CONFERENCE OF THE CREW.
Some time elapsed before the poor boy became sufficiently coherent to
be understood, but it would seem that on hearing the first cry, which
had alarmed me, he sprang out of his berth, which was at the foot of
the companionway, and on looking into the cabin, he saw by the night
lamp which swung in the skylight, the Cubano armed with a bloody
knife, rush from the captain's state-room into that of the mate,
which was opposite.
Another choking cry acquainted him that Antonio had stabbed Hislop in
his sleep; and fearing that his own turn would come next, he had
crept into an empty cask which lay below the companion-ladder, and
remained there, trembling with dread, until he took an opportunity of
rushing on deck and joining us.
This terrible revelation added to our dismay.
We were now in a desperate predicament, without a captain or mate to
navigate the brig, and at the mercy of a well-armed desperado, to
whom homicide was a pastime; thus, all who had handled him so
severely on the night we crossed the line began to feel no small
degree of alarm for their own safety, being certain that more blood
would be shed the moment he came on deck.
All dressed themselves with the utmost expedition, and it was
resolved to hold a council of war. Lambourne was still at the wheel;
and to be prepared for any emergency, he resolved to reduce the
canvas on the brig. So the royals were sent down, all studding-sails
taken in, and the topsails were handed: all this was done as quietly
as possible, lest any sound might rouse the fiend who seemed now to
possess the _Eugenie_.
Lambourne ventured to peep down the skylight, when he saw Antonio
drinking brandy from a case-bottle, without troubling himself with a
glass. Then the Spaniard proceeded to attire himself in the best
clothes of Captain Weston; he forced open several lockfast places,
and took from them money and jewelry, which he concealed about his
person. What his ultimate object could be in performing these acts
of plunder on the open sea, we could neither conceive nor divine, but
on chancing to glance upward, he caught a glimpse of Tom's eyes
peering down.
There was an explosion, a crashing of glass, and a ball from a
revolver, fired upward, grazed Tom's left ear and pierced the rim of
his sou'-wester as a hint that our Cubano had no intention of being
overlooked in his operations below.
We heard him close the cabin door with a bang, and after locking it,
throw himself on the floor behind it, with the intention of sleeping
probably, but with the full resolution that no one should enter
without disturbing him; and in this way, after examining his pistols,
he reposed every night afterwards while on board.
"By jingo! I thought the killing o' them birds would lead to bad
luck somehow," said Henry Warren, an old foremast man, with a
reproachful glance at me, as he threw the two albatrosses overboard.
We now held a solemn conference to meet the emergency which was
certain to come anon, and to consider the best means of subduing and
disarming the culprit.
"Whoever goes nigh him in the cabin, either by the door or the
skylight, risks being stabbed or shot," said Tattooed Tom; "so we
must go to work some other way, shipmates, and that other way must be
considered."
"We might close and batten the skylight and companion, and then
starve or smoke him out," suggested one of the crew, Francis Probart,
our carpenter.
"Smoke him out?" echoed Tom.
"Yes, as we do rats."
"By what?"
"Fill a bucket with spun-yarn, and greased flax, with sulphur and
bilge-water--ain't that the medical compound for rats----"
"Nonsense," said Tom; "you would burn the ship----"
"As he has often threatened to do," said Carlton, "and may do yet."
A most extraordinary scheme was proposed by one man, that we should
launch the longboat, throw into her some bags of bread and gang-casks
of water, unship the compass, double-bank the oars, and shove off for
the coast of South America, after scuttling the brig and leaving
Antonio to his fate.
We were in a horrible state of perplexity, and I seemed to see
constantly before me the gashed bodies of my two kind, brave, and
hospitable friends--Captain Weston and Marc Hislop--lying in their
berths dead and unavenged, with their destroyer beside them!
We had the capstan-bars, and with these it was proposed to assail him
when next he came on deck. Then we had the carpenter's tools, among
which a hand-saw, an auger, an adze, and a hatchet, made very
available weapons, and these, with the old cutlass and harpoons which
figured on the night we crossed the line, were speedily appropriated.
