MEASURES FOR DEFENCE CONCERTED.
Though Ethel and Rose had retired to rest, the hour was not late, and
Captain Phillips, Mr. Basset, and Hawkshaw were still lingering over
a glass of wine in the cabin, when Dr. Heriot entered it.
The pallor of his face, and the excited expression of his eyes, made
them start with exclamations of surprise and inquiry; and their alarm
increased when he filled up a glass with port and drained it, the
crystal rattling against his teeth while he did so.
"Hallo, doctor, what the deuce is the matter?" asked bluff Captain
Phillips, changing colour, or rather losing it partially. "You have
been forward--eh?"
"Yes, sir; and have there heard more than enough to confirm our worst
fears."
Phillips arose, and closed the cabin door. He then summoned from his
berth Mr. Quail (as Mr. Foster, the second mate, had charge of the
deck), and they, together with Mr. Basset and Hawkshaw, heard with
undisguised consternation the result of the doctor's eavesdropping.
As for Hawkshaw, he had long endured the horrible conviction of
guilt, with the still more gnawing sense or dread of perpetual
suspicion in others. He loved Ethel, yet, as we have said elsewhere,
at times he almost hated her for her coldness to him; but now his
soul was full of terror--terror for her and for himself, as he knew
he would meet with little mercy from the Barradas and their friends.
Retribution for the crime he had committed at Acton Chine was about
to come at last, and he had fallen into a trap of his own devising!
Neither Captain Phillips nor Mr. Quail were much astonished, though
grieved and alarmed, by Dr. Heriot's tidings; but poor Mr. Basset's
first thought was for his daughters--his young, delicate, and
tenderly-nurtured girls; and already, in his excited imagination, he
beheld them, after his own butchery, in the rude grasp of those
lawless wretches, and subjected to the grossest indignities, far from
help or human aid, upon the lonely sea, and in a floating
hell--indignities the mere idea of which wrung the poor man's heart
with agony.
To-morrow, to-night, even now, they might be advancing towards the
cabin, intent on assassination and robbery!
The dread was maddening to the unhappy parent, who made a step
towards his daughters' sleeping place, as if in anticipation, by
thought and deed, to save them from the coming peril. He had no
voice or coherence of thought for a time, and listened like one in a
dream to the discussion or consultation now held by the officers of
the ship.
After relinquishing his practice as a barrister in London, Scriven
Basset had spent many years of ease and affluence at Laurel Lodge,
and all unused to alarms or excitements, he felt himself totally
destitute of the stamina or courage requisite for facing so sudden
and perilous an emergency. Personal danger he might have confronted,
for he had all the spirit of a gentleman; but at the thought of his
daughters--the graceful and ladylike Ethel, the sweet and playful
Rose--his soul seemed to die within him.
Cramply Hawkshaw's visage was paler than usual. He remembered the
threats used towards himself, when Pedro Barradas so summarily
appropriated his gold watch, and while trembling for Ethel, he began
to think of means for quitting the ship, for the safety of his own
person, of which--being all the property he possessed--he was rather
disposed to be economical.
"The accursed--the bloody-minded villains!" exclaimed Captain
Phillips, after a pause, while pacing to and fro. "This comes of
having a coloured crew; and this is why they have been so sullen and
insolent of late."
"And so lazy at work, too," groaned Mr. Quail.
"Lazy! they have done little else but take three turns a day round
the long-boat, and then a pull at the scuttle-butt."
"For weeks there has been no work done," resumed Mr. Quail; "all our
spunyarn and chafing-gear are worn out, and you might as well expect
them to polish the chain-cable, or brighten up the best bower, as
prepare for an emergency, or get the fellows even to wash or mend
their own clothes."
"If a man-of-war hove in sight, I'd put an end to their sogering!"
said Captain Phillips, still pacing about. "I'd make them toe the
mark, and work the old iron out of them. I'd have them all seized
up, and made spread-eagles of at the gangway, the coloured vermin."
