
he took to be my cousin’s disloyalty or cowardice. I marked the effect
of this upon Will, and grasped him by the arm, whispering passionately:
‘Not a word!’ and knew by the working of his face that I was just
in time to arrest some angry protesting sentence that might have
endangered him and me too.
Whilst the seamen filed through the gangway, I chanced to look down
upon a crowd of convicts on the quarter-deck, and spied a fellow
pick another man’s pocket. He did it with admirable nimbleness and
dexterity. Both men, the thief and the victim, were dressed in
Lieutenant Chimmo’s clothes. The man that was robbed was the rogue who
had held up Captain Sutherland’s gold watch and chain as though he
meant to play at bob-cherry, and it was this watch and chain which the
other sneaked with inimitable adroitness.
I supposed no one but myself saw this; many stood about, close, too,
and the fellow stole the watch with the most foolish, staring, innocent
face you could imagine, looking at the seamen going through the gangway
as though he could think of nothing else. But scarcely had he snugged
the watch and chain in his side-pocket, when another convict next him
whipped it out with incredible skill and swiftness. Indeed, I should
not have remarked the motions of the rogue’s hand but for the gleam of
the gold. A minute later, the first convict put his hand to his pocket
and missed the watch. He turned furiously upon the second convict,
shouting: ‘A thief! A thief!’ for all the world as though he had been
some respectable man in the streets just robbed. The felon who had the
watch roared out: ‘A thief! A thief!’ and fell upon the second convict
whose pocket he had picked. A scuffle followed. The second convict,
whose guilt appeared to be assumed by all who stood near, as though
they knew him as a thief without morals and capable of robbing a
brother-thief, was kicked and beaten, and a mob of shouting convicts,
with this rascal in the midst of them, surged forward, and I took
notice that the rogue who shouted the loudest and kicked the hardest
was the fellow who had the watch.
This commotion caused no uneasiness amongst the crowd who stood on the
side of the deck where the open gangway was. No doubt they understood
what had happened, and guessed that enough were concerned in the
scuffle to insure justice being done.
By this time both quarter-boats were filled with the seamen. I dare say
there were eleven or twelve men in each, and more could not have gone
without peril, for they were small boats, though they were stout and
fairly new. Bates had seen that each craft had its proper equipment
of mast, sail, oars, rudder, and the like. One of the ringleaders, a
sallow-faced convict with a hare-lip and but two or three fangs in
his upper jaw, roared down to the seamen to shove off, and in a few
minutes both boats were heading in the direction of the long-boat,
which had come to a stand awaiting them. Many convicts sprang upon the
bulwarks and howled out insults in the wickedest language of the slums,
in the most revolting speech of the great city rookeries and haunts of
sin and infamy. The seamen rowed away in silence.
Tom came on to the poop and looked at me a little while with a face
of grief and horror, as though his very soul shrank up within him, to
think that I should be a spectator of such scenes and a hearer of such
language. I read his mind; he would not approach me to speak.
Barney Abram followed, and with him were the hare-lipped man and some
score of convicts, of whom half might have been principals in the
seizure of the ship.
‘Let’s get to busidess,’ said Abram. ‘Talk to the people as was
arradged, Butler.’
On this, Tom, laying hold of the brass rail, leaned forward and cried
out that every man was to come together on the quarter-deck, as he
had a few words to say to them. Mr. Bates stole up the ladder to my
side and, without speaking, gazed with a look of bitter distress at
the receding boats. Still was the ocean as polished a plain as ever
it had been during the morning. The sun flashed up the water into
blinding dazzle in the north-west, and the heat was terrible. There was
no motion in the ship to fan the lightest of the topmost cloths; the
atmosphere floated like the breath of an oven, without refreshment of
the draughts which circle about a deck when the becalmed craft leans
with the swell and her courses and topsails swing. The convicts massed
themselves upon the main-deck; their faces were white or scarlet with
the heat. The drink had been distilled out of them by the roasting
temperature, and the unhappy beings stood looking up at Tom with as
orderly a bearing as ever they exhibited when the doctor addressed them.
‘Men,’ said my sweetheart, ‘I’ve taken charge of this vessel. It’s the
interests of everybody aboard her that I’ve now to consider; it’s for
us, all assembled as we are, to consider what’s to be done. And first
understand this: No ship can be sailed without discipline. Look aloft,
men, at those vast heights. You see for yourselves what a complicated
thing a ship is. If I and the mate of your own election,’ and here he
pointed to Mr. Bates, ‘give an order, it must be promptly obeyed. If
not--but you’re not fools--you can guess what must follow if we’re not
obeyed. I’ll not interfere in any arrangements which don’t affect the
safety of the ship. You’ll sleep where you choose, and eat when you
choose, and whatever you do that doesn’t concern our lives will be no
business of mine. But remember, there are nearly two hundred and fifty
of us!’
