I made up my mind as Stevens left me to bring this terrible time to an
end on Friday afternoon, come what might. Let it fall a calm, let it
blow a gale, on Friday afternoon I would tell the carpenter that the
ship was off the coast of Florida, forty or fifty miles distant.
If, by the boatswain's ruse, I could keep the ship afloat and carry her
to Bermuda, it would matter little whether we hove her to one hundred
or even two hundred miles distant from the island. The suspense I
endured, the horror of our situation, was more than I could bear. I
believed that my health and strength would give way if I protracted
the ship's journey to the spot where the men would leave her, even for
twenty-four hours longer than Friday.
The task before me then was to prepare for the final struggle, to
thoroughly mature my plans, to utilize the control I still had over
the ship to the utmost advantage, and to put into shape all plausible
objections and hints I could think upon, which would be helpful to me
if adopted by the crew.
What I most felt was the want of firearms. The revolver I carried was
indeed five-chambered, and there was much good fortune in my having
been the first to get hold of it. But could I have armed the boatswain
or even the steward with another pistol, I should have been much easier
in my mind when I contemplated the chances of a struggle between us and
the crew.
However, there is no evil that is not attended by some kind of
compensation, and I found this out; for taking it into my head that
there might be a pistol among Duckling's effects, though I was pretty
sure that the weapon he had threatened me with was the one in my
possession, I entered his cabin with the intention to begin a search,
but had no sooner opened the lid of his chest than I perceived that I
had been forestalled, for the clothes were tossed anyway, the pockets
turned inside out, and articles taken out of wrappers, as I should
judge from the paper coverings that lay among the clothes.
So now I could only hope that Duckling had _not_ had a pistol, since
whoever had rifled his box must have met with it. And that Stevens was
the thief in this as in the case of the silver I had no doubt at all.
There being now only two of us to keep watch, Stevens and I did not
meet at dinner. I took his place whilst he dined, and he then relieved
me.
The steward told me they were having a fine feast in the forecastle;
that upwards of ten of the fowls which had been strangled in the
morning had been put to bake for the men's dinner; that in addition to
this they had cooked three legs of pork, and were drinking freely from
a jar of rum which the carpenter had ordered him to take forward.
I could pretty well judge that they were enjoying themselves, by the
loud choruses they were singing.
Believing they would end in becoming drunk, I knocked on Miss
Robertson's door, to tell her on no account to show herself on deck.
She gave me her hand the moment she saw me, and gently brought me into
the cabin and made me sit down, though I had not meant to stay.
The old gentleman stood with his back to the door, looking through the
port-hole. Though he heard my voice, he did not turn, and only looked
round when his daughter pulled him by the arm.
"How do you do, sir?" he exclaimed, making me a most courtly bow. "I
hope you are well? You find us, sir," with a stately wave of the hand,
"in wretched accommodation; but all this will be mended presently. The
great lesson of life is patience."
And he made me another bow, meanwhile looking hard at me and
contracting his brows.
I was more affected by this painful change--this visible and rapid
decay, not of his memory only, but of his mind--than I know how to
describe. The mournful, helpless look his daughter gave him, the
tearless melancholy in her eyes, as she bent them on me, hit me hard.
I did not know how to answer him, and could only fix my eyes on the
deck.
"This prospect," he continued, pointing to the port-hole, "is
exceedingly monotonous. I have been watching it I should say a full
half-hour--about that time, my dear, should you not think?--and find
no change in it whatever. I witness always the same unbroken line of
water, slightly darker, I observe, than the sky which bends to meet
it. That unbroken line has a curious effect upon me. It seems to press
like a substantial ligature or binding upon my forehead; positively,"
he exclaimed, with a smile almost as sweet as his child's, "as though I
had a cord tied round my head."
He swept his hand over his forehead, as though he could remove the
sensation of tightness by the gesture. It was pitiful to witness such a
venerable and dignified old gentleman stricken thus in his mind by the
sufferings and miserable horrors of shipwreck.
