I was at Newman's side before Captain Swope's feet vanished from the
ladder. If he had paused to close the lazaret hatch behind him, he
must surely have seen me. But he did not pause; I heard his steps
racing up the companion stairs to the poop, and his voice shouting his
command: "Watch the main deck, Mister! Light a flare!"
I threw my arms about Newman, and babbled in his ear. "Oh, the
beast!--it's I--Jack--the devil, I heard what he said!--come to free
you!" Truth to tell, the things I had overheard unnerved me somewhat,
and I was incoherent, almost, from rage and horror.
But Newman brought me to myself in short order. "I know--but not so
loud--they'll hear you!" Aye, his first words, and he smiled into my
face. This man on the rack smiled, and thought clearly, whilst I
babbled. "Be quick," he bade me. "Cut the lashings."
I obeyed in jig time. The chains of both the hand and foot irons were
secured to the limbers by rope lashings. With two strokes of my knife
I severed them. Before I could catch him, Newman fell forward upon his
face. His misused limbs could not support him.
I knelt by his side, sobbing and spluttering, and fishing in my pocket
for the key the lady had given me. It was the sight of his raw,
bleeding wrists and ankles that maddened me; aye, the sight of them
would have maddened a saint. You will recall that the Old Man had
commanded that Newman's wrists be tightly cuffed; and he had seen to it
that the leg cuffs were equally tight. Tight ironing was a favorite
sport of Swope's; he was notorious for it among sailormen. I saw the
results upon Newman.
The flesh above the irons was puffed and inflamed; the constriction and
chafing had broken the skin, and the cuffs upon both arms and legs were
buried in the raw wounds. Exquisite agony--aye, trust Swope to produce
that! I had to push back the swollen, bruised mass before I could
insert the little flat key, and effect the release.
When I had them off, I turned Newman over on his back, and, with my arm
about him, prepared to lift him erect. Before I could do so,
assistance arrived. Light feet pattered down the lazaret ladder; there
was a swish of skirts, a gasp, and the lady was on her knees by
Newman's side. "Roy--Roy--I was in time--" she cried. Her arms went
around his neck.
I released him to her for the instant, and straightened up and
listened. There was noise on deck, and confusion. The ship was in
stays; she hung there, aback. I could hear Lynch, somewhere forward,
bawling orders; and overhead, Swope sang out to the wheel, and then
hailed the roundhouse.
"Roundhouse, there--on deck and lend a hand! Man the
lifeboat--lifeboat falls, there! For God's sake, Mister--what's the
matter there on deck?"
Oh, he was worried, was Swope. It showed in his voice; for once his
tone was not full and musical, it was shrill and screechy. He was
sorely shaken, madly anxious to save his faithful jackal; the
Eliminator had not planned Fitzgibbon's removal.
Thoughts, questions, rushed through my mind. I listened for other
sounds, for shots and shouts and sounds of strife. For there was
confusion up there on the dark decks, and the captain had forgotten his
caution and withdrawn his ambush. I knew that Boston and Blackie would
not overlook this chance; promise or no promise they would profit by
this occasion.
It was this thought that spurred me to action. We must get out of this
hole we were in; the lazaret was a trap. The die was cast; the mutiny
was on--or would be in a moment.
I said as much to my companions. Newman attempted to get to his feet.
"A hand, Jack--it must be stopped," he said.
I gave him the hand. More than that, I took him upon my back and
tottered up the ladder with him, the lady assisting as well as she was
able. She knew what had happened on deck, and she told us in a word or
two.
She had not been able to find Wong (we afterwards discovered that Wong
had gone forward to the galley, and surprised the crew at a conference,
and had been detained prisoner by them), so she crawled up the
companion ladder herself, and lurked in the cuddy, waiting for a chance
to speak with Lynch. The Nigger was at the wheel, she said.