He was interrupted by some voice shouting out the exact number.
‘You taste this weather, don’t ye? You can guess how it would fare with
us to run short of water, and next to that would be the running short
of provisions. You must be willing to go on allowance.’
‘Willing? Of course. That’s to be expected,’ broke in three or four of
them.
‘Those amongst you who have been seafaring men will unite with the
sailors and form a crew and take the forecastle for your quarters,
which must be your own, never to be intruded upon. Is that understood?’
‘Understood!’ was the answer, in a roar.
‘The rest will form themselves into three watches under heads, as in
the doctor’s time; and every watch will come on deck turn and turn
about, and stand by to assist the crew by pulling and hauling, cleaning
and making the ship sweet, and so helping to keep you all alive, ready
for the run ashore when the hour comes.’
A great cheer echoed this sentence.
‘Mr. Bates,’ continued Tom, ‘knows where everything is stowed in this
ship. He’ll sample your food for you and name you your water allowance.
Use him kindly, men. He’s of first-rate consequence to us.’
When this was said, Barney Abram crossed to the mate, brought him to
the middle of the break of the poop, near to where Tom stood, and
there, in the sight of all the convicts, shook him by the hand. This
was done in silence, but it was a very expressive performance--some
might hold after the Eastern manner, seeing who was the main actor.
Tom went on: ‘I must have the captain’s cabin; the navigating
instruments of the vessel are there and certain conveniences of
furniture. The chief mate will also need his cabin; he’ll share it with
that young gentleman,’ said he, pointing to Will. ‘If any of you in
the hurry of this morning has mistaken Mr. Bates’s effects for Captain
Barrett’s or the other officers’ or the commander’s, I’ll beg him to
return them. He is our friend, and Mr. Abram wishes him to be well
used. It is not right he should be thus dressed.’
‘Look at yourself?’ cried a voice on the quarter-deck.
‘Yes, but I’m a convict!’ exclaimed Tom, savagely.
This raised a roar; a hundred men seemed to speak at once; they yelled
out to this effect--that there were no longer any convicts aboard that
ship, that they were all free men, that they had got their liberty and
meant to keep it, and so forth.
‘Order!’ bawled Abram, raising his arms above his head. ‘We’re here to
discuss batters quietly. The capt’id’s talked very sensibly, ad I’b
with hib up to the hilt as far as he’s gord. Are those your sedibents?’
said he, looking round at the little crowd of convicts who stood near.
‘There must be discipline,’ answered one of them, ‘and Butler’s talked
very good sense so far.’
‘How about the stock of spirits?’ exclaimed a tall, thin, pale,
grey-haired convict, dressed in an officer’s shell-jacket too short for
him--so that when I think of him now it is always somehow in connection
with Mr. Dickens’s incomparable figure of Smike. ‘’Sponsible men are
wanted to see to that.’
‘You’re right, Williams,’ said Tom, giving him an emphatic nod.
‘Every cask of spirits,’ continued the man, speaking somewhat nasally
and amidst a silence that might have rendered his voice audible as far
as the forecastle, ‘is full of little devils swimming about. And every
little devil, when he’s swallowed, carries seven other little devils,
all a-clinging to one another’s tails, down into a man’s inside. Call
it eight devils,’ said he, raising his voice. ‘One for each eye, is
two; one for each ear, is four; one for the tongue’s, five; and there’s
three over to keep the others goin’ it. ’Sponsible men, Abram, if that
there sea is not to shut up this pleasing dream of liberty.’
‘Men,’ said Tom, ‘there’s sound reason in what you’ve heard. But I spy
good sense breaking out amongst you all. Don’t let your feelings carry
you away. Look at the mess in the cuddy! What good has your drunken,
breaking scramble done? The sober and sound amongst you should compel
the men who smashed up that pleasant interior to clear it out, and to
make it a shipshape abode for those whose quarters it’s to become.’
Some one shouted: ‘We’ll have that done!’
‘Dow talk to us about where we’re to go,’ said Abram.
‘Talk to me, and I’ll advise you,’ said Tom, with his eyes upon the
crowd beneath, folding his arms and standing erect.
‘You’re a navigator and know the world,’ exclaimed the sallow,
ill-looking man with the hare-lip.
‘Aye, and I’ll counsel you when you’ve spoken and want advice,’ said
Tom.