I was armed with a heavy claw-hammer, and, vowing firmly to stand by
each other, we resolved to lynch Antonio the moment he came out of
his den.
While we were thus employed in devising the means of punishment, the
dark shadows of night passed away; the morning sun came up in his
tropical splendor, and the blue waves of the southern sea rolled
around us in light, but not a sail was visible on their vast expanse.
The crew seemed pale and excited, as they might well be, and by
buckets of water we cleansed the deck from the blood that stained it.
The morning advanced into noon, and the vessel was steered her due
course, for the wind was still fair. Ned Carlton was at the wheel,
and the men were all grouped forward, when suddenly Antonio appeared
on deck with a knife in his sash and a revolver in each hand.
He was so pale that his olive face seemed almost a pea-green, and a
black crust upon his cruel lips showed the extent of his potations in
the cabin. He glanced into the binnacle, and perceiving that the
brig was still being steered her old course, he cried, in a hoarse
voice,--
"Hombres, allegarse a la cuesta!" (men, bear toward the land), and
pointing to the direction in which he knew the vast continent of
South America--from which we were probably four or five hundred miles
distant--must be, he added orders in English to shape the brig's
course due west, and stamped his right foot on the deck to give his
words additional force.
He took us so suddenly by surprise, that, although we had been
waiting and watching for him since dawn, his resolute aspect and the
arms he wielded controlled us all, and we stared at each other with
irresolution in our purpose and in our faces. No man, apparently,
cared to act as leader.
"Presto!" roared the Cubano; "obey and keep quiet, or, demonio! as
there are so many, I have a great mind to shoot one half, that I may
be able to control the rest. Cast loose those topsails, and up with
the royals again--set the flying-gib, and main trysail--quick,
perros, or I'll make shark's meat of some more of you!"
The crew seemed to lack either resolution or the power of
combination, and no man appeared anxious to incur the sure penalty of
instant death by acting in opposition to his peremptory orders in
setting an example to the rest. So, sullenly and silently the sail
trimmers stood by the tacks and braces; the wheel revolved in the
unwilling hands of Ned Carlton, who was compelled to obey, for the
cold muzzle of a six-barrelled revolver, capped and cocked, was held
close to his left temple.
The head of the _Eugenie_ payed off in obedience to her helm, the
yards swung round and were braced sharp up; and with the starboard
tacks on board, in three minutes we were steering as due westward as
her head would lie for the coast of South America.
This alteration of our course furnished the crew with a new source of
speculation. It was evidently the intention of Antonio, if he could
reach the coast of Seguro, or that of Bahia, to escape with all his
valuables and his vengeance; and to this end, if ships passed without
succoring or overhauling us, and if we did not destroy him, he might
certainly destroy us, by scuttling the brig, or setting her on fire.
The noon passed over without an "observation," for there was no one
to work it, to estimate the latitude or longitude, to keep a
reckoning, or take note of our variation and leeway; and lest we
should signal any passing ship, Antonio, who was a most thoughtful
scoundrel, threw every color we had overboard. He did not come on
deck again for some time, as he had plenty of spirits and provisions
below, and the tell-tale compass in the skylight afforded him
constant information as to whether the brig was steered in the
direction he wished.
He was constantly drinking, but never became so intoxicated as to be
unwary.
And so the fated brig glided over the hot sea, under the blazing sun.
The albatrosses came round us again, with tripping feet, flapping
wings, and open bills; but no one molested them now--we had other
things to think of; and as I sat on the anchor stock in the weather
bow, watching them floating in the water, or skimming over it with
their vast wings outspread, I thought of the "Ancient Mariner," and
all that he had suffered for killing "the bird of good omen."
I felt a strange dread creeping over me while these verses seemed on
my tongue--they were so descriptive of the atmosphere and of our
situation:
"All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody sun at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,
No bigger than the moon.
* * * *
"I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat,
For the sea and sky, and the sea and sky,
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet."