Chapter Seven.
Lieutenant Walford finds himself in an exceedingly unpleasant Position.
On the morning following the seizure of the Princess Royal by her misguided crew, the day broke tardily, revealing to the mutineers a wild, threatening sky, a high and increasing sea, the curling foam-crests of which raced after the ship menacingly, and an unbroken horizon all round. Not a solitary sail of any description was visible; they were alone, at the mercy of the towering mountain-surges, and of the gale which howled deafeningly past them. The sight which on that morning presented itself from the poop of the crippled ship was one to make the stoutest heart quail, to impress the onlooker with an overpowering sense of his own insignificance compared with Him who holds the ocean in the hollow of His hand, and of the blasphemous arrogance of those who would presume to take upon themselves one of the functions of the Almighty, and, in the blindness of their anger, attempt to mete out to their fellow-men that justice which it is His alone to repay.
Yet no such idea presented itself to the mutineers; or, if it did, each man was careful to conceal it from all the rest. They had been systematically down-trodden and ill-treated from the commencement of the voyage; their lives had been made a burden to them; and now—having at last been provoked into the throwing off of their yoke of insupportable bondage—they thirsted for revenge upon the authors of their miseries.
As might be expected, the whole internal economy of the ship was upset from the moment that she fell into the hands of the mutineers. Their first act, on the morning in question, was to transfer the male passengers from the cabin to the forecastle, and to remove their own belongings aft into the state-rooms thus rendered vacant. The ladies, of whom, fortunately, there were only half a dozen on board, were permitted for the present to retain possession of their state-rooms, being given to understand, however, that it was only upon the express condition that they were to make no attempt whatever to meddle with the arrangements of the mutineers, nor to communicate in any way with the male passengers confined in the forecastle.
These arrangements completed, Rogers ordered the steward to prepare and serve to the mutineers in the saloon the best breakfast that the resources of the ship would allow; the passengers in the forecastle to be served with such a meal as ordinarily fell to the lot of the seamen; while the deposed captain and the two mates were to be left entirely without food of any kind. These orders were carried out to the letter; the unfortunate ladies being compelled to take their seats as usual at the breakfast table, and share the meal of the mutineers.
This being over, the table was cleared; spirits and tobacco were called for, and Rogers, from his seat at the head of the saloon-table, gave orders that the captain and the two mates should be brought aft, and put upon their trial before a court of the whole crew.
“There’s one more as I votes we try at the same time, and that’s the sodger-officer as got poor Dicky Rudd his flogging,” observed one of the men.
“Very well,” assented Rogers, “bring him along, too, mates; I intended to take him by hisself, but it don’t matter; bring the whole four of ’em.”
In a few minutes Captain Arnold, Nicholls the chief mate, and Thomson the second mate, with Lieutenant Walford, were ushered into the saloon, handcuffed, and guarded by eight armed mutineers.
“The prisoners is before the court,” announced Talbot, in a loud voice, anxious to make the proceedings partake as much of the character of a ceremonial as possible.
The four men were then ordered to range themselves in line at the foot of the table, an order which, after a little hesitation, they sullenly obeyed.
Meanwhile, the mutineers, having been served with tobacco and brandy, had lighted their pipes and provided themselves, each man, with a stiff rummer of grog. A cursory observer would possibly have thought the scene grotesque; but the four men ranged at the foot of the table speedily detected in the countenances of their self-constituted judges, an expression of stern determination which caused their hearts to sink and their cheeks to blanch with sudden fear.
A low-toned consultation now ensued between Rogers and those nearest him, in which Talbot was summoned to take part. At its conclusion the latter withdrew a little apart, and Rogers, turning to the captain, said—
“Robert Arnold, yours is the first case. Who is the prosecutor?”
“I am,” answered Talbot, “on behalf of the whole crew.”
“Very good,” acquiesced Rogers. “Benjamin Talbot, state y’ur case.”
