The _Zenobia_--A1 at Lloyd's--was a beautiful little clipper barque of
376 tons register, and so exquisitely fine were her lines that her
cargo-carrying capacity amounted to but a few tons more than her
register tonnage; in fact, the naval architect who designed her had been
instructed to ignore altogether the question of cargo capacity, and to
give his whole attention to the matter of speed, and most faithfully had
he carried out his instructions.
For the _Zenobia_ had been designed and built to the order of the firm
which owned the famous "Queen" line of sailing clippers trading between
London and Natal; and the aim of the Company was to drive off all
competitors and secure the monopoly of the passenger trade between
London and the Garden Colony. And there was only one way in which that
aim could be accomplished, namely, by carrying passengers to and fro in
less time and greater comfort than any of the competing lines. The
question of cargo did not matter so very much, for at that time--that is
to say, about the year 1860--the steam service to South Africa was very
different from what it is to-day. The steamers were small, slow, and
infrequent; Natal was just then attracting a big influx of well-to-do
people from England; passenger rates were high--as also, for that
matter, was the freight on such special merchandise as was at that time
being carried out to the colony--and those who took credit to themselves
for their foresight believed that there was big money to be made in the
sailing passenger trade. Needless to say, the competition between the
different lines was exceedingly keen: but the owners of the "Queen" line
were a very rich corporation; they were prepared to sink money in the
effort to secure a monopoly; and the _Zenobia_ was the latest outcome of
their rather speculative policy.
At the moment when this story opens--namely, about two bells of the
middle watch, on the night of 24 January, 1862--or rather in the early
morning of 25 January, to be exact--the barque was somewhere about
latitude 25 degrees south, and longitude 27 degrees west. I have not
the precise figures by me, nor do they very greatly matter. The night
was fine, clear, and starlit, with the moon, well advanced in her fourth
quarter, hanging a few degrees above the eastern horizon, and shedding
just enough light to touch the wave crests immediately beneath her with
soft flashes of ruddy golden light. The wind was piping up fresh from
the south-east, and the little clipper was roaring through it under all
plain sail to her royals, with the yeast slopping in over her starboard
rail at every lee roll and her lee scuppers all afloat; for quick
passages were the order of the day, quick passages meant "carrying on",
and Mr Stephen Bligh, the chief mate and officer of the watch, was
living fully up to the traditions of the service. This was the
_Zenobia's_ second outward voyage. Her first trip had been accomplished
in the unprecedentedly brief period of forty-six days; and it was now
the ambition of her skipper and his two mates to beat even that
brilliant record. And at the moment there seemed an excellent prospect
that this laudable ambition might be achieved, for the morrow would only
be our twenty-fourth day out. We had been extraordinarily lucky in the
matter of crossing the line, having slid across it with a good breeze,
which had run us into the south-east Trades without the loss of a
moment; and those same south-east Trades--or something remarkably like
them--were still piping up fresh, although we were by this time well
beyond their ordinary southern limits.
Our ship's company amounted to twenty-four all told, namely, Captain
John Roberts, our skipper; Mr Stephen Bligh, our chief mate; Mr Peter
Johnson, our second mate; Dr John Morrison, our surgeon--ours being one
of the few ships in the trade which at that time carried a doctor--the
boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, two stewards, twelve men--of whom
eight were A.B.'s and four only O.S.--and last, but not least--in our
own estimation--two apprentices, Tom Bainbridge, in his fifth year of
apprenticeship, being one, while I, Mark Temple, just turned seventeen
years of age, and in the third year of my apprenticeship, was the other.
There was not much love lost between Bainbridge and myself, by the way,
for he was of a sullen, sulky temper, and had tried hard to bully me
when I first made his acquaintance in the old _Boadicea_ before joining
the _Zenobia_. But our mutual ill feeling did not greatly matter, for
he was in the port watch and I in the starboard, so we very rarely met
except when it was a case of "all hands"; consequently we had not very
much opportunity to quarrel. And in addition to the above we carried
twenty cuddy passengers, of whom six were men, while the remainder
consisted of nine ladies and five children. I am afraid the above
details are not very interesting, but it is necessary to give them in
order that the reader may fully understand what is to follow.
As I have already mentioned, this story may be said to have had its
beginning about two bells in the middle watch--or about one o'clock in
the morning--on a certain specified date; for until then there had been
nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish the voyage from any other.
