“But the man seemed certain,” said the other. “He mentioned my wife’s maid, too!”
“Suppose he did?—and, begad, I dare say he’s right—I never liked the look of the girl. To tell them that we have found them out this time won’t prevent ’em trying it again. We don’t know what their scheme is either. If it is a mutiny, half the ship’s company may be in it. No, Captain Vickers, allow me, as surgeon-superintendent, to settle our course of action. You are aware that—”
“—That, by the King’s Regulations, you are invested with full powers,” interrupted Vickers, mindful of discipline in any extremity. “Of course, I merely suggested—and I know nothing about the girl, except that she brought a good character from her last mistress—a Mrs. Crofton I think the name was. We were glad to get anybody to make a voyage like this.”
“Well,” says Pine, “look here. Suppose we tell these scoundrels that their design, whatever it may be, is known. Very good. They will profess absolute ignorance, and try again on the next opportunity, when, perhaps, we may not know anything about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and when the mutiny breaks out, we will nip it in the bud; clap all the villains we get in irons, and hand them over to the authorities in Hobart Town. I am not a cruel man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts aboard, and we must be careful.”
“But surely, Mr. Pine, have you considered the probable loss of life? I—really—some more humane course perhaps? Prevention, you know—”
Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which was a part of his nature. “Have you considered the safety of the ship, Captain Vickers? You know, or have heard of, the sort of things that take place in these mutinies. Have you considered what will befall those half-dozen women in the soldiers’ berths? Have you thought of the fate of your own wife and child?”
Vickers shuddered.
“Have it your way, Mr. Pine; you know best perhaps. But don’t risk more lives than you can help.”
“Be easy, sir,” says old Pine; “I am acting for the best; upon my soul I am. You don’t know what convicts are, or rather what the law has made ’em—yet—”
“Poor wretches!” says Vickers, who, like many martinets, was in reality tender-hearted. “Kindness might do much for them. After all, they are our fellow-creatures.”
“Yes,” returned the other, “they are. But if you use that argument to them when they have taken the vessel, it won’t avail you much. Let me manage, sir; and for God’s sake, say nothing to anybody. Our lives may hang upon a word.”
Vickers promised, and kept his promise so far as to chat cheerily with Blunt and Frere at dinner, only writing a brief note to his wife to tell her that, whatever she heard, she was not to stir from her cabin until he came to her; he knew that, with all his wife’s folly, she would obey unhesitatingly, when he couched an order in such terms.
According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the guards relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the poop guard was removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms which, in the daytime, were disposed on the top of the arm-chest, were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter-deck for that purpose. Trusting nothing to Frere—who, indeed, by Pine’s advice, was, as we have seen, kept in ignorance of the whole matter—Vickers ordered all the men, save those who had been on guard during the day, to be under arms in the barrack, forbade communication with the upper deck, and placed as sentry at the barrack door his own servant, an old soldier, on whose fidelity he could thoroughly rely. He then doubled the guards, took the keys of the prison himself from the non-commissioned officer whose duty it was to keep them, and saw that the howitzer on the lower deck was loaded with grape. It was a quarter to seven when Pine and he took their station at the main hatchway, determined to watch until morning.
At a quarter past seven, any curious person looking through the window of Captain Blunt’s cabin would have seen an unusual sight. That gallant commander was sitting on the bed-place, with a glass of rum and water in his hand, and the handsome waiting-maid of Mrs. Vickers was seated on a stool by his side. At a first glance it was perceptible that the captain was very drunk. His grey hair was matted all ways about his reddened face, and he was winking and blinking like an owl in the sunshine. He had drunk a larger quantity of wine than usual at dinner, in sheer delight at the approaching assignation, and having got out the rum bottle for a quiet “settler” just as the victim of his fascinations glided through the carefully-adjusted door, he had been persuaded to go on drinking.
“Cuc-come, Sarah,” he hiccuped. “It’s all very fine, my lass, but you needn’t be so—hie—proud, you know. I’m a plain sailor—plain s’lor, Srr’h. Ph’n’as Bub—blunt, commander of the Mal-Mal-Malabar. Wors’ ’sh good talkin’?”
