THE CARPENTER CALLS A COUNCIL
At four o’clock the carpenter came aft to relieve me. He asked me in a
short off-hand way how the weather had been; and the wide-awake note in
his voice satisfied me that whether or not he had slept during his watch
below, he had certainly not now come fresh from his bunk or hammock.
When I had answered him, he went abruptly to the compass, and I
descended the poop ladder and entered the cuddy.
Miss Temple was still asleep. It was more like some issue of the sorcery
of the imagination than the reality to come out of the windy dusk of the
night and an association, momentary it might be, with the carpenter, to
the spectacle of the slumbering beautiful girl breathing deep and
restfully, with the gleam of her white teeth showing through her parted
lips, and the lashes of her closed lids resting in a shadow of
surprising loveliness upon her colourless cheeks. But rest was
imperative to me; there was not another locker to use; and I would not
leave the girl alone. I lightly touched her hand; she smiled, but slept
on; I touched her again, and she sprang erect with an affrighted air,
staring at me with the meaningless gaze of the newly awakened.
‘Ah!’ she cried with a violent shudder, ‘I thought it was the dead
captain who touched me! How cold your hand is.’
‘I am going to my berth to seek some rest,’ said I; ‘and would not leave
you alone here.’
‘Oh no!’ she exclaimed; ‘I will go with you.’
‘You have been sleeping for above two hours,’ said I. ‘I am very glad.
Slumber is strength; nay, it is life. You have been safe, and you will
now tell me that I was in the right in entreating you to remain here.’
‘In _commanding_ me, you mean,’ she answered with a faint smile. ‘But
how miserable I was alone until I fell asleep—constantly imagining that
that door was being cautiously opened’—another strong shudder swept
through her while she motioned towards the captain’s cabin, holding her
face averted.
I unhooked the lantern belonging to my berth, lighted the candle in it,
and, taking her by the hand, conducted her to the hatch. When we had
entered the steerage, I lifted her hand to my lips in the old-fashioned
salute and said: ‘Miss Temple, if I appear to _command_, it is with the
hope of being useful as a protector to a companion whose claims upon me
must needs deepen as we continue together and as the outlook darkens.’
I held open her cabin door for her, gave her my lantern; and then going
to my own berth, groped my way to the bunk, and was speedily in a sound
sleep.
It was eight o’clock by my watch when I awoke. I at once sprang out of
bed, and, having carefully secreted the pistol I had brought with me
from the captain’s cabin, I hastily sluiced my face with some salt
water, and stepped to Miss Temple’s cabin door, on which I knocked. She
answered me. I told her that she would find me on deck. ‘It is eight
o’clock,’ I said, ‘and my turn to keep watch has come round.’ With that
I ascended the steps. Wilkins was in the cuddy, as I must needs call the
little living-room, though, after the Indiaman’s saloon, it seemed a big
name to give to so small an interior. I said: ‘The lady will be here
shortly. Get breakfast ready for us, d’ye hear? We will eat it on deck,
unless there is somebody to keep my lookout whilst I come below for the
meal.’ He answered, civilly enough, that he would carry it on deck to us
on my letting him know when we were ready for it.
I found the carpenter on the poop talking to a couple of seamen; but on
seeing me, the two fellows went forward in a sort of sheepish way. It
was a fine morning, lively with flying sunshine, and the seas were
running in foaming dark-blue hills, which shouldered the reflection of
the sun into incessant flashings of fire as dazzling as the beams darted
down by the luminary himself betwixt the edges of the streaming clouds.
I sent a swift look round; there was nothing in sight. The barque was
under the same canvas I had left upon her when I went below; but my
first step carrying me to the compass, I perceived that she was making a
more southerly course by two points than she had been heading when I
left the deck; and, indeed, when I directed my eyes aloft for a second
time, I perceived that the yards had been slightly braced in, and that,
in short, Mr. Lush was making a fair wind of what was a foul one for
Rio. I was greatly startled, but controlled my face, for the man’s eyes
were upon me.
‘I presume, Mr. Lush,’ said I, crossing over to him and feigning a
certain carelessness of behaviour whilst I looked with a manner of
indifference past him at the weather horizon, ‘that you are aware the
barque is needlessly off her course, seeing that she’ll easily look up
another two or two and a half points?’