But some five minutes after I had struck two bells, in accordance with
the chief mate's instructions, and the lookout on the topgallant
forecastle had responded with the usual cry of "All's well!" one of the
forecastle hands came slouching along aft, and, ascending the poop
ladder with a certain suggestion of haste and trepidation, approached
the mate.
"Will ye mind steppin' for'ard a minute, sir?" he enquired. "There's a
strong smell o' burnin' down in the fo'c'sle, and--"
"A strong smell of burning?" interrupted Mr Bligh. "The dickens there
is! Yes, of course I'll go. Temple," turning to me, "just keep a
lookout for a minute or two while I'm gone, will ye?"
"Ay, ay, sir," I replied; and the mate dashed down the poop ladder and
went scurrying away forward, regardless of the drenching showers of
spray that came flying in over the weather cathead with every mad plunge
of the overdriven ship.
For the next five minutes I paced anxiously to and fro along the weather
side of the poop, with my ears wide open for any sudden outcry that
might confirm the awful suspicion of fire having broken out below; but I
heard nothing save the continuous hiss and roar of the sea under the lee
bow and along the bends, the heavy slop of water in over the rail with
every lee roll of the ship, and the thunder and piping of the wind
aloft, and I was beginning to hope that it was no worse than a false
alarm, when the man who a few minutes previously had come aft to summon
the mate came running--yes, positively running--along the deck again.
He stumbled up the poop ladder and came to me, puffing and panting, with
every sign of the most extreme agitation, and delivered his message.
"Mr Temple!" he gasped--the skipper always insisted upon the
"midshipmen" apprentices being "Mistered" by the foremast hands, upon
the ground that we were officers, if only in embryo--"Mr Temple, the
mate says will ye please slip below and quietly call Cap'n Roberts
without disturbin' the passengers. Ye are to tell him that the ship's
afire in the forehold, and that Mr Bligh will be much obliged if he'll
come for'ard to the fo'c'sle at once. And when ye've done that, ye're
to continue your lookout on the poop until ye're relieved."
"Ay, ay, Mason, I'll do that," I answered. Then, as we turned together
to leave the poop, I asked: "Is the matter serious, Mason? Has Mr
Bligh actually found the seat of the fire; and is there a chance of our
being able to master it?"
"Can't say, as yet," answered the man. "We ain't actually found the
fire; but it's there all right."
I shivered involuntarily, although the night was warm, for I happened to
know that a good deal of the cargo which we were carrying was of a
highly combustible character, such as furniture, pianos, Manchester
goods, and the like, to say nothing of several cases of sporting
ammunition. I knew that if once the fire happened to get a good hold
upon such material as that the chances were all against our being able
to master it, especially in such a strong breeze as was then blowing.
And if we should be compelled to leave the ship--!
I thought of those poor helpless women and children peacefully sleeping
down below, and of what their plight might be if we were driven to take
to the boats out there in the heart of the South Atlantic, hundreds of
miles from the nearest land.
Tiptoeing my way to the skipper's cabin, I rapped gently with my
knuckles on the panel of the door, and bent my head to listen for a
reply. I knew that Captain Roberts was a light sleeper, and judged that
it would not take much to awake him. Nor was I mistaken, for
immediately following upon my low knock came the quiet reply:
"Hillo! who is there, and what is it?"
"It is I--Temple--sir," I replied. "May I enter?"
For answer I heard the light thud of bare feet inside the cabin as the
skipper sprang from his bunk; and the next instant the door quietly
opened and Captain Roberts stood before me.
"What is it, Temple?" he demanded. "Anything wrong?"
"Yes, sir, I'm afraid there is," I replied in low tones. "Mr Bligh is
down in the forecastle, and he has just sent a message aft to me
directing me to call you and say that he is afraid fire has broken out
in the fore hold, and that he will be much obliged if you will kindly go
to him at once."
"Fire!" ejaculated the skipper. "In the fore hold, you say? Humph! I
don't notice any smell of it here," and he started sniffing violently as
he stooped for his slippers and put them on. "Who gave the alarm?"
"Mason, sir," I replied. "He came aft, just after two bells, and
reported a strong smell of burning down in the forecastle. Mr Bligh
went for'ard at once, leaving me to keep a lookout on the poop; and he
had been gone about five minutes when Mason again came aft with a
message directing me to call you."
"I see," answered the skipper. "Very well," as he emerged from his
cabin and quietly closed the door behind him, "you go back to the poop
and keep an eye upon the ship. I shall not be long." And with one
bound, as it seemed to me, he was out on deck and running forward. As
for me, I returned to my station on the poop, which I anxiously paced
backward and forward in momentary expectation of hearing the call for
"All hands!"
