And that was the end of the mutiny on board the _Mary Greenfield_. The
match was struck by a negro; the flames were fed with rum; and the fire
flared up, just to be stamped out by the one strong man on board.
Amos at once released both the captain and his mate; whereupon Dagg
treated the crew to a long-winded, high speech upon the subject of what
he would do, if such insubordination occurred again; but as he had done
naught during the crisis, but to get knocked down the moment he opened
his mouth, there were few of his audience who were not laughing up their
sleeves.
I have told the full story of the disturbance, to illustrate the
character of Amos Baverstock. I have yet to write of the sequel to the
trouble, which more nearly concerned myself.
For Amos was as good as his word, and made short work of William Rushby
and of me. Though the crew had been bound over to keep the peace, as
you might call it, admonished to behave themselves in future, the
boatswain was not only degraded of his rank, but forthwith cast into
irons.
As for myself, I was led before a kind of tribunal, assembled in the
saloon. Captain Dagg, Amos Baverstock, and Joshua Trust were my judges;
and a strange triumvirate they made, Amos chewing his black cigar, and
all three seated before their glasses of grog, with their greasy
playing-cards scattered before them on the table.
"Boy," said Dagg, "you joined in a mutiny. Do you know that, you whelp?
Do you know what it means?"
"No, sir," said I.
"It means death," said Dagg. "The yard-arm--that's what it means."
I believed, for the moment, that they were really going to kill me; and
so seriously had the great heat and the excitement affected me that I
don't think I cared very much whether they did so or not. Anyway, I
know I answered boldly, though I had never the courage to look straight
at Amos, whose eyes I felt were upon me.
"Captain Dagg," said I, "if you want to murder me, get on with the
matter. I ask you to do no more than to remember this: I did not come
on board your ship of my own free will. I was kidnapped, and carried
here by force, and I have no means of escape."
At that, Amos struck the table with his fist; and, bold though my words
had been, I jumped as if a cannon had been fired.
"Silence!" he roared. "We are not here to argue with you. You were
given your orders. You were told that on no account were you to
communicate with anyone on board this ship, and you defied us. We have
reason to suspect that you have taken into your confidence William
Rushby, formerly boatswain. Do you deny it?"
He banged the table again. I looked right into his face, and it was
just as if I was under fire. But I could never answer him. I had the
pluck neither to lie nor to tell the truth.
"Good!" said he. "You admit as much. Well, then, we shall see that no
such tricks are played us in the future. Rushby is in irons. As for
you, for the rest of this voyage you remain a prisoner in your cabin;
and if we have any more trouble with you--I warn you fairly--you meet
the same fate as that hide-bound, cursed nigger."
And that was the lame and impotent conclusion of the mutiny on board the
_Mary Greenfield_.
My lot was now even worse than before. For week after week I was locked
in a stuffy cabin, and got neither fresh air, good food, nor exercise.
The calm broke up quite suddenly with a squall, followed by a shower of
rain. For about an hour the water came down like a cascade upon the
sea, washing the ship from stem to stern, giving--as it appeared to me,
looking out from my narrow port-hole--new life to the floating seaweed
and the myriads of living things that were swarming in the midst of it.
The ship rocked, turning lazily from side to side, like a sleeper
awakening, and then, lurching, took on a list to starboard, as the wind
gripped her hoisted sails. And then, once again, we were under canvas,
ploughing westward across that great, lonely ocean.
A few days later, we struck a trade wind, and made even better progress.
Though I myself was never more miserable in all my life, I had reason to
think that there was less discontent on board. I could hear the patter
of the bare feet of the men on the deck above me, as they hastened about
their work, as sailors should, and the shrill note of the boatswain's
whistle--which caused me to wonder who the new boatswain was. It must
be understood that during these days of my imprisonment I had nothing to
read and nothing to do, but to meditate upon my own misfortunes.
Life was not made any the more pleasant for me inasmuch as I still
shared a cabin with Amos, though I was devoutly thankful that I saw
little of him. Night by night, he would sit late at cards, trying--I
should imagine--to win back what he had lost to Mr. Forsyth; and I made
a point of being asleep, or pretending to be so, before he came to bed.
