What were Williams's ultimate intentions toward me I found it quite
impossible to guess, for, beyond the fact that he kept me carefully
locked up in the cabin that he had assigned to me, I suffered no further
violence at his hands, a steward bringing me an ample supply of food
when the meal hours came round. I tried to ascertain from this fellow
how my men were faring in the forecastle; but my attempt to question him
caused him so much distress and terror that, at his earnest request, I
forebore to press my enquiries. And as soon as the man had taken away
the empty plates and dishes that had contained my dinner, I stretched
myself out on the very inviting-looking bed that had been made up in the
bunk, and, being exceedingly tired, soon fell asleep. I slept all
night, and did not awake until the steward entered next morning with my
breakfast.
I rather expected that, after a night's calm consideration of his
exploit, Williams would have come to the conclusion that discretion was
the better part of valour, and would have taken some steps toward the
patching up of a truce; but he did not, and I spent the whole of that
day also locked up in the cabin, and seeing no soul but the steward who
brought my meals to me.
It was somewhat late that night when I turned in, as I had slept well
all through the previous night and did not feel tired; and even when I
had bestowed myself for the night I did not get to sleep for some time,
for I felt that we must by this time be drawing close in to the coast;
and supposing we should fall in with a man-o'-war, how was I to
communicate with her if this man was going to keep me cooped up down
below? True, I might succeed in attracting the attention of those on
board such a ship by waving my handkerchief out of my cabin port if we
happened to pass her closely enough for such a signal to be seen, and if
she happened also to be on the starboard side, which was the side on
which my berth was situated; but I was very strongly of opinion that,
after what had happened, Williams would take especial care to give an
exceedingly wide berth to any men-o'-war that he might happen to sight.
At length, however, I fell into a somewhat restless sleep, from which I
was awakened some time later by sounds of confusion on deck--the
shouting of orders, the trampling of feet, the violent casting of ropes
upon the deck, the flapping of loose canvas in the wind, the creaking of
yards, and the various other sounds that usually follow upon the
happening of anything amiss on board a ship; and at the same time I
became conscious of something unusual in the "feel" of the ship. For a
moment I was puzzled to decide what it was; but by the time that I had
jumped out of my berth and was broad awake I knew what had happened.
The ship was ashore! Yet she must have taken the ground very easily,
for I had been conscious of no shock; and even as I stood there I was
unable to detect the least motion of the hull. She was as firmly fixed,
apparently, and as steady, as though she had been lying in a dry dock.
I went to the side and put my face to the open porthole. I saw that the
night was clear, and that the sky overhead was brilliant with stars; and
by twisting myself in such a way as to get a raking view forward I
fancied I could see in the distance something having the appearance of a
low, tree-clad shore. I also heard the heavy thunder of distant surf;
but alongside the ship the water was quite still and silent, save for a
soft, seething sound as of water gently swelling and receding upon a
sheltered beach.
I seated myself upon the sofa locker, and strove to recall mentally the
features of the several rivers that we had visited, but could fit none
of them to the dimly-seen surroundings that were visible from the port
out of which I had looked. The one thing which was certain was that we
were in perfectly smooth water, and the entire absence of shock with
which the ship had taken the ground was an indication that she was
certainly in no immediate danger; but beyond that the situation was
puzzling in the extreme. The snug and sheltered position of the ship
pointed strongly to the assumption that we had blundered into some river
in the darkness; yet when I again looked out through the port the little
that I was able to see was suggestive of beach rather than river, and
that we were not very far from a beach was evidenced by the loud,
unbroken roar of the surf. Then there was the puzzling question: How
did we get where we were? What were the look-outs doing? What was
everybody doing that no one saw the land or heard the roar of the surf
in time to avoid running the ship ashore?
As I continued to stare abstractedly out through the port it struck me
that the various objects within sight were growing more clearly visible,
and presently I felt convinced that the dawn was approaching. And at
the same moment I became aware that a broad dark shadow that lay some
fifty yards from the ship's starboard side, and which had been puzzling
me greatly, was a sandbank of very considerable extent, so considerable,
indeed, that, for the moment, I could not make out where it terminated.
Meanwhile the hubbub on deck gradually ceased, and I surmised that the
canvas had been taken in.
