Chapter Sixteen.
The Capture and Plundering of the ‘Bangalore,’ Indiaman.
It was just six bells in the afternoon watch when we at length arrived within a distance of about half-a-mile of the stranger, which had by this time been unmistakably made out to be a British passenger ship of one of the crack lines; first by her having hoisted British colours some time before, and secondly by the crowd of well-dressed ladies and gentlemen that, with the aid of the telescope, we could see congregated on her poop. Mendouca also had hoisted the British ensign, and, to my supreme indignation, a man-o’-war’s pennant, his object in doing so being, of course, to disarm suspicion as long as possible, and thus leave the ship only a very brief length of time to prepare for defence when our intention to attack her became no longer possible of concealment. I remonstrated with him upon this desecration of the colours that he had once fought and hoped to win fame under; but of course my remonstrance was quite useless, the rascal only laughed at me.
Having arrived within the above-named distance of the ship, Mendouca ordered the sweeps to be laid in, and the slaves to be driven below and secured. This done, to my disgust his next order was to hoist out the boats—of which the Francesca, unlike most slavers, carried three; and as soon as they were in the water, the entire crew were armed, and the whole of them, except my especial enemy, José, and an Englishman—a very quiet, inoffensive fellow, whom I was surprised to find among a crew of such ruffians—were ordered down over the side. This completely upset my plans, for, of course, the only way now of reaching the stranger was by means of the boats, or by swimming; and while I would gladly have gone in one of the boats, and taken my chance of reaching the stranger’s deck alive, I was not quite prepared to throw away my life in an unsuccessful effort to swim to the ship—for that is what it would have meant, the water being alive with sharks that had followed us, day after day, with alarming persistency, ever since we had taken to the use of the sweeps. Besides which, I should of course not have been permitted to make the attempt. Of course, had I chosen to tell a deliberate falsehood, and declared my readiness to throw in my lot with Mendouca and his crew, it is possible that I might have been given the command of one of the boats; but not even for the purpose of effecting my escape did I consider that such a course would be justifiable. So I had perforce to remain where I was, under the jealously watchful eye of José, if not of the Englishman also; Mendouca asking me ironically, as he went down the side last of all, whether I had no letters for home or elsewhere that I would like to forward by means of the stranger.
Now that the sweeps were laid in, and their everlasting grind and roll and splash were no longer heard, the silence of nature seemed so profound as to be almost awe-inspiring; there was literally not a sound to be heard save such as were caused by human agency, such as the movements and voices of the men in the boats, or the gasping sighs of the unhappy negroes cooped up below in the stifling hold. Occasionally a slight murmur of sound reached us from the distant ship; the call of an officer uttering a command, the “Yo-heave-oh” of the crew, or a gang of them, engaged upon some heavy job, and an occasional rumbling that to my ear sounded very much like that of carronade slides in process of being trained to bear upon some object. But if the ship was armed there was no sign of it, her sides being decorated with painted ports only, so far as I could see. When, however, the boats had traversed about half the distance between the brigantine and the ship, a man appeared in the mizen rigging of the latter, and, hailing them in English in a voice which rendered his words perfectly audible to us on board the Francesca, demanded to know what they wanted. I saw Mendouca rise in the stern-sheets of his boat, and heard him make some reply, but I could not distinguish what it was, perhaps because he had intentionally made it unintelligible. Whatever the words may have been, they were clearly unsatisfactory; for the figure in the rigging waved its hand warningly, and shouted—
“Keep off, whoever you are; you are far too strong a party to be allowed to come alongside us; and I warn you that if you attempt to do so we shall fire upon you! If you have any legitimate business with us let one boat, with a crew of not more than five, come alongside, and welcome; but we will not have the whole of you if we can help it, and I think we can!”