"I think, sir," I said, addressing him with all the respectfulness I
could infuse into my voice, "that the uneasiness of which you complain
would leave you if you would lie down. The eye gets strained by staring
through a port-hole, and that eternal horizon yonder really grows a
kind of craze in one's head, if watched too long."
"You are quite right, sir," he replied, making me another bow; and,
addressing his daughter, "This gentleman sympathizes with the peculiar
inspirations of what I may call monotonous nature."
He looked at her with extraordinary and painful earnestness. Evidently,
some recollection had leaped into his mind and quitted him immediately,
leaving him bewildered by it.
He then said, in a most plaintive voice--
"I will lie down. Your shoulder, my love."
He stretched out his old trembling hand. I got up to help him, but he
withdrew from me with an air of offended pride, and reared his figure
to its full height.
"This is my daughter, sir," he exclaimed, with cold emphasis; and
though I knew he was not accountable for his behaviour, I shrunk back,
feeling more completely snubbed than ever I remember being in my life.
With her assistance he got into the bunk, and lay there quite still.
She drew close to me, and obliged me to share the seat she made of the
box which had contained the steward's linen.
"You are not angry with him?" she whispered.
"Indeed not."
"I shall lose him soon. He will not live long," she said, and tears
came into her eyes.
"God will spare him to you, Miss Robertson. Have courage. Our trials
are nearly ended. Once ashore he will recover his health--it is this
miserable confinement, this gloomy cabin, this absence of the comforts
he has been used to, that are telling upon his mind. He will live to
recall all this in his English home. The worst has never come until it
is passed--that is my creed; because the worst may be transformed into
good even when it is on us."
"_You_ have the courage," she answered, "not I. But you give me
courage. God knows what I should have done but for you."
I looked into her brave soft eyes, swimming in tears, and could have
spoken some deep thoughts to her then, awakened by her words.
I was silent a moment, and then said--
"You must not go on deck to-day. Indeed, I think you had better remain
below until I ask you to join me."
"Why? Is there any new danger?"
"Nothing you need fear. The men who fancy themselves very nearly at
their journey's end, threaten to grow boisterous. But my importance to
them is too great to allow them to offend me _yet_. Still, it will be
best for you to keep out of sight."
"I will do whatever you wish."
"I am sure you will. My wish is to save you--not my wish only--it is my
resolution. Trust in me wholly, Miss Robertson. Keep up your courage,
for I may want you to help me at the last."
"You must trust in me, too, as my whole trust is in you," she answered,
smiling.
I smiled back at her, and said--
"Now, let me tell you what may happen--what all my energies are and
have been engaged to bring about. On Friday afternoon I shall tell
the carpenter that the ship is fifty or sixty miles off the coast
of Florida. If the night is calm--and I pray that it may be--the
ship will be hove to, that is, rendered stationary on the water; the
long-boat will be slung over the side, and the quarter-boat lowered.
All _this_ is certain to happen. But now come my doubts. Will the crew
remain on board until the man they send into the hold to scuttle the
vessel rejoins them? or will they get into the boats and wait for him
alongside? If they take to the boats and wait for the man, the ship is
ours. If they remain on board, then our preservation will depend upon
the bo'sun."
"How?"
"He will either kill the man who gets into the hold, or knock him
insensible. He will then have to act as though _he_ were the man he has
knocked on the head."
"I see."
"If they call to him, he will have to answer them without showing
himself. Perhaps he will call to them. They will answer him. They will
necessarily muffle their voices that we who are aft may not suspect
what they are about. In that case the bo'sun may counterfeit the voice
of the man he has knocked on the head successfully."
"But what will he tell them?"
"Why, that his job is nearly finished, and that they had best take to
the boats and hold off for him, as he is scuttling her in half a dozen
places, and the people aft will find her sinking and make a rush to the
boats if they are not kept away. He will tell them that when he has
done scuttling her, he will run up and jump overboard and swim to them.
This, if done cleverly, may decide the men to shove off. We shall see."
