I had no reason to suppose that the hints I took care to wrap up in my
conversation with Stevens would shape his actions to the form I wished
them to take; but though they did no good, they would certainly do me
no harm, and it was at least certain that my opinion was respected, so
that I might hope that some weight would attach to whatever suggestions
I offered.
Nothing now remained to be done but to wait the result of events; but
no language can express an idea of my anxiety as the hours passed,
bringing us momentarily closer to the dreaded and yet wished-for issue.
Some of the men got intoxicated that afternoon, and I believe two of
them had a desperate set to; they sang until they were tired, and for
tea had more hot roast pork and fowls.
But the majority had their senses, and kept those who were drunk under;
so that the riot was all forward.
I wondered what the boatswain would think of the shindy over his head,
and whether he had a watch to tell the time by. His abode was surely a
very dismal one, among the coals in the forepeak, and dark as night,
with plenty of rats to squeak about his ears, and the endless creaking
and complaining of the timbers under water.
A terrible idea possessed me once. It was that he might be asleep when
the man went down to scuttle the ship, who, of course, would take a
candle with him, and find him lying there.
But there was no use in _imagining_ evil. I could only do what was
possible. If we were doomed to die, why, we must meet our fate
heroically. What more?
It blew freshly at eleven o'clock, and held all night. I kept all
the sail on the ship that she would bear, and up to noon next day we
spanked along at a great pace.
Then the wind fell light and veered round to the north; but this did
not matter to me, for I showed the carpenter a run on the chart which
convincingly proved to him that, even if we did no more than four
knots an hour until next day, we should be near enough to the coast of
Florida to heave to.
This afternoon the men made preparations to swing the long-boat over
the side, clapping on strops to the collar of the mainstay, and forward
round the tressel-tree, ready to hook on the tackles to lift the boat
out of her chocks. Their eagerness to get away from the ship was well
illustrated by these early preparations.
All that day they fared sumptuously on roast pork, and whatever took
their fancy among the cuddy stores, but drank little, or at all events
not enough to affect them, though there was sufficient rum in the hold
to kill them all off in a day, had they had a mind to broach the casks.
Towards evening we sighted no less than five ships, two standing to the
south and the others steering north. The spectacle of these vessels
fully persuaded Stevens that we were nearing the coast, he telling me
he had no doubt they were from the West Indies, which he supposed were
not more than four hundred miles distant.
I did not undeceive him.
I saw Miss Robertson for a few minutes that evening to repeat my
caution to her not to show herself on deck.
The men were again at their pranks in the forecastle, sky-larking
as they call it at sea, and, though not drunk, they were making a
tremendous noise. One of them had got a concertina, and sat playing
it, tailor-fashion, on top of the capstan, and some were dancing, two
having dressed themselves up as women in canvas bonnets, and blankets
round them to resemble skirts.
Fun of this sort would have been innocent enough had there been
any recognized discipline to overlook it; but from decent mirth to
boisterous, coarse disorder, is an easy step to sailors, and in the
present temper of the crew the least provocation might convert the ship
into a theatre for exhibitions of horse-play which, begun in vanity,
might end in criminal excesses.
During my brief conversation with Miss Robertson, I asked her an odd
question--Could she steer a ship?
She answered, "Yes."
"You say 'yes' because you will try if you are wanted to do so," I said.
"I say 'yes' because I really understand how to use the wheel," she
replied, seriously.
"Where did you learn?"
"During our voyage to the Cape of Good Hope. I used to watch the man
steering, and observe him move the wheel so as to keep the compass card
steady. I told Captain Jenkinson I should like to learn to steer, and
he would often let me hold the wheel, and for fun give me orders."
"Which way would you pull the spokes if I told you to put the helm to
starboard?"
"To the left," she answered, promptly.
"And if I said 'hard over?'"
"If the wind was blowing on the left hand side I would push the wheel
to the right until I could push it no further. You can't puzzle me,
indeed. I know all the steering terms. _Really_, I can steer."