The boats had, up to this time, been paddling quietly and composedly along, the men evidently husbanding their strength for a final effort; but now, in response to a shout from Mendouca, they bent to their work, and sent the boats foaming along in a style for which I certainly should never have given them credit; they could scarcely have done better had they been the British man-o’-war’s men that they had pretended to be; the oars bent, the water was churned into foam, and a miniature surge gathered under each boat’s bow as the little craft was suddenly urged to racing speed. Then the figure in the ship’s mizen rigging waved an arm, and stepped quietly down on to the poop, which by this time was occupied only by a band of men—evidently passengers—who, under the leadership of a military-looking man, were handling their muskets and making ready to open fire. At the signal given by the individual who had just stepped out of the ship’s rigging—and who was no doubt her captain—eight hitherto closed ports in the stranger’s bulwarks were suddenly thrown open, as many dark, threatening, iron muzzles appeared, and, at a second command, the whole eight blazed forth, and their contents, consisting of round-shot with a charge of grape on top of each, went hurtling through the air in the direction of the boats. The aim was excellent, the shot flashing up the water all round the boats; but, so far as I could see, not a man among either of their crews was touched. I heard Mendouca cheer his men on, urging them to stretch out, and get so close to the ship, that by the time that the guns were again loaded, it would be impossible to depress the muzzles sufficiently to hit the boats; and the men responded with the nearest approach to a cheer that, I suppose, a Spaniard can give, pulling manfully the while. The ship’s crew were, however, too quick for them, and managed to give them another broadside just before the boats got within the critical limit where it would have been impossible to touch them; and this time the discharge was very much more effective, a round-shot striking Mendouca’s own boat square on the stem just at the water-line, destroying
her bows and tearing several feet of her keel away, while the accompanying charge of grape bowled over three of her men and shattered Mendouca’s left arm at the elbow. The crews of the other two boats suffered nearly as badly, one of them losing three men, while the other lost one man killed and five more or less severely wounded, besides having to stop and pick up Mendouca and his crew, his boat sinking almost immediately.
I thought that this severe punishment would have sufficed the Spaniards, and that they would have abandoned the attack, and so, I imagine, thought the skipper of the ship, for while they were in this perilous predicament, he magnanimously withheld his fire, giving them an opportunity to retire without further loss. And so they would, in all probability, had Mendouca been a born Spaniard. But, renegade as he was, the British blood in his veins still told, and, despite the anguish of his terrible wound, he no sooner found himself in the boat that picked him up than his voice again rang out almost as loudly and clearly as before, still urging his men to press forward, and reminding them that they were fighting for their lives, or—what was the same thing—food and water. It was probably this reminder that turned the scale among the waverers, for at the mention of the word “water” they again seized their oars, and with a yell gave way for the ship. Evidently exasperated at this quite unexpected exhibition of determination on the part of the pirates, the little band on the poop now opened a smart and very galling fire with their muskets upon the boats, and I saw three or four pairs of arms tossed skyward as the discharge rattled forth. But before the weapons of this little party of volunteers could be reloaded the boats were alongside the ship, the pirates dropped their oars, and made a simultaneous dash for the fore and main channels, and there instantly ensued a desperate mêlée in which the popping of pistols was for the first half-minute or so a very prominent feature. I fully expected to see Mendouca and his crew driven back into their boats with a very heavy loss; but, to my astonishment and sorrow, I soon saw that they were more than holding their own, and in less than three minutes they had actually forced their way inboard, and the right was transferred to the ship’s decks. It was evident that the British crew were now making a most determined and desperate resistance, for the fight was protracted to fully a quarter of an hour, the clink and clash of steel, the shouts of the combatants, and the cries of the wounded being distinctly audible to us on the deck of the Francesca. Then the hubbub suddenly lulled, and I heard cries for quarter, cries which, to my bitter grief, I knew to be the sure indication of defeat on the part of the British crew. Then utter silence fell upon the unfortunate ship for a few minutes, to be broken by the muffled sound of women’s shrieks, men’s voices uplifted in fierce, impotent anger and denunciation, two or three pistol-shots that sounded as though they had been fired in the ship’s cabin, and then silence again; an ominous, dreadful silence that to my foreboding mind might mean the perpetration of horrors to which those already enacted on the blood-stained decks were as nothing.