‘A ship’s course depends upon where she’s a going,’ he answered, running
his eyes over my figure; ‘and nothen’s settled yet so far as we’re
consarned.’
‘Oho! Is it so, indeed!’ said I, after venting myself in a short
whistle. ‘What is the objection to Rio, Mr. Lush?’
‘I’ll be calling the crew aft presently,’ he exclaimed; ‘it’s a question
for all hands, not for me nor you only, sir.’
‘I trust,’ said I, my feigned air of carelessness vanishing before the
real consternation that was now active in me, ‘that the sailors will not
obstruct my earnest desire for the lady’s sake, as well as for my own,
to make for Rio as promptly as possible. Miss Temple and I have met with
some cruel experiences, and we are as badly off even now, aboard this
smart little barque, as we were in the wreck from which you rescued us.
In God’s name, Mr. Lush, let there be no unreasonable hindrance to our
speedy arrival at a port whence we may take shipping for home.’
‘I have said,’ he responded in his sulkiest manner, ‘that it ain’t a
question for one man nor for two men, but for all hands.’
I witnessed stubbornness that was to be easily developed into insolence
strong in the ruffian’s face, and bit my lip to silence my tongue. After
a short pause I said: ‘I observe that the decks have not been washed
down.’
‘No; that’s right. They han’t been washed down.’
‘When is the body of the captain to be buried?’
‘He is buried,’ he answered; and then went on, as though perceiving that
some explanation was necessary: ‘No good in keeping a human corpse
aboard ship. ‘Tain’t lucky. ‘Tain’t lucky, even if so be as it’s the
human corpse of a good man; but when it comes to the body of the likes
of _him_‘—— He spat over the rail. ‘He was rolled up in canvas and
dropped overboard two hours since.’
‘A dog’s funeral!’ said I, betwixt my teeth.
‘A dog’s funeral’s all that the best sailor must expect; the treatment
of a dog when he’s alive, and a mongrel’s burial when he’s dead.’
‘Well, I’m here to relieve you,’ said I. ‘Wilkins will bring my
breakfast on deck.’
‘All right,’ he answered. ‘Suppose we call it nine o’clock for the
council that’s to be held?’
I turned from him, assenting with a gesture, and walked aft, miserably
sick at heart, to receive Miss Temple, who at that moment appeared in
the companion way. She instantly perceived by my face that there was
something gravely wrong with us, and fixed a look of nervous passionate
inquiry upon me. There was no purpose to be served by concealing my
fears from her—fears which, shapeless as they might now be, were, I did
not question, to be converted presently into bitter convictions. I took
her hand and conducted her to the skylight, where we were out of earshot
of the helmsman.
‘I am afraid,’ said I, ‘that the death of Captain Braine has thickened
the problem of this adventure for us.’
‘What has happened?’ she demanded.
‘When I went below at four o’clock this morning,’ I replied, ‘the _Lady
Blanche_ was looking up for the port of Rio as closely as the wind
permitted her. Since then, Mr. Lush has taken it upon himself to alter
the vessel’s course, and we need but another point or two of southing to
be sailing straight away—down the South Atlantic Ocean.’
‘But the ship is _now_ being steered for Rio?’
‘No.’
‘No!’ she cried. ‘Why do you not order the man to direct her according
to your wishes?’ And she sent one of her flashing glances at the hairy
face of the sailor who grasped the spokes.
‘The crew are coming aft presently to settle the question of our
destination. I can do nothing. If they have made up their minds to a
course, they are not going to suffer me to get in the road of it.’
‘But what course? What resolution are they likely to form?’ she
exclaimed, clasping her hands with a gesture of despair, and gazing
forwards with an expression of terror at a group of fellows who stood at
the galley door talking.