"It is a clever scheme," she answered, musingly. "The boatswain's life
depends upon his success, and I believe he will succeed in duping them."
"What can be done he will do, I am sure," I said, not choosing to
admit that I had not her confidence in the stratagem, because I feared
that the more the boatswain should endeavour to disguise his voice the
greater would be the risk of its being recognised. "But let me tell you
that this is the worst view of the case. It is quite probable that the
men will take to the boats and wait for their mate to finish in the
hold, not only because it will save time, but because they will imagine
it an effectual way of compelling us to remain on the vessel.
"What villains! and if they take to the boats?"
"Then I shall want you."
"What can I do?"
"We shall see. There still remains a third chance. The carpenter is,
or I have read his character upside down, a born murderer. It is
possible that this villain may design to leave the man whom he sends
into the hold to sink with the ship. He has not above half a dozen
chums, confidential friends, among the crew; and it will be his and
their policy to rid themselves of the others as best they can, so
as to diminish the number of witnesses against them. If, therefore,
they contemplate this, they will leave the ship while they suppose
the act of scuttling to be actually proceeding. Now, amongst the many
schemes which have entered my mind, there was one I should have put
into practice had I not feared to commit any action which might in the
smallest degree imperil your safety. This scheme was to cautiously
sound the minds of the men who were not in the carpenter's intimate
confidence; ascertain how far they relished the notion of quitting
the ship for a shore that might prove inhospitable, or on which their
boats might be wrecked and themselves drowned, and discover by what
shrewdness I am master of, how many I might get to come over to my side
if the boatswain and myself turned upon Stevens and killed him, shot
down Johnson, and fell, armed with my revolver and a couple of belaying
pins, upon Cornish and Fish--these three men composing Stevens'
cabinet. I say that this was quite practicable, and no very great
courage required to execute it, as we should have killed or stunned
these men before they would be able to resist us."
"There would be nine left."
"Yes; but I should have reckoned upon some of them helping me."
"You could not have depended upon them."
"Well, we have another plan, and I refer to this only to show you a
specimen of some of the schemes which have come into my head."
"Mr. Royle, if you had a pistol to give me, I would help you to shoot
them! Show me how I can aid you in saving our lives, and I will do your
bidding!" she exclaimed, with her eyes on fire.
I put my finger on my lip and smiled.
She blushed scarlet and said, "You do not think me womanly to talk so!"
"You would not hate me were you to know my thoughts," I answered,
rising.
"Are you going, Mr. Royle?"
"Yes. Stevens, for all I know, may have seen me come in here. I would
rather he should find me in my own cabin."
"We see very little of you, considering that we are all three in one
small ship," she said, hanging her head.
"I never leave you willingly, and would be with you all day if I might.
But a rough sailor like me is poor company."
"Sailors are the best company in the world, Mr. Royle."
"Only one woman in every hundred thinks so--perhaps one in every
thousand. Well, you would see less of me than you do if I was not
prepared to lay down my life for you. No! I don't say that boastfully.
I have sworn in my heart to save you, and it shall cost me my life if I
fail. That is what I should have said."
She turned her back suddenly, and I hardly knew whether I had not said
too much. I stood watching her for a few moments, with my fingers on
the handle of the door. Finding she did not move, I went quietly out,
but as I closed the door I heard her sob. Now, what had I said to make
her cry? I did not like to go in again, and so I repaired to my cabin,
wishing, instead of allowing my conversation to drift into a personal
current, I had confined it to my plans, which I had not half unfolded
to her, but from which I had been as easily diverted as if they were a
bit of fiction instead of a living plot that our lives depended on.
During my watch from four to six, Stevens joined me, and asked how
"Floridy" would bear from the ship when she was hove to?
I told him that Florida was not an island, but part of the main coast
of North America, and that he might head the boats any point from
N.N.W. to S.S.W. and still, from a distance of fifty or sixty miles,
fetch some part of the Florida coast, which I dared say, showed a
seaboard ranging four hundred miles long.