This silence prevailed for fully an hour, during which no sign of life was visible on board the ship; then arose the sound of hilarious shouts and drunken laughter; there was a sudden stir and commotion about the decks; a crowd of men gathered on the poop, many of them with their hands bound behind them—as I could see with the aid of a telescope—while others had their heads swathed in blood-stained bandages; a long plank was rigged out over the taffrail; and then Mendouca appeared to be making some sort of a speech. If such was the case the speech was a very brief one; and when it terminated a short pause ensued, and I saw that a few of the prisoners—perhaps three or four, as nearly as I could make out—were being released from their bonds. Then occurred another short pause, at the expiration of which a man was led forward, blindfolded, and guided to the inner extremity of the plank, along which I could see that they were urging him to walk. He advanced a few paces, paused, as though he had been addressed, and I distinctly saw him shake his head. As though this movement of the head were a prearranged signal, the inner end of the plank suddenly tilted up, and the unfortunate man, with a staggering movement as though to save himself fell with a resounding splash into the sea, where for a few seconds he seemed to struggle desperately. Not for long, however; the sharks that had been haunting us for so many days heard the splash, and after a few restless movements, as though unwilling to leave us, darted off toward the ship. I saw the horrid triangular fins cleaving the surface of the glassy water, each leaving its own delicate wedge-shaped wake spreading astern as it went, until the small ripples of the different wakes met and crossed each other; then, as the distance between them and their prey lessened, there was a sudden increase of speed which soon became a rush, the black fins merged toward each other, the water swirled round the drowning man, there was a single ear-piercing shriek of agony, and the poor wretch had disappeared.
This dreadful spectacle appeared to have had its desired effect, for I saw that several more of the prisoners were now being released from their bonds, the released men, one and all, slinking down off the poop and away forward toward the forecastle. There were others, however—fifteen in all, for I counted them—whose courage was not to be shaken even by this awful ordeal, and one after the other they boldly trod the fatal plank, and went to meet their dreadful doom! All honour to them, say I, for the lofty courage that enabled them to choose death rather than an ignoble and crime-stained life.
Then there was another long pause, during which, as I afterwards learned, the Francesca’s crew were rummaging the ship—a homeward-bound Indiaman, named the Bangalore—and loading her decks with booty of every imaginable description, preparatory to its transfer to the brigantine. Mendouca, I must mention, had already compelled the Bangalore’s surgeon to dress his wound for him; and now, having given his orders to one of the men whom he considered the most reliable and trustworthy of his crew, he returned to the Francesca, and, with the aid of his son Pedro, was got into his bunk, where I could hear him from time to time grinding his teeth in agony, although, such was the spirit of the man, not a groan would he permit to escape him.
The sun had set, and the velvet dusk of the tropics was closing down upon the scene, when at length the Bangalore’s boats were hoisted out, and the work of transhipping the booty began. Mendouca must have felt himself a second Kidd, for the ship was almost as rich a prize as one of the old Acapulco galleons; there were bales of rich silks and shawls, spices, caskets of gems, ingots of gold, exquisite embroidered muslins, and I know not what beside—goods of a value sufficient, it seemed to me, to make every rascal on the books of the Francesca rich for the remainder of his life, although they were of course unable to take more than a comparatively small quantity of the Bangalore’s entire cargo. Nevertheless, they contrived to find room for a goodly proportion of the most costly and valuable contents of the vessel’s hold, the transfer of which, and of as much food and water as they deemed necessary to their requirements, occupied the crew until midnight; for in Mendouca’s absence, as may be supposed, they did not trouble to exert themselves overmuch. Moreover, a large proportion of them were in such a state of intoxication they scarcely knew what they were doing—my especial bête-noir the boatswain among the number, he having seized an early opportunity to board the ship after Mendouca had been safely bestowed in his own cabin. I did not know this until told so by Simpson, the English man whom I have already mentioned as having been left on board the Francesca that afternoon with the boatswain and myself, who added to his information—
“Better keep your weather-eye liftin’, Mr Dugdale, sir; that José’s full of spite as an egg’s full of meat; he have never forgiven you for knockin’ him down, and have swore over and over again to put his knife into you. And now that he’s full of drink, and the skipper’s on his beam-ends, he’s just as likely as not to try it.”