Upon this, Talbot stepped up to the cabin-table and said—
“On behalf of the whole crew of this here ship—the Princess Royal—I charges Robert Arnold, late skipper of the same, with havin’ treated all hands before the mast in a most onjustifiable manner. As you’re fully aweer, shipmates, we was short-handed when we left London; and at Plymouth the men-o’-war robbed us of four of our best hands, makin’ us more short-handed still. Very well. Now what’s the dooty of a skipper to his crew under such sarcumstances as this here? Why, I say his dooty is to make things as easy as possible for ’em. Instead o’ which this here Robert Arnold, the prisoner as we’re tryin’, he goes and expects us to do as much work, and to do it as smartly, as if the ship was fully manned. And because we couldn’t do it—as it stands to reason we couldn’t—he goes and makes extra work for us by way of punishment; he robs us of our a’ternoon watch below; he stops our grog; he tyrannises over us in every imaginable way; he treats us like dogs and not like men, abusin’ and bullyin’ us, and goin’ out of his way to hurt our feelin’s; he refuses to listen to our just complaints; he encourages the first and second mates to sarve out to us the same sort of treatment as he gives us hisself, instead of takin’ our part and treatin’ us with justice; and he does all this not once in a way only, but from the very commencement of the v’yage. And, lastly, he orders a sick man to be flogged; laughs at the poor chap’s sufferin’s; and refuses to sarve out the necessaries to dress his wounds a’terwards. That, shipmates, is the charge I brings against Robert Arnold.”
“You hears the charge agin the prisoner, shipmates all?” observed Rogers, glancing round the table. “Ben Talbot brings this here charge in the name of all hands; so, if there’s any of yer as disagrees with what he’ve said, just stand up like men and say so.”
A profound silence followed, no man making the slightest sign or token of dissent. “Very well,” resumed Rogers; “nobody don’t seem to have anything to say agin the charge. Now, you that agrees with Talbot, and thinks as he’ve stated the case fairly, hold up y’ur hands.”
Every hand was at once and unhesitatingly raised at arm’s length.
“Unanermous,” pronounced Rogers. “Now, Robert Arnold, you’ve heard what’s been charged agin yer, and you’ve seen that all hands of us agrees that the charge is just. What have yer got to say in y’ur defence?”
“Nothing,” answered the captain; “except that I utterly disclaim your right to sit in judgment upon me or to criticise my actions in any manner whatsoever. Your conduct is in the last degree illegal and unjustifiable. You are a pack of mutinous scoundrels; and I warn you that a terrible punishment will surely overtake you if you persist in your defiance of my authority. If, however, you will return to your duty and deliver up to us, your duly appointed officers, the ringleaders in this disgraceful mutiny, I will undertake to overlook this most serious offence, so far as the rest of you are concerned.”
“You hear what the prisoner says, shipmates,” observed Rogers calmly. “Do you consider as he’ve made good his defence? Is it your opinion as he’ve justified hisself? Them as thinks he have, hold up their hands. Them as thinks he haven’t, stand up.”
The self-constituted judges with one accord rose to their feet.
“That’ll do; you may sit down agin,” remarked Rogers. “The prisoner is found guilty. The next question to be settled is the matter of punishment. Now, there’s a many ways of punishing a man, some on ’em more severe than others. The most severest as I knows is death; death by hangin’ from the yard-arm. Them as thinks the prisoner Arnold deservin’ of this punishment, hold up their hands.”
Two or three hands were hesitatingly raised, and, after a slight pause, lowered again.
“Do I understand as everybody thinks hangin’ too severe?” inquired Rogers, glancing slowly round the table. “I do,”—as no hands were shown. “Well then, let’s try something else. Perhaps, shipmates, some of yer’s got a hidee as you’d like to put afore the court? If so, let’s hear what it is.”
“I thinks as it would be no more nor he desarves if we was to treat him for the rest of the v’yage as he’ve treated us from the beginnin’ of it. He’d know then what it’s like, and if he lives long enough to get the command of another ship, maybe he’ll then know better how to treat his crew,” observed one of the men.