This seemed new to him, which more than ever convinced me of his
ignorance, for though I had repeatedly pointed out Florida to him, yet
he did not know but that it was an island, which might easily be missed
by steering the boats a point out of the course given.
He then asked me what compasses we had that we might take with us.
"We shall only want one in the long-boat," I replied; "and there is one
on the table in the captain's cabin which will do. Have you got the
long-boat all ready?"
"Ay, clean as a new brass farden, and provisioned for a month."
"Now let me understand; when the ship is hove to you will sling the
long-boat over?"
"I explained all that before," he answered gruffly.
"Not that."
"You're hangin' on a tidy bit about them there boats. What do you
think?"
"I suppose my life is as good as yours, and that I have a right to find
out how we are to abandon this ship and make the shore," I answered,
with some show of warmth, my object being to get all the information
from him that was possible to be drawn. "You'll get the long-boat
alongside, and all hands will jump into her? Is that it?"
"Why, wot do you think we'd get the boat alongside for if we didn't get
into her?" he replied, with a kind of growling laugh.
"Will anybody be left on the ship?"
"Anybody left on the ship?" he exclaimed, fetching a sudden breath:
"Wot's put that in yer head?"
"I was afraid that that yellow devil, the cook, might induce you to
leave the steward behind to take his chance to sink or swim in her,
just out of revenge for calling bad pork good," said I, fixing my eyes
upon him.
"No, no, nothen of the sort," he replied quickly, and with evident
alarm. "Curse the cook! d'ye think I's skipper to give them kind o'
orders?"
"Now you see what I am driving at," I said, laying my hand on his arm,
and addressing him with a smile. "I really did think you meant to leave
the poor devil of a steward behind. And what I wanted to understand
was how you proposed to manage with the boats to prevent him boarding
you--that is why I was curious."
The suspicious ruffian took the bait as I meant he should; and putting
on an unconcerned manner, which fitted him as ill as the pilot jacket
which he had stolen from the captain he had murdered, and which he
was now wearing, inquired, "What I meant by that? If they left the
steward behind--not that they was goin' to, but to say it, for the sake
o' argyment--what would the management of the boats have to do with
preventin' him boardin' of them? He didn't understand."
"Oh, nothing," I replied with a shrug. "Since we are to take the
steward with us, there's an end of the matter."
"Can't you explain, sir?" he cried, striving to suppress his temper.
"It is not worth the trouble," said I; "because, don't you see, if even
you had made up your mind to leave the steward on the ship, you'd only
have one man to deal with. What put this matter into my head was a
yarn I read some time ago about a ship's company wishing to leave their
vessel. There were only two boats which were serviceable, and these
wouldn't hold above two-thirds of the crew. So the men conspired among
themselves--do you understand me?"
"Yes, yes, I'm a-followin' of you."
"That is, twelve men out of a crew composed of eighteen hands resolved
to lower the boats and get away, and leave the others to shift for
themselves. But they had to act cautiously, because, don't you see,
the fellows who were to be left behind would become desperate with the
fear of death, and if any of them contrived to get into the boats,
they might begin a fight, which, if it didn't capsize the boats, was
pretty sure to end in a drowning match. Of course, in our case, as I
have said, even supposing you _had_ made up your mind to leave the
steward behind, we should have nothing to fear, because he would be
only one man. But when you come to two or three, or four men driven mad
by terror, then look out if they get among you in a boat; for fear will
make two as strong as six, and I shouldn't like to be in the boat where
such a fight was taking place."
"Well, but how did them other chaps manage as you're tellin' about?"
"Why, they all got into the boats in a lump, and shoved off well clear
of the ship. The others jumped into the water after them, but never
reached the boats. But all this doesn't hit _our_ case. You wished me
to explain, and now you know my reasons for asking you how you meant
to manage with the boats. Do not forget that there is a woman among
us, and a fight at the last moment, when our lives may depend upon
orderliness and coolness, may drown us all."
And so saying I left him, under pretence of looking at the compass.