Chapter Seven.
The Mutiny.
During the night a little air of wind sprang up from the eastward which carried us out clear of the Mona Passage, and when day dawned we found ourselves with a clear horizon all round the ship. At noon we wore round to retrace our steps, and by sunset we were within a dozen miles of the spot we had occupied at the same hour on the previous evening.
The day, for a wonder, had passed almost pleasantly; there had been no flogging; Captain Pigot had scarcely showed himself on deck, except for a few minutes after breakfast and again at noon; and the officers of the watches, glad to be freed from his obnoxious presence, had been careful not to unnecessarily hurry and badger the men whilst carrying on the duty of the ship. The only circumstance which, to my mind, seemed disquieting, was the unusual demeanour of the men, who performed their work, steadily enough indeed, but in a moody, unnatural silence, wearing, meantime, a gloomy, preoccupied air, whilst they at the same time—at least so it appeared to me—seemed to be, one and all, in a restless, anxious, watchful frame of mind, as though they were in momentary expectation of something happening. I could not at all understand this state of things, which was something quite new, for, notwithstanding the skipper’s intolerable tyranny, there were a few of the men—and those among the best and smartest hands we had in the ship—who had hitherto contrived to maintain a fairly cheerful demeanour, and who seldom let slip such an opportunity as that afforded by the captain’s absence from the deck to indulge in the exchange of a quiet bit of nautical humour or a harmless practical joke with their next neighbour. To-day, however, this sort of thing was conspicuously absent; and I was at first disposed to attribute the unwonted gloom to the men’s horror and regret at the lamentable accident of the previous evening. But that, I felt again, would scarcely account for it; for, however sincere may be Jack’s attachment to his shipmates whilst they are alive and with him, they are no sooner dead and buried than, from his quickly acquired habit of promptly casting behind him all disquieting memories, he forgets all about them and their fate.
At length, as the day wore on and drew to a peaceful close, my misgivings, such as they were—and they were, after all, so slight as scarcely to deserve mention—passed away; and at eight bells I retired to my hammock with a dawning hope that perhaps, after all, the collective remonstrance of the officers was about to bear good fruit.
My mind being thus at rest, I at once sank into a profound sleep, from which I was abruptly startled by a loud noise of some kind, though what it was I could not for the moment make out. Almost immediately afterwards, however, I heard it again—a loud furious combined shout of many voices from the fore part of the ship. Feeling instinctively that something was wrong, I leaped from my hammock—as also did Courtenay, my only companion in the berth—and began hurriedly to search for my clothes by the dim light of the smoky lamp which hung swaying from the deck-beam overhead. Before, however, I had time to do more than don my socks, a grizzled weatherbeaten main-topman named Ned Sykes made his appearance in the doorway of the berth, with a drawn cutlass in his hand and a pair of pistols in his belt. He looked intently at us both for a moment, and then said, in a gruff but kindly tone of voice:
“Muster Lascelles, and Muster Courtenay, ain’t it? Ha! that’s all right; I reckoned I should find you two young gen’lemen here, safe enough. Now, you two, just slip into your hammicks again as fast as you knows how, and stay there until I gives you leave to get out of ’em.”
“Why, what is the matter, Ned? What is all the row about?” asked Courtenay, with wide-staring, horrified eyes. For, by this time, the shouting and yelling were tremendous, and accompanied by a loud thumping, rumbling sound, produced, as we afterwards ascertained, by the shot which the men were flinging about the decks.
“The matter is just this here, young ’un,” replied Ned, entering the berth and seating himself on a chest, “The hands for’ard has made up their minds not to have no more such haccidents as them two that occurred last night; nor they ain’t a-goin’ to have no more floggin’ nor bully-raggin’, so they’ve just rose up and are takin’ possession of the ship—Aha! I’m terrible afeard that means bloodshed,” as a piercing shriek echoed through the ship. “Now,” he continued, seeing that we evinced a strong disinclination to return to our hammocks, “you just tumble into them hammicks and lie down, quick; you couldn’t do a morsel of good, e’er a one of yer, if you was out there on deck—you’d only get hurted or, mayhap, killed outright,—and I’ve been specially told off to come here and see as neither of yer gets into trouble; you’ve both been good kindly lads, you especial, Muster Lascelles—you’ve never had your eyes open to notice any little shortcomin’s or skylarkin’s on the part of the men, nor your tongues double-hung for to go and report ’em, so the lads is honestly anxious as you sha’n’t come to no harm in this here rumpus.”
