THE SPREAD OF THE TERROR.
For full five days we steamed with the other vessels, under no stress
to keep the sea with them, since they made no more than twelve knots,
for the sake of the cruiser which had been so fearfully maimed in the
short action with the nameless ship. During this time there was little
power of wind; and the breeze continuing soft from the north-east, it
was easy business to hold sight of the convoy, which we did to the
satisfaction of every man aboard us. But I could not put away from
myself the knowledge that the events of the first three days had made
much talk in the fo'castle and that a feeling akin to terror prevailed
amongst the men.
This came home to me with some force on the early morning of the fifth
day. I found myself unable to sleep restfully in my bunk, and went
above at daybreak, to see the white hulls of the American war-vessels a
mile away on the port-quarter and the long line of the Black Anchor
boat a few cables'-lengths ahead of them. Paolo was on the bridge, but
I did not hail him, thinking it better to give the man few words until
we sighted Sandy Hook. He, in turn, maintained his sullen mood; but he
did not neglect to be much amongst the hands, and his intimacy with
them increased from day to day.
Now, when I came on deck this morning, I found that the breeze, strong
and fresh though it was, put me in that soporific state I had sought
unavailingly in my bunk. There was a deck-chair well placed behind the
shelter of the saloon skylight, and upon this I made myself at ease,
drawing my peaked hat upon my eyes, and getting the sleep-music from
the swish of the sea, as it ran upon us, and sprinted from the tiller
right away to the bob-stay. But no sleep could I get; for scarce was I
set upon the chair when I heard Dan the other side of the skylight, and
he was holding forth with much fine phrase to Roderick's dog, Belle.
"Yes," he said, apparently treating the beast as though possessed of
all human attributes. "Yes, you don't go for to say nothing, but you're
a Christian dog, I don't doubt; and yer heart's in the right place; or
it's not me as would be wasting me time talking to yer. Now, what I
says is, you're comfortable enough, with Missie a-makin' as much of yer
as if good fresh beef weren't tenpence a pound, and yer mouth warn't
large enough to take in a hundredweight; but that ain't the way with
the rest of us--no, my old woman, not by a cable's-length; we're afloat
on a rum job, old lady; and some of us won't go for to pipe when it's
the day for payin' off--not by a long way. So you hear; and don't get
answerin' of me, for what I spoke's logic, and there's an end of it."
I called him to me, and had it out with him there and then.
"What's in the wind now, Dan," I asked, "that you're preaching to the
dog?"
"Ay, that's it," he replied, putting his hand into his pocket for his
tobacco-box. "What's in the wind?--why, you'd have to be askin' of it
to learn, I fancy."
"Is there any more nonsense amongst the men forward?"
"There's a good deal of talk--maybe more than there should be."
"And what do they talk about? Tell me straight, Dan."
"Well, I've got nothing, for my part, to hide away, and I don't know as
they should have; but you know this ship is a dead man's!"
"Who told you that stuff?"
"No other than our second mate, sir, as sure as I cut this quid. Not as
yarns like that affect me; but, you see, some skulls is thick as
plate-armour, and some is thin as egg-shells: and when the thin 'uns
gets afloat with corpses, why, it's a chest of shiners to a handspike
as they cracks--now, ain't it?"
"Dan, this is the most astounding story that I have yet heard. Would
you make it plainer? for, upon my life, I can't read your course!"
He sat down on the edge of the skylight--long service had given him a
claim to familiarity--and filled his pipe from my tobacco-pouch before
he answered, and then was mighty deliberate.
"Plain yarns, Mister Mark, is best told in the fo'castle, and not by
hands upon the quarter-deck; but, asking pardon for the liberty, I feel
more like a father to you gentlemen than if I was nat'ral born to it;
and this I do say--What's this trip mean; what's in yer papers? and why
ain't it the pleasure vige we struck flag for? For it ain't a pleasure
vige, _that_ a shoreman could see; and you ain't come across the
Atlantic for the seein' of it, nor for merchandise nor barter, nor
because you wanted to come. That's what the hands say at night when the
second's a-talkin' to 'em over the grog he finds 'em. 'Where's it going
to end?' says he; 'what is yer wages for takin' yer lives where they
shouldn't be took? and,' says he, 'in a ship what the last skipper died
aboard of it,' says he, 'died so sudden, and was so fond of his old
place as who knows where he is now, afloat or ashore, p'r'aps a-walking
this very cabin, and not bringing no luck for the vige, neither,' says
he. And what follows?--why, white-livered jawings, and this man afeard
to go here, and that man afeard to go there, and the Old One amongst
'em, so that half of 'em says, 'We was took false,' and the other half,
'Why not 'bout ship and home again?' No, and you ain't done with it,
not by a long day, and you won't have done with it until you drop
anchor in Yankee-land, if ever you do drop anchor there, which I take
leave to give no word upon."
