As the cooper turned away the younger Rodman, assisted by his brother,
staggered to his feet. The fall from the poop had, in addition to the
cut in his temple, severely injured his right knee, and he begged his
brother to let him lie down again.
“Yes, yes,” whispered Gerald Rodman, hurriedly; “lie down, Ned,” and
then the lad heard him speaking to Wray in eager, excited tones.
“I'm with you, Jerry,” said the young Englishman, quickly, in answer to
something that Rodman had said; “where is he now?”
“In the cabin, getting some Bourbon for Mr. Brant's boat. There is only
the Dago steward with him, and if Porter and Tom Harrod will join us we
shall manage the thing right enough.”
“What is the matter, Jerry--what are you talking about?” asked Ned from
where he lay.
“Keep still, Ned, and ask us nothing just now; there's a chance of our
getting clear of this floating hell. I needn't ask _you_ if you'll join
us. Come on, Wray.”
The fourth mate and the Portuguese steward were in the main cabin
filling some bottles from a large jar of Bourbon whisky. Their backs
were turned to the door, and both were so intent upon their task that
they neither heard nor saw the four figures steal softly upon them.
Suddenly they were seized from behind by Wray and Gerald Rodman, and
then quickly gagged by Harrod and Porter before either had time to utter
a cry. In a few minutes the four men had armed themselves with cutlasses
from the rack around the mizzen-mast, which came through the cabin at
the for'ard end of the table, Rodman also taking the captain's and chief
mate's loaded revolvers out of their berths.
The fourth mate and steward were then carried into the captain's cabin,
and Gerald Rodman spoke:
“Newman,” he said, “we are going to take charge of this ship for a
while. If you make an attempt to give an alarm you are a dead man. Wray,
stand here and run them both through if they make the ghost of a sound.”
Again entering the captain's cabin, he returned with two or three
charts, a sextant and the ship's chronometer, which he placed on the
table just as a heavy footfall sounded on the companion steps. It was
the cooper.
“The boat is all ready, Newman,” he said, as he entered the somewhat
darkened cabin; “who is going in her?”
“We are,” said Rodman, dealing him a blow with the butt of his pistol
and felling him. “Leave him there, Wray--he'll give us no trouble.
Now take every one of those rifles out of the rack and put them on the
table. There's two kegs of powder and a bag of bullets in Mr. Brant's
cabin--get those as well.”
This was quickly done, and, calling to the others to follow him, Rodman
sprang up the companion. No one but the man at the wheel was on the
poop, and the leader of the mutineers, looking over the rail, saw that
the boat was alongside with only one hand in her. Besides this man
there were but eight other persons besides the mutineers on the ship,
including the fourth mate, cooper, steward, and carpenter.
Calling the carpenter to him, Rodman covered him with his pistol, and
told him and the rest of the startled men to keep quiet or it would be
worse for them.
“Two of you help my brother into the boat,” he ordered. He was at once
obeyed, and Ned Rodman was passed over the side into the hands of the
man in the boat.
“Put out every light on deck and aloft,” was his next command, and this
was done by the watch without delay; for there was in Rodman's face such
a look of savage determination that they dared not think of refusing.
Then he ordered them into the sail-locker.
“Now, Mr. Waller,” he said, addressing the carpenter, “we don't want to
hurt you and these three men with you. But we are desperate, and bent on
a desperate course. Still, if you don't want to get shot, do as I tell
you. Get into that sail-locker and lie low. Mr. Newman and the cooper
and the steward are already disposed of. And I'm going to put it out of
the power of Captain 'Brute' Lucy to get me and those with me into his
hands again.”
“You won't shut us up in the sail-locker and scuttle the ship and let us
drown, will you?” asked the carpenter.
“No; I'm no murderer, unless you make me one. If there is any one I have
a grudge against it is Mr. Newman and the cooper; but I won't do more
to the cooper than I have already done. Still I'm not going to leave the
ship in your hands until I have messed her up a bit. So away with you
into the locker, and let us get to work.”
Then, with the man from the boat, the carpenter and his companions were
pushed into the sail-locker and the door securely fastened. Looking down
from the skylight into the cabin Rodman saw that the cooper had not yet
come to, and therefore no danger need be apprehended from him. Sending
Wray below, the rifles, ammunition, and nautical instruments were passed
up on deck and handed down into the boat. Then, leaving Porter on guard
to watch the cooper, Rodman and the others went for'ard with a couple of
axes and slashed away at the standing fore-rigging on both sides; they
then cut half-way through the foremast, so that the slightest puff of
wind, when it came, would send it over the side. Then, going for'ard,
they cut through the head stays.