“Then the men have actually mutinied,” said I—and there I stopped short, for at that moment came the sound of a rush aft of many feet, with shouts and curses, mingled with which I heard the loud harsh tones of Captain Pigot’s voice raised in anger. The mêlée, however, if such there was, quickly swept aft, and there was a lull for perhaps two or three minutes, followed by the sounds of a brief struggle on the quarter-deck, a few shrieks and groans, telling all too plainly of the bloody work going forward, and then silence, broken only now and then by the sound of Farmer’s voice, apparently issuing orders, though what he was actually saying we could not distinguish.
During all this time Courtenay and I lay huddled up in our hammocks, too terrified and horror-stricken to say a word. At length, after the lapse of about an hour of quietness on deck, Sykes—after cautioning us most earnestly not, on any account, to move from where we were until his return—set out with the expressed intention of ascertaining how the land lay. He was absent about a quarter of an hour; and on his return he informed us in horrified accents that, out of all the officers of the ship, there remained alive only Mr Southcott the master, the gunner, the carpenter, Courtenay, myself—and Farmer, the master’s mate, who, it appeared, had taken a leading part in the mutiny, and had been elected to the command of the ship. It was evident, from the scared and horrified appearance and manner of our informant, that he had never anticipated any of this awful violence and bloodshed, though he frankly admitted that he had been a consenting party to the mutiny—the general understanding being that the officers were all to be secured in the first instance, and afterwards handed over as prisoners to the enemy—and he hurriedly explained to us that, for his own safety’s sake, it would now be necessary for him to leave us and join the rest of the mutineers without delay, but that he would return to us as soon as he possibly could; and that, in the meantime, we were on no account to leave the berth, or our lives would certainly be sacrificed.
After hearing such statements as these, no further warning was needed to keep us two unhappy mids close prisoners for the rest of the night. Further sleep was of course quite out of the question; so we hastily dressed, and, closing the door of the berth, seated ourselves on a sea-chest, where we passed the remainder of the night discussing the awful tragedy which had so suddenly been enacted, comparing notes as to our mutual forebodings of some such disaster, and, lastly, wondering what would be the ultimate fate of ourselves and the few other surviving officers.
At length, after what appeared to be a very eternity of suspense and anxiety, steps were heard approaching the berth; and, upon our throwing open the door, Sykes, somewhat the worse for liquor, made his appearance, hailing us, in tones of obviously forced joviality, with:
“Well, what cheer, my fighting cocks—my bully bantams? How goes it? Hope your honours has passed a comfortable night,” with a ghastly grin at his own facetiousness. Then, with considerably more seriousness of manner, he continued:
“Well, young uns, Farmer—or Mister Farmer, I should say—has been axing arter you, and his instructions am that you may now go ’pon deck. But—hark ’e, my bullies, keep your weather eyes a-liftin’ and a stopper upon your tongues. Whatsomever you may happen to see don’t you be led away into indulgin’ in any onpleasant remarks upon it; nor don’t you go for to try and talk over any of the lads into ‘returning to their duty,’ or any rot of that sort; for so sure as either of you attempts anything like that, so surely will you get your brains blowed out. The ship’s took—what’s done is done—and neither you nor nobody else can make or mend the job; the men is in a mighty ticklish humour, I can tell ’e, and if you wants to save your precious carcasses you’ll have to walk mighty carcumspect. And that’s the advice and opinion of a friend, all free, gratis, and for nothink. Now, come along, my hearties; show a leg!”