But when I came to look more closely it appeared that any such formal
call would be quite superfluous, for presently a light flashed out from
the windows of the small house just abaft the foremast, in which the
boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, and the two stewards were
berthed, and by its rather feeble beams I perceived that the fore deck
was full of men crouching under the shelter of the topgallant
forecastle; I presumed, therefore, that upon the first alarm of fire
they had turned out and dressed, and had been sent on deck by the mate
to be out of the way while the investigation below was being made. It
was about this time that I noticed, with keen satisfaction, the fact
that the wind was not blowing quite as strongly as it had been during
the earlier part of the watch.
I was beginning to think that the skipper was remaining below rather a
long time, and was drawing the most disquieting conclusions from the
circumstance, when one of the crew--a man whom I recognised as Owen
Lloyd, generally known among his messmates as "Welshy"--came aft and
entered the little house abaft the main hatch, where Bainbridge and I
had our lodging. A few seconds later a small glimmer from the open door
showed that the man was lighting the lamp which illuminated our
snuggery; and a minute or two afterwards Lloyd emerged again and went
forward, while Bainbridge also stepped out on deck and disappeared
beneath the break of the poop. He was gone some three or four minutes,
then reappeared, accompanied by Mr Johnson, the second mate, whom he
had evidently been directed to call, for the pair immediately proceeded
forward at a trot. I decided that the matter was assuming a distinctly
serious aspect. Some five minutes later Bainbridge came aft, and,
ascending to the poop, remarked to me in his usual surly, offhand
manner:
"You're wanted at once in the forecastle, Temple, and I'm to keep the
lookout in your place."
"Right!" I replied. "How are they getting on for'ard? Have they found
the fire yet?"
"Go and look for yourself, sonny, and don't waste valuable time in
stopping to ask silly questions," was the ungracious reply I received;
and I suppose it was the reflection that it served me right for
persisting in my attempts to be civil to the lout that drove out of my
head the thought which had flashed into it for an instant, that it was
rather queer that the skipper should have sent for me at a moment when
Bainbridge was actually on the spot and would serve his purpose quite as
well. So, all unsuspectingly, I trundled away forward, and, flinging my
legs over the coaming of the fore scuttle, dropped down into the
forecastle, noting _en passant_ that a dozen or more of the hands were
still huddling together under the shelter of the topgallant forecastle.
As I was in the very act of swinging myself down off the coaming I
thought I caught the sound of a subdued chuckle emanating from somebody
among this group; but before I had time to give the matter a thought, or
wonder what might be the cause of such ill-timed mirth, my feet reached
the deck of the forecastle, and I found myself the centre of a group of
some half a dozen of the crew, with the slush lamp swinging violently
with the motion of the ship, and darting its feeble rays hither and
thither as it hung suspended from a smoky beam overhead. And in that
same instant I caught a momentary glimpse of the forms of Captain
Roberts, Mr Bligh, and Mr Johnson, bound hand and foot, and with gags
in their mouths, huddled up in three of the recently vacated bunks. As
for the supposed fire, there was neither sight nor smell of it.
"What the--" I began. But before I could utter another sound I felt my
head dragged violently back and a big gag thrust between my jaws, while
my arms and legs were at the same instant seized by powerful hands and
lashed so securely that I could not have moved either of them by so much
as an inch, no, not to save my life. The work was done with the speed
and precision that might be expected of men accustomed to the
manipulation of ropes and the tying of knots; and then I was lifted off
my feet and flung with scant ceremony into one of the unoccupied bunks.
"There! that's the last one; the passengers can be left until to-morrer
mornin' to be dealt with," exclaimed a voice which I recognised as that
of "Welshy". "And now, lads," the voice continued, "let's go on deck
and take some of the `muslin' off her; there's no use in strainin' the
hooker all to pieces, and Bainbridge says as we're quite far enough
south a'ready."
Bainbridge! Could it be possible that Bainbridge was mixed up with this
vile conspiracy? For conspiracy it was, clearly enough, to obtain
possession of the ship without the necessity to fight for her; the bound
forms of the skipper and the two mates--to say nothing of myself--proved
it beyond a doubt. And a very cunningly devised scheme it was, too,
ably planned and most efficiently executed--the enticement of the mate
into the forecastle by the suggestion of fire; then, after just the
right lapse of time, the fictitious message to the skipper through me,
followed by the summons of the second mate, and, finally, the capture of
my insignificant self. It was much too subtle a scheme to be evolved by
the uninventive brain of the average British shellback, and I fancied
that I recognised a certain Bainbridge-like neatness of touch and finish
in it all. But perhaps I was prejudiced, for I never liked the fellow.
