ADRIFT.
As soon as the steward had fastened the hatch of the run, he made his
way to the deck. Tom Lark was standing near the mizzen-mast watching
the operations of three of the men, who, in obedience to his orders,
had commenced to unlash an old half-shattered boat that was secured
to the beams, extending crossways above the quarter-deck.
“Come! come! bear a hand there!” he shouted. “We must get the boat
alongside as soon as possible. Here, you, steward,” he added, turning
to that functionary, “jump up there, and help those men.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said the Portuguese, in a cringing tone of voice; “me
glad to do what you tell me!” and he mounted to the beams.
The lashings were soon unfastened, and, by means of a tackle, which
had been rigged over the steerage hatch, a few days previously, the
boat was hoisted, and then lowered alongside.
“It leaks bad,” said Driko, who had jumped into the vessel, for the
purpose of receiving the oars, and the other articles which Lark had
ordered to be passed into it.
“Never mind the leak,” said the giant; “the little craft is good
enough for those that are to occupy it. I shall let ’em have some
provision for the sake of the gal. That’s what I call equal rights!”
A breaker of fresh water, another of hard bread, together with pork
and beef, were accordingly placed in the vessel. Then followed a
couple of line-tubs, a boat-sail, and a bucket of tar, with a brush.
“The two rascals can make a tent with them things for the gal. I
haven’t any thing against _her_, and so don’t see why she shouldn’t
be made as comfortable as she can be, considering the circumstances,
and according to the law of equal rights.”
The ship was now running at the rate of about seven knots, along the
eastern edge of the floe, and, as the boat had been lowered upon the
larboard side, it was between the ship and the ice--the latter not
being further than five fathoms from it.
“If me may be so bold,” said the steward, obsequiously, to the
self-constituted captain, “me would like to ask whether you be going
to put de prisoners in de boat?”
“Ay, ay,” answered Lark, roughly; “but why do you ask?”
“Because me wanted to know whether me shouldn’t go into de cabin and
tell Miss Alice to get ready, and gag de mouths of dat Stump and
Marline.”
“And why should they be gagged?” cried the giant. “You must be mad!”
“Oh, because me t’ink you no like to hear dem--especially dis
Stump--talk to you, and call you bad names!” stammered the frightened
Portuguese, who readily foresaw that, the instant the hatch was
opened, the villainous trick which he had performed, without the
sanction of Lark, would be discovered. The reader will, therefore,
understand the reason why he wished to obtain the consent of the
giant to the measure he had proposed. Should he succeed in doing
this, he might make his way rapidly from the run to the spot occupied
by the prisoners, and conceal the furnace before the main hold could
be opened. The smoke, that had already emanated from the coal, would,
of course, be perceived, and would excite much astonishment. But the
gags in the mouths of the prisoners would prevent them from betraying
the author of the mischief.
Thus far, and no further, extended the hastily-formed conclusions of
the Portuguese, who was certainly not a very deep thinker. It did not
occur to his confused brain that the gags would at once be taken from
the prisoners to enable _them_ to explain the cause of the smoke, and
of their own half-senseless condition!
“Yes, you must be mad!” cried the giant, as he fixed his great, round
eyes upon the livid face of the steward; “and I don’t know but what
it would be as well for me to set you adrift with the prisoners. That
would be equal rights!”
“Oh, no! no!” cried Joseph, trembling from head to foot; “me no like
to go with dem. Dey kill me, _sure_!”
“Very well, then, don’t talk any more about gags, and such nonsense.
If you do, I shall think you are mad, and I don’t want any madmen in
this ship. Off with the main-hatch, men!” he added, turning to the
two islanders at his elbow; “and move about lively, for we’ve lost
time enough already.”
He was obeyed with alacrity, but the hold had scarcely been opened,
when an exclamation of astonishment from the Kanakas drew the giant
to the spot in time to inhale the gas, and to perceive the thin puffs
of smoke that curled upward from the hatch.
With a loud oath, he leaped through the opening, and he then
perceived the burning coal, and, also, that his two prisoners were
gagged. To pass the heated furnace to the Kanakas, with an order to
throw it overboard at once, was, with the mutineer, the work of an
instant; then, lifting each of the two prostrate men, one after the
other, in his herculean arms, he soon had them placed on deck.
“Now then!” he cried, as he climbed to the combings of the hatch,
“take those gags from the mouths of the prisoners.”