We followed our well-meaning guide up the ladder to the quarter-deck, where we found Farmer apparently awaiting our appearance. He was standing or rather leaning in a wearied attitude against a gun on the starboard side of the deck; his cheeks were flushed and his eyes gleamed feverishly; he looked a good twenty years older than he had appeared to be on the previous day; and, like a good many of the other mutineers, he appeared to have been indulging somewhat freely in liquor. He roused himself at our approach, and, seating himself in a negligent, careless attitude on the breech of the gun, said:
“Good morning, young gentlemen. I am glad to see you both safe and sound. Sykes has of course informed you of what has taken place—he had my instructions to do so, as also to see that you were kept out of harm’s way last night. Now, what I have to say to you is this. You two lads having invariably manifested kindness and sympathy for the men, they were especially anxious that whenever the rising might take place your lives should be spared. This has been done. You are alive and unharmed this morning, whilst others have gone to render an account of their manifold misdeeds—their countless acts of oppression and cruelty—before that Judge in whose sight their lives are not one whit more valuable than the lives of those whom they have goaded and driven to death—ay, and to worse than death—to such frantic desperation as can only be allayed by the shedding of blood like water. Now, mark me well, both of you; you have had neither part nor lot in this matter—those who wished you well have so managed that, whether or no, you should be kept strictly neutral throughout the affair; all those to whom you owed obedience are either dead or prisoners; you are not asked or expected to join us—we do not want you and should not care to have you even if you were willing—you are therefore relieved from duty; and all that is asked of you is that you shall interfere in no way, either by word or deed, with the working of the ship or with our plans. If you are agreeable to abide by this proposal, well and good; you will be welcome to come and go as you like until we find it convenient to land you; you will be allowed to occupy your former quarters, and your rations will be regularly served out to you. But if on the other hand you make the slightest attempt to communicate with the prisoners, or endeavour in any way to seduce any of the men from their loyalty to the rest, I will hang you both that same hour, one from each yard-arm. That is understood and agreed to, is it not, men?” he continued, raising his voice and appealing to the crowd of mutineers who had gathered round us.
“Ay, ay, that’s agreed; that’s fair enough,” was the unanimous reply.
With that, Farmer waved his hand to us by way of dismissal; and considerably thrown off our balance by the address to which we had just listened, and by the terrible turn affairs had taken generally, we slunk off to the poop, so as to be as far away as possible from the murderous gang and from the ghastly puddles of coagulated blood about the quarter-deck, which still bore witness to heaven against them.
At this moment a man on the forecastle electrified all hands by shouting:
“Sail ho!”
I saw Farmer start from his seat on the gun as if shot, his flushed features turned ashen pale, and for a moment his palsied lips refused to give utterance to a sound.
“Sail ho!” repeated the man in a louder hail, thinking, I suppose, that his first intimation had passed unnoticed. This second hail fairly startled the men, and in a moment everything was bustle and confusion and panic. It aroused Farmer too; he pulled himself together sufficiently to respond to the hail with the usual question, “Where away?” and, on receiving the reply, “Two points on the larboard bow,” walked forward to personally inspect the stranger. We, of course, likewise directed our glances in the specified direction; and there she was, sure enough, a large ship, on the starboard tack, with every stitch of canvas set that would draw, and steering a course which would take her across our bows at a distance of about a mile.
“Bring me the spy-glass out of the cabin, somebody!” hailed Farmer from the forecastle. The glass—a very powerful one and a favourite instrument with the murdered captain—was handed him by one of the quarter-masters, and he applied it to his eye. A breathless silence now prevailed fore and aft for the stranger had all the look of a British man-of-war, and everybody was waiting to hear what Farmer’s verdict would be. The inspection was a long-sustained and evidently anxious one. At length, dropping the glass into the hollow of his arm Farmer turned and said:
“Bring Mr Southcott on deck, and let us hear his opinion of yonder hooker.”
In a few minutes the master was escorted on deck by a couple of armed seamen, and led forward to where Farmer was standing.