Sarah allowed a laugh to escape her, and artfully protruded an ankle at the same time. The amorous Phineas lurched over, and made shift to take her hand.
“You lovsh me, and I—hie—lovsh you, Sarah. And a preshus tight little craft you—hie—are. Giv’sh—kiss, Sarah.”
Sarah got up and went to the door.
“Wotsh this? Goin’! Sarah, don’t go,” and he staggered up; and with the grog swaying fearfully in one hand, made at her.
The ship’s bell struck the half-hour. Now or never was the time. Blunt caught her round the waist with one arm, and hiccuping with love and rum, approached to take the kiss he coveted. She seized the moment, surrendered herself to his embrace, drew from her pocket the laudanum bottle, and passing her hand over his shoulder, poured half its contents into the glass.
“Think I’m—hie—drunk, do yer? Nun—not I, my wench.”
“You will be if you drink much more. Come, finish that and be quiet, or I’ll go away.”
But she threw a provocation into her glance as she spoke, which belied her words, and which penetrated even the sodden intellect of poor Blunt. He balanced himself on his heels for a moment, and holding by the moulding of the cabin, stared at her with a fatuous smile of drunken admiration, then looked at the glass in his hand, hiccuped with much solemnity thrice, and, as though struck with a sudden sense of duty unfulfilled, swallowed the contents at a gulp. The effect was almost instantaneous. He dropped the tumbler, lurched towards the woman at the door, and then making a half-turn in accordance with the motion of the vessel, fell into his bunk, and snored like a grampus.
Sarah Purfoy watched him for a few minutes, and then having blown out the light, stepped out of the cabin, and closed the door behind her. The dusky gloom which had held the deck on the previous night enveloped all forward of the main-mast. A lantern swung in the forecastle, and swayed with the motion of the ship. The light at the prison door threw a glow through the open hatch, and in the cuddy, at her right hand, the usual row of oil-lamps burned. She looked mechanically for Vickers, who was ordinarily there at that hour, but the cuddy was empty. So much the better, she thought, as she drew her dark cloak around her, and tapped at Frere’s door. As she did so, a strange pain shot through her temples, and her knees trembled. With a strong effort she dispelled the dizziness that had almost overpowered her, and held herself erect. It would never do to break down now.
The door opened, and Maurice Frere drew her into the cabin. “So you have come?” said he.
“You see I have. But, oh! if I should be seen!”
“Seen? Nonsense! Who is to see you?”
“Captain Vickers, Doctor Pine, anybody.”
“Not they. Besides, they’ve gone off down to Pine’s cabin since dinner. They’re all right.”
Gone off to Pine’s cabin! The intelligence struck her with dismay. What was the cause of such an unusual proceeding? Surely they did not suspect! “What do they want there?” she asked.
Maurice Frere was not in the humour to argue questions of probability. “Who knows? I don’t. Confound ’em,�
� he added, “what does it matter to us? We don’t want them, do we, Sarah?”
She seemed to be listening for something, and did not reply. Her nervous system was wound up to the highest pitch of excitement. The success of the plot depended on the next five minutes.
“What are you staring at? Look at me, can’t you? What eyes you have! And what hair!”
At that instant the report of a musket-shot broke the silence. The mutiny had begun!
The sound awoke the soldier to a sense of his duty. He sprang to his feet, and disengaging the arms that clung about his neck, made for the door. The moment for which the convict’s accomplice had waited approached. She hung upon him with all her weight. Her long hair swept across his face, her warm breath was on his cheek, her dress exposed her round, smooth shoulder. He, intoxicated, conquered, had half-turned back, when suddenly the rich crimson died away from her lips, leaving them an ashen grey colour. Her eyes closed in agony; loosing her hold of him, she staggered to her feet, pressed her hands upon her bosom, and uttered a sharp cry of pain.