I quite believed her, though I should never have dreamt of her
proficiency in this matter, and told her that if we succeeded in
getting away from the boats, she would be of the utmost importance to
us, because then there would be three men to work the ship, whereas two
only would be at liberty if one had to take the wheel.
* * * * *
And now I come to Friday.
We were keeping no regular watches. Stevens, ever distrustful of
me, was markedly so now that our voyage was nearly ended. He was
incessantly up and down, looking at the compass, computing the ship's
speed by staring at the passing water, and often engaged, sometimes
on the poop, sometimes on the forecastle, in conversation with Fish,
Cornish, Johnson, and others.
He made no inquiries after Mr. or Miss Robertson; he appeared to have
forgotten their existence. I also noticed that he shirked me as often
as he could, leaving the deck when I appeared, and mounting the ladder
the furthest from where I stood when he came aft from the main-deck.
The dawn had broken with a promise of a beautiful day; though the
glass, which had been dropping very slowly all through the night,
stood low at eight o'clock that morning. The sun, even at that early
hour, was intensely hot, and here and there the pitch in the seams of
the deck adhered to the soles of one's boots, while the smell of the
paint-work rose hot in the nostrils.
There was a long swell, the undulations moderate though wide apart,
coming from the westward; the clouds were very high, and the sky a
dazzling blue, and the wind about north, very soft and refreshing.
The men were quiet, and continued so throughout the day. Many of
them, as well as the carpenter, incessantly gazed around the horizon,
evidently fearing the approach of a vessel; and some would steal aft
and look at the compass, and then go away again.
We were under all plain sail, and the ship, as near as I could tell,
was making about five knots an hour, though the log gave us seven, and
I logged it seven on the slate in case of any arguments arising.
When I came on deck with my sextant in hand to take sights, I was
struck by the intent expressions on the faces of the crew, the whole of
whom, even including the cook, had collected on the poop, or stood upon
the ladders waiting for me.
When I saw them thus congregated, my heart for a moment failed me.
The tremendous doubt crossed my mind--were they acquainted with the
ship's whereabouts? Did they know, had they known all through, that I
was deceiving them?
No!
As I looked at them I became reassured. Theirs was an anxiety I should
have been blind to misconstrue. The true expression on their faces
represented nothing but eager curiosity to know whether our journey
were really ended, or whether more time must elapse before they could
quit the ship which they had rendered accursed with the crime of
murder, and which as I well knew, from what Stevens had over and over
again let fall, they abhorred with all the terrors of vulgar conscience.
Having made my observations, I was about to quit the poop, when one of
the men called out--
"Tell us what you make it."
"I will when I have worked it out," I replied.
"Work it out here, whilst we looks on."
"Do any of you understand navigation?"
There was no reply.
"Unless you can count," said I, "you'll not be able to follow me."
"Two and two and one makes nine," said a voice.
"What do ye mean by jokin'? You ought to be ashamed o' yourself,"
exclaimed one of the men. And then there was a blow, and immediately
after an oath.
"If you want me to work out these sights in your presence, I'll do so,"
said I.
And I went below to get the things I required, leaving my sextant on
deck to show them that I meant to be honest.
When I returned, they were all around the skylight, gazing at the
sextant as though it were an animal; no man taking the liberty to touch
it, however.
They came, hustling each other about me as I sat on the skylight
working out my figures, and I promise you their proximity, coupled with
my notion that they _might_ suspect I had been deceiving them, did not
sharpen my wits so as to expedite my calculations.
I carried two reckonings in my head--false, and the true; and finding
our actual whereabouts to be ninety-eight miles from Bermuda, the
islands bearing W.S.W. as straight as a line, I unfolded the chart, and
giving them the imaginary longitude and latitude, put my finger upon
the spot we were supposed to have reached, exclaiming,
"Now you can see where we are!"