‘Where are we now?’ exclaimed a convict on the quarter-deck.
‘Shall I give it to you in parallels and meridians?’ answered Tom,
with a sort of angry scorn in his voice. ‘You wouldn’t understand me.
Suppose Mr. Bates brings you up a chart, there’s no room for hard upon
two hundred and fifty heads to overhang it at once; and how many of
you can read, that it should be passed around? Now listen: We’re in
the middle of the ocean to the north of the Equator. Yonder,’ said he,
pointing over the port beam, ‘many hundred leagues distant, is the Gulf
of Guinea and the great bight of the African coast from Cape Formosa to
Cape Frio.’
The convicts turned their heads all one way, staring like one man,
some of them getting on their toes to look.
‘Yonder,’ continued Tom, pointing over the starboard beam, whereupon
the heads of the convicts went round as before and all the poor,
ignorant wretches stared as though by looking they’d see the land, ‘is
the great Brazilian seaboard from Cape St. Roque to Rio Janeiro.’
I observed that Abram gazed at Tom with an indescribable smirking grin
of admiration, as though struck by his familiar acquaintance with land
entirely out of sight.
‘But my words,’ continued my sweetheart ‘give only a few who are
educated amongst you any ideas. Yet I can tell you no more than this:
That we are in the heart of the great Atlantic Ocean, and that a
huge world for choice is spread on either hand, away in the Pacific
by rounding Cape Horn and away in the Indian and Southern Oceans by
rounding the Cape of Good Hope. Where shall I carry you to?’
A number of the convicts spoke at once.
‘Wud at a tibe! Wud at a tibe!’ yelled Abram.
‘Let’s go home!’ shouted a man on the quarter-deck.
‘Debate it,’ said Abram.
An uneasy stir ran through the mass of the convicts, and a long, deep
growl of dissent.
‘Home!’ cried Tom, passionately. ‘How’s home called in English? What’s
its name? Is it Newgate or Millbank or her Majesty’s ship _Warrior_?
Is it the Dockyard and the Arsenal and irons and handcuffs, cursing
warders and carbines ready for your brains? You want my advice; I’ll
counsel you.’
Some angry laughter broke from the men.
‘Who’s the madman that talks of home?’ shouted Tom. ‘Shall I sail you
up the Thames and moor ye alongside the hulk? Is Plymouth your port, or
do you choose Portsmouth?’
‘Why not try for the islands about Torres Straits?’ exclaimed one of
the convicts who had been a seaman. Several bawled to know where Torres
Straits were.
‘To the nor’ard of Australia,’ replied the convict. ‘There the sea’s
thick with islands. Plenty to eat and drink, mates, and casting away a
ship is as easy and safe as drawing a cork.’
‘Ain’t Norfold Island hard by?’ exclaimed another.
‘My idea,’ said a ringleader, raising his voice as he overhung the
poop-rail, ‘is to beach the vessel on the West Coast of Africa. There
we breaks up into parties and disperses, and every party has their yarn
ready manufactured to account for theirselves ag’in’ being met with or
falling in with a settlement.’
‘Were you ever ashore on that coast?’ exclaimed Tom.
‘No,’ answered the man.
‘Then put this picture before you, one and all, for I who address you
know what I am saying: Not a patch of verdure; leagues of sand like
glass, glaring and shining; a few half-starved jackals; a few bushmen,
who live on beetles and putrefied seals and go clothed in stinking
sheepskins; a hare or two at long intervals, and a few sand-plants;
the sun at noon like a lantern looming in vapours; here and there
penguins braying; here and there sea-fowls shrieking, and the surf
roaring always. Is that good enough for you? You’d be clean-picked
bones in a week.’
All this while the ocean remained breathless. Far away were the
two black specks of quarter-boats, and beyond was the gleam of the
long-boat’s sail, a point of light under the horizon like the image of
a star. Fortunately for the convicts, the lay of the yards flung the
shadow of the canvas upon the deck. Otherwise it was broiling where
the sun was. The poop was sheltered by the awning that stretched from
the mizzen-mast to the brass rail. Many of the people stood with their
coats over their arms and their shirts open. A mist rose from them. I
figured how it had been at night in their quarters when I saw that mist
and the motionless wind-sails and the main-hatch half sealed with its
cage-like barricade.
‘May I speak?’ cried a man on the quarter-deck, lifting up his hand.
‘To the poi’t,’ answered Abram. ‘Every bad with ad idea bay speak; but
to the poi’t.’