Fitzgibbon walked up to him and struck him--as he had struck him many,
many times before. But this time Nigger did not submit--he whipped out
his knife and stabbed the mate. More than that, he grasped the mate in
his powerful arms, dragged him to the taffrail, and flung him
overboard. It happened so quickly that neither Connolly, the
tradesman, nor Lynch, both of whom were on the poop, could interfere.
But Lynch took a shot at Nigger, and perhaps struck him, for Nigger
went over the rail and into the sea with his victim.
It was Nigger, despised, half-lunatic Nigger, who was not in my
reckoning, nor in Swope's, who put the match to the tinder and upset
such carefully laid plans. As I feared, the revolt of the crew blazed
up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out,
their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they
began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the
roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had I, of
the captain's ambuscade.
I staggered into the saloon, and set Newman down upon the divan which
ran around the half-round, and which was but a step from the hatch. He
got to his feet at once, and, though the lady and I stretched out our
arms to catch him, this time he did not fall. He swayed drunkenly, and
hobbled when he took a step, but such was his vitality and so strong
the urge of his will, that life was already returning to his misused
limbs.
It was just then that pandemonium broke out on deck--a shot, a string
of shots and a bedlam of howls and yells. Overhead was bedlam, too.
The skipper's tune changed instanter. He had been singing out to
Mister Lynch to "topsail haul," and to the tradesmen to man the boat
falls--but now he was screaming to the latter in a voice shaken with
excitement--or panic--to regain their posts, to get into the roundhouse
and "turn loose on 'em--pepper 'em! And, for God's sake, throw out the
flares!"
Oh, the Great Eliminator was shocked most unpleasantly In that moment,
I think--to discover, when his trusty mate was overboard, that his
mutinous crew had firearms!
I looked to Newman for orders, for he was now in command of our forlorn
hope. But he had his arm about the lady's shoulders, and was speaking
urgently into her ear. My thought was of a place to hide. I ran
towards the cabin alleyway. I had no intention of going out on that
dangerous deck, my object was to see if the inner door to the
sail-locker was unlocked. In the sail-locker, I thought, we could
hide, the three of us, until the fight died down.
But my design was frustrated. Before I reached the sail-locker, the
door to the deck, at the end of the alleyway, burst open, and the
tradesman, Morton, pitched headlong over the base-board. He scrambled
to his hands and knees and scuttled towards me. There was a whistling
thud near my head. I leaped back into the cabin, out of range, so
quickly I tripped and sat down hard upon the deck. For a shot fired
after the fleeting Morton had just missed my skull.
Morton crawled into the saloon, and looked at me with a stupid wonder
in his face. He was wounded; he nursed his shoulder, and there was a
spreading stain upon his white shirt.
"They have guns--in the rigging," says he. Then he grunted, and
collapsed, unconscious.
The heavy roar of shotguns, for which my ear was cocked, did not come.
There were two pistols in action overhead, and pistol shots rattled
forward, and I could tell from the sounds that a free fight was raging
somewhere on the main deck. But the heavier discharges did not come.
For an instant I thought--aye, and hoped!--that the tradesmen had been
cut off from the roundhouse.
Suddenly the saloon grew bright with a reflected glare. I was on my
feet again, and I peered into the alleyway, looking out through the
door Morton had opened. The roundhouse cut off any view of the main
deck, but I could see that the whole deck, aye, the whole ship, was
alight with a growing glare, a dazzling greenish-white light.
Then I knew what Captain Swope meant when he screamed for "flares."
Distress flares, signal flares, such as a ship in trouble might use.
He had stocked the roundhouse with them.
Cunning, aye, deadly cunning. This was something Boston and Blackie
had not dreamed of. A flare thrown on deck when the men came aft--and
slaughter made easy for the defenders of the roundhouse!
Something of this I spoke aloud to Newman. There was no answer, and I
became conscious he was not behind me. I wheeled about. Newman, with
the lady's assistance, was hobbling up the ladder to the deck above. I
swore my amazement and dismay at what seemed to me madness, but I
hurried after them, and emerged on the poop at their heels.