"A worse lot were never shipped, unless on board a Spanish pirate,"
said Mr. Quail, with another groan, as he thought of plump, jolly
Mrs. Quail, and their five little Quails, at that moment, doubtless
all a-bed in their pretty little rose-covered cottage near the
Windmill-hill at Gravesend.
"Is there not one on whom we could depend?" asked Mr. Basset, in
faltering accents.
"Not one, sir," replied Captain Phillips; "not one, except Boy Joe,
the steward, and he is not worth much."
"We are in a desperate situation, certainly," said Heriot. "But I am
most concerned for you and--and your daughters, Mr. Basset."
Tears started to the lawyer's eyes, and he wrung the young doctor's
readily-proffered hand.
"And I, too, Mr. Basset, feel for you and your two dear girls--though
perhaps this business may be all talk and sogering; yet I confess it
don't look like it," said the captain. "Thank Heaven I am a
bachelor, and have no one depending upon me but the son of my poor
brother Bill, that was drowned in the Straits of Sunda, and my life
is insured on his account, so that is all right; but these young
ladies----"
Phillips paused, for Mr. Basset, who was reclining on the cabin
locker, covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud.
"We have no time to lose in preparing to meet these rascals," said
Dr. Heriot, with growing confidence. "We must see what arms we can
muster, and endeavour to use them too. D--n it, Captain Phillips, we
must show fight in some fashion, and not all walk the plank without
making some of them walk it also. I have a pair of good rifled
pistols."
"And I have two six-barrelled revolvers and a fowling-piece," added
the captain.
"Sixteen shots," said Hawkshaw, brightening a little. "We can
barricade the cabin, and defend it with these against them."
"We are seven, including myself," said Phillips.
"Seven?" said Mr. Basset, looking up.
"Yes, sir; there are the two mates, the doctor, yourself, and I,
Captain Hawkshaw, and Joe the steward."
"But they are eighteen in number, and armed too."
"Only with sheath-knives, so far as we know; but then there are
hatchets, cleavers, handspikes, and capstan-bars, with anything else
that will form a weapon."
"Oh that we were nearer the coast of Africa, that we might all get
into a boat, and quietly leave the ship on a dark night!" said Mr.
Basset, wringing his hands, while Dr. Heriot unlocked a case of
pistols--the parting gift of his class-fellows on his leaving the old
College of King James VI.--and proceeded at once to load and cap
them, after which he put all the ammunition in his pockets.
"Fear for your girls bewilders you, sir," said Captain Phillips, in a
low voice, to Mr. Basset. "That, perhaps, is natural; but to be
landed on the coast of Africa might not mend matters much with you
and them, if you fell in with some houseless Dutch bushmen or wild
Cape Caffres; and as for me, I shall never quit my ship while a plank
of her holds together."
"Captain Phillips," said young Heriot, with his teeth clenched, and
his eyes flashing, as he thought of sweet Rose Basset, whose last
kiss seemed yet to linger on his lip, "if they keep quiet until
morning, I have a mind to call forward Pedro Barradas in front of the
crew, tell him what I have overheard, and then, as an example, shoot
him dead before the rest!"
The captain vehemently opposed this idea as rash, and added:
"You are very risky for a Scotsman; you would only perish under the
knives and handspikes of the rest, and thus bring destruction the
sooner on us all."
"Oh, if a man-o'-war would but come in sight!" groaned Mr. Basset.
"They are seldom so far off the Cape; and we are a good way to the
southward of it already."
"Could we not sound the crew? All may not be so bad as the
Barradas," said Hawkshaw.
"They are all alike, confound 'em!" rejoined Captain Phillips, as he
brought from his cabin the two revolvers and the fowling-piece, all
of which he proceeded quietly, but quickly, to load and cap.
The arms and ammunition were distributed among them, and Hawkshaw
really handled the "six-shooter" like a man who was used to it, and,
doubtless, when in Mexico, his life and his food had frequently
depended on the goodness of his aim.
"If we only take care and fire steadily, we may dispose of them all
in case of an attack," said Dr. Heriot, who, with the captain, was
the most resolute of the little band. "Our chief aim must be to
prevent a surprise."