‘Here’s a big ship,’ said the man, in a very fair cultivated accent (he
was about six-and-twenty years of age, had held a situation as a clerk
and had been sentenced for forgery), ‘and we’re a numerous and powerful
company of determined men, needing nothing but the organisation that
Captain Butler’s capable of. I propose that we chase small vessels
and capture them, send their crews adrift like those yonder, man each
captured craft with a number of ourselves, every lot containing a
proportion of those who are sailors or who have followed the sea. This
would disperse us. Every crew would do as they thought proper with
their own craft. I should be for wrecking mine on some safe coast near
a town where we could represent ourselves as castaways.’
The convicts listened with close attention. Abram looked at Tom, who
made no sign.
‘What d’ye say to it, Butler?’ shouted a fellow.
‘Do what you please,’ answered my sweetheart.
‘Advise us,’ said the hare-lipped man.
‘It’s a landlubber’s fancy,’ said Tom.
A number of men talked at once. One of the original crew of the _Childe
Harold_ roared out: ‘It’s smothering rot! The capt’n’s laughing at you!
Chase! In a craft arter this pattern, with twelve or fourteen hands and
a working crew, ne’er a great gun nor a soul saving the capt’n and the
mate as ’ud be capable of navigating them small craft after they was
boarded and taken!’ He spat hard and turned his back in contempt.
‘My notion’s been this all through the blushen piece,’ said a
beetle-browed, flat-nosed, ruffianly looking convict. ‘Sail to an
oninhabited hisland and settle him. A hisland where there’s grub agoing
in fruit-trees and beastesses of fish what crawls upon the beach, all
which there’ll be some here as has heard of. Where water trickles sweet
an’ cold, and the weather it ain’t too hot. There, upon that hisland,
we can concoct and consart, and them what pleases can be took off by
passing vessels. The others will be a-doing as did them mutineers of
the _Bounty_ whose capt’n he was named Bligh. We moors this ship and
keeps her handy. Females ain’t ever fur to look for. In this ’ere ship
wives can be brought from places which ain’t too fur off and where the
colour won’t be wrong, the ’igh seas being vide of choice. That’s bin
my notion all through the fired piece.’
‘Who’s next?’ shouted Abram, impatiently.
One of the remaining crew of the ship--a sailor with a cast eye and a
head of hair so exactly resembling oakum that no convict could look
at it without finding something personal and a sort of reflection in
it--this man, who sat high-perched above the heads of the throng on the
quarter-deck winch, snapped his fingers at the poop and asked leave to
address the gents.
‘What d’ye want to say?’ shouted the hare-lipped man, who, I gathered,
ranked next to Abram as the principal ringleader.
‘Gents, all,’ cried the fellow, ‘man an’ boy, I’ve followed the seas
for two and twenty years, and in that time I’ve sailed all about the
world and there’s scarce a furrin part as I haven’t visited. Now, if I
was you, speaking with Captain Butler’s good leave, what I’d do’s this:
Round the Horn t’other side of South Amerikay there lies what’s called
the Narth Pacific Ocean. From the Sandwich Islands, right away to
this side the Philippines, including of the Ladrones and the Caroline
Islands, it’s all chock-a-block with the sort of little countries ye
oughter visit. A lovely cordial drink they manufactures out of cocoanut
juice. There’s no call for clothes. The natives are friendly disposed.
Them as ain’t are easily knocked over the head. White men like
yourselves live in them islands. If I was you gents, I’d get Captain
Butler to steer the ship into the Narth Pacific, touch and discharge a
score of ye, touch and discharge another score, touch and touch again
till this here multitude was broke up. That’s my notion, gents, and
your chance, and I’ll ask Captain Butler what he thinks.’
‘It’ll do!’ exclaimed Tom. ‘I would propose nothing better.’
On this there was some confusion, owing to a number of the convicts
cheering, whilst others shouted questions to the poop. The silence upon
the sea, and the ship lying as stirless as though she were at anchor,
made this strange council of convicts somewhat ironical to my mind. It
was hard to cast one’s eye over the lake-like ocean and realise the
North Pacific as a part of the world that was to be come at by the
vessel. Tom’s approval of the seaman’s scheme seemed to settle the
matter. Many questions, most of them ignorant and ridiculous, were
bawled. They were answered from the poop, sometimes by Tom, sometimes
by Abram and the ringleaders, and sometimes they were answered by
fellows on the quarter-deck.
After a little, and whilst the decks were a-buzz with the vast noise
of talk, the prize-fighter asked Mr. Bates to produce a chart of the
islands named by the seaman. Mr. Bates fetched a chart. It was a big
sheet with a blue back, comprised a portion only of the North Pacific,
and was very clearly drawn and printed. This chart was laid upon the
skylight and the corners weighted. The principal convicts drew in a
body to it.