"It's a curious state of things. You mean to say, I suppose, that
there's terror amongst them--plain terror, and nothing else?"
"Ay, sure!"
"Then it remains for us to face them. What's your opinion on that?"
"My opinion is, as you won't go for to do it, but will take your
victuals, and play your music in the aft parlour, and skeer away the
Old One with the singing, as ye've skeered him already--that's what
ye'll do afore Missie and the skipper--but by yourself, you won't have
two eyes shut when you sleep, and you won't have two eyes open when
you're above; and when you're wanted you won't be an hour getting
yourself nor Mr. Roderick under weigh--and that's the end of it, for
there goes the bell."
The watch changed as he spoke, and I went below to the bathroom;
thence, not thinking much of Dan's terror, nor of the men's petty
grumbling, I joined the others at breakfast. We were now well towards
the end of the journey, and I itched to set foot in America. The new
safety in the presence of the warships had given us light hearts; and
that fifth day we passed in great games of deck-quoits and cricket,
with a soft ball which the bo'sun made for us out of tow and linen. The
men worked cheerfully enough, giving the lie direct to Dan; and when
Mary played to us after dinner at night I began to think that, all said
and done, we should touch shore with no further happening; and that
then I could make all use of the man Paolo and his knavery. So I went
to bed at ten o'clock, and for an hour or two I slept with the deep
forgetfulness which is the reward of a weary man.
At what hour Dan awoke me I cannot tell you. He shook me twice in the
effort, he said, and when I would have turned up the electric light, he
seized my hand roughly, muttering in a great whisper, "Hold steady." I
knew then that mischief was afloat, and asked him what to do.
"Crawl above," he said, "and lie low a-deck"; and he went up the
companion ladder when I got my flannels and rubber-shod shoes upon me.
But at the topmost step he stood awhile, and then he fell flat on his
hands, and backed again down the stairway, so that he came almost on
top of me; but I saw what prompted his action, for, as he moved, there
was a shadow thrown from the deck light down to where we lay; and then
a man stepped upon the stair and descended slowly, his feet naked, but
in his hand an iron bar; for he had no other weapon. At the sight of
him, we had backed to the foot of the stairway; and, as the man crept
down, we lay still, so that you could hear every quiver of the glass
upon the table of the saloon; and we watched the fellow drop step by
step until he was quite close to us in the dark, and his breath was hot
upon us. Swiftly then and silently he entered the place; and, going to
my cabin door, he slipped a wedge under it, serving the other doors
around the big cabin in the same way. The success seemed to please him;
he chuckled softly, and came again to the ladder, where, with a quick
motion, Dan brought his pistol-butt (for I had armed him) full upon the
fellow's forehead, and he went down like a dead thing at the foot of
the swinging table.
There we left him, after we had bound his hands with my scarf; and with
a hurried knock got Roderick from his berth. He, in turn, aroused his
sister, and in five minutes we all stood in the big saloon and
discussed our plan.
Dan's whispered tale was this. The watch was Paolo's, who had persuaded
four stokers and six of the forward hands to his opinion. These men,
the dupes of the second officer, had determined on this much--that the
voyage to New York should be stopped abruptly, come what might, and
that our intent should go for nothing. We, being locked in our cabins,
were to have no voice in the affair; or, if waked, then we should be
knocked on the head, and so quieted to reason.
It was a desperate endeavour, wrought of fear; but at that moment the
true hands of the fo'castle were battened down, and Dan, who had seen
the thing coming, escaped only by his foresight. That night he had felt
danger, and had wrapped himself up in a tarpaulin, and lain concealed
on deck.
As it was, Paolo stood at the door of the skipper's room; there were
three men guarding the fo'castle, and five at the foot of the hurricane
deck. One man we had settled with; but we were three, and eight men
stood between us and the true hands.
Roderick was the first to get his wits, and plan a course.
"We must act now," he said, "before they miss their man. They've
stopped the engines, and we shall drop behind the others. There's only
one chance, and that is to surprise them. Let's rush it and take the
odds."