The transition from the first pallor of dawn to full daylight is very
rapid in those low latitudes, and within ten minutes of the first faint
heralding of day a level shaft of sunlight shot athwart the scene, which
became in a moment transfigured, and all that had before been vague and
illusory stood frankly revealed to the eye. The sandbank now showed as
an isolated patch about two hundred yards wide and perhaps half a mile
long, with what looked like a by-wash channel of about one hundred yards
wide flowing between it and the mainland, the latter being a sandy beach
backed by sand dunes clothed with a rank creeper-like vegetation, and a
few stunted tree tops showing behind them. As the ship then lay with
her head pointing toward the south-east, I was able, with some effort,
to get a glimpse of a mile or two of the shore; and now that daylight
had come I could see the surf breaking heavily all along it, and also
upon the seaward side of the sandbank upon which we appeared to have
grounded.
Feeling quite reassured as to the safety of the ship, I sat down on the
sofa locker and endeavoured, by recalling the courses steered and the
distances run since we had been picked up, to identify the particular
spot on the coast where we now were. But it was no use; my memory of
the charts was not clear enough, and I had to give up the task. But I
felt convinced that we were somewhere in the Gulf of Guinea.
As I sat there on the locker, thinking matters over, and wondering what
would be the outcome of this adventure, I became so absorbed in my own
thoughts that I gradually lost all consciousness of my surroundings, and
was only brought back to myself by the sounds of a sudden commotion on
deck, loud outcries--in which I thought I recognised the voice of the
skipper,--a great and violent stamping of feet, and finally an irregular
popping of pistols, followed by a sudden subsidence of the disturbance.
This, in turn, was followed by sounds of excitement in the cabins on
either side of the one which I occupied, and in the distance I could
hear the general shouting at the top of his voice. I gathered that the
passengers were only now beginning to realise that something was wrong
with the ship, and were turning out and dressing hastily. A few minutes
later I heard the sounds of cabin doors being flung open, and hurried
footsteps went speeding past my cabin toward the companion way which led
up to the main-deck. Then the general's voice breezed up again, from
the saloon above, in tones of angry remonstrance, followed by a
tremendous amount of excited talk, amid which I thought I once or twice
caught the sounds of women's sobs. It was evident that something very
much out of the common had happened, and I came to the conclusion that
it was high time for me to be at large again and taking a hand in the
proceedings; I therefore whipped out my pocketknife, and without further
ado proceeded to withdraw the screws that fastened the lock to the door.
Five minutes later I found myself in the main saloon, and the centre of
an excited and somewhat terrified group of passengers.
"Ah!" exclaimed the general, as I made my appearance. "Now, perhaps, we
shall get at something practical. Here is young Grenvile, who, being a
navy man, may be supposed to know how to deal with an awkward situation.
Here is a pretty kettle of fish, sir," he continued, turning to me.
"The ship is ashore! The captain has blown his brains out--so they say!
And, last but not least, the crew, headed by the boatswain, has
mutinied against the authority of Mr Carter--whom they have thrust in
here among us--and absolutely refuse to listen to reason in any shape or
form! Now I ask you, as an officer in his Most Gracious Majesty's navy,
what is to be done, sir; what are the proper steps to be taken to
extricate ourselves from this infernal predicament?"
"The first thing, general," said I, "is to let me hear Carter's story,
which will probably give me a fairly accurate idea of the precise
situation of affairs. Where is he?"
"Here I am, Mr Grenvile," replied the man himself, edging his way
toward me through the crowd.
"Now," said I, "please tell us precisely what you know about this very
extraordinary affair."
"Well, sir," was the answer, "I really don't know so very much about it,
when all's told; but I'm not very greatly surprised. The way that
things have been going aboard this ship, ever since poor Cap'n Matthews
died, has been enough to prepare a man for anything, mutiny included. I
had the middle watch last night, and, as you know--or perhaps you don't
know--it was very overcast and dark all through the watch, so it's not
very surprisin' that I saw nothing of the land, even if it was in
sight--which I doubt, seein' that it's low--and Cap'n Williams, who
ought to have known that we was drawin' in close upon the coast, never
gave me any warning of the ship's position, or said anything about
keepin' an extra good look-out, or anything of that sort. Consequently,
when the bo's'un relieved me at four o'clock this mornin', I didn't pass
on any particular caution to him. As a matter of fact I hadn't a notion
that we were anywhere near the land! Consequently, when the commotion
of haulin' down and clewin' up awoke me, and when, upon rushin' out on
deck to see what was the matter, I found that the ship was ashore, I was
regularly flabbergasted! But I hadn't much time for surprise, or
anything else either, for the skipper was on deck and in charge; and I
must confess that the cool way in which he took everything made me think
that he wasn't nearly so surprised at what had happened as by rights he
ought to have been.