“Yes, I suppose he is. Thank you for the warning, Simpson,” said I. The man put his finger to his forehead in acknowledgment of my thanks, but continued to linger near me; and presently it dawned upon me that he had something further to say. So I turned to him and inquired—
“Is there anything particular that you wish to say to me, Simpson?”
“Well, yes, sir, there is, if I only knowed how to say it,” answered the man, in a low, cautious tone of voice and with a somewhat hesitating manner. He paused for a second or two, as though in consideration, and then, looking me full in the face, said—
“I hopes you’ll excuse me askin’ of you the question, Mr Dugdale, but might you be a-thinkin’ of gettin’ away out o’ this here brigantine, supposin’ that you sees a good chance for to do so? I ain’t askin’ out of any impertinence or curiosity, sir, I beg you to believe; but my meanin’ is this here, if so be as it happens that you was thinkin’ of any such thing, I was wonderin’ whether we mightn’t be able to go together, and be of sarvice to one another in a manner of speakin’.”
“Oh,” said I, “that is your idea, is it? Are you not satisfied with your present berth then, Simpson?”
“No, sir, I’m not, to tell the truth of it,” answered the man. “I know that it’s rather a risky thing to say aboard of this here wessel; but the truth is that I ain’t satisfied at all, and haven’t been for a long while; not since Mr Arrowsmith—or Señor Mendouca, as he now calls hisself—took up to the piratin’ business. So long as it was just a matter of runnin’ a cargo of slaves across the Atlantic, I didn’t mind so much, for there was plenty of dollars goin’, and I didn’t see that there was much harm in it, for I don’t suppose the poor beggars is any worse off on the sugar and ’baccy plantations than they are in their own country. But when it comes to work like what’s been done to-day, I wants to be out of it; and I don’t mind sayin’ so to you straight out, Mr Dugdale, because you’re a naval hofficer, you are, sir, and of course as such you’re bound to be dead against such things as has happened since you’ve been aboard here. Besides, I’ve been a-watchin’ of you, sir—askin’ your pardon for the same, Mr Dugdale—and I’ve seen that this ship and her doin’s ain’t no more to your taste than they are to mine.”
“You are right, Simpson, they are not,” said I; “and since you have been so frank with me, I will be equally so with you. You have rightly guessed that I would gladly make my escape from this accursed brigantine, if I could; and I had quite made up my mind that if, as I fully expected, Captain Mendouca had run alongside that ship this afternoon, I would board with the rest, and then join the British crew in their defence of their own ship.”
“It’s perhaps just as well then for you, sir, and for me too, that matters was arranged different,” answered Simpson; “because, if the thing had come off as you planned it, I don’t suppose that your joinin’ of the other side would have made that much difference that they’d have beat off the skipper and his lot; and if they hadn’t, and you’d fallen alive into the hands of the skipper, he’d have—well, I don’t know what he wouldn’t have done to you; but I’m mortal sure that you wouldn’t have been alive now. But perhaps, sir, you’ve been thinkin’, as I have, that even now it mayn’t be too late to do somethin’.”