I stood near and overheard the talk. They called up the sailor, and he
pointed to three or four of the islands which he said he had visited.
The hare-lipped man asked him if British ships of war cruised in those
seas. He answered that here and there a small surveying-vessel might be
fallen in with, ‘but nothen to take notice of,’ said he, ‘nothen that’s
going to hurt ye. It’s your best chance, gents. Many sorts of vessels
are a-touching at them islands for water, nuts, and sometimes for their
entertainment, and often again for their convenience. The sailors run,
’specially from the South Seamen. You’ll have your yarns ready in case
of questions; but down in them parts curiosity ain’t what you might
call active. Stick to this here scheme, and there’s nothen to hinder
any man as has a mind to retarn home from finding himself arter a year
or two in Lunnon again, with dollars enough in his pocket to keep him
in wittles till something turns up.’
‘All that this man says is very true,’ exclaimed Tom. ‘He’s given us a
good scheme. We’re obliged to him.’
Saying this, he edged out of the crowd about the skylight and, seeing
me abreast of the rail, came and stood beside me.
‘Is it a good scheme?’ I whispered, without looking at him.
‘It will amuse them,’ he answered softly. ‘I must seem in earnest. What
do I care?’
‘You control them wonderfully.’
‘Poor wretches!’ he muttered, and, stepping to the companion-way, took
the ship’s telescope out of its brackets and pointed it at the three
boats upon the sea. Their situation was now determinable to the naked
eye by the dim, tiny gleam of the long-boat’s sail.
‘They’re sneaking westward,’ said Tom, talking low with his eye at the
glass. ‘The American seaboard may give me the chance I want. Eastward
nearly everything afloat is British--curse the name!’
By this time, the convicts on the quarter-deck had got wind of the
chart on the poop and were crowding up the ladders to look. That
all might obtain a sight, Abram bawled a recommendation to them to
form themselves into small divisions. This was done. The chiefs or
ringleaders broke up the mass into little gangs, and one after another
these gangs came to the skylight and overhung the chart. The cast-eyed
sailor with the hair of oakum stood by to answer questions and pointed
out the islands. Some of the educated convicts dwelt upon the chart so
long, musing, running their fingers down the meridians, calculating
distances and so forth, that the waiting gangs howled at them with
impatience. Yet all was now orderly as one could wish--far more orderly
than I had dared expect.
As the gangs passed on from the skylight aft, viewing the chart and
questioning the cast-eyed man, they broke up and hung about various
parts of the poop or returned to the main-deck. The coarse joke, the
loud, brutal laugh was frequent; but there was no horse-play, none of
the former huge, hideous, cart-horse gambolling, shouting, and tipsy
fighting. The heat lay upon the people like a weight. Their spirits
were sobered by the extraordinary oppression of the vast, silent,
roasting calm.
‘Abram,’ called Tom, holding the telescope and still standing at my
side, ‘let some of the men--those responsible for the mess--clean the
cuddy out. Look through the skylight. The deck’s full of broken glass.
And my advice to you and the others is to arrange without delay for
the distribution of the people for the night. You’ll want cooks. Those
who have been cooking so far should continue. They know what’s needed,
where to seek, how to manage. Mr. Bates here will counsel you on
quantities. I wish to see the ship cleared fore and aft, and everything
ready for any sort of weather that may come along. Ay, and there’s more
yet. Suppose an English man-of-war heaves in sight and signals us, we
must know what to do and be in readiness to do it. The pennant’s an
old cure for dull sight. A devilish keen eye that never winks lies
spliced in the fly of every man-of-war’s whip. And d’ye see that,
Abram?’ he cried, pointing at the sea over the starboard quarter.
Twenty or thirty convicts were upon the poop, and they all turned their
heads and stared in a hurrying, eager way in the direction indicated by
Tom’s levelled forefinger.
‘See what?’ exclaimed the prize-fighter, lifting the sharp of his
massive hand to his brow, and straining his black, fiery vision.
‘That dark blue line.’
Tom stepped to the rail and cried out: ‘Stand by, all you seamen aboard
this vessel, to trim sail!’ Then turning to Abram: ‘Tumble the people
to their work of cleaning up, will ye?’ he cried. ‘Put the cooks to
their duty; we can’t starve!’ He then turned to me and, placing the
telescope in my hand, said loudly: ‘Marlowe, replace this, then go to
your berth and carry what belongs to you to my cabin, and wait for me
there.’