‘I know nothing, and can tell you nothing,’ I replied. ‘It is to signify
another tax upon our patience, and we must wait. Some destination they
are bound to hit upon; it will not be Rio, I believe. We shall see. They
cannot do without me—that is, I alone am capable of navigating the
vessel—and in that may lie our security. But one thing you must help me
to achieve, Miss Temple: I mean a behaviour of coolness, good temper,
and tact. I believe the devil himself is lodged in the hide of that
round-backed brute of a carpenter, and the crew may not be wanting in
some of the highest flavoured of his agreeable qualities. Help me, then,
to the most inoffensive and patient of attitudes, and say nothing
yourself—nay, _look_ nothing! for those dark eyes of yours have a hot
eloquence of their own, and a man need not hear your rich voice to know
what is passing in your mind.’
She forced a calmness upon herself, and spoke in a low voice: ‘If the
crew insist upon sailing the ship to some distant part, is there nothing
that we can do to induce them to transfer us to another vessel, or to
run into the land close enough to set us ashore in any town on the
coast?’
‘First, let them come to a resolution.’
‘This is a shocking situation to be in! Your old energy seems to be
leaving you. You give me dreadful news in a lifeless way, and talk
spiritlessly of suffering the crew to do as they please.’ She said this,
still preserving her forced composure; but there was ire in her gaze and
temper and despair in her respiration, in the twitching of the nostril,
in the curl of her lip, when she had spoken.
I looked at her steadily, but in silence, weighing down upon her gaze,
as it were, with my own until her eyes fell. ‘Not spiritless yet,’ said
I. ‘Nor shall I suffer you to make me so, Miss Temple.’
She hung her head, and beat with her fingers upon her knuckles, as
though she needed some exercise of that sort to enable her to suppress
her emotions or her tears. Wilkins came under the skylight to ask if I
was ready for breakfast. I bade him bring it to us; and he arrived with
some coffee and cold meat and biscuit. I could not induce the girl to
eat. Even when she took a sip of coffee she scarcely seemed able to
swallow it. Her misery was wretched to see. Sometimes she would start
and send a wild sweeping look round the horizon; often she would moan. I
tried to put some heart into her; but I could find little to say,
ignorant as I then was of what the crew meant to do. Most of them seemed
to be in or about the galley. A few stood in the doorway, and their
behaviour suggested that there were others inside to whose utterance,
whatever form it took, they listened with attention, sometimes glancing
aft at us. Shortly before nine o’clock I said to Miss Temple that the
crew were coming aft at that hour, and requested her to go to her own
cabin that she might be out of sight of them.
‘Cannot I remain on deck?’ she exclaimed. ‘My suspense will be a
torment. You are banishing me to an underground cell.’
‘You will withdraw to your cabin, if you please, Miss Temple. We are
here dealing with a crew of men who are now without a head, and whose
temper may grow lawless whenever they shall realise that they are their
own masters.’
‘You will come to me the moment you are at liberty, Mr. Dugdale?’
‘Most assuredly.’
I accompanied her to the companion, and watched her as she descended the
steps. She halted at the bottom of the ladder to look up at me with eyes
of appealing grief. How close she had come to my heart I might not have
been able to successfully guess till that moment. I longed to take her
in my arms, to entreat her forgiveness for any act or speech of
sternness or harshness, to soothe her with all bright and comforting
hopes that it was in my power to utter. A step carried her out of my
sight, but for some minutes after, the memory of her beautiful appealing
eyes dominated all other thoughts, and I could think of nothing but her
noble figure, the grief of her colourless high-bred face, the suggestion
I found in her attitude of her yearning for my presence and
protection—profoundly touching to me who loved her, spite of not knowing
that the motive of her longing was to be found in no other sentiment
than that of her fear.
Presently the carpenter came out of the galley knocking the ashes out of
his pipe, and advanced slowly to the poop, followed by most of the crew,
who halted opposite the cuddy front.
‘The cabin’ll be the place to talk in,’ said he; ‘there’ll be no hearing
of one another up here. There’s Joe Wetherly’ll keep a lookout whilst
you and me are below.’
‘I am ready,’ I answered.
He called to Wetherly, who was standing in the waist, forward of the
others. The man touched his cap to me as he ascended the poop ladder,
and looked at me meaningly through the minute holes in which his eyes
lay deep buried. I entered the cuddy with the carpenter, who turned
round as he passed through the door to sing out, ‘Step in, lads.’ Nine
fellows in all followed. Most of them carried a sort of grinning,
wondering expression on their faces; but here and there I took note of a
determined countenance.