Yet, if he was not in it, why was he still free, instead of being down
in the forecastle, a captive, like the rest of us? I remembered now
that on several occasions I had seen him fraternising with the men
for'ard during the dog-watches; but I had thought nothing of it at the
time beyond reflecting that to me it seemed to be rather bad form on his
part, and not by any means conducive to good discipline.
As I recalled these occasions to mind, while I lay there in that close,
evil-smelling bunk, I idly wondered whether he had used them for the
purpose of seducing the men from their duty and allegiance and
persuading them to join him in this outrageous act of unprovoked mutiny.
For unprovoked it most assuredly was: the owners were most liberal
providers, the food was the best obtainable, and the allowance of it far
exceeded the Board of Trade scale; the men had grog as well as lime
juice served out to them regularly every day; the skipper was easy-going
with them to a degree; and neither of the mates could, by the wildest
stretch of imagination, be termed a slave-driver, although of course
both exacted a certain amount of daily work; and, finally, the afternoon
watch below was never called upon except when necessity demanded it; in
short, the _Zenobia_ was as comfortable a ship as any sailor need wish
to go to sea in. No; I was certain that this atrocious seizure of the
ship had not originated in discontent on the part of the men, who were
neither better nor worse than the average British seaman. They had been
played upon by skilful hands; their baser passions had been so strongly
appealed to that their better judgment had been blinded; and I felt
morally convinced that there was not a man among the legitimate
occupants of the forecastle who possessed the ability to do this thing.
Then, I asked myself, who was the master spirit who had contrived so
effectually to blind and mislead those simple-minded men, and so
powerfully to influence them that they had eventually permitted
themselves to be betrayed into an act that converted them into outlaws,
with every man's hand against them? And why had they done it? They had
no grievance, real or imaginary, against any of their officers: that
fact was patent from the manner in which the seizure of the ship had
been effected; there had been none of the brutal violence, the
bloodshed, which usually accompanies a mutiny upon the high seas. Then
why, I mentally repeated, had the men mutinied at all?
And the answer that came to my mind was--Bainbridge! Yes, prejudice and
ill feeling apart, I could think of no other individual in the ship with
the will and the disposition to concoct and carry out such a scheme. To
begin with, he was the only discontented person, so far as I knew, on
the ship. And his discontent was of that dangerous kind which is
dissatisfied not with any one particular thing, but with everything. He
was poor and--as I understood--practically friendless, except for an
uncle who had apprenticed him to the sea in order to get rid of him; he
was restive under discipline, his character being strongly imbued with
that false pride which chafes at a subordinate position. I had often
heard him declare that he was born to be a leader of men, and had
laughed at what seemed to me to be his inordinate conceit. He hated
work as heartily as he loved trashy, sensational literature; and he
displayed a quite childish love of dainty food and showy clothes. And
these were not his only faults: he was an unblushing liar; he scoffed at
such old-fashioned virtues as honesty and truth and godliness; he
sneered at me every time that he found me on my knees offering up my
morning and nightly petitions to my Maker; he was cruel when he had the
chance to be so; and, in short, he seemed surcharged with gall and
bitterness.
He possessed only one redeeming point, so far as I could ever discover,
and that was that he was a splendid navigator. He prided himself upon
his skill with the sextant, and often used to assert--in that cynical
way of his that might be either jest or earnest, one could never tell
which--that some day he would become a pirate king and establish himself
magnificently on some fair island of the Pacific! Heavens! thought I,
could it be possible that the fellow had actually been in earnest, and
that this mutiny was the outcome of his evil ambition? It certainly
looked very much like it.
Meanwhile, during the time that these thoughts and speculations had been
running through my head, the hands on deck had been noisily engaged in
shortening sail, and from the time that they took about the job, and the
easier, more buoyant movements of the ship, I conjectured that they had
taken in not only the royals, but also the topgallantsails, together
with, probably, the flying jib and a few of the lighter staysails.
Then, when the mutineers had done all that they deemed necessary in the
way of shortening sail, four of them came down into the forecastle, and
with the aid of a rope, the bight of which was passed round our bodies,
the skipper, the mates, and I were hauled up on deck and carried into
the fore house, where we found the boatswain, Chips, and Sails as
securely trussed up as ourselves. And there, still gagged and bound
helplessly hand and foot, we were left to our meditations until, after a
very eternity, as it seemed, of extreme discomfort, first came the
daylight and finally eight bells of the morning watch, when the sliding
door of the house was thrust open and one of the men entered--a fellow
named Adams.
