"Sandy Grant bashed the mate in the head
And dropped him overside.
The second mate they stabbed abed,
And so the ten clerks died.
"The cook they choked on his own salt pork;
But Simmy they couldn't find,
For Simmy was daft, and their evil talk
Had addled his feeble mind.
"He groped his way to the darkest hold,
With ax and bit and saw,
And laughed with glee as the waters rolled
In through the hole he tore.
"Oh, that was the end of the Elephant—
She's under the Biscay seas,
And she'll never more slant past Ushant,
Bound for the East Indies."
By the time they came to the last verse the whole crew must have been singing. The roar of voices made the dishes quiver on the table before us.
"A proper song, 'The Elephant," commented Flint's voice. "Barrin' 'Fifteen Men' 'tis the best I know. I ain't no preacher, but I can't help bearin' in mind that every crew has some feller like Simmy, some feller as always wants to scuttle the prize for his own satisfaction, and never mind what his mates thinks."
There was no answer to this, only the slapping of bare feet on the deck and the rustle of men crowded close together.
"Well, speak up, fo'csle," he went on with a note of satire. "What d'ye seek? I've heard tell as how there was talk of givin' me the Black Spot—whatever that may be—and sailin' home by your lones and dead reckonin'. What's the argyment, I say?"
The companionway acted like a voice-tube to carry the deck-noises to our ears; but hearing was not the same as seeing, so Peter and I persuaded Moira to slip into her stateroom and ourselves advanced to a position immediately inside the doorway issuing upon the main deck, where the council was being held.
The scene was almost identical with that which I had witnessed a few nights previously when I spied upon Flint's preparations to surprize Murray. Flint sat, as he had then, upon an upturned barrel, with Bones, Silver, Pew and two or three more. The remainder of the crew were squatted on the deck, a semicircular pattern of coppery faces and tattooed chests. The weather had turned warm after the storm, and practically all of them wore Darby's costume, a pair of trousers or breeches, usually slashed off above the knees.