“Then,” said Mr. Every, “prepare to go ashore.”
What honest sailorman would not be plowed in his feelings by his old commander’s plight? Should I have been ashamed though my tears dropped upon the captain’s trembling hand? He looked kindly upon me as I stood there still in my shirt and stockings.
“Go, faithful May,” he said at last. “Nothing will avail now.”
IV
I went back to the deck to get my bearings. From one and another, so far as the tumult which was on the ship permitted, I made out that the taking of the Charles the Second was in this wise:
Mr. Every, using the common grief about the wages to serve his turn, made fellow-plotters of some score of men, both in the Charles the Second and the James. The night having been picked out on the calendar, it was agreed that at a given time by the clock one from the Charles the Second should go to the James and say that the Charles the Second was being run off. The officers of the James, it was expected, would order out the pinnace in pursuit, when the friends of Mr. Every were to crowd forward, fill the boat, and make for the Charles the Second, where instead of arresting her they would turn to and haul together with their companion miscreants of the Charles the Second, who in the meantime would have seized the ordnance and ammunitions aboard our ship. The cables of the Charles the Second were to be cut, all but two of her boats turned adrift, and her sails shaken out loose.
Things went smoothly according to plan. At nine o’clock one went from the Charles the Second to the James. At the head of the gangway of that ship he found Mr. Druit, mate, on watch. Says he to Mr. Druit—
“Have you seen the drunken boatswain of ours aboard your ship?”
“No,” says Mr. Druit. “Isn’t he aboard of you?”
“Nay,” said the villain conspirator; “he’s not aboard, but mischief is.”