The fever which had been on her two days, and which, by a strong exercise of will, she had struggled against—encouraged by the violent excitement of the occasion—had attacked her at this supreme moment. Deathly pale and sick, she reeled to the side of the cabin. There was another shot, and a violent clashing of arms; and Frere, leaving the miserable woman to her fate, leapt out on to the deck.
CHAPTER X
EIGHT BELLS
AT seven o’clock there had been also a commotion in the prison. The news of the fever had awoke in the convicts all that love of liberty which had but slumbered during the monotony of the earlier part of the voyage. Now that death menaced them, they longed fiercely for the chance of escape which seemed permitted to freemen. “Let us get out!” they said, each man speaking to his particular friend. “We are locked up here to die like sheep.” Gloomy faces and desponding looks met the gaze of each, and sometimes across this gloom shot a fierce glance that lighted up its blackness, as a lightning-flash renders luridly luminous the indigo dullness of a thunder-cloud. By and by, in some inexplicable way, it came to be understood that there was a conspiracy afloat, that they were to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them had been plotting for freedom. The ’tween decks held its foul breath in wondering anxiety, afraid to breathe its suspicions. The influence of this predominant idea showed itself by a strange shifting of atoms. The mass of villainy, ignorance, and innocence began to be animated with something like a uniform movement. Natural affinities came together, and like allied itself to like, falling noiselessly into harmony, as the pieces of glass and coloured beads in a kaleidoscope assume mathematical forms. By seven bells it was found that the prison was divided into three parties—the desperate, the timid, and the cautious. These three parties had arranged themselves in natural sequence. The mutineers, headed by Gabbett, Vetch, and the Moocher, were nearest to the door; the timid—boys, old men, innocent poor wretches condemned on circumstantial evidence, or rustics condemned to be turned into thieves for pulling a turnip—were at the farther end, huddling together in alarm; and the prudent—that is to say, all the rest, ready to fight or fly, advance or retreat, assist the authorities or their companions, as the fortune of the day might direct—occupied the middle space. The mutineers proper numbered, perhaps, some thirty men, and of these thirty only half a dozen knew what was really about to be done.
The ship’s bell strikes the half-hour, and as the cries of the three sentries passing the word to the quarter-deck die away, Gabbett, who has been leaning with his back against the door, nudges Jemmy Vetch.
“Now, Jemmy,” says he in a whisper, “tell ’em!”
The whisper being heard by those nearest the giant, a silence ensues, which gradually spreads like a ripple over the surface of the crowd, reaching even the bunks at the further end.
“Gentlemen,” says Mr. Vetch, politely sarcastic in his own hangdog fashion, “myself and my friends here are going to take the ship for you. Those who like to join us had better speak at once, for in about half an hour they will not have the opportunity.”
He pauses, and looks round with such an impertinently confident air, that three waverers in the party amidships slip nearer to hear him.
“You needn’t be afraid,” Mr. Vetch continues, “we have arranged it all for you. There are friends waiting for us outside, and the door will be open directly. All we want, gentlemen, is your vote and interest—I mean your—”
“Gaffing agin!” interrupts the giant angrily. “Come to business, carn’t yer? Tell ’em they may like it or lump it, but we mean to have the ship, and them as refuses to join us we mean to chuck overboard. That’s about the plain English of it!”
This practical way of putting it produces a sensation, and the conservative party at the other end look in each other’s faces with some alarm. A grim murmur runs round, and somebody near Mr. Gabbett laughs a laugh of mingled ferocity and amusement, not reassuring to timid people. “What about the sogers?” asked a voice from the ranks of the cautious.
“D— the sogers!” cries the Moocher, moved by a sudden inspiration. “They can but shoot yer, and that’s as good as dyin’ of typhus anyway!”
The right chord had been struck now, and with a stifled roar the prison admitted the truth of the sentiment. “Go on, old man!” cries Jemmy Vetch to the giant, rubbing his thin hands with eldritch glee. “They’re all right!” And then, his quick ears catching the jingle of arms, he said, “Stand by now for the door—one rush’ll do it.”