‘Mr. Lush,’ I exclaimed, ‘the ordering of this business is in your
hands. I will leave you to settle whatever ceremonies we are to pass
through.’
‘Mr. Lush’ll take the cheer,’ said one of the men.
The carpenter at once seated himself in the captain’s chair at the after
end of the little table. The sailors sat down upon the benches. Lush
exclaimed: ‘Mr. Dugdale, you sit alongside o’ me here. Mates, ease
yourselves down, and make room for the gent.’
I took the place he indicated, and waited with as resolved a face as I
could screw my features into for what was to follow. There was a pause
whilst the carpenter, rolling his eyes over the seamen, seemed to be
hunting in his mind for words in which to express himself. The men
stared from him to me with an occasional glance round, especially in the
direction of the tumbler-rack, at which they would cast thirsty looks.
In this brief spell of silence I sought to interpret their intentions
from their postures; but there was little to reassure me in their
bearing. There was a kind of defiance in it that instantly made itself
felt. They were clad for the most part in shirts and duck or dungaree
breeches; their breasts were bare, with the sight here and there of some
ink and gunpowder device straggling amidst the hair; they leaned upon
their naked muscular arms or sat with them folded looking at me or the
carpenter. There was no hint of such diffidence as one might expect to
find in forecastle hands occupying the saloon or cabin of a ship.
‘We’ve been a-tarning over,’ began the carpenter, speaking slowly and
viewing me out of the corners of his eyes, ‘the condition we’re put in
by the sooicide of Capt’n Braine. All hands is agreed, saving one, who
says that he dorn’t much care how it goes.’
‘Who is that one?’ I asked.
‘Joe Wetherly,’ he answered.
I waited, but he seemed to require me to question him.
‘You are all agreed, you say, Mr. Lush—upon what?’
He coughed, thrust his fingers into his neckcloth to ease his throat,
and then said: ‘Well, now, I’ll tell ye exactly how it stands. Wilkins
there was next door to the capt’n’s cabin when he told you of that
matter of two hundred thousand pound lying stowed away in a South Sea
island. He comes forward and tells us all about it.’ He paused, then
said with a tone of impatience: ‘Of course, ye can guess now what we’ve
settled on?’
‘Pray, explain,’ said I, understanding but too thoroughly, and feeling
the blood forsaking my cheek.
‘Why,’ said the carpenter with a short laugh, ‘what we’ve resolved on is
to sail to that there island and get the money.’
‘No good in leaving all that money to lie there for the savages to dig
up,’ exclaimed one of the men.
‘Mr. Lush,’ said I, ‘I am a stranger in this ship, and have but one
desire, and that is, to leave her along with the young lady who was my
fellow-passenger aboard the Indiaman. You will of course do what you
will with the vessel. The action of the crew can make no part of my
business. All that I ask is that you will signal the first vessel we
fall in with, let her be heading as she will, and tranship us.’
A growling ‘No!’ ran amongst the men. The carpenter echoed it with a
blow of his fist upon the table. ‘No, sir! we can’t spare you. It’ll be
_you_, Mr. Dugdale, that’ll carry us to that island.’
My consternation was too visible to be missed even by the ignorant eyes
which were bent upon me.
‘You’ll be treated fairly, sir,’ said one of the men, with an air and
tone of conciliation. ‘We’ve allowed for you being a gent as’ll be
carried away from the parts he wants to git to, Mr. Lush and us men have
talked it well over, and the share of the money ye choose to name is the
share you shall have for the time and trouble this bit of navigation’ll
cost you.’
A murmur of assent followed this speech, several heads nodding so
vehemently that their hair danced about their eyes.
‘But, men,’ I cried, turning upon and addressing them in a body, ‘you
are surely not going to persuade me that you _believe_ in this yarn of
the captain?’
‘Don’t you?’ inquired the carpenter with a sarcastic sneer.
‘It was the imagination of a madman,’ I continued—‘a crazy fancy, men!
Surely there is no sailor here but knew that the captain was insane. Did
not his actions, his talk, his very looks, prove him mad? And what more
convincing proof of his insanity could you desire than the last act of
his life?’