“Not at all a bad idee,” commented Rogers. “You’ve heard what Phil says; what d’ye think on’t?”
“I thinks it’s a capical notion,” remarked one.
“I’m agreeable,” intimated another.
“Ay; let’s see how he likes that sort of thing hisself,” remarked a third.
And so on; all hands intimating their concurrence in the suggestion.
“Wery good,” remarked Rogers, when all had spoken. Then, turning to the captain, he said—
“Robert Arnold, the sentence of this here court is that you’m to be turned for’ard and conwerted into a ‘hordinary seaman,’ to do a hordinary seaman’s dooties, and to receive just exactly the same treatment as you’ve sarved out to the hands since this here ship sailed from Hold England, namely, more kicks than ha’pence. And the Lord have mercy on yer miserable carcase!”
He paused for a moment on concluding this—in his opinion—impressive address, and then ordered that Arnold should be removed to the forecastle, and the chief mate brought forward.
This was done, and as Nicholls, the chief mate, stepped forward in answer to his name, his ashy pale face, his trepidation of manner, and his imperfect articulation all showed him to be labouring under a very agony of fear.
The charge against him was also preferred by Talbot in pretty much the same language as was used by that individual in his charge against the captain; the accusation in the present case, however, being to the effect that Nicholls, occupying as he did the influential post of chief mate, had, instead of using his influence with the captain to make matters as agreeable as possible for the men, countenanced, aided, abetted, and encouraged his superior in the adoption of a harsh and tyrannical course of conduct. Upon this charge he was found guilty; and his sentence was similar to that of the captain’s, with the addition that he was to receive at the gangway twenty-five lashes, well laid on.
Thomson, the second mate, was now called forward; and the yell of fiendish delight which greeted him as the bully staggered up to the cabin-table, fairly caused his teeth to chatter with affright.
The charge against him was made by Talbot, who plunged eagerly into his task with a manifest gusto which had been well suppressed in the previous cases. The indictment was very similar to that preferred against Nicholls; but, in addition to all that the latter had been charged with, Talbot rapidly enumerated a long list of wanton cruelties and petty tyrannies which had sprung spontaneously and unprompted as it were from the second mate’s own evil nature. At the conclusion of Talbot’s address the men, without waiting for Rogers to formally charge them, sprang eagerly to their feet and clamorously declared the prisoner guilty.
The question of punishment was then referred to by Rogers; and the moment that he ceased to speak, the shout of “Death! Death! Hanging from the yard-arm,” rang through the cabin. “And let him have five dozen at the gangway before he’s strung up, just by way of payin’ off Dicky Rudd’s debt with interest,” added a voice. The suggestion was carried by acclamation; and the miserable man was informed that the sentence against him would be carried into effect at the conclusion of the trial of the fourth prisoner, Lieutenant Walford, who was now commanded to stand forward.
Walford stepped up to the cabin-table with an assumption of firmness which was completely belied by the ghastly pallor of his countenance and the convulsive twitching of his white lips. Grasping the table with both hands, he said in a voice which he in vain attempted to render steady—
“Before you proceed any further in this matter I wish to remind you that I am merely a passenger on board this ship, and that I have nothing whatever to do with any quarrel which may exist between you and your officers. I have heard the charges which you have preferred against them, and I am wholly at a loss to understand in what way you associate me with them; you can scarcely suppose, I imagine, that the passengers would regard themselves as called upon to interfere in the management or discipline of the ship; for my own part, I have always considered you quite able to manage your own affairs, and quite capable of putting a stop to any injustice to which you might be subjected; you never appealed to me for help, and you therefore ought not to be surprised if I have held aloof.”
