SEQUEL TO THE MUTINY.
There were on board the _San Ildefonso_ ten survivors of the
_Eugenie_, including myself; and fortunately for the ship at this
crisis, one of us, Francis Probart, the carpenter, was at the wheel,
and remained steadily at his post during all that ensued; for had the
steering been relinquished for a moment, the vessel would have
broached to, and her masts must have gone overboard.
The captain, with his three mates, his surgeon, and cabin passengers,
and our men, made up twenty in all; so we prepared at once for
defensive operations.
The wild hallooing increased with the thundering of the iron shot
overhead, as they were bowled aft along the quarter-deck, smashing
the grated stern seats, and rebounding against the taffrail, over
which some of them tumbled into the sea.
"We're all here, sir,--Ned Carlton, Jack the cook, Warren, Chute, and
even boy Bill; but we want arms," cried Tom Lambourne down the
skylight.
"On deck, and at them!" said Hislop; and we rushed up the cabin
stair, supplied each with two loaded muskets to arm our friends above.
At this moment the ship was running with a fine breeze, which was
pretty well aft. She had several studding-sails set; and the
extremely wide spread of her white canvas, which caught the
sea-breeze one way, and the full yellow blaze of an African sunset
the other, made me think--but the idea only flashed on me and was
gone instantly--that _if_ a tropical squall came on, while in
contention with our own crew, our fate would soon be sealed by the
elements.
She had every thing set, even to little triangular scrapers, rigged
to a skysail pole above her royals; and all this cloud of canvas was
glittering in the red and yellow light reflected from the sun and
clouds.
But the evening was lovely; the waves were in reality shining in
liquid light on the western quarter of the ocean, as the sun,
"blood-red," to use a hackneyed term, dipping down past a succession
of straight and horizontal crimson bars, sank slowly beyond what
appeared to be the flaming edge of a watery world.
But we had no time for poetry, or for surveying the scene around us.
That which was about to ensue _within_ the bulwarks of the _San
Ildefonso_ was impressive and terrible enough!
"Hand us the muskets, gentlemen," said Ned Carlton, as we rushed up
the companion ladder.
"Hurrah for the tools and the men to use them!" added Tom Lambourne,
quoting some proverb, as the arms were promptly distributed; and to
the number of twenty we formed a line across the quarter-deck, a
little way aft the mizzenmast.
This was achieved just in time, for with loud yells of "Perros y
ladrones!" (dogs and thieves!) "Muera José Estremera! Mueran los
Inglesos!" a gang of yellow-visaged Spaniards armed with knives and
handspikes, and yellower Lascars with their terrible creeses, rushed
aft in two parties, one on the weather side of the ship, and another
on her lee; but, on being suddenly confronted by the levelled barrels
of twenty muskets, they paused and wavered, though continuing to
shout and brandish their weapons.
"Here goes for a shot at Antonio!" said Lambourne, taking a
deliberate aim at that person; but Fra Anselmo laid a hand on his
arm, and besought him to pause.
"Don't spoil him outright for hanging," said Hislop; "I would rather
have him with a rope at his neck, and all bearing a hand to run him
up to the foreyard-arm, than shot dead like a sparrow."
"Come on," shouted our men; "come on, muzzle to muzzle! None of your
lubberly stand-off work!"
"Fire at their legs, and simply disable as many of them as possible,
but spare life," said Fra Anselmo, in broken English.
"Fire at their heads, kill as many as possible, and spare none,
though you should leave the ship unmanned!" said Estremera, in
Spanish.
Lambert fired!
He missed; and the ball, after shaving the side of the long-boat
amidships, whistled into the sea far ahead, and Antonio uttered a
fierce and derisive laugh, while the Lascars shrunk back with fear.
The enemy had not a single missile, for, most fortunately, all the
loose shot for the ship's guns had been rolled aft, and lay in our
rear.
While both parties paused, one irresolute to advance, the other to
pour in their volley, I--being an old Eton bowler--resolved to make a
wicket of the Cubano's legs. I took up a nine-pound shot, which lay
with a score of others in the lee scuppers, and hurled it at him with
all my strength.
