"Why," said Rupert, "I was thinking of them as substitutes for ourselves on the row bank. Someone must man the oars, one supposes, and I've no special ambition to go back to the work again myself."
"Nor me. I've been making t' beggars pay pretty dear this last few minutes for the wark they've had out o' me on this galley. But tha'rt right, young feller, there must be no more killing. It's a fooil's trick cutting off yer nose to spite yer face."
"Help Master Laughan and me to hold off these savages then."
"Right," said Simpson, and began in his great bull's voice to call out names. "Jobson! Hugh! Drapeau! Makepeace! Lebreton!" he shouted for, and then named others, and presently these men worked their way up through the rabble of the Spanish slaves. With the Prince and the secretary they made a line across the poop, beginning at the rudder head, and then with word and blows with the flat drove the maddened Spanish slaves forward away from their killing, and passed all living unarmed soldiers they met with behind them.
Presently these slaves began sullenly to listen to reason, and though they were far from seeing the justice by which a small knot of men, who shortly before had been slaves equally with themselves should set up a command, they understood that these few who drove them had once been buccaneers, and so they resigned themselves to their superiority. So quickly order was restored; the dead were put over the side, the soldier-prisoners were clapped into the vacant chains and bidden acquire the mystery of oarsmanship; and the sailors of the galley who had stayed non-interferent and unmolested, returned to their accustomed duties without being especially bidden. They were rather poor-spirited creatures, these same Spanish sailormen.
It remained to elect a captain and a course, and this was done with small argument. The Yorkshireman Simpson took upon himself to make nomination. "Bretheren," he said, "and scum, just listen here, all o' you. This 'ere young feller, that's planned this rising is a Prince, an' 'e's my matelot. I therefore propose 'im as Captain. If there's any beggar as 'as any objections, let 'im just step here an' I'll cut 'is throat.—No one's onything to say to that? Well, young feller, tha'rt elected Captain, pleasant an' unanimous, an' we all serve under you according to the rules of the Bretheren of the Coast."
"Gentlemen," said Rupert, "I thank you for the honour, and will endeavour to deserve it. I believe, according to the Rules, my first duty is to call a council of all hands, and I do that herewith. But before there is time used up in speech-making, I should like to point out that we may be called upon for further action presently. There has been noise enough made on this galley to scare heaven, and I do not see very well how her consorts can have avoided taking the alarm. Presently one supposes they'll come up to see what the uproar's about, and we should be able to give them their answer in due form."
"Let them come," said Simpson, "we'll give them all the fighting they've any stomachs for."
"But to what profit, Master Simpson? We shall simply kill a parcel of soldiers whose trade it is to be killed, and the Spaniards ashore will only shrug their shoulders, and say the poor fellows have merely received what they were hired for. Now my grievance is more against those said Spaniards ashore, and moreover, I am remembering always that I came out to these seas to gather revenues for my master the King, who now keeps his court at The Hague."
"Kings is note to me," said Simpson with a frown, "an' I'll bet they're no more to onybody on this galley, unless they're a fancy of Master Laughan's."