He paused here for a moment and glanced anxiously round the table to note the effect of his address, and seeing, by the stern expression on the faces of the men seated at the table, that he had wholly failed to make a favourable impression, he hastily proceeded to add—
“Furthermore, let me remind you that I am an officer and a gentleman, the wearer of his Most Gracious Majesty’s uniform, and in virtue of that fact I may claim—I do claim—to be in some sort his Majesty’s representative, on board this ship. Any violence or indignity offered to me, therefore, is tantamount to offering the same to the king himself; and, as you are all fully aware, to offer indignity or violence to the king’s person is high treason, a crime punishable with death. I hope, therefore, that you will pause and consider well the consequences of any hasty action which your present temporary assumption of power might betray you into, and that, before it is too late, and before you have too deeply inculpated yourselves, you will see the advisability of restoring to me my freedom.”
If he expected this appeal to be of any benefit to him he was sorely disappointed, for the gloomy, repellent expression on the faces of his judges, was only deepened by his ill-advised address.
A moment or two of complete silence followed the utterance of his closing words; and then Rogers, looking him straight in the face, said—
“Well, pris’ner, have yer quite finished?”
“Surely I have said sufficient to demonstrate to you the impolicy, as well as the injustice, of making me suffer for the faults of others?” exclaimed Walford.
“Glad you think so,” replied Rogers, with a sardonic grin. “Howsoever,” he continued, “you may keep y’ur mind easy about one thing; we ain’t goin’ to make yer ‘suffer for the faults of others,’ as you calls it; you’ll only be made to suffer for faults of y’ur own; and bad enough you’ll find that, I reckon. Now, Ben, what’s the charge agin this one?”
“I charges him,” answered Talbot, “with havin’ wilfully spoke the words what got poor Dicky Rudd two dozen lashes at the gangway, when the poor feller was ’most too sick to stand upright. If he hadn’t spoke as likely as not the skipper had never ha’ thought of it, and, so far as that goes, I believes that all hands of us is agreed that he wouldn’t. Therefore I charges this here pris’ner with bein’ the man what acshully got poor Dicky his floggin’.”
“You hears, pris’ner, what the crew has against yer; what have yer got to say to it?” interrogated Rogers.
Walford had evidently either forgotten all about his ill-advised suggestion, or had believed the crew to be ignorant of it: he seemed to have thought that the utmost extent of the mutineers’ complaint against him would be that he had not interfered in their behalf. When therefore he heard the charge against him, and realised the fact that he was wholly in their power, and utterly at their mercy, his courage—which at the best of times was only of a very flimsy and unreliable character—utterly gave way; he involuntarily turned his eyes for a moment upon the miserable second mate; recalled the fact that the wretched man had been doomed to a speedy and degrading death by the same individuals who were now sitting in judgment upon him; and a shameful panic took possession of him. An uncontrollable shivering fit seized his frame, he was obliged to clench his teeth together, to prevent them from chattering audibly; he glanced wildly round him as if seeking for some means of escape; and, after two or three ineffectual efforts to speak, he managed to gasp out brokenly through his clenched teeth and quivering lips—
“I—I—I give you—my—my sacred word of honour, gen-gentlemen, that I was o-only in—jest. I nev-never believed for a—a moment that Cap-t-tain Arnold would t-take my remark seriously, or I as-sure you I would n-n-ever have uttered it. And besides, I re-real-ly believed that your—friend R-R-udd was—was only sh-h—er—ah—I beg your pardon gentlemen, I sc-scarcely know what I am saying, but—oh, gentlemen I don’t be hard upon me—have mercy upon me, for God’s sake! Spare my life, and you may do with me what you will.”
He ceased, from sheer physical inability to utter another word, and, sinking upon his knees, stretched forth his quaking hands in a mute appeal for mercy.
This disgraceful exhibition of cowardice was almost successful in winning for Walford an ignominious release. The mutineers were so unutterably disgusted that, for a moment, their impulse was to kick him out of the cabin like a craven hound and henceforward ignore his existence. But this impulse lasted only for a moment; they recalled to mind the insolent arrogance with which this same cowering creature had treated them when he deemed himself secure from retaliation; and they determined that, while his miserable life was not worth the taking, he should still receive so salutary a lesson as should effectually deter him from any repetition of the offence for the remainder of his life.