"Just make a small mark there with your pencil, will you?" said
Johnson; "then all hands can have a look."
I did so, and quitted the skylight, surrendering the chart to the men,
who made a strange picture as they stood poring over it, pointing with
their brown forefingers and arguing.
"There's no question I can answer, is there?" said I to the carpenter.
"Mates, is there anything you want to say to Mr. Royle?" he exclaimed.
"When are we going to heave the ship to?" asked Fish.
"That's for you to answer," I rejoined.
"Well, I'm not for standin' too close in shore," said Fish.
"How fur off do you say is this here Florida coast?" asked Johnson.
"About sixty miles. Look at the chart."
"And every minute brings us nearer," said a man.
"That's true," I replied. "But you don't want to leave the ship before
dusk, do you?"
The men looked at each other as though they were not sure that they
ought to confide so much to me as an answer to my question would
involve. I particularly took notice of this, and felt how thoroughly I
was put aside by them in their intentions.
The carpenter said, "You'll understand our arrangements by-and-by, Mr.
Royle. How's the wind?"
"About north," said I.
"Mates, shall we bring the yards to the masts and keep the leeches
liftin' till we're ready to stop her?"
"The best thing as can happen," said Johnson.
"She'll lie to the west'ards at that, and 'll look to be sailin'
properly if a wessel sights her; and she'll make no way neither," said
Stevens.
"You can't do better," I exclaimed.
So the helm was put down, and as the men went to work I descended to my
cabin.
The steward's head was at the pantry door, and I called to him, "Bring
me a biscuit and the sherry."
I wanted neither, but I had something to say to him; and if Stevens
saw him come to my cabin with a tray in his hand he was not likely to
follow and listen at the door.
The steward put the tray down and was going away, when I took him by
the arm and led him to the extremity of the cabin.
"Do you value your life?" I said to him in a whisper.
He stared at me and turned pale.
"Just listen," I continued. "At dusk this evening the men are going to
leave the ship in the boats. They are going to scuttle the ship first
that she may fill with water and sink. It is not their intention to
take us with them."
"My God!" he muttered, trembling like a freezing man: "are we to be
left on board to sink?"
"That is what they mean. But the bo'sun, whom they believe to be
drowned, is in the hold ready to kill the man who goes down to scuttle
the ship. If we act promptly we may save our lives and get away from
the ruffians. There are only three of us, but we must fight as though
we were twelve men if it should come to our having to fight. Understand
that. When once the men are in the boats no creature among them must
ever get on board again alive. Hit hard--spare nothing! If we are
beaten, we are dead men; if we conquer, our lives are our own."
"I'll do my best," answered the steward, the expression on whose face,
however, was anything but heroical. "But you must tell me what to do,
sir. I shan't know, sir. I never was in a fight, and the sight of blood
is terrifying to me, sir."
"You'll have to bottle up your fears. Don't misunderstand me, steward.
Every man left on board this ship to drown will look to his companions
to help him to save his life. And by all that's holy, if you show any
cowardice, if you skulk, if you do not fight like forty men, if you do
not stick by my side and obey my words like a flash of lightning, as
sure as you breathe I'll put a bullet through your head. I'll kill you
for not helping me."
And I pulled out the pistol from my pocket and flourished it under his
nose.
He recoiled from the weapon with his eyes half out of his head, and
gasped--
"What am I to use, sir?"
"The first iron belaying-pin you can snatch up," I answered. "There
are plenty to be found. And now be off. Not a look, not a word! Go to
your work as usual. If you open your mouth you are a dead man."
He went away as pale as a ghost. However, cur as he was, I did not
despair of his turning to at the last moment. Cowards will sometimes
make terrible antagonists. The madness of fear renders them desperate,
and in their frenzy they will do more execution than the brave
deliberate man.
I did not remain long off the poop, being too anxious to observe the
movements of the crew.
I found the breeze slackening fast, with every appearance of a calm
in the hot, misty blue sky, and the glassy aspect of the horizon. The
lower sails flapped to every motion of the ship, and lying close to
what little wind there was, we made no progress at all.