The night was banished by the strong light flaring forward. That was
my impression when I leaped out on deck. When I turned forward, I saw
the whole ship, clear to the foc'sle, bathed in that light. Not one,
but a half dozen flares were burning at once; they had been thrown upon
the deck both to port and starboard. Everything on the decks was
brightly revealed, every ringbolt, the pins in the rails, deadeyes,
sails, gear, aye, every rope in the rigging was boldly etched against
the glowing background. With that one sweeping glance I took in the
scene. High up in the main rigging, almost to the futtock shrouds, the
figure of a man was revealed: he was blazing away in the direction of
the poop with a revolver. On the deck, near the mainmast, the second
mate was laying about him with a capstan bar, and a dozen men seemed
boiling over each other in efforts to close with him. Other figures
lay motionless upon the deck.
So much for what I saw forward; what concerned me that instant was what
was right before my eyes. Captain Swope was leaning against the mizzen
fife rail, screened by the mast from those forward, returning the fire
of the man in the rigging--but no, even as I clapped eyes upon him, he
shot, and I saw he aimed, not at the man in the rigging, but at the
group fighting on the deck. At his second officer, no less! Aye, and
I understood in a flash why I had not beard the shotguns; the tradesmen
had not Swope's murderous intent towards Mister Lynch. and they held
their fire because they could not rake the gang without hitting Lynch.
The tradesman, Connolly, was crouched against the companion hatch; he
was staring after Newman and the lady, mouth agape. He saw them
directly they appeared on deck, which Swope did not. He raised his gun
uncertainly, then lowered it, then raised it again, covering Newman's
broad back--and by that time I was upon him, my clutch was upon his
wrist, and my right fist impacted violently against his head. It was a
knockout blow, at the base of the brain, and he slumped down,
unconscious. I straightened up, with the gun in my hand.
It was at this instant that Captain Swope became aware of our presence.
It was Newman, himself, who attracted his attention--aye, and the
attention of the whole ship, as well.
For Newman had marched into the light. He stood now almost at the
forward poop rail, with his arms raised above his head; and he sent his
voice forward in a stentorian hail, a cry that was like a thunderclap.
"Stop fighting, lads! Stop it, I say! It is I--Newman! Stop fighting
and go for'ard!"
If ever a human face showed amazement and discomfiture, Swope's did.
He had been so busy at his game of potting his officer he did not see
Newman until the latter walked into his range of vision and sent forth
his hail. He could have shot Newman then, and I could not have
prevented, for he had his weapon leveled. But this sudden apparition
seemed to paralyze him; he just lowered his arm, and stared.
It startled and paralyzed all hands. The struggle on the main deck
ceased abruptly. It was the strangest thing I ever beheld, the way
Newman's thunderous command seemed to turn to graven images the men on
deck. They were frozen into grotesque attitudes, arms drawn back to
strike, boots lifted to kick. Mister Lynch stood with his capstan bar
poised, as though he were at bat in a baseball game. Every face was
lifted to the giant figure standing there on the poop. I even saw in
the brilliant light a white face framed in one of the portholes in the
roundhouse.
Newman repeated his command. He did not beg or entreat; he commanded,
and I don't think there was a sailor or stiff on the main deck who,
after his first word, dreamed of disobeying him. Such was the big
man's character superiority, such was the dominance his personality had
acquired over our minds. I tell you, we of the foc'sle looked upon
Newman as of different clay; it was not alone my hero-worship that
magnified his stature, in all our eyes he was one of the great, a being
apart from and above us.
And not only foc'sle eyes regarded him in this light. There were the
tradesmen peering out of the roundhouse ports, with never a thought in
their minds of disobeying his injunction. I had it from their own lips
afterwards; it was not just surprise at the big fellow's sudden
appearance that stayed their hands, it was the power of his
personality. There was Mister Lynch, arrested by Newman's voice in
mid-stroke, as it were. There was Swope, standing palsied and
impotent, with a growing terror in his face.