"Well, we hauled down, clewed up, and furled everything, by which time
the daylight had come, and we were able to get a view of our
whereabouts. So far as I could make out we seemed to have blundered
slap into the mouth of some river, and to have grounded on the inner
side of a big sandbank that had formed right athwart it at a distance of
about a quarter of a mile to seaward of the general trend of the shore
line. We couldn't have managed better if we'd picked the berth for
ourselves; for we're lyin' in perfectly smooth water, completely
sheltered from the run of the surf; and nothin' short of a stiff on-
shore gale would be at all likely to hurt us.
"The skipper said something about lightening the ship, and ordered the
bo's'un to clear away the boats and see all ready for hoistin' 'em out,
and directed me to go down into the fore-peak and rouse out all the
hawsers I could find down there, and send 'em up on deck. I was busy
upon this job, with half a dozen hands to help me, when suddenly we
heard a terrific rumpus on deck, and the sounds of pistol firing; and
when I jumped up on deck to see what all the row was about, there was
that villain Tonkin, with a pistol still smokin' in his hand, talkin' to
the men and tellin' 'em that as the ship was ashore, and the cap'n gone,
all hands were free to please themselves as to whether they'd stick to
the hooker or not, and that, for his part, he meant to have a spell
ashore for a day or two before decidin' what next to do.
"Just at that point I interrupted him by askin' what he meant by sayin'
that the cap'n was `gone'; to which he replied that the skipper had shot
himself and then jumped overboard--which I don't believe, Mr Grenvile,
not for a moment, for if I'm not very greatly mistaken I saw the
scoundrel wink at the men as he told me the yarn. And he added that,
that bein' the case, every man aboard was his own master, and free to do
as he pleased; and if I had anything to say against that, I'd better say
it then.
"And I did say it; I told him and all hands that, as to everybody now
bein' his own master, that was all nonsense; for if the skipper was
indeed dead--and it would be my business to find out just exactly how he
died--the command of the ship devolved upon me, and I intended to take
all the necessary steps to get her afloat again and to carry her to her
destination. I thought that that would settle it; but it didn't, by a
long chalk, for Tonkin turned to the men and says:--
"`Look here, shipmates all, I for one have had quite enough choppin' and
changin' about of skippers in this hooker,' he says; `and,' says he, `so
far as I'm concerned I don't want no more. I've nothin' to say again'
Carter there, but I'm not goin' to acknowledge him as skipper of this
packet, and I don't fancy as how any of you will, either. Of course,'
he says, `if there's any of you as is anxious to have him for skipper,
and wants to go heavin' out cargo and runnin' away kedges, and what not,
under his orders, instead of goin' ashore with me into them woods,
huntin' for fruit, he's quite at liberty to do so, I won't say him nay;
but you may as well make up your minds now as any other time whether
you'll stick to him or to me; so now what d'ye say, shipmates--who's for
Carter, and who's for Tonkin?'
"And I'll be shot, Mr Grenvile, if every mother's son of 'em didn't
declare, right off, without hesitatin', for him! Whereupon he ordered
me in here, and told me not to dare to show my nose out on deck again
until I had his permission, or he'd have me hove over the rail. And I
was to tell the passengers that they might go up on the poop if they
liked; but that if e'er a one of 'em put his foot on the main-deck he'd
be hove overboard without any palaver. Now, what d'ye think of that,
sir, for a mess?"
"Have any of them been drinking, think you?" asked I.
"Well, yes, sir, I think they have," answered Carter. "That is to say,
I think that most of 'em have been pretty well primed--just enough, you
know, to make 'em reckless. But there was none of 'em what you'd call
drunk; not by a long way."
"And were any of my men among them?" I asked.
"Oh no!" was the answer. "Your men--but I forgot--you don't know what's
happened to them. The whole lot of 'em, sound and sick alike, are
locked up in the steerage--Simpson, Martin, and Beardmore bein' in
irons."
"And what about the steerage passengers?" I asked. "Where are they?"
"Why," answered Carter, "there are only five of them, all told. Two of
them--Hales and Cruickshank--both of whom are thoroughly bad
characters--have chummed in with Tonkin and his lot; while Jenkins, with
his wife and daughter, are in their own cabins in the steerage. Mrs
Jenkins and her daughter, Patsy, have been busy acting as nurses to your
wounded men, under Dr Burgess's instructions, ever since you came
aboard us, and they are doing very well."
"That is good news," said I, "and I will see that the two women are
properly rewarded for their trouble. Now let us see how we stand. How
many do the mutineers muster, all told?"