The promise of a calm, though favourable to the intentions of the men,
in so far as it would keep the horizon clear of sailing ships, and so
limit the probability of their operations being witnessed to the chance
of a steamer passing, was a blow to me; as one essential part of my
scheme, that of swinging the mainyards round, and getting way on the
ship, when the men had left her, would be impracticable.
The glass, indeed, stood low, but then this might betoken the coming
of more wind than I should want, a gale that would detain the men on
the ship, and force them to defer the scheme of abandoning her for an
indefinite period.
They had gone to dinner, but were so quiet that the vessel seemed
deserted, and nothing was audible but the clank of the tiller-chains
and the rattling of the sails against the masts.
Stevens was forward, apparently having his dinner with the men. In
glancing through the skylight, I saw Mary Robertson looking up at me.
I leaned forward, so that my face was concealed from the man at the
wheel--the only person on deck besides myself--and whispered--
"Keep up your courage, and be ready to act as I may direct."
"I am quite ready," she answered.
"Remain in your cabin," I said, "and don't let the men see you;" for it
had flashed upon me that if the crew saw her they might force her to go
along with them in the boats.
"I wanted a little brandy for papa," she answered. "He is very poorly
and weak, and rambles terribly in his talk."
She turned to hide her tears from me, and prevent me witnessing her
struggles to restrain them. She would feel their impotence, the mockery
of them at such a time; besides, dear heart, she would think I should
distrust her courage if she let me see her weep.
The steward came forward under the skylight as she entered her cabin,
and said--
"I will fight for my life, sir."
"That is my advice to you."
"I will do my best. I have been thinking of my wife and child, sir."
"Hush!" I cried. "Not so loud. If your courage fails you, there is a
girl in that cabin there, who will show you how to be brave. Remember
two things--act quickly and strike hard; and for God's sake don't fall
to drinking to pull up your nerves. If I find you drunk I will call
upon the men to drown you."
And with this injunction I left the skylight.
The men remained a great while in the forecastle, all so quiet that
I wondered whether some among them were even now below scuttling the
ship. But they would hardly act so prematurely. To be sure, it would
take a long time for the ship to fill, bored even in half a dozen
places by an auger; but until the evening fell, and they were actually
in the boats, they could not be sure that a wind would not spring up to
oblige them to keep to the ship.
I remained on deck, never thinking of dinner, watching the weather
anxiously.
An ordinary seaman came aft to relieve the wheel; but finding that the
ship had no steerage way on her, he squatted himself on the taffrail,
pulled out a pipe and began to smoke. I took no notice of him.
Shortly afterwards Stevens came along the main-deck and mounted the
poop.
"A dead calm," said he, after sweeping the horizon with his hand over
his eyes, "and blessedly hot."
"Is the ship to be left all standing?" I inquired.
"What do you think?" he replied, with an air of indifference, casting
his eyes aloft.
"I should snug her, certainly."
"Why?" he demanded, folding his arms, and staring at me as he leaned
against the poop-rail.
"Because, should she drift, and be overhauled by another ship, it will
look more ship-shape if she is found snug, as though she had been
abandoned in a storm."
"There's something in that," he answered, without shifting his position.
"Shall I tell the men to shorten sail?"
"If you like," he replied, grinning in my face.
I pretended not to observe his odd manner, being very anxious to get in
all the sail that I could whilst there were men to do it. So I sang
out, "All hands shorten sail!"
The men on the forecastle stared, and burst into a laugh; and one of
a group on the main-deck, who were inspecting the provisions for the
long-boat, which lay under a tarpaulin, exclaimed--
"Wot's goin' to happen?"
I glanced at the carpenter, who still surveyed me with a broad grin,
and walked aft. I was a fool not to have anticipated this. What was it
to the crew whether the ship sank with all sails standing or with all
sails furled?
