Captain Briggs looked blankly at Jack as the frightened boy came
forward by leaps and bounds to the bridge, shouting “Man overboard,”
a cry which was speedily taken up and echoed from end to end of the
ship.
“Whasser marrer?” demanded the captain, seizing the excited boy’s
shoulder.
Jack pointed back into the obscurity. His voice was choked with
emotion.
“It’s Raynor,--Billy Raynor, second assistant engineer, sir. He fell
overboard when we bumped that berg.”
“He did, eh?” repeated the captain thickly, staring stupidly at
Jack. “Well, he’s in Davy Jones locker by this time, you may depend
upon that.”
For a moment Jack stood stupefied. Then he broke out angrily,
utterly forgetting all discipline.
“Aren’t you lowering a boat? Why don’t you order one away? Raynor’s
drowning back there.”
“Look here, my lad, you’re excited,” said the captain in more
collected, sober tones, “I’m not going to lay my ship to among these
icebergs on the chance,--it’s one in ten thousand,--of saving him. A
boat couldn’t live among that field ice. It would be crushed in a
jiffy.”
“Then you’re going to hold on your course without an effort to save
him--? You’re going to abandon him like a coward?” shouted Jack,
beside himself.
“Nuzzing to be done,” mumbled the captain, relapsing again, “on your
course, Mr. Mulliner.”
But Jack was too far enraged to stand this. He sprang forward and
grasped the first officer’s sleeve.
“Mr. Mulliner, sir, you won’t see this cowardly thing done? You
won’t leave that poor lad back there without a chance for his life?”
“I can’t help it, my boy, captain’s orders, sorry,” and the officer
stepped into the wheelhouse to give the steersman his orders.
“It’s murder,” shouted Jack, “I’ll see that you suffer for it,
Captain Briggs. It’s a black crime, it’s the work of a coward,
it’s----”
A heavy hand fell on his shoulder. It was Captain Briggs. His face
was aflame with indignation.
“Wadderyer mean, you young jackanapes,” he roared, beside himself
with anger and the potations he had drunk, “Jenks, Andrews!”
The seamen who had been heaving the bucket stepped up. They stood
waiting.
“Bind this young turkey cock hand and foot and lock him in his
cabin,” thundered Captain Briggs, “he’s guilty of mutiny on the high
seas, by Neptune. To-morrow I’ll see if there’s not a pair of irons
on board that will fit him.”
“Do you mean that I am under arrest, captain?” stammered Jack,
completely taken aback.
“I do, yes, sir, and it may go hard with you if I don’t change my
mind,” yelled the captain furiously. “Take him away, you men, and
I’ll hold you responsible for him.”
Jack saw red for a minute. He made a leap for the captain but the
two sailors caught him.
“Easy there, young feller, easy,” one of them whispered, “we’ve no
more use for him than you have, but going on this way ain’t goin’
ter get yer anything. Better come quietly.”
With a sigh that was half a sob Jack submitted to be bound and then
half carried, half dragged, to his cabin. He heard the key turned in
the lock. He was a prisoner. A wild idea crossed his mind of
flashing out by wireless an account of his plight and the captain’s
drunkenness.
The next instant it dawned upon him that he was powerless. He was a
prisoner, bound hand and foot like a criminal. And where was Raynor?
Dead, beyond the possibility of a doubt. He could not have lived
more than a few moments in that icy sea. Jack groaned aloud in
anguish as he strained and writhed at his bonds. His plight was
quite forgotten in his anxiety over Raynor’s fate.
“Hist!”
The sibilant sound of a man’s voice demanding attention broke in on
Jack’s sad reverie at this juncture. It came from a circular
grating, made for ventilation in the door of the cabin. Jack looked
up and saw the face of one of the seamen looking in at him. The hard
lines of the mariner’s countenance were illumined by the electric
light within the cabin.
“Well, what’s the matter?” demanded Jack, rather petulantly.
The man, it was the one who had been addressed as Andrews by Captain
Briggs, began speaking rapidly and cautiously.
“This here Captain Briggs,” he began, “we don’t like him no more
than you do. I’ve sailed with him before. There’s a plot on foot
to----”
The heavy footsteps of an officer approaching caused the face to
vanish and the voice to cease. Outside, Jack recognized Mr.
Mulliner’s voice giving an order.
“Andrews, you can get forward, you too, Jenks. There’s no need to
stand on guard here. Give me the key.”
Jack listened and heard the men clump off in one direction. Then he
heard the sound of Mr. Mulliner’s footsteps die out. He was left to
his own reflections once more. His mind dwelt on the mysterious hint
dropped by Andrews.
“There’s a plot on foot----” the man had said.
Jack wondered to himself if there was a mutiny brooding on board the
_Cambodian_. There had been a seaman’s strike in New York when she
sailed, and the crew was made up of all sorts of water-front
riff-raff. Some of them were desperate-looking characters.
The young captive struggled with his ropes as these thoughts ran
through his mind, But the knots had been tied by seamen, and try as
he would he could not loosen them. The bonds began to impede his
circulation and grow painful in the extreme.
“Well, I suppose I’ll have to reconcile myself to my fate till
morning,” said Jack to himself resignedly. “Something tells me that
this voyage is going to turn out to be not quite so tame as I
thought. From what that fellow Andrews said, mutiny is afoot among
the crew, and we are not yet forty-eight hours out of port.”
His reflections were startlingly interrupted.
The sharp crack of a revolver split the night from somewhere
forward. Then came hoarse shouts and the sound of trampling feet.
“The trouble has started already!” exclaimed Jack, rising in his
bunk despite the cruel pain the sudden movement gave his bound
limbs.