"Go for'ard, lads! Go below! Come up here, Lynch! Not another blow,
men--for'ard with you!"
The frozen figures on the deck came to life. There was a murmur, a
shuffling of feet, and Lynch lowered his great club. But it was an
obedient noise.
From one quarter came the single note of dissent. The man in the main
rigging sang out. It was Boston's voice.
"Go aft, mates!" he shouted. "We've got them--we've won--don't listen
to him!" Then he threw his voice at Newman. "Damn you, Big 'Un,
you've spoiled the game!" A flash followed the oath, and a splinter
flew from the deck at Newman's feet.
There was a flash from my gun as well. I fired without taking
conscious aim; I swear, an invisible hand seemed to lift my arm, a
finger not mine seemed to press the trigger--and that greedy, murderous
rascal in the rigging screamed, and loosed his hold. He struck the
sheer pole in his descent, and bounced into the sea.
The shots seemed to awaken Captain Swope from his surprise and terror.
He had suddenly moved with catlike swiftness; when I lowered my eyes
from the rigging, I saw he had left his refuge behind the mizzenmast
and was standing in the open deck. Aye, there he stood in that light,
which had reached its maximum, revealed to all eyes--and stamped upon
his face was an expression of insane fury so terrible and deadly he
seemed not a human being at all, but a mad beast crouched to spring.
His lips were drawn back from his teeth, and a froth appeared upon his
black beard. The crowd forward saw the demon unmasked in his face,
even as I saw it, and from them arose a gasping "_a-ah_!" of horror.
The sound caused the lady, who was standing at Newman's elbow, to turn
around; or perhaps it was the feel of Swope's burning eyes that spun
her about so quickly. He was raising his arm, the arm that held the
gun, not quickly but slowly and carefully. With a stab of horror I saw
him aim, not at the man, but at the woman.
No outside power this time seemed to aid me. I shot. I should have
hit the beast, he was not ten paces distant--but only a click answered
when my hammer fell. My gun was empty. I threw up my arm, intending
to hurl the weapon, and I think I cried out. Swope shot--and the lady
threw up her hands and fell.
You must understand, this all happened in a brief instant of time.
Aye, it was but a short moment since we stepped out on deck. What
happened after that shot must be measured by seconds.
For the lady was still falling, and my hand was still reaching behind
me to gather energy for a throw, when Newman bore down upon his enemy.
I had not seen him turn around even, and there he was at arm's grips
with the captain. There was another flash from Swope's revolver, in
Newman's very face. It was a miss, for Newman's hands--helpless lumps
of flesh but a few moments before--closed upon Swope's neck. I saw
Newman's face. It was a terrible face, the face of an enraged and
smiting god. The great scar stood out like a dark line painted upon
his forehead.
He lifted Swope from his feet with that throat grip. He whirled him
like a flail, and smashed him down upon the deck, and let him go. And
there Yankee Swope lay, sprawled, and still, his head bent back at a
fatal angle. A broken neck, as a glance at the lolling head would
inform; and, as we discovered later, a broken back as well. It was
death that Newman's bare hands dealt in that furious second.
Newman did not waste so much as a glance at the work of his hands. He
had turned to the lady, with a cry in his throat, a low cry of pain and
grief--which changed at once to a shout of gladness. For the lady was
stirring, getting to her feet, or trying to.
Newman gathered her slight form into his great arms. I heard him
exclaim, "Where, Mary? Did it--" And she answered, dazedly, "I am all
right--not hit." He took a step towards me, towards the companion.
The swelling murmur from the deck arrested him.
He walked to the break of the poop, with the woman in his arms. She
seemed like a child held to his breast. He spoke to the men below in a
hushed, solemn voice.
"It is ended," he said. "Swope is dead."
As he stood there, the flares commenced to go out. One by one they
guttered and extinguished, and the black night swept down like a
falling curtain.
Five bells chimed in the cabin.