“Yes,” said I, “I have. While you have been talking to me a multitude of ideas have thronged through my mind, disconnected and vague, certainly, but still capable perhaps of being worked into shape. And I do not mind admitting to you, Simpson, that your proposal to join me in any attempt that I may be disposed to make simplifies matters a great deal. The most important factor in the problem before us is: How will yonder ship be dealt with when the Francesca’s people have done with her? Will she be destroyed, or will she be left, with those unfortunate passengers—most probably with no knowledge whatever of nautical matters—to drift about at the mercy of wind and sea, to take her chance of being fallen in with, or to founder in the first gale of wind that happens to come her way?”
“No, sir, no,” answered Simpson. “You may take your oath that Captain Mendouca won’t run the risk of leavin’ her afloat to be picked up and took into port, where her passengers could tell what tales they liked about him and his doin’s. She’ll be scuttled, sir, and left to go down with all them passengers in her, the same as that unfortunit’ Portugee brig was that we took the slaves out of. But I’ve been thinkin’, sir, that, even so, two sailor-men, like you and me, might do a good deal, with the help of the gentlemen passengers, to put together some sort of a raft that would hold all hands of us and keep us above water until somethin’ comes along and picks us up. Of course I knows quite well that it’ll be a mighty poor look-out for the strongest of us, and a dreadful bad time for the poor women-folk, to be obliged to take to a raft; but I expect they’d rather do that and take their chance of bein’ picked up than go down with the ship; and if you’re willin’ to face the job, I am too, sir, and there’s my hand on it.”
I took the fellow’s proffered hand and grasped it warmly.
“You are a good fellow, Simpson, and a true British seaman, whatever your past may have been,” said I, “and I accept your proposal, which I can see is made in perfect good faith. Now, it seems to me that all that we have to do, in the first place, is to get on board yonder ship. The question is: How is it to be done without the knowledge of any of the Francesca’s people?”
“Well, sir,” said Simpson, “I don’t think as there’ll be any great difficulty about that, so far as I’m concerned; and I don’t think there need be much with you neither, if you wouldn’t mind changing your rig and shiftin’ into some togs of mine, so as these chaps of the Francesca, won’t recognise you. Then, when the next boat comes from the ship, we’ll tumble down into her and offer to give two of the others a spell; they’ll be only too glad of the chance to get a little relief from the job of pullin’ backwards and for’ards and the handlin’ of a lot of stuff, and, once aboard the ship, we can stow ourselves out of sight until they leave her for good and all.”
“Very well,” said I, “that seems as good a plan as any, and we will try it. Let me have some of your old clothes, Simpson—a flannel shirt and a pair of canvas trousers will do—and I will shift into them at once. And there is another thing that occurs to me. If we could manage to secure a little further help it would be so much the better. Now, if I am not mistaken, a good many of the crew of yonder ship joined the Francesca this afternoon as the only means of saving their lives. We must get hold of a few of them, if we can, and, by means of a few judicious questions, find out whether they would be willing to throw in their lot with us and take their chance of ultimate escape, rather than become slavers and pirates. With only half-a-dozen stout, willing seamen a great deal might be done to better the state of affairs generally.”
“You are right, sir, it would make a lot of difference, and I’ll see what can be done,” answered Simpson. “And now, sir, shall I go and get you the togs? I s’pose that whatever we do might as well be done at once?”
“Certainly,” said I, “the sooner the better. I can see no object in delaying our movements, now that we have determined upon a definite plan.”
“All right, sir, then here goes,” answered Simpson. “I’ll be back with the duds in a jiffey.”