"Twenty-five, or twenty-seven if we count in Hales and Cruickshank,"
answered Carter.
"And how many do we muster on our side?" said I. "Let me just reckon
up. First of all, there are nine of my men and myself, that makes ten.
Then there is yourself, Mr Carter--eleven. What about the stewards?"
"Oh, they are all right, and so is the cook. They'll all do their work
as usual," answered Carter.
"Ay, no doubt," answered I; "but what about their fighting qualities, if
we should be obliged to resort to forcible measures with the mutineers?"
"Ah," said Carter, "if it comes to fighting, that's another matter! The
stewards are youngsters, with the exception of Briggs, the head steward,
and would stand a pretty poor chance if it came to a fight with the
forecastle hands. But Briggs--well, he's in the pantry, perhaps we'd
better call him and hear what he has to say for himself."
The head steward was a man of about thirty-five, well-built, and fairly
powerful; and upon being questioned he professed himself willing to
place himself unreservedly under my orders, and also to ascertain to
what extent we might rely upon his subordinates. That brought our
fighting force up to an even dozen, to which were speedily added the
general and Messrs. Morton, Fielder, Acutt, Boyne, Pearson, and Taylor,
all of whom professed to be eager for a scrimmage, although, in the case
of the last-mentioned five, I had a suspicion that much of their courage
had its origin in a desire to appear to advantage before Miss Duncan.
However, that brought us up to nineteen--not counting the three under-
stewards--against twenty-seven mutineers.
The next question was as to weapons. The mutineers were each of them
possessed of at least a knife, while it was known that Tonkin and some
six or seven others had one or more pistols, and it was also speedily
ascertained that they had secured all the pikes and tomahawks belonging
to the ship. Moreover, there were such formidable makeshift weapons as
capstan-bars, marline-spikes, belaying-pins, and other instruments
accessible to them at a moment's notice. If, therefore, it should come
to a hand-to-hand fight, our antagonists were likely to prove rather
formidable.
On our own side, on the other hand, I possessed a brace of pistols, with
five cartridges, and my sword. My men also had had their cutlasses and
pistols, together with a certain quantity of ammunition; but these were
not to be reckoned upon, for I considered it almost certain that, after
putting my three men in irons, Tonkin would take the precaution to
secure the arms and ammunition belonging to all of them. Then the
general also had his sword and pistols, while each of the other men
possessed at least a sporting gun--and, in the case of three of them,
pistols as well,--but unfortunately all these were down in the after-
hold among their baggage, and could not be got at so long as Tonkin and
his gang were in possession of the deck. Thus the only weapons actually
available for our party were my own, and it needed but a moment's
consideration to show that ours was a case wherein strategy rather than
force must be employed.
"Well, then, gentlemen," said I, when we had all become agreed upon this
point, "it appears to me that the situation resolves itself thus: The
mutineers have expressed their determination to go ashore, and until
they have done so we can do nothing beyond holding ourselves ready for
action at a moment's notice. And meanwhile we must all wear an air of
the utmost nonchalance and unconcern; for if we were to manifest any
symptoms of excitement or interest in their movements, there are, no
doubt, some among them who would be astute enough to observe it, and
thereupon to become suspicious. Let them leave the ship, as many as may
please to go--and the more the better; and as soon as they are fairly
out of sight I will release my men, and we will then set to work to get
your firearms up out of the hold, and take such further steps as may be
necessary to subdue the mutineers upon their return, and bring them once
more under control. Probably we shall only find it necessary to get
Tonkin into our hands to break the neck of the revolt and bring the rest
of the men to reason. And now I think it would be a very good plan if a
few of you were to go up on the poop and take a quiet saunter before
breakfast, just to let the men see that you do not stand in any fear of
them, and at the same time you can take a good look round, with the
object of reporting to me what you see. As for myself, I shall keep
below for the present. There is nothing to be gained by reminding
Tonkin of my presence in the ship, and if he were to see that I was at
large and among you again, he might so far modify his arrangements as to
make matters even more difficult for us than they are at present."
"Quite right," approved the general. "I agree with every word that our
young friend here has said. He appears to have got a very good grip of
the situation, and his views accord with my own exactly. We shall
doubtless be obliged to come to fisticuffs with those scoundrels forward
before we can hope to extricate ourselves from this very awkward
situation. But it would be the height of folly to precipitate a fight
before we are fully prepared. And now, gentlemen, I am going up on the
poop. Come with me who will; but I think that, for the present at
least, the ladies had better remain below."