“Mr Southcott,” said the mutineer, turning toward the individual addressed, and perceptibly shrinking as their glance met, “be good enough to take this glass, and let me know wha’ you think of the stranger yonder.”
“Stranger!” ejaculated Southcott. “Where away? Ah, I see her!” and he took the glass from Farmer’s extended hand.
“Well, what think you of her?” asked Farmer impatiently, after the master had been silently working away with the glass for some two or three minutes.
“One moment, please,” answered Southcott with his eye still glued to the tube; “I think—but I am not quite sure—if she would only keep just the merest trifle more away—so as to permit of my catching a glimpse—”
“Sail ho!” shouted a man in the fore-top; “two of ’em, a brig and a ship on the starboard beam, away in under the land there!”
Farmer unceremoniously snatched the glass away from the master and levelled it in the direction indicated.
“Ay, ay, I see them,” said he. “That is the Drake nearest us, and the Favourite inshore of her. They are all right; we have nothing to fear from them. It is this stranger here ahead of us that bothers me. Come, Mr Southcott,” he continued, “you ought to know something about her by this time—you have been looking at her long enough; do you think you ever saw her before?”
The master took the glass, had another long squint at the ship ahead, then handed the instrument back to Farmer, with the answer:
“I decline to say whether I have or not.”
“That is enough,” said Farmer; “your answer but confirms me in my conviction as to the identity of yonder frigate. It is the Mermaid. Speak, sir, is it not so?”
“You are right, Farmer, it is the Mermaid, thank God! and you cannot escape. See! she is already hauling up to speak us; and in another twenty minutes will be alongside. Now, sir, resign to me the command which you have with so much violence and bloodshed usurped; and you, men,” he continued, turning round and in a loud voice addressing the rest of the crew, “return at once to your duty. Support and assist me in recovering the command of the ship, and I promise—”
“Silence!” roared Farmer, striking the master a heavy blow full in the mouth with his clenched fist. “Seize him, you two,” he continued to the men who had charge of the prisoner, “and if he offers to speak again to the men clap a belaying-pin between his teeth. My lads, you now know the truth; yonder frigate is our old acquaintance the Mermaid. Mr Southcott proposes that I should surrender the command of this ship to him; and if I do so we all know what will follow. Most of us will dangle at the yard-arm; and though, through the royal clemency,” (with a bitter sneer), “a few may be allowed to escape with a flogging through the fleet, with left-handed boatswains’ mates to cross the lashes—think of that, men, and compare it with the mere two or three dozen at the gangway which most of you have tasted since you joined the Hermione—where is the man among you, I ask, who can point to himself and say, ‘I shall be one of the fortunate few?’ No, no, my lads! after last night’s work there must be no talk of surrender; the ropes are already round our necks, and as surely as we ever find ourselves beneath the British flag again, so surely will those ropes be hauled taut and ourselves bowsed up to the yard-arm. And, even if our lives could be assured to us, what inducement is there to us to serve under British bunting again? I say there is none. We must choose, then, between two alternatives; we must either fight or fly. Which is it to be?”
The rest of the mutineers huddled together, evidently irresolute; each man eagerly sought his neighbour’s opinion, the pros and cons of Farmer’s question were hurriedly discussed, and I saw with inexpressible delight that a good many of the men were more than half disposed to fall in with the master’s suggestion.
Mr Southcott must have seen this too, for he wheeled round upon Farmer and exclaimed:
“Surely, Farmer, you are not mad enough to entertain the idea of fighting the Mermaid? Why, man, you could not stand up before her for five minutes with the men in their present undisciplined state and no one but yourself to direct operations. Your defeat under such circumstances is an absolute certainty; and think what would be the fate of yourself and your misguided followers if taken in arms against the flag under which they have sworn to serve. At present some at least of them may hope for mercy if they will but—”
“Away with him! Take him below!” shouted Farmer, “and if he attempts to open his mouth again put a bullet through his brains. Now, shipmates,” he continued, as the master was hurried below, “make up your minds, and quickly too; which will you have, the yard-rope or a pitched battle?”