Two or three of the fellows grumbled out something, but I did not catch
the words. ‘Mad, was he?’ exclaimed the carpenter in a voice of coarse,
morose sarcasm; ‘ye didn’t think that when you stood out for a share.’
‘How do you know,’ I cried, ‘that I stood out for a share?’
‘By God, then,’ he roared, ‘we know everything! Did ye or did ye not
sign an agreement for a share?’
‘I did,’ I answered, ‘but merely to humour the man’s madness. I should
have left the ship at Rio.’
‘There’s no use in talking,’ he exclaimed, smoothing down his voice a
trifle; ‘the compact between ye was overheard. Me and the others here
was to be got rid of at Rio. Then a crew of Kanakas was to be shipped
off the Sandwich Islands. Then, with the gold aboard hidden out of
sight, you and him was to ship fresh hands. Mad?’ he cried in an
indescribably sneering way; ‘no, no, that worn’t do. Ye didn’t think him
mad, then, when you made him provide that if the law laid hold of him
for a-running away with his ship, you was to be guaranteed free o’ peril
by what you or him tarmed a hinstrument. Ye didn’t think him mad then,
and ye don’t think him mad now.’
‘Wilkins,’ I exclaimed to the young fellow who sat at the corner end of
the table, ‘you overheard that conversation, and your ears were sharp
enough to gather in every syllable of it. Were they not sharp enough, my
lad, to judge by the tone of my voice that I assented to the madman’s
humour merely to induce him to make for the near port of Rio, that I and
the lady might quickly get away from this vessel?’
The veal-faced fellow stirred uneasily to the many eyes which were
turned upon him; but he answered nevertheless with resolution and
emphasis: ‘You stipulated for tarms, specially for a share, and you
spoke as if you was in airnest.’
‘Mr. Lush,’ I cried, ‘I am a gentleman. Believe me, on my honour as one,
when I swear to you that I accepted the captain’s story as a madman’s
fabrication, and seemed to agree with him only that I might get away
from his ship the sooner.’
‘What was the dawcument you signed, sir?’ inquired one of the sailors.
‘Ah, that’s it,’ cried another; ‘let’s see the hinstrument, as Mr. Lush
tarms it.’
I had them both in my pocket-book, intending to preserve them as
curiosities and as illustrations of my adventure with Miss Temple. I
could not refuse to produce them, nor would I stoop to a falsehood; but
I was sensible as I drew out the pocket-book, intently watched by the
seamen, that the mere circumstance of my carrying the papers about with
me as though I deemed them too precious to be laid aside in a drawer,
told heavily against the assurance I had made to the men. The carpenter
picked the documents up.
‘Who can read here?’ said he, looking round. There was no reply. ‘Will
you recite ’em, sir?’ he continued, turning his surly eyes upon me.
‘There’s Joe as can read,’ broke in a voice.
‘Ay, call Joe,’ exclaimed another man.
This signified that I was not to be trusted. They might suppose I would
invent instead of reading, and there was no man present able to spell a
word to disprove what I chose to deliver. The lee lid of the skylight
lay open. The carpenter roared through it for Joe Wetherly, who promptly
stepped below.
‘What is it?’ he asked, looking round upon his mates.
‘Here, Joe,’ said the carpenter, ‘you’re the one scholard aboard us.
Tarn to, will ‘ee, and let’s hear what’s wrote down upon these papers.’
The man glanced at me with an expression of sympathy and bashfulness. ‘I
hope there’s nothen private and agin your wish in this, sir? ‘he
exclaimed. ‘I’m for standin’ neutral in this here job.’
‘Pray read,’ said I.
He did so, backing and filling in his postures in true sailor fashion as
he struggled through the writing, reciting the words slowly, with
considerable pauses between, which furnished his hearers with time to
digest what he delivered. He then put the papers down, but with an air
of astonishment, as I noticed with grief and anxiety, as if having been
before incredulous of the captain’s story, he was beginning to regard it
as a fact now in the face of such documentary evidence as he had read.
‘All right, Joe; thank ye,’ said the carpenter gruffly; ‘you can go on
deck agin.’ The man went up the ladder slowly, as though lost in
thought. ‘Lads,’ exclaimed Lush, ‘ye’ll agree with me there’s no need
for further arguefication after what ye’ve just heard.’
