"BATTLE AND MURDER AND SUDDEN DEATH."
It was past midnight, and in two hours the summer night would be past.
After that, further mystification as to our course would be impossible;
but could we hold on till then, with half a gale of wind behind us, we
should be well over to the Dutch side, and clear at any rate of the
mutinous atmosphere which infected Yarmouth Roads and the Nore.
The men, having, as I supposed, satisfied themselves that the _Zebra_
was being sailed according to their own directions, decided to wait till
daylight, by which time they counted on the encouragement and company of
the Yarmouth mutineers, before they finally hoisted the red flag and
took possession of the ship. Meanwhile they applied themselves
assiduously to the liquor, an indulgence which, in the case of a good
many of the land-lubbers of their company, must have been seriously
spoiled by the rolling of the ship and their first acquaintance since we
left Dublin with really dirty weather.
I reckoned that we were some twelve leagues from the Dutch coast, with
the wind shifting westerly and sending heavy seas over our counter, when
the grey dawn lifted and showed us a waste of water, with nothing
visible but a single speck on the eastern horizon.
After close scrutiny we concluded this to be one or more sail beating up
against the gale; but whether they were Dutch or English, it was too
soon to say.
"Keep her as she is," said Mr Adrian; "and, Mr Gallagher, pipe all
hands. The sooner we come to an understanding with these fiends the
better."
I obeyed. A few of the old tars instinctively turned up to the call,
but seeing all decks but the quarter-deck deserted, they remembered
themselves and went off to look for their comrades.
Presently an uneasy group assembled on the forecastle, many of them
showing traces of the mingled drunkenness and sea-sickness of the night.
We could see them scanning the horizon with their glasses, and slowly
awaking to the discovery that instead of being in the arms of the
confederacy of "the Republic afloat" (as one of the proclamations had
called it), the _Zebra_ was scudding over the high seas.
There was an angry consultation, and shouts to those below to turn up.
About half the number obeyed, though many of these were fit only to lie
helplessly about the deck. A more miserable crew you never beheld.
"Hands aloft! Take in the main-topgallant sail!" cried Mr Adrian, and
the order was shouted forward.
Not a man moved, except Callan, who came to the forecastle rail, and
holding up a pistol, shouted back,--
"Surrender the ship, or we fire!"
Mr Adrian's reply was to repeat the order just given, and draw his
pistol.
One of the mutineers, sent forward by the leaders, advanced to the
mainmast with a red flag in his hand, which he proceeded to fasten to
the flag-lines and to hoist, bringing down the Union flag as he did so.
Mr Adrian levelled his pistol. There was a sharp, clear ring above the
noise of the gale; the man flung up his arms, uttered a yell, and rolled
over on the deck.
"Stand clear!" cried Callan, waving his men on either side of the
forecastle guns. "Fire, my lads!"
There was a silence. No one on the quarter-deck stirred. Those on the
forecastle who had stood with their faces our way, expecting to see the
effect of the volley, looked round impatiently to see why the guns were
mute.
Then came a cry of "Spiked!" followed by a howl of dismay as the
contents of one of our quarter-deck guns crashed with a dull, savage
roar on to the forecastle.
When the smoke cleared we saw a ghastly sight. Men lay in all
directions--some blown to pieces, some groaning in pools of blood, some
dragging themselves with livid faces to a place of shelter.
For my own part, I dreaded to hear Mr Adrian give the order to fire the
second gun. The only thing which prevented it was the sudden clearing
of the forecastle. All who could rushed to the main-deck, where at
least they were below the range of the deadly grape.
Here Callan, who had escaped unhurt, called on his men to form, which
they did in three straggling lines across the deck, howling execrations
and flourishing their knives in our direction.
Before they could advance--before, indeed, those of them who carried
pistols could fire--Mr Adrian, who had ranged us up behind the
barricade, gave the signal to present arms and fire.
It was a volley almost as deadly as the first. Callan sprang a foot or
two in the air, and fell back shot through the heart. The front rank of
the mutineers went down like ninepins, and those behind fell back a pace
in consternation, "Reload! Mark your men!" cried Mr Adrian, whose face
was savage and as hard as a flint.
The wretches gathered themselves together after a moment's hesitation,
and stepping over the fallen bodies of their comrades, advanced with a
half-hearted rush for the quarter-deck.
"Present! fire!" cried Mr Adrian.
Once more man after man went down dead or wounded, and the deck was
strewn with bodies. A heavy sea at the moment broke over the quarter,
sweeping the deck and clashing living and dead in a heap into the lee-
scuppers. A few stood still, eyeing dubiously first one another, then
the quarter-deck, then the waves as they broke across the waist.
"Reload! Mark your men!" cried Mr Adrian again, with a curl of his
lips.
The mutineers heard the command, and dropping their weapons, retreated
in a panic to the hatchways.
"Fire!" said Mr Adrian; "and after them, some of you, and make fast the
hatches."
The first order was not obeyed. It had been bad enough, in defence of
the ship, to fire on one's own shipmates, but to fire on their backs was
too much; and Lieutenant Adrian probably understood as much when he saw
that we all preferred his second order to his first.
It was a short business making good the hatchways, after first driving
below the few stragglers who lingered above board. Then we had leisure
to take stock of the execution our volleys had effected. Eleven men,
including Callan and two of his fellow ringleaders, were dead. Eight
more were mortally wounded, and thirty-eight lay hurt, some badly, some
slightly. We lost no time in throwing the dead overboard, and carrying
those most in need of succour out of the reach of the waves. Tarpaulins
were spread for the rest till a place could be found for them in some of
the after-cabins.
The doctor (who reported that Captain Swift had breathed his last while
the engagement was at its height) did what he could to dress the wounds
of the sufferers, and impressed the services of one or two of the
handiest of the men present as assistants.
Just then, however, with the gale threatening every moment to snap the
masts, it was even more important to get hands aloft to shorten sail.
The midshipmen and officers gallantly undertook this difficult task, but
not in time to save the main-topgallant mast, which fell with a crash,
carrying away the purser and the boatswain's mate, and fouling the
rigging below with its wreck. No sooner was this cleared, and the top
courses taken in, than the man who had been for some moments conning the
strange sails on the horizon reported,--
"Two Dutchmen, sir, thirty-six guns a-piece, bearing this way."
During the struggle with the mutineers we had almost forgotten the
presence of these strangers, and now found them not a league away
standing across the wind to meet us.
It was a hopeless venture to meet them, but Mr Adrian preferred it to
putting the _Zebra_ about and running away.
"Let them come," said he; "they can't do worse than these scoundrels
down below. Stand by the guns, gentlemen!"
We obeyed willingly enough. Had Mr Adrian only been a gentleman as
well as an officer we could have cheered him. But the vision of his
face as he gave the word to mow down his own crew stuck in my memory and
robbed _me_ of all the enthusiasm which his present courage deserved.
On we sped, and nearer drew the Dutchmen. Evidently they were cruisers
on the prowl for an enemy, or sent to observe the motions of our
disorganised fleet. Had we been a sound company we might have held our
own against the two of them. But crippled as we were, with our guns
unmanned, our ammunition lost, and part of our crew lying wounded on
deck, while the rest were prisoners below, we might as well have hoped
to capture Rotterdam.
Fate, however, determined our destiny in her own way. Just as we were
coming about, and those at the guns were blowing their matches for a
first and possibly a last broadside, the _Zebra_ gave a sudden shiver in
every timber, there was a dull growl, followed an instant later by a
terrific explosion which rent the vessel in twain, and dimmed the sky
overhead with spars and smoke, and set the ship reeling on her beam-
ends. At the moment, I was in the act of firing the charge of the gun
in my care, and remember nothing but the tremendous noise, and finding
myself hurled, as it seemed, clear over the breech of the weapon out
into the boiling sea.
Instinctively I clutched at a spar within reach, and clung to it. All
else I saw and heard as in a dream--the ship heeling over further and
further, and the waves leaping on her as she plunged down; the cries and
shrieks of the imprisoned wretches who sought to escape from the
consequences of their own desperate revenge; the sea strewn with
wreckage and struggling swimmers; the first lieutenant's dying
malediction flung into the wind from the quarter-deck; the looming hulls
of the two Dutchmen as they hung in the wind and watched our fate. All,
I say, passed like a grim nightmare. What woke me was an arm suddenly
flung across me, and the white face of Mr Midshipman Gamble looking up
at me out of the water.
I hauled him up on to the spar; and the effort to keep him afloat, and
save myself from his wild struggles, helped me to find my wits.
"Easy, lad!" said I; "you're safe enough here. Keep quiet!"