Simpson’s “jiffey” proved to be a pretty long one, for it was fully twenty minutes before he returned with the clothes—a thin flannel shirt that had seen its best days, and was so faded from its original colour and so thoroughly stained with tar and grease that it was difficult to say what that original colour had been, but was therefore so much the better suited to the purpose of a disguise—a pair of equally faded dungaree trousers, and a knitted worsted cap. But his delay had not been profitless, for happening to find in the forecastle two of the crew of the Bangalore, who had been compelled to join the Francesca, and who, from their dejected appearance, he conjectured were not altogether pleased or satisfied with the arrangement, he entered into conversation with them, and soon contrived to elicit from them that his conjecture was well founded. Thereupon, as there was no time to lose, he took the bold course of asking them outright whether, in the event of there being a scheme afoot on the part of others to escape from the brigantine to the ship, they would be disposed to join in it, to which they replied that they would gladly, and that indeed they had been discussing the possibilities of such an attempt when he interrupted them by his descent into the forecastle. This was enough for Simpson, who at once brought them aft to me, and I, finding them fully in earnest in their expressed desire to have nothing to do with the pirates, forthwith unfolded my plans to them, carefully directing their attention to the somewhat desperate aspect of the adventure, but at the same time pointing out to them that every additional seaman whose help we could secure added very materially to the chances of a successful issue. What I said seemed only to render them the more determined to sever their brief connection with the pirates at any cost, and they unhesitatingly declared their readiness to join me, and to implicitly obey my orders. More than this, they informed me that there were others of the Bangalore crew who, they were sure, would be equally ready with themselves, if permitted, to take part in the adventure, and they consented to hunt up as many of these men as possible at once, and to have them ready to meet me on the forecastle to discuss the matter in a quarter of an hour.
My scheme, which, prior to my conversation with Simpson, had been of the most vague and nebulous character, had now taken shape and wore so promising an appearance that I felt sanguine of its ultimate success; so without further ado I retired right aft to the wheel grating—that part of the brigantine being now quite deserted, and wrapped in total darkness save for the dim and diffused light that issued from the cabin skylight—and there, unseen, shifted into the clothes that Simpson had brought me. They were not particularly comfortable nor quite so well-savoured as I could have wished; but it was no time for ultra-squeamishness, and I was soon transformed into a very colourable imitation of a fo’c’s’le hand. This done, I went forward, past the open hatchway down which the plunder from the Bangalore was being struck, noticing with bitter distress and anger the forlorn, dejected, worn-out, and despairing attitudes of the unfortunate blacks closely huddled together on the slave-deck, their forms faintly indicated in the yellow, smoky light of the lanterns which the men were working by, and noticing too, with keen satisfaction, that most of the crew had reached that stage of intoxication wherein the victim’s whole attention is required for the conduct of his own affairs, with none to spare for those of others. Many had gone considerably beyond this stage, and were staggering about, pulling and hauling aimlessly at the first object that they could lay their hands upon, and proving far more of a hindrance than a help to their less intoxicated comrades; while there were some who had reached the final stage of bestiality, and were lying about the decks in a helpless condition of drunken stupor. Nothing more favourable for our scheme than this condition of general intoxication could possibly have happened, unless it were that Pedro was below, fully occupied in attending to his father, and was therefore the less likely to discover my absence from the brigantine until it should be too late to take any steps toward the investigation of the phenomenon; I therefore hurried to the rendezvous with a sudden feeling of elation and joyousness and confidence in the conviction that the time of release from my exceedingly uncongenial and disagreeable, if not absolutely hopeless, situation had at length arrived.
Upon reaching the forecastle-head—the appointed spot of our rendezvous—I found it tenantless; but presently a man came lounging up to me from the group of workers about the hatchway, and, after peering into my face, inquired—
“Got any ’baccy about you, mate? Mine’s down below in my chest, and I haven’t unlashed it yet. If you’ve got any, just give me a chaw, will ye, and maybe I’ll do as much for you another time.”
“I am sorry to say that I have not any,” I answered. “I do not use it except in the form of a cigar now and then. But I expect my mate Simpson on deck every moment, and I have no doubt that he will be able to accommodate you. You are one of the new hands, shipped from the Bangalore, are you not? I don’t seem to remember having seen your face before.”