He leaped aside nimbly, and escaped, while the shot bowled harmlessly
along the deck. He rushed after it, doubtless with the intention of
returning it to me with compound interest; but fortunately for me, at
that moment Hislop, who had lost all patience, and was no doubt
smarting under the memory of his wounds and of Antonio's past
outrages, cried,--
"Fire a volley and fall on them, my lads, with the butt ends of your
muskets!"
It might have been better policy, considering the superior number of
the mutineers, for ten of us to have fired, and ten to have reserved
their fire until the former reloaded; but Hislop's order was promptly
responded to.
We all poured in a confused volley, and then rushed on, in the smoke,
with clubbed muskets and a hearty English cheer.
There was a brief struggle, during which our men laid about them
mercilessly, and knocked over the Spaniards like nine-pins; while I
encountered one active and wiry old villain, the _tindal_ of the
Lascars, who rushed on me with his creese in his right hand, his body
doubled, and his head bent down.
Charging him breast-high, the muzzle of my piece came crash upon the
crown of his caput, which a scarlet fez failed to protect, and so I
tumbled him against one of the brass nines to leeward.
On seeing this the whole of the Lascars, instead of coming to his
rescue, fled down the fore-hatchway.
I gave the _tindal_ another tap on the head to enforce quietness, and
took away his creese.
"Help me to secure this rascal," cried I to our men; "he will be a
surety for the other Lascars."
"I have him, sir, hard and fast, as if clenched in the dry nippers of
a Jamaica land-crab," said Tom Lambourne; and, in a few seconds, he
had the old copper-colored rogue seized by the hands and feet to one
of the aftmost guns.
Then we rushed forward to share in the scuffle, which was soon ended;
for just as Antonio, on seeing the turn matters had taken by the
force of our superior arms, was about to spring overboard, Hislop
struck him senseless by a blow from the butt-end of his musket, and
flung him, like a bale of wool, upon the top of the Lascars, who
crowded about the bottom of the fore-hatchway ladder.
"Ha, porpoise-face!" said he, fiercely, "I have brought _you_ up with
a round turn at last!"
One or two Spaniards now fled up the fore-rigging, whence they
implored us not to shoot them; but the squat _marinero_, Benito
Ojeda, and all the rest, were driven down the fore-hatch, where they
crowded at the foot of the ladder, treading the Lascars under foot,
growling and menacing us with their knives and creeses, and
threatening to set fire to the ship,--a threat which they were quite
capable of fulfilling.
On the deck lay one Lascar dead, and two Lascars and one Spaniard who
were wounded in the legs. In his death agony the first had driven
three inches of his sharp creese into the deck, when the blade broke
off.
Probart was still at the wheel, steering the ship so steadily that
not a cloth shivered aloft; but night was coming on, and as she was
covered with canvas, to reduce it was necessary, but first the
mutinous crew must be crushed. To Probart, as a spectator, the
conflict must have presented an exciting scene; for, had we been
beaten, his fate as an Englishman would soon have been sealed.
José Estremera, who had long been captain of a Spanish slaver, was
inexorable!
"Manuel Gautier," cried he to the chief mate, "cast loose that gun in
the weather-bow!"
Manuel, a smart and handsome young fellow, with the surgeon and two
others, soon cast loose the lashings of the gun, and in a twinkling
it was loaded, not with round shot, but with some thirty or forty
ball cartridges.
"Now, forward with it to the coaming of the hatchway," ordered the
captain.
"But the bottom of the ship?" urged Gautier.
"Blow these rascals through it!" was the stern answer.
"Madre de Dios and all the saints keep us!" implored Fra Anselmo,
crossing himself; "senor, you do not mean to destroy them thus?"
"Yes--like rats, padre mio," replied the Spanish captain. "Depress
the muzzle, hombres--up with the breech; clap a handspike under it,
Gautier. Ready the fuse--a lucifer match or any thing will do."
"Miserecordia--O miserecordia!" cried one fellow, looking up the
hatchway with hands clasped, for the aspect of the round muzzle of
the depressed cannon filled them all with terror, and made the
miserable Lascars scream like children.
"Have mercy on us, senores!" howled the Spaniards in chorus, again
and again.
"And what then?" asked Manuel Gautier, who was preparing a gun-match,
as coolly as he might have made a paper cigarito.