The sound of a voice steadied him, and he ceased his struggles, and let
me lash him as best I could to the spar.
The Dutchmen, who had, no doubt, witnessed with anything but pleasure
their prey snatched out of their hands, were humane enough to make a
show of lowering a boat for the succour of those who still lived. But
the heavy sea rendered this a very difficult and dangerous task, and
after very little trying we had the dismay of seeing them abandon the
attempt and haul off on their course, leaving us to our fate.
You may fancy with what feelings we watched them gradually growing less
on the horizon, and realised that we were at the mercy of an angry sea,
with no support but a piece of broken timber, and every moment finding
ourselves more and more alone, as comrade after comrade gave up the
struggle and fell back among the waves.
Presently Mr Gamble, whose leg, I found, had been crushed by the
explosion, groaned, and his head fell forward. Three great waves in
succession washed over us with the force of a falling wall; and when
they had passed, and I looked to my companion, he was dead, with the
life simply beaten out of him.
Sorrowfully enough I unlashed him, and let him drop beneath the pitiless
water; and then, finding my own strength beginning to fail, I lashed
myself under the arms and over the spar, and hung on for dear life. In
this posture I spent weary hour after hour watching the waves, and
endeavouring to ward off from my head the fury of their onslaught.
About mid-day the gale eased somewhat. I looked about me. Not a sign
or vestige remained of the _Zebra_ or her hapless crew. Not a floating
thing among the waves caused me to count on the company of a living
wretch like myself. Not even a livid corpse across my track served to
remind me that I, of all that ship's company, still clung to life.
Strange visions, as I rose and fell with the heaving sea, floated before
my eyes. The gloomy kitchen at Kilgorman, and my mother's letter
gleaming under the hearthstone--the hollow on the cliff's edge where Tim
and I had once fought--Biddy McQuilkin sitting at the fireside in our
cabin, setting her cap at my father--Miss Kit with the gun at her
shoulder behind the hall-door at Knockowen--the unhappy old man being
dragged to the guillotine in Paris--the lumbering barge floating down
the Seine--Tim in the light of the lantern at the helm of the
_Kestrel_;--these and many other visions chased one another across my
memory, first in regular procession, then tripping one over the other,
then all jumbled and mixed together in such chaos that it was Kit who
was being haled to the guillotine, and Tim who lay below the
hearthstone, and Biddy who navigated the barge.
Presently one vision seemed to hang in my memory longer than the others,
and that was the light of the morning sun as it struck on the retreating
sails of the brig _Scheldt_ of Rotterdam, standing out to sea off Malin.
One by one all my other fancies merged into this--the guillotine
changed into a brig, the _Kestrel_ changed into the _Scheldt_, the
Kilgorman kitchen became a deck, and Miss Kit a Dutch skipper. Why was
it? Why should everything come back to that one brig in the offing?
Suddenly I understood it. There, as I looked up from my restless raft
and followed the gleam of the afternoon sun as it broke through the
clouds, I perceived just such another vision in the offing--a brig, with
canvas set, and the light glancing on her sails as she laboured over the
waves towards me!
She may have been a mile away. By the look of her she was a foreign
craft, and may have been a trader coasting between the Dutch ports.
Whatever she was, the sight of her put new life into me.
I took my red scarf--the very scarf I had waved so vainly at the
_Scheldt_ scarce three weeks ago--and spreading it wide waved it with
all the energy of which I was capable. How long the minutes seemed
then! If she gave me the go-by, my last chance would go with her. Even
as I raised myself to wave, my head reeled, and a dimness clouded my
eyes.
Then, with a wonderful bound at my heart, half surprise, half joy, I saw
the brig suddenly put about, while a flag waved at her stern showed that
my signal had been seen. A minute later the welcome sight of a boat
coming towards me assured me that I was saved, and with a cry of
thankfulness to Heaven my weary head drooped, and the mist in my eyes
became darkness.
What roused me was the consciousness of two strong arms round me, and
the taste of liquid fire between my lips. My saviours, who were
Dutchmen, had lifted me from the spar, and were plying me with spirits
as I lay more dead than alive in the stern-sheets. I looked up. The
sails of the brig, flapping against the wind, towered above me, and her
dark hull as she swung over us hid the sun. The boat pulled round her
stern to reach the lee-ladder. As we passed I glanced up, and my eyes
fell on two words, painted in gilt letters--
"_Scheldt_. Rotterdam."