And now I have to tell of something which has a direct bearing upon all
that follows. I had become so despondent and forlorn, and I found
myself in the company of such infamous and shameless rogues, that I had
actually forgotten my friends. I had forgotten that there were yet in
the world true, honest men who could be both brave and loyal.
One evening, I must confess, my heart was near to breaking. The world
seemed all so hopeless and so wicked that I brought my face to my hands
and cried just as I had been wont to cry, when I was a little chap of
four years old, when things had not gone for me exactly as I wanted. And
as I sobbed, I could hear the gamblers in the saloon beyond the cabin
door; the "clink" of the bottles and the glasses, and the deeper note of
the coins upon the table; now and again, a gruff oath from Amos or
Joshua Trust, and Mr. Forsyth's affected drawl. And then, a voice,
quite near to me, whispered in my ear:
"Me lad, be quick! I want a word with you."
I sprang to my feet--I had been lying on my berth--and looked about me.
I could see no one in the cabin, and had begun to think of ghosts and
spirit-voices, when I heard the whispering again.
"Here, me lad! The port-hole."
I looked at the port, and could see a face by the light of the oil
lamp--a face in a frame studded with stars, the face of a man with a
short stump of a grisly beard.
"Rushby!" I exclaimed.
"The same," said he. "But speak low, for Heaven's sake! Those rascals
are at their cards in the saloon; the door's thin, and it's all up with
us if we're discovered."
I went to the port-hole, so that my face was close to his.
"But how are you here?" I asked.
"I've not lived my life and done my duty," said he, "without making
friends. One of the crew, of the name of Adams, to whom I have been of
service in the past, has let me loose--just as you might unchain a
yard-dog for a run. I have a few minutes at the best before I'm back in
irons, but that's enough for what I have to say."
"But where are you now?" I asked, for he appeared to me to be walking
upon the sea.
He explained that he was hanging on to a rope, made fast to a stanchion
on the deck above, but that he had something of greater importance to
tell me.
"Are we near our journey's end?" I asked.
"In three days," he answered, "we should sight the coast, unless the
wind changes. What they intend to do with me at Caracas I neither know
nor care. I will somehow find the means to escape, and make my way back
to England; and then, Captain Dagg and Amos Baverstock shall pay for
what they've done."
"I entreat you," I exclaimed, "do not meddle with Amos!"
Rushby laughed softly.
"And leave you at his mercy!" he cried. "That's not my way, nor--I
should think, if all you have told me be the truth--the way of Mr.
Bannister. This matter shall never rest where it now stands. I am here
to learn two things, though I am no better than a simple sailor, and it
will want a wiser head than mine before we're safe in port. Come, tell
me, lad, where did you hide the map you snatched from Baverstock? John
Bannister may want it."
"In a rabbit-hole," said I; and I went on to describe, as best I could,
how that rabbit-hole might be found.
"There's a warren," said I, "about two hundred yards to the west of
Bannister's cabin----"
"And how am I to find that?" Rushby took me up.
I thought for a moment; and then I got a bright idea when most I needed
it, for I realised there was little time to spare and that Amos, at any
moment, might enter and find Rushby at the port-hole.
I gave him my mother's address; for I had little doubt that Bannister
had gone, long before this, to her. With my life in danger, he would--I
knew--soon get the better of his natural dread of women.
"That's all I want," said he.
And a moment after he was gone. It so happened that many months were to
elapse before I set eyes upon him again--a true man and an honest, big
of heart and strong of hand, the type that has made the very name of
British sailor to rank so highly all the world across, from the old
three-decker to the battle-cruiser of to-day. And I speak of the men
without whose cutlasses and courage Blake and Drake, or even Nelson
himself, had never been the famous admirals that they were.
For, when we were come to Caracas, I was discharged from that poisonous
vessel like a worthless bale of freight. Unshipped by night into a
broken-down two-wheeled cart, and conveyed through the narrow streets of
an evil-smelling city, where men talked loudly in a foreign tongue, with
quarrelsome voices and much waving of the hands, and then I found myself
in a dirty hovel upon the slopes of tree-clad hills, where I could see
the round moon through a great hole in the roof, and lie listening to
the singing of millions of crickets, wondering what would be the end of
it all.