I was too restless to go below; but to dissemble my terrible anxiety
as well as I could, I lighted a pipe and crouched in the shadow of the
mizzen-mast out of the way of the broiling sun.
The breeze had utterly gone. The sea was glassy, and white and long
wreaths of mist stood, down in the south, upon the horizon. As I looked
at the ship, at her graceful spaces of canvas lowering upon the fine
and delicate masts, her white decks, her gleaming brass-work, the
significance of the crime meditated by the crew was shocking to me.
The awful cold-bloodedness with which they meant to sink the beautiful
vessel, with the few poor lives who were to be left defenceless on
board, overwhelmed me with horror and detestation. So atrocious an act
I thought the Almighty would not surely permit. Could not I count upon
His mercy and protection? Remembering that I had not sought Him yet,
I pulled off my cap, and without kneeling--for I durst not kneel with
the eyes of the men upon me--I mutely invoked His heavenly protection.
I pleaded with all the strength of my heart for the sweet and helpless
girl whom, under His divine providence, I had already rescued from one
dreadful fate, and whom, under His sure guidance, I might yet preserve
from the slow and bitter death which the crew had planned that we
should suffer.
It was not until six o'clock that the carpenter ordered the men to get
the long-boat over. But just before he called out I had noticed, with
a leap of joy in me, that the water out in the north-west was dark as
with the shadow of a cloud upon it.
Though this was no more than a cat's paw, and travelled very slowly, I
was certain, not only from the indications of the barometer, but from
the complexion of the sky, that wind was behind.
The men did not appear to notice it, and when the carpenter sang out
the order all hands went to work briskly.
Some ran aloft with tackles, which they made fast to the starboard
fore and main yard-arms; others hooked on tackles to the straps which
were already round the tressel-tree and collar of the mainstay. But
willingly as they worked, even these preliminary measures ran into a
great deal of time, and before they had done, a light breeze had come
down on the ship and taken her aback.
The carpenter, seeing this, clapped some hands on to the fore and
mizzen braces, and filled the fore and after sails. The ship was
therefore hove to with her head at west.
This done, he went to the wheel, put the helm amidship and made it
fast; and then went forward again to superintend the work.
I took up my position on the starboard side of the poop, close against
the ladder, and there I remained. I scanned the faces of the men
carefully, and found all hands present, including the cook. I thus
knew that no man was below in the hold, and it was now my business to
watch closely that I might miss the man who should have the job to
scuttle the ship.
The breeze died away, but in the same direction whence it had come was
another shadow, more defined and extending far to the north.
The men had begun their work late, and as they knew that they had
little or no twilight to count upon, laboured hard at the difficult
task of raising the long-boat out of her chucks and swinging her clear
of the bulwarks.
It was close upon seven o'clock before they were ready to hoist. They
took the end of one fall to the capstan on the main-deck, the other
they led forward through a block, and presently up rose the boat until
it was on a level with the bulwarks. Then the yard-arm tackles were
manned, the midship falls slacked off, and the big boat sank gently
down into the water.
She was brought alongside at once, and three men jumped into her. Then
began the process of storing the provisions. This was carried on by
five men, while the remaining three came aft, and whilst one got into
the quarter-boat, the other two lowered her.
_At this moment I missed the carpenter._
I held my breath, looking into the boats and all round.
He was not to be seen.
I strained my ear at the foremost skylight, conceiving that he might
have entered the cuddy.
All was silent there.
Beyond the shadow of a doubt, he it was who had planned the scuttling
of the ship, and he it was who had left the deck to do it.
It was a supreme moment. I had not contemplated that _he_ would be the
man who should bore the hole. If the boatswain killed him----!
Great God! the hands were on deck--all about us! If he did not return,
they would seek him. He was their leader, and they were not likely to
quit the ship without him.
The hair stirred on my head; the sweat stood in beads on my face. I bit
my lip half through to control my features, and stood waiting for--I
knew not what!