After a council of war, it was arranged that the ladies should be
warned against leaving the cabin or venturing much on deck, and that
they should be kept in ignorance of the why and wherefore.
That the seven men in the cabin should stand staunchly by each other,
and never undress when lying in their berths, so as to be ready for
instant service.
That one at a time should hold a strict watch on the companion-way
and cabin door, and that all should keep their arms loaded and their
ammunition constantly about them.
That as little canvas as possible should be kept no the ship, so that
aloft she might be ready for any sudden emergency, squall, or
catastrophe.
A large trunk, full of Mr. Basset's law-books (which next morning was
to have been shot into the hold as lumber), was placed near the outer
cabin door, and lashed by one of its handles to a brass ring-bolt,
and so arranged that, sluing round the other end, it effectually
barricaded the sliding-door that opened to the steerage and
companion-ladder.
To defend this avenue in case of an attack, and so sell their lives
as dearly as possible, or, it might be, to shoot all their assailants
down in succession, were the simple but stern resolutions come to.
These preliminaries adjusted, the captain, armed with his revolver,
took the first two hours' spell. The rest retired to their various
berths, and lay down with their clothes on, and their weapons beside
them.
The two hours passed away in silence.
The captain went on deck, and sent the second mate, Foster, below, in
a not very enviable frame of mind, after hearing what was on the
_tapis_, for, like Mr. Quail--
"He, poor fellow! had a wife and children--
Two things for dying people quite bewildering."
So, with a beating and anxious heart, he lay down on a locker, with a
sharp hatchet under him--the only weapon that came to hand.
The ship was still going large, with the breeze abaft the beam, and
the fore and main studding-sails set. Joe, the steward, was at the
wheel; the light in the forecastle bunks was extinguished now, and
the watch on deck were all grouped, in silence apparently, to leeward
of the long-boat.
All seemed still for that night, or rather the remainder of the
morning, when the captain warned the miserable Mr. Basset to take the
next "spell," or watch, as sentinel at the cabin door.
Pale and sleepless, with bloodshot eyes, the poor man received the
loaded revolver, with all the timidity and awkwardness of one who had
never handled such a weapon before, and dreading lest it might
explode of its own accord, like a loaded fire-wheel, and thus shoot
himself and everybody else; but anon the thought of his daughters
nerved his heart and steadied his hand.
Slowly, as if Time stood still, the minutes passed; and when, as
usual, the ship's bell clanged at each half-hour on deck, it sounded
in his ears and in his soul like the knell of doom!
So the poor father continued to watch in breathless anxiety; now
pacing the carpeted cabin in miserable restlessness, then seating
himself upon the stern locker, with the revolver on his knee, and his
hands over his face, breathing an unuttered prayer for his darling
daughters; now listening, keenly as a hunted hare, at the door of
their little cabin, to hear their soft, low breathing. Anon, seeking
the companion-way, as if the confined air of the ship stifled him,
and looking up at the mizzen-rigging towering into the starry sky,
where the mizzen-topsail, topgallantsail, and the driver, with the
boom and gaff, spread between him and heaven like a broad gray cloud
of canvas.
Then the thought of his dead wife, and their once dear happy home in
England far away.
By a freak of memory, past hours of happiness, of joviality and
frivolity--hours spent amid the flowery and leafy seclusion of Laurel
Lodge, came crowding on him, with faces of friends, their voices,
smiles, and little episodes; the green sunny lawn, the stately chase
of Acton-Rennel, the Norman cross on Cherrytree Hill, and the great
yew that shaded his wife's grave in that quiet old English
churchyard, where he might never lie: all these came before him now,
and he marvelled in his aching breast if the horrors that overhung
him now were not a nightmare, and all a dreadful dream!
Ethel and Rose, so pure, so fair, so lovely, and so highly bred, to
be in such peril; at the mercy of such men as those who formed the
crew of the _Hermione_, and far from all human succour on the wide,
wide, open sea.