"You can't rush it," I replied; "they're looking for that; and if one
now went forward they would shoot him down straight--and what's to
follow? They come aft, and how can we hold them? But we must get the
skipper awake, or they'll knock him on the head while he sleeps."
Mary had listened, shivering with the night cold; but she had a word to
add, and its wisdom was no matter for dispute.
"If I went," she said, "what could they do to me?"
We were all silent.
"I'm going now," she said; "while I'm talking to them they won't be
looking for you."
"Certainly, we could follow up," I added, "and might get them down if
you held them in talk; but don't you fear?"
She laughed, and gave answer by running up the companion-way, and
standing at the top; while we cocked our pistols, and crept after her.
Then we lay flat to the deck, as she ran noiselessly amidships, and
into the very centre of the five men. To our astonishment, they gave a
great howl of terror at the sight of her--for it lay so dark that she
seemed but a thing of shadow hovering upon the ship--and bolted
headlong forward; while we rushed in a body to the hurricane deck, and
faced Paolo. He turned very white, and would have opened his lips; but
Dan served him as the other; and hit him with his pistol, so that he
rolled senseless off the narrow bridge, and we heard the thud of his
head against the iron of the engine-room hatch. He had scarce fallen
when Mary, with the laugh still upon her lips, reeled at the sight of
him, and fell fainting in my arms. I knocked at the skipper's door, but
he was already on his feet, and passed me to the bridge, where I laid
the swooning girl on the sofa in the chart-room.
The skipper got the whole situation at the first look, and acted in his
usual silence. He re-entered his own cabin, and came to us again with a
couple of rifles, which he loaded. We were now all crouching together
by the wheel amidships, for Mary had recovered, and insisted that I
should leave her, and we waited for the heavy black clouds to lift off
the moon; but the fore-deck lay dark ahead of us; and we could not tell
whether the men who had fled had gone below, or were crouching behind
the galley, and the skylights of the fore-cabins. Nor could we hear any
sound of them, although the skipper hailed them twice. He was for going
forward at once; but we held back until the light came, and then by the
full moon we saw dark shadows across the hatch. The men were behind the
galley, as we thought--the eight of them.
The skipper hailed them again.
"You, Karl, Williams--are you coming out now, for me to flog you; or
will you swing at New York?"
I could see their whole performance in shadow, as they heard the hail.
One of them cocked a pistol, and the rest huddled more closely
together.
"Very well," continued the skipper, ironically deliberate. "You've got
a couple of planks between you and eternity. I'm going to fire through
that galley."
He raised his rifle at the word, and let go straight at the corner of
the light wood erection. A dull groan followed, and by the shadow on
the deck I saw one man fall forward amongst the others, who held him up
with their shoulders; but his blood ran in a thick stream out to the
top of the hatchway, and then ran back as the ship heaved to the seas.
For the fifth time the skipper hailed them.
"There's one down amongst you," he said; "and that's the beginning of
it; I'm going to blow that shanty to hell, and you with it."
He raised his rifle, but as he did so one of them answered for the
first time with his revolver, and the bullet sang above our heads. The
skipper's shot was quick in reply; and the wood of the shanty flew in
splinters as the bullet shivered it. A second man sprang to his feet
with a shout, and then fell across the deck, lying full to be seen in
the moonlight.
"That's two of you," continued the skipper, as calm as ever he was in
Portsmouth harbour; "we'll make it three for luck." But at the
suggestion they all made a run forward, and lay flat right out by the
cable. There we could hear them blubbering like children.
The skipper was of a mind to end the thing there and then. He sprang
down the ladder to the deck, and we followed him. They fired three
shots as we rushed on them; but the butt ends of the two muskets did
the rest. Three of them went down straight as felled poplars. The
others fell upon their knees and implored mercy; and they got it, but
not until the skipper, who now seemed roused to all the fury of great
anger, set to kicking them lustily, and with no discrimination--for
they all had their full share of it.
We had the other hands up by this, and, despite the tragedy and horror
of the thing, a smile came to me as the true men set to binding the
others at the skipper's order; for Piping Jack and Planks, and the
whole ten of them, fell into such a train of swearing as would have
done your heart good to hear. They got them below at the first break of
dawn, and the dead they covered; while Paolo, who lay groaning, we
carried to a cabin in the saloon, and did for his broken head that
which our elementary knowledge of surgery permitted us.
As the day brought light upon the rising sea, I looked to the far
horizon, but the rolling crests of an empty waste met my gaze. Again we
were alone. The night's work had lost us the welcome company.