"Bon Christiano! Bon Christiano!" he called endearingly. The next hour, however, the wind would change. He would stroll along the deck followed by the very Moslems he had reviled, and if he found any of us at fault about our work he would bid his Moors knock our heads together. He was afraid to carry these tyrannies too far, for MacWilliams was prone to look upon him with a look that warned him that the Christian sailors were too valuable to Mohammedan safety to be abused too far.
One night, while I was on watch, MacWilliams approached me. His hand rested on my shoulder with a fatherly touch that moved me greatly.
"The time has come when I need your help," he said. "I intend to take this ship to England despite her crew of Mohammedans. If the plan goes through, every Christian slave aboard the Hawk shall step upon the earth of Europe a free man. I've been watching you. I believe you agree that it's better to risk death than to go on leading such a life. There are other slaves who think the same way. What do you say, lad?"
"Just you try me!" I said. "I owe the infidels a score that can hardly be wiped out. Besides, hasn't the skipper threatened to sew me in a sack and toss me overboard? Of course, you can trust me, and Mustapha, too!"
"Lad, lad," MacWilliams went on, "we English blame the Turks, yet we have been reaping the fruits of what our own race has sowed. The story has passed down to me, through generations of seafaring ancestors, of how when good Queen Elizabeth passed and when the English and Spaniards ceased for a time their warfare at sea, hundreds of sailors who had fought in bloody battles under Drake were at a loss for employment and found it in piracy.
"Down to the Mediterranean they went and entered the service of these evil Moors. It was our forebears who taught the Moslems how to become good sea-fighters. It was men of our own race who first led the Barbary corsairs forth on buccaneering expeditions. What our forefathers started, some of us have carried on, but the time has come to end it all!"
Continuing, for we had an idle hour to pass, and the mate was desirous of heartening me for our desperate undertaking, MacWilliams told me of how in 1639 William Okeley, an English slave, had constructed in the cellar of his master's shop a light canoe made of canvas, making oars from the staves of empty wind pipes. This craft he and his companions smuggled down to the beach, and five of them embarked in it and made their way safely to Majorca. The hardest part of the enterprise was their farewell to two other English slaves who were to have made the voyage with them, but who were found to overweight the little boat.
"With the help of Gunner Watson," MacWilliams explained as I drew him out as to his plan, "we should be able to trap the Moslems between the decks; get control of the cannon and powder, and sail the ship into some European port. It'll be turning the tables in fine style—a Christian crew bringing infidels as captives to an English harbor!"
He proceeded to set forth his plan in detail. "By to-morrow," he concluded, "I shall know every trustworthy man. I shall then give each man a definite part. Such a way of escape has been in my mind for years. A man with a Presbyterian conscience can never remain a Mohammedan. If our plot succeeds I shall make a contribution to the church of my fathers that I hope shall to some extent offset my wickedness!"
Mustapha carried food from the galley to Murad. MacWilliams told me that it was essential to the success of the plot that Murad be made too ill to note the direction of the ship. The mate was skilful in Oriental medicines, and he produced a phial containing a liquid that, while tasteless, yet had the power to nauseate and weaken a man. While Mustapha obligingly turned his back, and while I kept guard, MacWilliams poured the fluid into Murad's broth. The Egyptian was taken with what seemed to be chronic sea-sickness and kept to his cabin. I do not think he suspected that his food had been "doctored." He ordered MacWilliams to sail close to certain ports and to pursue any vessel that was not plainly a warship.