“No, perhaps not, and it’s precious little you can see now, I should think, unless you’ve got cat’s eyes, and can see in the dark,” was the somewhat surly response. “Yes,” he continued, “I’m Joe Maxwell, late carpenter of the Bangalore, and—well, yes, ‘shipped’ is the word, I suppose. And pray who may you be, my buck, with your dandified talk—which, to my mind, is about as like any fo’c’s’le lingo that I ever heard as chalk is like cheese? Are all hands aboard this dashin’ rover of the same kidney as yourself?”
“Scarcely that, I think, as you seem to have already had an opportunity of judging,” I answered, laughingly, as I glanced in the direction of the hatchway. “No,” I continued, determined to sound him forthwith, as his speech and manner seemed to indicate that he was by no means satisfied with his changed lot, “I am a naval officer, and a prisoner, I suppose I must call myself, although, as you see, I have the liberty of the ship. And now, having told you thus much, I should like you to tell me candidly, Maxwell, did you join this afternoon of your own free will, or under compulsion?”
The man looked at me searchingly for a moment, and then said—
“Well, I suppose when a man is asked a straightforward question the best plan is to give a straightfor’ard answer. So, mister, I don’t mind tellin’ you that I j’ined because I was obliged to; ’twas either that or a walk along a short plank.”
“In fact, you joined merely to save your life,” I suggested.
“Ay; pretty much as you, yourself, may have done,” was the answer.
“I?” I exclaimed. “Surely, my good fellow, you do not mean to say that you imagine me—a naval officer—to have joined this crew of thieves and murderers?”
“Blest if I know, or care,” the fellow answered roughly. “Only, if you’re a naval officer, as you say, and haven’t joined the ‘thieves and murderers,’ as you call ’em, I should like to know how you come to be rigged like a fo’c’s’le Jack?”
I saw that the man was suspicious of me—perhaps thought I was endeavouring, for purposes of espionage, to fathom his real feelings with regard to the service into which he had been pressed; I saw, moreover, that my conjecture was correct, and that, despite his cautious replies, he was by no means satisfied with the arrangement, and so determined to be frank with him at once, tell him what I contemplated, and invite him to join me. As carpenter of the Bangalore he would be an especially valuable acquisition to our party. I accordingly did so; and before I had finished I had the satisfaction of seeing that his suspicions had completely disappeared, and that he was listening to me intently and respectfully. When I had brought my disclosure and proposition to an end, he at once said—
“I’m with you, sir, heart and soul! Anything—even a raft—will be better than this thievin’ and murderin’ hooker and her cut-throat crew! Yes, sir, I’m with you, for life or death. But, please God, it shall be life and not death for all hands of us. Let us get away aboard at once, sir; I’m just longin’ to tread the beauty’s planks again; and as to scuttlin’ her—why, I’ll make it my first business, when I get aboard, to shape out a few plugs and take ’em down into the run with me—that’s the only place where they’ll be able to get at her under-water plankin’—and as soon as they’ve gone I’ll plug up them holes so that she’ll be as tight as a bottle, and never a penny the worse for what little they’re likely to do to her. But it would please me a precious sight better to knock out the brains of whoever dares to go down below to do the scuttlin’ business.”
“No, no,” said I, “that would never do; the man would be missed, a search would be instituted, and heaven only knows what the consequences would be. No, the scuttling must be allowed to proceed, and the pirates must finally leave the ship with the conviction that she is slowly but surely sinking. If all goes well this craft will be out of sight before morning, and then, once clear of them, we shall have leisure to make our plans and carry them out.”
“Right you are, sir, and right it is,” answered Maxwell. “You’ll have to be our skipper now, sir, for poor Capt’n Mason and all three of the mates is gone—one on ’em—Mr King—killed in the scrimmage, and t’others made to walk the plank—so you’ll be the only navigator that we can muster among the lot of us, as well as the ’riginator of this here scheme for gettin’ the better of these here Spaniards, so’ you’re the fittest and properest person to take charge. All that you’ve got to do, sir, is to give your orders, and I’ll answer for it as they’ll be obeyed.”