QUELLING THE MUTINY.
“So you _will_ have it, eh?”
The leader of the Black Squad, a huge hulk of a fellow, stripped to the
waist and smeared hideously with coal-dust, sprang forward. Above his
head he brandished a heavy slice-bar.
He came straight for Jack and was raising his formidable weapon to
strike the boy down when something happened.
Crack!
There was the report of a pistol and the fellow fell headlong. But it
was not Jack’s pistol that had exploded. The boy could not have brought
himself even in that moment to fire on a fellow being.
It was Mr. Brown’s weapon that had spoken.
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[Illustration: He came straight for Jack ... when something
happened.—_Page 258_]
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“Any one else want the same medicine?” demanded the fearless little man,
indicating the form of the wounded fireman.
The men murmured sullenly. Their leader was gone, and without him they
wavered and hesitated. The captain came running aft.
“What in the mischief is going on here?” he shouted.
“Fire-room crew. Mutiny, sir!” said Raynor. “We held ’em as long as we
could, but the scoundrels overpowered us. The first is lying below
wounded, sir. That fellow Mr. Brown shot felled him with a slice-bar.”
The captain’s brow grew black as night.
“Back to your posts, you mutinous dogs!” he roared. “Back, I tell you,
or some of you will feel cold lead!”
He advanced toward them, driving them before him by sheer force of
character as if they had been a flock of sheep.
“You cowards!” he went on. “There is no danger, but at the first shock
of a small collision you leave your posts like the curs you are! Down to
the fire-room with you!”
Completely demoralized, the men shuffled below again. Certain men were
told off to attend to the wounded chief engineer, whose injuries were
found to be slight. As for the man Mr. Brown had shot, he turned out not
to have been injured at all. The chicken-hearted giant of a fellow had
simply dropped at the report of the pistol and lain there till the
trouble blew over. He was placed in irons and confined in the forecastle
to await trial in port on charges of mutiny.
And thus, by prompt action, the mutiny was quelled almost in its
inception. The thoroughly cowed firemen took up their work and nothing
more was heard of refusal to do duty. It had been a good object lesson
to Jack who, in ranging himself by the side of Mr. Brown and the young
engineer, had acted more on instinct than anything else.
Secretly he was glad it had ended as it had, without bloodshed, for, as
he knew, discipline on a ship must be upheld at any cost. He realized
that neither the captain nor Mr. Brown would have hesitated for an
instant to hold the men back with firearms, had they persisted in their
bull-headed rush.
“Well, we are all right for the time being,” said the captain to Mr.
Brown. “No need to keep these men by the boats.”
“Then we are not hurt as badly as you thought, sir?”
“No, the report is that the bow bulkhead is holding, although our
forward plates are stove in. Thank goodness, we didn’t hit harder!”
“Yes, indeed, sir.”
“When daylight comes we’ll start to patch up. I hope this witches’ broth
of a fog will have held up by then.”
“I’m glad that it was no worse, sir.”
“And so, indeed, am I, although, if it comes on to blow, there may yet
be a different yarn to spin.”
The captain and the officer went forward, and Jack was left alone.
He took the opportunity to snatch a nap, adjusting the “wireless alarm”
so that any ship that came within the zone would awaken him instantly.
Twice during the long night he tried to raise some other craft, but each
time failed.
“I guess they’ve called in all the ships on the ocean,” said the boy to
himself as, after the second attempt, he desisted from his efforts for
the time being.
When daylight came, the big tanker presented a forlorn picture. Of the
berg that had almost sent her to the bottom, there was no sign, although
the fog had lifted quite a little.
The stout steel bow was twisted and crumpled like a bit of tin-foil.
There was a yawning cavity in it, too, through which the water washed
and gurgled with an ominous sound. When Jack came on deck, huge canvas
screens were being rigged over it to keep out the water as much as
possible. The steamer was proceeding slowly ahead through the fog
wreaths, but, compared with her usual speed, she appeared hardly to have
momentum.
Besides the protection of the crumpled bow by the canvas screens,
another portion of the crew was sent below to strengthen the bulkhead
from within by heavy timbers. There was a space between the front end of
the tanks and the bulkhead, and in this they labored, bracing the steel
partition as firmly as possible.
But Jack, when he made his report, heard Mr. Brown, who had the watch,
remarking cheerfully to the second officer that the barometer had risen
and that the prospects were for good weather.
“Well, we deserve a little luck,” was the response.
About noon the captain reappeared on the bridge. He was as much
refreshed by his brief rest as most men would have been by a night’s
sleep.
He had not been there ten minutes, when Jack, his face full of
excitement, came hurrying up with a message.
“Important, sir!” he said.
The captain glanced the message over and then burst into an angry
exclamation.
“They are asking for assistance, you say?”
“Yes, sir. But all I could catch is on that message there.”
“Great guns! Mr. Brown, sir, disasters always appear to come in
bunches.”
“What’s the matter, sir?” asked the sympathetic officer.
“Why, young Ready, here, has just caught a message from the air. A ship
is in distress somewhere.”
“Any details, sir?”
The captain shook his head.
“None. This is all the wireless caught. ‘S.O.E.,’ and then a few seconds
later, ‘No hope of controlling it.’”
“Sounds like fire to me, sir,” said Mr. Brown.
“So it does to me. Hustle to your key, Ready, and get what more you can.
If we can help them, we will, though Lord knows we’re in bad enough
shape ourselves!”
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