"We shall return to our duty."
"Oh! no doubt, when we have got the weather gauge of you; but we mean
to keep it, you cowardly picaroon!" said Estremera. "Up yet with the
breech of the gun--cover as many of the wretches as you can."
"For pity's sake, senor," said Fra Anselmo, laying one hand on the
captain's arm and the other on the trunnion of the brass cannon.
On looking down the hatch way, at that moment, my heart sickened when
I beheld so many cowards crouching in a cold sweat beneath; so many
uplifted hands; so many olive faces turning livid with terror; so
many dark and expressive eyes glaring upward to one point,--the
muzzle of the brass gun, which was to belch down death and mutilation
among them; but there too lay Antonio el Cubano, covered with blood,
and gazing at us with something like the smile of a mocking fiend in
his countenance.
"We are ready to surrender, senores," said Benito Ojeda; "so, if you
fire, our blood be upon your heads, and on that of El Cubano, who
lured us into mischief!"
Their united cries for mercy became so appalling, that, though they
would have yielded no mercy to us had the circumstances of the case
been reversed, Estremera consented to withdraw the cannon on three
conditions:
First, that they would surrender every thing they possessed in the
shape of a weapon.
Second, that they would handcuff and deliver up all their ringleaders.
Third, that they would swear to be faithful to him and his mates for
the remainder of the voyage.
To these offers they agreed, and about forty Albacete knives and
creeses were thrown upon deck.
Hislop and I selected one or two as trophies of our victory, but
Manuel Gautier tossed all the rest overboard.
Ten pairs of handcuffs were then thrown down. On this a tremendous
row ensued among the culprits, who were only quelled on seeing the
muzzle of the brass nine appear again; and in a few minutes Antonio,
Ojeda, and eight others were forced up the hatchway, and dragged aft
to the quarter-deck.
The mutineers then came sullenly up, and the number of cuts and
bruises about them showed how severely they had been handled.
On their knees, before Fra Anselmo, the Spaniards made a solemn
promise of peaceful and good behavior for the future; as for the
Lascars, it was deemed advisable to keep their _tindal_ as a hostage
for their conduct in time to come.
When I went aft I found him lying prostrate over the gun to which he
was bound, incapable of speech, and literally foaming at the mouth
with impotent rage.
Tom Lambourne laughed, and said,--
"Master Rodney, always tie the hands of a Lascar, if you wish to make
him hold his tongue."
"Why?"
"Because they are like a Chinese; they can never speak when their
hands are tied. They can only sputter and choke like this old
mountebank here."
Those who returned to their duty received bandages, wadding, &c., for
their cuts and bruises, and even a tot of wine each, in token of
amity. The three wounded men were placed under the care of the
surgeon, and the dead Lascar was buried by his countrymen, who cast
him over to leeward, when a couple of sharks soon took care of him;
for we saw a black crooked fin on one side, and the white belly of a
second monster on the other, as he turned up open-mouthed.
Then the body vanished in a whirlpool, with a downward _jerk_ that
made our hearts shudder!
The prisoners were ropes-ended without mercy by Manuel Gautier and
the other two mates; they were also repeatedly drenched by buckets of
salt water, and we stood by with cocked muskets until the whole--ten
Spaniards and one Lascar--were secured in the cable tier, where an
armed sentinel watched them day and night during the remainder of the
voyage, a duty that frequently came to my turn, as I was a kind of
waister on board, and was seldom sent aloft.
So ended this exciting and most deplorable affair, which might have
proved the destruction of the ship and of every well-disposed person
on board.
The twilight was passing with tropical rapidity, and when all was
over, the hands were sent aloft to reduce the canvas.
"Stand by the studdingsail-halyards," shouted Manuel Gautier, in his
own language. These sails were soon taken in, and the lower spars
boom-ended alongside, while the royals and skysails were sent on
deck, the loose shot were replaced in the rack round the coaming of
the main-hatch, all loose ropes were tightly belayed or coiled away;
and now, as the freshening breeze came more and more aft, the stately
Spanish merchant ship bade good-night to the shores of Poison Island,
and bore away through the silent sea toward the Cape de Verd.