‘The money’s right enough, and we’ll git it,’ said one of the men.
‘Where’s the chart of the island as Wilkins said the captain talked
about?’ inquired the limber bold-faced young seaman with whom I had
spoken at the wheel when I found the barque off her course.
All eyes were at once turned upon me. ‘You’ll find it in the drawer of
the table of the captain’s cabin,’ said I.
The fellow coolly entered the berth, and presently returned with a
handful of papers. ‘Which’ll it be, sir?’ he exclaimed, placing them
before me. I picked up the parchment chart, and gave it to the
carpenter, who spread it out before him, and instantly all the men came
round to his chair, and stood in a heap of shouldering figures mowing
and mopping over his shoulders to catch a view, tossing the hair with
jerks of their heads out of their eyes, and breathing hard with
excitement.
‘I suppose you’re capable of explaining the meaning of these here
marks?’ exclaimed the carpenter, pressing a shovel-shaped thumb upon the
outline of the island.
‘You shall have the yarn as the captain gave it me,’ said I, speaking
with a throat dry with mortification and sickness at heart; for it was
only too certain now that my agreements with the captain coupled with
this chart had hardened the men’s conviction into an immovable
resolution. They listened with breathless interest as I told them that
the barb of the arrow indicated the situation of the buried money; that
the treasure lay hidden so many paces away from the wash of the water of
the lagoon; that the blot in the centre of the bight was meant to
express a coral pillar that served as a mark to obtain the bearings of
the gold by; and so on. I see their feverish eyes as I write coming and
going from my face to the chart, and the various expressions of
exultation, eager determination, amazement, and delight on the mob of
countenances over the carpenter’s shoulders.
‘You now have what the captain explained to me,’ said I; ‘but he was a
madman, men; and I take God to witness that though this island may be
real, the money is the coinage of a diseased mind.’
‘Yet ye would not stir till you had made him agree to give you a share,’
said the carpenter. ‘Boys, back to your places whilst I delivers the
resolution we have all of us made up our minds to.’
The sailors hurriedly resumed their seats. The carpenter gazed slowly
round, then addressed me with his eyes in the corner of their sockets
whilst his face pointed straight down the table.
‘We’re here without a capt’n,’ he began, ‘and though this barque ain’t
ourn, we mean to use her. We don’t intend no act of piracy. When we’ve
got the gold, we’ll deliver up the ship and her cargo, which we shan’t
meddle with. We’re all of us working men, and the money in that there
island fairly distributed’ll make all hands of us independent for life.
There’s no more inwolved than the job of fetching it, and that’s to be
easily managed.’ The men nodded emphatically. ‘You’re a navigator, Mr.
Dugdale, and we can’t do without ye. There’s no good in talking of
shipping another man in your place, because, d’ ye see, that ‘ud oblige
us either to communicate with a passing vessel or to put into some port,
neither of which is to be hentertained, seeing the nature of the secret
which is ourn, and which we mean to keep ourn. We’re agreeable to
con-sider any tarms ye may think proper to propose. As has bin said, the
share ye name is the share ye’ll have. Ye shall be capt’n, and treated
as capt’n. You and the lady shall live in this here part of the ship
without mollystation, as the saying is; and ye’ll find us a perlite and
willing crew, who’ll stick to our side of the compact as _you_ stick to
yourn. The money ye’ll get by this job, gent as ye are, will repay both
you and the lady for loss o’ time and for work done. This here barque
knows how to sail, and neither me nor you’ll spare her; for we’re now in
a hurry and this voyage can’t end too quickly to please us all. Them’s
our tarms, which ye can put into writing if you please, and we’ll write
our marks agin it. There must be no communicating with ships; and _ye’ve
got to be honest_!’ He said this with a sudden frown, looking full at
me. ‘Is that your mind, men?’
There was a hurricane response of ‘Ay, ay! That’s right; that’s right.’
‘Give me a little while to consider,’ said I, observing that the
carpenter had come to an end.
‘By when will we have your answer?’ he demanded.
‘By noon.’
‘Agreed,’ he exclaimed. ‘Here’s your two documents. I’ll take charge of
this here chart.’
A few minutes later I was alone.