After looking at us meditatively for a moment, and carefully examining
our lashings to assure himself that they still held firmly, he removed
the gags from our mouths--for which I, for one, was profoundly
thankful--and informed us that breakfast was about to be brought to us,
and that our hands would be loosed to enable us to partake of it. But
he warned us that his instructions were to shoot at the slightest sign
of an attempt on our part to break out of the house, or the slightest
uplifting of our voices, and to give point to the statement he exhibited
a fully loaded revolver, which Captain Roberts at once recognised as his
own personal property.
"And pray, who gave you those instructions, Adams?" demanded the
skipper.
"I ain't allowed to say," answered the man. "But I was to tell you," he
continued, "that you ain't none of yer permitted to talk to any of us
men, or to ask us any questions; and if you persist in doin' so you're
to be gagged again."
"Very well," agreed the skipper artfully; "then we will not ask you
anything that you feel you ought not to tell. But I suppose you will
have no objection to tell me, without asking, what has been done with
regard to the passengers?"
"The gen'lemen have been lashed up, same as yourselves, and locked away,
two in a cabin; while the women folk and the kids is locked up all safe
in the other cabins; so there ain't no chancet of none of 'em bein' able
to slip for'ard and help yer anyways. And now, don't you ask me nothin'
more, because I ain't goin' to answer yer," replied Adams, with some
show of testiness.
"But I suppose you can tell us, if you choose, what your new skipper,
Bainbridge, is going to do with us," I insinuated. "He is not going to
keep us cooped up here until a man-o'-war comes along and captures the
ship, is he?"
"Now, look 'e here, Mister Temple, don't you go for to try to pump me,
or it'll be the worse for yer," expostulated Adams. "I ain't got
nothin' against you, and I don't want to hurt yer if I can help it, but
s'help me! I'll have to shove that there gag back into yer mouth if you
don't clap a stopper on that tongue of yours. Ah, here comes cooky with
the grub!" he announced, with a sigh of relief, as the "Doctor" made his
appearance at the door with a well-loaded tray.
The picture which that tray presented was conclusive evidence that,
whatever might be the ultimate intentions of the mutineers toward us,
they did not mean to starve us to death, for the breakfast that was
placed before us consisted of the best that the steward's pantry could
produce. And we all did the fullest justice to it, even the skipper
making a hearty meal, although I believe it was not so much because he
had a good appetite as that he had a very shrewd suspicion of what lay
before him, and was exceedingly doubtful as to when he would next have
the opportunity to sit down to a good, well-cooked meal. As for me, I
was healthily hungry, and was altogether too young and of too sanguine a
temperament to feel very anxious as to what was to be the outcome of the
adventure; moreover, I was unburdened by responsibility of any sort, and
I therefore ate and drank until I was fully satisfied.
We were still busy with our breakfasts when an alteration in the motion
of the ship apprised us all of the fact that the helm had been put up,
and that we were now running off with the wind on our port quarter; and
the next moment we heard a voice, which I instantly recognised as
Bainbridge's, summoning the men to the braces. The yards were trimmed
very nearly square, then came an order to loose, sheet home, and hoist
away the topgallantsails and royals; next the men who had gone aloft to
loose those sails were ordered to rig out the port studdingsail-booms
and to set the royal and topgallant studdingsails on their way down; and
finally the topmast and lower studdingsails were set, and the _Zenobia_
went rolling and wallowing away to the westward under every rag that
could be packed upon her.
No remark was made upon this so long as the man Adams remained with us;
but when at length we had finished our breakfast, had reluctantly
submitted to be trussed up again--because we could not help ourselves,
and nothing could be gained by offering an unavailing resistance--and
were once more shut in and left to ourselves, the skipper turned to Mr
Bligh and remarked:
"Now, what does the scoundrel mean by this shift of helm, think you? We
are only about four or five degrees to the southward of Rio at this
moment. Can the man be such a fool as to think of running in until he
sights the coast and then turning us adrift to get ashore as best we
can? Because, if he does, we'll have a British man-o'-war after him in
no time."