The islanders obeyed, and, as soon as the sufferers had recovered
sufficiently to speak, Lark addressed them:
“It was against my orders that you were served in the way you have
been; for, although I owe you a grudge for disputing my authority,
I wouldn’t go to work to satisfy it in any such sneaking manner as
charcoal and gags, which ain’t in the vocabulary of equal rights. Who
was the man that did this mischief? I wish to know, so that I can
punish him.”
“Ay, ay!” cried Stump, for, thanks to an excellent constitution,
both himself and his friend were rapidly recovering from the
effects of the deadly carbon. “Ay, ay; that’s a square question,
and desarves to be squarely answered. In the first place, then, you
are parfectly correct when you say that the way we’ve been treated
isn’t in the ‘vocalbubblery’ of equal rights. Them that has suffered
as we have can be reasonably sartain upon that p’int, and I’ll say,
in concluding, that, if I ever get hold of the head of Portuguese
Joe--which was the creatur’ that caused all our woes--I shall give it
a miraculous punching.”
The eyes of the giant flashed fire, and, rushing aft to the
mizzen-mast, near which the steward had stationed himself, he caught
the trembling wretch by the throat, and shook him until he was almost
senseless.
“You miserable imp! Do you dare to go against the orders of Captain
Lark? Do you dare to set _my_ authority at defiance? Do you dare--”
“Mercy! mercy! mercy!” shrieked the Portuguese, trembling in every
limb. “Me won’t do it any more! Me will do any thing you want me to!”
“If I wasn’t so short-handed, I should blow out your brains!”
thundered the mutineer; “but I want every man to work the ship,
and so I shall content myself by tying you up in the rigging, and
flogging you like a dog! That’s what I call equal rights!”
“No! no! no!” gasped the coward, clasping both hands; “only let me
go dis time, and never more will me do what you no like. Me cook for
you--wash for you--every t’ing me do, if you let me go!”
But the giant relentlessly dragged the wretch to the mizzen rigging
and fastened his wrists to the shrouds.
“And now,” said he, “as soon as I have set the prisoners adrift and
have tacked ship, I shall give you a lesson with a rope’s-end that
you won’t easily forget!”
The Portuguese continued his cries for mercy; but, without heeding
him, the chief of the mutineers now turned, and ordered the New
Zealanders to bring the prisoners aft.
“I am going to set you adrift,” he said, addressing the two seamen as
soon as he had been obeyed, “and you won’t starve--leastways not just
yet, as there’s some provisions in the boat.”
“And Alice!” cried Marline; “you--”
“She’ll go with you,” interrupted Lark, “and there’s the means in the
boat to make a tent for her. The craft is stove and won’t hold you
long, but you must make the best of it. That’s equal rights!”
“No, blast me if it is!” cried Stump, “and you can’t make it out
any way you try. Putting three people in a stove boat is about as
unreasonable a thing as can be imagined, seeing as to go down isn’t
to go up. You are a parfect humbug, Captain Lark!”
“Silence!” said Lark, sternly, “you are an ignoramus and don’t know
any thing about my laws, which I again tell you are all founded upon
the great principle of equal rights. This is my ship--you came aboard
of it--you rebel against my authority--and I set you adrift in a
_stove_ boat to punish you for the mutiny, which is perfect justice,
and would be understood as such by any person who, like me, believes
in equal rights.”
“Well, shiver me!” replied the shipkeeper, giving vent to a whistle
something like the piping of a boatswain’s mate, “if you don’t pull
and twist things about in the most lubberly fashion I ever saw, and
all for the purpose of making ’em look ship-shape, which they can’t
and never will be for all that, so help me Stump. Why, skin my eyes!
you might as well put a greenhorn in a tub on deck and then insist
for a sartainty that he could lift himself clear of the bulwarks
by pulling upon the sides of the tub. Them that says the days of
miracles is past would be mistaken if the doctrine ‘breeched’ by you
was a true one, which isn’t the case, by any means.”
“That’s enough,” said Lark, “that’s enough. The more you talk the
more you show your ignorance of the entire subject of our argument.
I don’t wish to say any more to you for I perceive that you know
nothing of equal rights!” And, turning impatiently away, he ordered
one of the islanders to go below and bring Alice to the deck.
“Tell her from me,” said Marline, addressing the man as he was about
to depart upon his mission, “to wrap herself up as comfortably as she
can, as, thanks to this rascal,” he added, directing an angry glance
toward Lark, who received it with the most imperturbable coolness,
“she is about to undergo many privations and hardships!”