It was eight o’clock and the relief guard was coming from the after deck. The crowd of prisoners round the door held their breath to listen. “It’s all planned,” says Gabbett, in a low growl. “W’en the door h’opens we rush, and we’re in among the guard afore they know where they are. Drag ’em back into the prison, grab the h’arm-rack, and it’s all over.”
“They’re very quiet about it,” says the Crow suspiciously. “I hope it’s all right.”
“Stand from the door, Miles,” says Pine’s voice outside, in its usual calm accents.
The Crow was relieved. The tone was an ordinary one, and Miles was the soldier whom Sarah Purfoy had bribed not to fire. All had gone well.
The keys clashed and turned, and the bravest of the prudent party, who had been turning in his mind the notion of risking his life for a pardon, to be won by rushing forward at the right moment and alarming the guard, checked the cry that was in his throat as he saw the men round the door draw back a little for their rush, and caught a glimpse of the giant’s bristling scalp and bared gums.
“NOW!” cries Jemmy Vetch, as the iron-plated oak swung back, and with the guttural snarl of a charging wild boar, Gabbett hurled himself out of the prison.
The red line of light which glowed for an instant through the doorway was blotted out by a mass of figures. All the prison surged forward, and before the eye could wink, five, ten, twenty, of the most desperate were outside. It was as though a sea, breaking against a stone wall, had found some breach through which to pour its waters. The contagion of battle spread. Caution was forgotten; and those at the back, seeing Jemmy Vetch raised upon the crest of that human billow which reared its black outline against an indistinct perspective of struggling figures, responded to his grin of encouragement by rushing furiously forward.
Suddenly a horrible roar like that of a trapped wild beast was heard. The rushing torrent choked in the doorway, and from out the lantern glow into which the giant had rushed, a flash broke, followed by a groan, as the perfidious sentry fell back shot through the breast. The mass in the doorway hung irresolute, and then by sheer weight of pressure from behind burst forward, and as it so burst, the heavy door crashed into its jambs, and the bolts were shot into their places.
All this took place by one of those simultaneous movements which are so rapid in execution, so tedious to describe in detail. At one instant the prison door had opened, at the next it had closed. The picture
which had presented itself to the eyes of the convicts was as momentary as are those of the thaumatoscope. The period of time that had elapsed between the opening and the shutting of the door could have been marked by the musket shot.
The report of another shot, and then a noise of confused cries, mingled with the clashing of arms, informed the imprisoned men that the ship had been alarmed. How would it go with their friends on deck? Would they succeed in overcoming the guards, or would they be beaten back? They would soon know; and in the hot dusk, straining their eyes to see each other, they waited for the issue Suddenly the noises ceased, and a strange rumbling sound fell upon the ears of the listeners.
*
What had taken place?
This—the men pouring out of the darkness into the sudden glare of the lanterns, rushed, bewildered, across the deck. Miles, true to his promise, did not fire, but the next instant Vickers had snatched the firelock from him, and leaping into the stream, turned about and fired down towards the prison. The attack was more sudden then he had expected, but he did not lose his presence of mind. The shot would serve a double purpose. It would warn the men in the barrack, and perhaps check the rush by stopping up the doorway with a corpse. Beaten back, struggling, and indignant, amid the storm of hideous faces, his humanity vanished, and he aimed deliberately at the head of Mr. James Vetch; the shot, however, missed its mark, and killed the unhappy Miles.
Gabbett and his companions had by this time reached the foot of the companion ladder, there to encounter the cutlasses of the doubled guard gleaming redly in the glow of the lanterns. A glance up the hatchway showed the giant that the arms he had planned to seize were defended by ten firelocks, and that, behind the open doors of the partition which ran abaft the mizenmast, the remainder of the detachment stood to their arms. Even his dull intellect comprehended that the desperate project had failed, and that he had been betrayed. With the roar of despair which had penetrated into the prison, he turned to fight his way back, just in time to see the crowd in the gangway recoil from the flash of the musket fired by Vickers. The next instant, Pine and two soldiers, taking advantage of the momentary cessation of the press, shot the bolts, and secured the prison.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 9