“What occasion is there for either?” inquired a burly boatswain’s-mate. “There’s more ways of killing a cat than choking of her with cream. Let’s square dead away afore it and set stunsails alow and aloft, both sides. I’ll lay my life we run far enough away from the Mermaid afore sunset to dodge her in the dark.”
“No good,” dissented Farmer. “The Mermaid could beat us a couple of knots off the wind in this breeze.”
“Ay, ay; that’s true enough; she could so,” assented a topman. “But we have the heels of her on a taut bowline; so why not brace sharp up on the starboard tack, pass between the islands, and then make for Porto Rico?”
“What! and run the gauntlet of those two cruisers inshore there, as well as take our chance of falling in with the Magicienne and the Regulus, which we know are knocking about somewhere in that direction! Is that the best counsel you can give, Ben?”
“Well, then, let’s haul close in with the land, set fire to the ship, and take to the boats,” answered Ben.
“And what then?” sneered Farmer.
“Why, land, to be sure, and take sarvice with Jack Spaniard,” was the reply.
“Why, man, do you suppose they would welcome us if we went to them empty-handed?” asked Farmer. “No, no, that will never do. If we join the Spaniards we must take the ship with us to ensure a welcome; and I’m half inclined to think that will be the best thing we can do. But not now; that must be thought over at leisure. Meanwhile, what is to be done in the present emergency? We have no time for further argument. Will you stand by me and obey my orders?”
“Ay, ay, we will, every man Jack of us, sink or swim, fight or fly,” was the reply from a hundred throats.
“That’s well, my lads,” exclaimed Farmer exultantly; “it shall go hard but I will bring you through somehow. Starboard your helm, there,” to the man at the wheel; “let her come to on the larboard tack; to your stations, men; let go the larboard sheets and braces, and round in on the starboard. Smartly, my bullies; let’s have no bungling, now, or Captain Otway there will at once suspect that something is amiss. That’s well; ease up the lee topgallant and royal-braces a trifle; well there of all; belay! Afterguard, muster your buckets and brushes and wash down the decks. Roberts, go below with a gang and rouse the hammocks on deck; and quarter-masters, see that they are snugly stowed. Where’s the signal-man? Bend the ensign on to the peak-halliards and our number at the main; and main-top, there I stand by to hoist away the pennant. Gunner, muster your crew; go round the quarters with them; and see that everything is ship-shape in case we should have to make a fight of it.”
I was surprised to see how, as Farmer issued his orders in a tone of authority, the instinct of discipline asserted itself; the men sprang to their stations as nimbly and executed their several duties as smartly as though Captain Pigot himself had been directing their movements. The Hermione was braced sharp up on the larboard tack and heading as near as she would lay for the Mermaid, which was now about a point and a half on our weather bow, about four miles distant, and nearing us fast; whilst the Favourite and the Drake were stretching out from under the land to join her.
Presently a string of tiny balls went soaring aloft to the Mermaid’s main-royal mast-head, to break abroad as they reached it and stream out in the fresh morning breeze as so many gaily coloured signal flags.
“There goes the Mermaid’s bunting, sir!” sang out the signal-man, “she is showing her number.”
“Ay, ay, I see it,” exclaimed Farmer. “And, by Heaven,” he added, “it never struck me until this moment that Pigot was senior captain. Hoist away your ensign and pennant! up with the number! We are all right, my hearties; I know how to trick them now.”
He raised the telescope to his eye and brought it to bear upon the Mermaid.
“All right,” he exclaimed a few seconds later, “she sees our number—haul down! Now signal her to chase in the north-eastern quarter. Hurrah, my hearties, that’s your sort! There goes her answering pennant; and there she hauls to the wind on the starboard tack. That disposes of her at all events. Now signal the Favourite and Drake to chase to the nor’ard; that will send them through the Mona Passage, and leave us with a clear sea.”
A quarter of an hour later the three cruisers which had caused the mutineers so much uneasiness were thrashing to windward under every rag they could spread; when Farmer bore up and ran away to the southward and westward with studding-sails set on both sides of the ship.