“God bless the little thing!” ejaculated Stump, in a fervent tone.
“It’s a raal shame--blow me if it isn’t, to turn that sweet creatur’
out of house and home, who hasn’t never done nothing to desarve such
punishment. I’d lay down my life for her any moment--ay, more than
that, I’d give her my pigtail if such a present would do her any
good. But you’ll be brought to justice, Captain Lark. Them that acts
like you, must be brought to justice in the end!”
“Amen!” answered Lark, ironically, and at that instant his attention
was drawn to another quarter by the sudden loud flapping of the
ship’s canvas against the masts.
“How do you head there?” he thundered to the man at the wheel.
“No’th, half east, sir--the wind has hauled ahead!”
“Ay, ay, so it has!” cried Lark; “keep her off for the present, White
Squall!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the islander, as he put up his wheel.
But, as the vessel fell off, a cracking, grinding sound was heard
under the weather quarter, and upon looking over the rail, the
mutineer perceived that that part of the ship had swung against the
ice, forcing into it the boat alongside with a power that caused the
already injured planks to give way in several places.
“Unhook the tackle, Driko, and let the boat go. It’s no use now, for
it’s stove so bad that it wouldn’t float an infant. We’ll set the
prisoners adrift on the ice, and if they choose to fish up the boat,
afterward, they can do so. That’s equal rights!”
By the time he concluded, the New Zealander had obeyed his order, and
both men watched the boat until it had sunk out of sight among the
huge blocks of ice.
“Now then, luff!” shouted Lark to the helmsman.
“Ay, ay, sir!” and down went the helm.
Then, as the ship came into the wind, the giant, with the assistance
of Driko, succeeded in backing the main topsail.
A minute later and the vessel had drifted with the current alongside
of the floe.
“Now then,” said Lark, as he fastened the lower part of a rope around
the breast of Marline, just beneath the arm-pits, “over you go!”
And motioning to the islander to take hold of the other part of the
piece of rigging, he passed the still bound harpooner over the ship’s
rail, and, cautioning Driko to maintain his hold, let go of his
burden. But the rope slipped from the hands of the islander, and as a
natural consequence, the young man was precipitated to the ice with a
force which, for a few minutes, deprived him of his senses.
He partially regained them in time to see the corpulent body of
Stump--bound hand and foot--dangling above him as it was being
lowered to the ice, and also the form of Alice Howard, as the young
girl, closely wrapped in her fur cloak, and with a pale countenance,
was descending the ship’s side by means of the man-ropes and the
steps which had been prepared for her accommodation.
The young man raised himself upon his elbow, feeling bewildered, and
half inclined to believe that he was dreaming. But the rough voice of
Tom Lark, and a far gentler voice uttered at nearly one and the same
moment, soon dissipated the mist from his brain, and enabled him to
comprehend the truth.
“Round with the yards, men. Lively! lively!”
“Dear Harry, speak to me--are you much hurt?”
Then the vision of the ship fading away in the mist, as she boomed
upon her new course, was partially hidden from the eyes of the
harpooner by the fair young face of Alice Howard that was bent full
of sympathy toward his own, while she proceeded to cut, with his
sheath-knife, the cords about his ankles and wrists.
“My own Alice, here on the ice! Heaven help her!” cried Marline, as
he threw his arm impulsively around the waist of the sweet girl.
“Without shelter--without--”
“Answer me, Harry, are you much hurt?”
“If we could erect some kind of a canopy to cover you--ay, if we
could only do that,” continued the harpooner, still, in his anxiety
for the comfort of Alice, forgetting to answer her question, “then
there would be some consolation in the matter.”
“You _are_ hurt--badly injured!” murmured the girl, with tears in her
eyes, “and that is the reason why you will not reply to me.”
“Hurt? No, indeed--I was only stunned!” And the young man sprung
lightly to his feet.
Alice also arose, and placed her hand upon the shoulder of her lover,
looking into his face with a bright smile.
“I am _so_ glad,” she said, “I am happy now!”
“Ay, ay, but blow me if I am!” grunted Stump, who, with his hands
and his ankles so closely bound that he was forced to sit in a
“doubled-up” position upon the cold surface of the ice, was certainly
in an uncomfortable situation. “No, not a bit of it. These quarters
are worse than that cursed hold; and if you don’t untie me pretty
soon, I shall commit suicide--much as that goes against the Stump
nature--by rolling over the edge of the ice into the water.”