And thereupon he and the five young griffins made their way up on deck
at short intervals, while Mr Morton and I did our best to comfort and
encourage the weaker members of the party. Not that they needed very
much encouragement--I will say that for them,--for, with the exception
of poor little Mrs Morton, who was very much more anxious and
frightened on behalf of her children than on her own account, the ladies
showed a very great deal more courage than I had looked for from them;
while, as for Mrs Jennings and Miss Duncan, they very promptly came
forward to say that if there was any way in which they could possibly
render assistance I was not to hesitate to make use of them.
While we were all still talking together in the saloon, Briggs, the
chief steward, entered in a state of great indignation, and, addressing
himself to Carter, informed him that the men demanded fried ham and
various other dainties from the cabin stores for breakfast, and upon his
venturing to remonstrate with them had darkly hinted that unless he
produced the required provisions at once, together with several bottles
of rum, it would be the worse for him.
"What do you say, Mr Grenvile?" demanded Carter, appealing to me.
"Shall we let them have what they ask for?"
"Certainly," I said, "seeing that at present we are not in a position to
refuse them and make good our refusal. Let them have whatever they ask
for, but be as sparing as you possibly can with the grog; we do not want
them to have enough to make them quarrelsome, or to render them unfit to
go ashore."
"It goes mightily against the grain with me to serve out those good
cabin stores to such a pack of drunken loafers as them, sir,"
remonstrated Briggs.
"Never mind," said I. "We are in their hands at present, and cannot
very well help ourselves. You shall have your revenge later, when we
have got the rascals safe below in irons."
So they had what some of them inelegantly described as "a good blow-out"
that morning in the forecastle, while we were having our own breakfast
in the cabin; and, so far as drink was concerned, Tonkin was wise enough
to see to it that, in view of their projected trip ashore, no man had
more liquor than he could conveniently carry.
And while we sat at breakfast the gentlemen who had been on deck gave us
the result of such observations as they had been able to make from the
poop, which, after all, did not amount to much, the only conclusion at
which they had arrived being that we were ashore on the inner edge of a
sandbank which had formed athwart the mouth of a river, the extent of
which could not be seen from the ship in consequence of the fact that
there were two points of land, one overlapping the other, which hid
everything beyond them. These two points, the general added, were
thickly overgrown with mangroves, and the land immediately behind was
low and densely wooded, coconut trees and palms being apparently very
plentiful, while a few miles inland the ground rose into low hills, from
the midst of which a single mountain towered into the air to a height of
some five or six thousand feet.
We were still dawdling over breakfast when we heard sounds of movement
out on deck, and presently Briggs, who had been instructed to
reconnoitre from the pantry window, which commanded a view of the main-
deck, sent word by one of the under-stewards that some of the mutineers
were getting tackles up on the fore and main yard-arms, while others
were employed in clearing out the longboat, which was stowed on the main
hatch; and a few minutes later the cook came aft with the intelligence
that he had received imperative orders to kill and roast a dozen fowls
for the men to take ashore with them, and also to make up a good-sized
parcel of cabin bread, butter, pots of jam, pickles, and a dozen bottles
of rum, in order that they might not find themselves short of creature
comforts during their absence from the ship. This seemed to point to
the fact that they intended to undertake their projected excursion in
the longboat instead of taking the two gigs--a much greater piece of
luck than I had dared to hope for,--and also suggested an intention on
their part to make a fairly long day of it. I did not hesitate to
instruct Briggs to see to it that their supply of grog should on this
occasion be a liberal one, for the longer they remained out of the ship,
the more time we should have in which to make our preparation.
The weather was intensely hot, and the mutineers manifested no
inclination to exert themselves unduly. It was consequently almost
eleven o'clock in the forenoon ere the longboat was in the water
alongside, and another quarter of an hour was spent over the making of
the final preparations; but at length they tumbled down over the side,
one after another, with a good deal of rough horseplay, and a
considerable amount of wrangling, and pushed off. The general and three
or four of the other passengers were on the poop, smoking under the
awning--which they had been obliged to spread for themselves,--and
observing the movements of the men under the cover of a pretence of
reading; and when the longboat had disappeared the general came down to
apprise me of that fact, and also of another, namely, that the steerage
passengers Hales and Cruickshank, and two seamen, armed to the teeth
with pistols and cutlasses--the latter at least, in all probability,
taken from my men--had been left behind for the obvious purpose of
taking care of the ship and keeping us in order during the absence of
the others.