“That will do,” said the boat-steerer, flinging down his axe; and then
walking to the waist he hailed the boat:
“Are you all right, Ned?”
“Yes,” answered the youth, “but hurry up, Jerry, I think a breeze is
coming.”
Running aft, the elder brother sprang up the poop ladder and looked down
through the skylight into the cabin. “Cut Mr. Newman and the steward
adrift,” he said to Wray.
Wray disappeared into Captain Lucy's cabin, and at once liberated the
two men, who followed him out into the main cabin.
“Martin Newman,” said Rodman, bending down, “just a word with you. You,
I thought, were a shade better than the rest of the bullying scoundrels
who officer this ship. But now, I find, you are no better than Bully
Lucy and the others. If I did justice to my brother, and _another
person_ I would shoot you, like the cowardly dog you are. But stand up
on that table--and I'll tell you why I don't.”
The dark features of the fourth mate blanched to a deathly white,
but not with fear. Standing upon the table he grasped the edge of
the skylight, under the flap of which Gerald Rodman bent his head and
whispered to him:
“Do you know why I don't want to hurt you, Martin Newman? When I came
home last year I found out my sister's love for you; I found your
letters to her, and saw her eating her heart out for you day by day, and
waiting for your return. And because I know that she is a dying woman,
and will die happy in the belief that you love her, I said nothing. What
I have now done will prevent my ever seeing her again, though I would
lay my life down for her. But listen to me. Ned will, must, return to
her, and beware, if ever you accuse him of having taken a hand in this
mutiny----”
The hands of the fourth mate gripped the skylight ledge convulsively,
and his black eyes shone luridly with passion. Then his better nature
asserted itself, and he spoke quietly:
“Jerry, I did not know it was Ned whom I struck to-night. I was not
myself.... I never meant to harm _him_. And for Nell's sake, and yours
and Ned's, give up this madness.”
“Too late, too late, Newman. I would rather die to-night than spend
another hour on board this ship. But at least, for Nell's sake, you
and I must part in peace,” and the mutineer held out his hand. It was
grasped warmly, and then with a simple “goodbye” Rodman turned away,
walked to the poop ladder and called out:
“Into the boat, men!”
Five minutes later they shoved off from the _Shawnee_, whose lofty spars
and drooping canvas towered darkly up in the starless night. At the
last moment Gerald Rodman had hoisted a light on the mizzen-rigging as a
guide to the four absent boats. As the mutineers pulled quickly away its
rays shone dimly over the barque's deserted decks.
When daylight came the _Shawnee_ was still drifting about on a sea as
smooth as glass, and the four boats reached her just before the dawn.
The boat with the mutineers could not be discerned even from aloft,
and Captain Harvey Lucy, in a state of mind bordering on frenzy, looked
first at his tottering foremast and then at the four whales which had
been towed alongside, waiting to be cut-in. With the rising sun came
another rain-squall, and the foremast went over the side, although
Martin Newman with his men had done their best to save it. But Lucy,
being a man of energy, soon rigged a jury-mast out of its wreck, and set
to work to cut-in his whales. Three days later the _Shawnee_ stood away
for Apia Harbour in Samoa.
“Those fellows have gone to Apia,” he said to mate Brant, “and I'll go
there and get them if it takes me a month of Sundays.”
But when the _Shawnee_ dropped anchor in the reef-bound harbour, Captain
Lucy found that he had come on a vain quest--the mutineers' boat had not
been seen.
For seven years nothing was ever heard of the missing boat, till one day
a tall, muscular-looking man, in the uniform of a sergeant of the New
South Wales Artillery, came on board the American whaleship _Heloise_,
as she lay in Sydney harbour, refitting. He asked for Captain Newman,
and was shown into the cabin.
The captain of the _Heloise_ was sitting at the cabin table reading a
book, and rose to meet his visitor.
“What can I do for you, sir? Good God! is it you, Gerald Rodman!”
The soldier put out his hand. “Is my sister alive, Newman?”
“She died three years ago in my arms, hoping and praying to the last
that she might see you and Ned before she died. And Ned?”
“Dead, Newman; he and Wray and Porter died of thirst. Harrod and I alone
survived that awful voyage, and reached New Zealand at last. Was Nell
buried with the old folks, Martin?”
“Yes,” answered the captain of the _Heloise_, passing his hand quickly
over his eyes, “it was her wish to lie with them. We had only been
married two years.”
The sergeant rose, and took Newman's hand in his, “Goodbye, Martin. Some
day I may stand with you beside her grave.”
And then, ere the captain of the whaleship could stay him, he went on
deck, descended the gangway, and was rowed ashore to the glittering
lights of the southern city.