“Well, shipmates,” exclaimed Rogers, breaking the painful silence which had followed Walford’s shameful appeal, “what d’ye think? Is the pris’ner guilty or not guilty?”
“Guilty!” was the unanimous declaration of the assembly.
“Guilty? In course he is. And what’s the punishment to be? Death?”
“Oh, no! Not death—not death, gentlemen. For the love of God, spare my life; I am not fit to die; I am not indeed. You see how young a man I am; why, I have never yet thought about dying. Mercy! mercy!” shrieked the miserable wretch as he grovelled on his knees before them, and sought to clasp the knees of the man nearest him—an attempt which was repulsed with an oath, a look of unutterable loathing, a kick, and a brutal blow on the mouth.
“Come, lads, speak up,” urged Rogers, wholly unmoved by the interruption, “say what the punishment’s to be, and let’s have done with it. I’m sick of this here, I am.”
“Well,” said Talbot, stepping forward, “I wotes that the prisoner be first made to go and axe poor Dicky’s pardon. If he can’t get it, why, let’s string him up at the yard-arm to balance t’other one. But if Dicky likes to forgi’e him, well, we’ll spare his life and redooce his punishment to two dozen at the gangway—same as he got for Rudd—and make him do Rudd’s dooty ’til the poor chap’s better; arter which the prisoner can be set to do all the dirty work o’ the ship. How’s that, shipmates?”
“Ay, ay, Ben; that’ll do, bo’, that’ll do fust-rate. And he may thank his lucky stars at bein’ let off so precious easy,” was Rogers’ reply; in which the remainder of the men laughingly acquiesced.
“Then you’d better step this way at once, young feller,” remarked Talbot to the miserable Walford, “and see what you can do with poor Dicky. If he won’t forgive yer, mind, it’s all up with yer.”
So saying he opened the door of the state-room in which Rudd was lying, thrust his victim into the apartment, and closed the door upon him.
The state-room into which Walford was thus unceremoniously ushered was divided from the saloon by a bulkhead with a door in it, the upper panel of which was fitted with sloping slats like those of the Venetian window-blinds of the present day; it was perfectly easy, therefore, for an occupant of the state-room to hear all that passed in the saloon, and vice versâ. As a matter of fact, Rudd, who was lying in his berth, broad awake, had heard every word uttered during the course of the trial, and shrewdly suspecting that his shipmates were more anxious to thoroughly frighten than to actually hurt their fourth prisoner, and having, moreover, a trifling personal grudge against the man who had secured for him his flogging, he determined to have a little amusement at Walford’s expense before according to him the pardon which he knew his shipmates expected of him. When, therefore, Walford staggered up to the side of the berth, and began eagerly and incoherently to stammer forth the most abject apologies and the wildest prayers for forgiveness, Rudd simply growled forth an oath and impatiently flung himself over in the berth with his back to the petitioner. This had the intended effect of causing Walford’s apologies and prayers to be reiterated with increased eagerness and incoherence, to the hearty amusement of the men in the saloon.
At length Talbot opened the state-room door, and, thrusting in his head, said roughly—
“Here, come out of that, mister; you’ve worried poor Dicky quite long enough. If he won’t forgive yer, why, he won’t, and that settles it. You’ve had a fair chance to see what you could do with him, and you’ve failed; we decided to give yer a quarter of a hour, and the time’s up; so out you comes; d’ye hear?”
The next moment Walford was seized by the collar, and was being dragged roughly enough out of the state-room, when Rudd, pretending to relent, called out—
“There, take him away, Ben; but don’t be too hard on him; I forgives him just this once, and I hopes he won’t never do it again.”
Walford, upon hearing these words, which seemed to him a reprieve from the very jaws of death, broke away from Talbot’s grasp, and, rushing back to the side of the berth, seized Rudd’s hand, kissed it wildly, and burst into an uncontrollable passion of tears, in the midst of which he was hustled unceremoniously out on deck.