Three-quarters of an hour of such anxiety passed, and then Taffir was flung into one of the boats, which contained the cook, the steward, Frank Powell, Watto, and the ship’s boy, named Early. Evidently he was not going to be murdered after all. In another boat, riding at the stern, were several other men, while the rest were still on board the Flowery Land.
Presently the boat in which Taffir had been thrown was pulled away from the ship, but had only gone about a hundred yards when those on the Flowery Land called her back. Taffir’s heart sank. Was he, after all, going to be hauled back to death? He took heart again the next instant, for the men in the boat, with the exception of Watto, did not want to go back, and refused to pull towards the ship. Powell, who steered, refused to turn her head round, and Taffir thanked him in the silence of his own heart. Suddenly Watto, seizing an oar, threatened to knock Powell’s brains out if he didn’t do as he was told; and the boat’s head swung round, and she sped towards the ship. They were anxious moments for poor Taffir, whose mind was not set at rest when Lyons, on the Flowery Land, ordered the lot of them to get back on deck.
Why they were called back Taffir did not know, and was not told; probably it was because the others did not want one boat to start before the rest. Anyhow, for a long time Taffir was kept on deck; and though he could see but little in the darkness, he heard the noise made as the scoundrels loaded the boats, not forgetting the champagne, bottles of which they lowered into the craft riding at the sides. The Chinese steward fell into the water while trying to get aboard from the boat, and while struggling for life was pelted with bottles of champagne till he sank. Taffir saw his own fate there.
Soon, however, as though to prolong his agony, they threw him into a boat, this time the one in which Lyons and Blanco were to sail. The fact that it was Blanco’s boat was anything but pleasing to Taffir, who remembered what Marsolino had told him, and trembled for his life. Durrano and Lopez, other Spaniards, also got into this boat, which was presently pushed off; and almost immediately afterwards the Flowery Land, which had been scuttled, and had begun to settle some time before, gave a final plunge and dived beneath the surface. Through the darkness Taffir could see the Chinese boy and the cook clinging to the top; they had been left to their fate, and not a hand was held out to save them.
Lyons’s boat towed the other towards land, which was reached at four o’clock in the afternoon of October 9. Taffir was told that, if he valued his life, he was to say that the vessel was an American ship from Peru, bound for Bordeaux, and that she had foundered a hundred miles from land, that the captain had got into one boat, and had not been seen since, and that the two boats which had come ashore had been at sea for five days and nights.
In his heart Taffir had made up his mind to tell of the tragedy as soon as an opportunity presented itself. That night the party slept at a farmhouse, and the next day the farmer drove them to Rocha. Watching his time, Taffir managed to find out that at a place called Camp, twenty miles away, was a man named Ramoz, who could speak English; and one night he slipped out of Rocha and made his way to Camp. He located Ramoz, to whom he told his tale, and later he was taken to the authorities, where once more he recited the events that had taken place on the Flowery Land, with the result that eight of the mutineers were captured, and in due course put on their trial at the Central Criminal Court, London. Lyons, Durrano, Santos, Watto, Blanco, Marsolino, and Lopez were found guilty of murder, Carlos being acquitted.
Altogether, the mutiny of the Flowery Land is a lurid story of the sea.
THE GUARDIANS OF THE COAST
Stories of Coastguards and Lighthousemen
ALTHOUGH the coastguard and lighthouseman live their lives on land, they are inalienably a part of the sea and its story. Day by day, night by night, they are on guard along the coasts, and never know what may happen; but, whatever it is, they are ready.