"There won't be much of it," said Baptiste, after he had scanned the heavens. "Let us shake out the spanker and lie-to under that for the night. And to-morrow morning, captain, you must decide how you are going to rid us of these men. We are too few to work the vessel, and cannot be bothered with guarding prisoners to please you."
CHAPTER XV
Her capture having been effected, the barque lay hove-to under her spanker for the night.
The south-east wind died away about midnight, and a light south-westerly breeze sprang up. A strong ocean current must have been setting from the same direction; for, though the islet of Trinidad had been so far distant at sunset as to be barely visible, the sound of breakers roaring on a beach could be plainly distinguished towards the end of the middle watch.
At daybreak Carew was left alone in charge of the vessel, his three men being asleep under the awning. He paced the deck restlessly, his heart aching with despairing misery.
The five prisoners, who were lashed along the foot of the port bulwarks, as if by one consent, observed a complete silence. They were too far apart to hold any communication with each other, and they knew how useless it would be to appeal to the mercy of the villains who had surprised them; but they all remained awake, watching intently for what they felt was not at all likely to occur—an opportunity to regain their freedom and fight for their lives.
The rain had ceased, the clouds had cleared away, and out of the calm night gleamed the brilliant constellations of the southern hemisphere. There was a transparency, a depth in the heavens, such as is not apparent in northern latitudes. Through the nearer archipelagos of stars one could perceive others farther back, and beyond these others; stars behind stars up inconceivable distances into the depths of space; so that they were so crowded together as to almost unite in forming one continuous sheet of silver light, save in one spot, where, amid that most luminous portion of the firmament known as Magellan's Cloud, there opened out, like to a black pit, a starless void, an infinite abyss of nothingness.
There came a faint emerald light in the east, which quickly changed to the pale blue of the turquoise, and the stars faded away before the rapid dawn of the tropics.