"I don't believe the boy is quite such an ass as that; indeed, I regard
him as being very far from an ass--except in this one particular
instance of organising this mutiny," answered Bligh. "I haven't the
slightest notion of what he intends to be after, but I think we may be
quite certain that Bainbridge won't give us much of a chance to report
him until he has had time to get well out of the neighbourhood. What
say you, Johnson? He was in your watch, and you should know him a good
deal better than I do."
"If you are speaking of Bainbridge," answered the second mate, "I fully
agree with you that he is very far from being a fool--quite the other
way about, indeed; and from what I know of the young villain I should
say that he may be depended upon to give us the smallest possible chance
of reporting him quickly. My opinion is this. So far, and up to the
moment of shifting her helm, the _Zenobia_ has been following the usual
ship track to the south'ard and round the Cape; hence we have been
liable to fall in at any moment with other ships, which would not
exactly suit Bainbridge's book. Therefore he has shifted his helm and
is now running off the track far enough to avoid meeting with other
ships. In my opinion he will continue so to run until he considers
himself quite out of danger; but what he will do afterward, and how he
will dispose of us, I'll leave it to a better guesser than myself to
imagine. The only thing that I feel at all certain about is that he
will not murder us; if he had intended to do that he would not have
taken such elaborate pains to get us alive and uninjured into his
power."
"Quite so; I fully agree with you there," returned the skipper. "The
thing that I can't fathom is the young scoundrel's motive for taking the
ship, and what he proposes to do with her now that he has her. By the
way, Mr Temple, it was you, I think, who first named Bainbridge as the
ringleader of this rascally job; what led you to fix it upon him so
pat?"
"Well, sir," said I, "the fact is that after they brought us in here and
left us, bound hand and foot and gagged, so that we could neither move
nor talk, I endeavoured to beguile the time by asking myself who was
responsible for the seizure of the ship, and then trying to find an
answer to the question." And forthwith I proceeded to give a resume of
the cogitations which had ultimately led to my fixing the blame for the
affair upon Bainbridge's shoulders. In the course of my remarks I
happened to mention that at first I had been inclined to suspect the man
nicknamed "Welshy", but that I had soon come to the conclusion that the
fellow had not the brains necessary to plan such a _coup_ and carry it
out to a successful conclusion in the masterly manner which had
distinguished the actual operation.
"Ah! but `Welshy' was in it, though," cut in the boatswain. "I know he
was; for he and Bainbridge was for ever gettin' away together by
theirselves and talkin' by the fathom. `Welshy' is one of these here
Socialist buckos who's got the notion that all hands ought to be on the
same level, and that nobody ought to have more of anything than anybody
else; he's a rare hand at preachin' about equality and the rights o'
man, is `Welshy', and I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it turned out
that 'twas he as first give Mr Bainbridge the idee of seizin' the ship.
And even if he wasn't, I know that he is pretty well mixed up in it,
for he was everlastin'ly yarnin' about the hardships and wrongs of
sailormen, and throwin' out hints, like. I didn't take no notice of 'em
at the time--in fac' Chips and I used to argufy with and laugh at him;
but now, since this here mutiny job have happened, I seem to see that
all his talk had a purpose, and that he was feelin' around, like, with
the idee of findin' out how many of us might be depended upon to back up
him and Bainbridge in the seizure of the ship."
"And it would appear that he was successful in winning over all hands
except you three," remarked the skipper. "Did he ever attempt to sound
either of you?"
"Ay, that he did, sir; lots o' times, now that I comes to think of it,"
answered the boatswain. "But nothin' what you might call definite, you
understand. I s'pose he pretty soon saw that Chips and Sails and me
weren't likely to have any truck wi' such an idee as mutiny and seizin'
the ship, so he soon knocked off talkin' to us about it. I reckon that
he used to report to Bainbridge pretty often, tellin' him what he had
said, and how we had took it; and I expect it was Mr B. who told him
not to say anything more to us about it."
"Yes," agreed the skipper, "I fancy you have got the hang of the thing
pretty accurately, bos'n; but it was a pity that it never occurred to
either of you to mention the matter to me or Mr Bligh. It would have
given us a notion of what was brewing, and put us on our guard."
But Murdock, Parsons, and Simpson all vehemently protested that Lloyd's
remarks were of so very general a character, and bore so striking a
resemblance to the ordinary "grousing" universally met with in a ship's
forecastle, which really means nothing, that it never occurred to either
of them to attach any especial significance to what unfortunately had
proved to be an exceptional case. A great deal more was said upon the
matter before it was dropped; but the remarks were mostly of a desultory
character, and as they have no particular bearing upon the thread of
this story it is unnecessary to repeat them.