Hoping for the best, seeing no better course open to her, and yet troubled with misgivings, Lady Biddy descended the side and took her place in the barge. Then in silence the men pulled her ashore. Yet did they look keenly one at the other, as if expecting some merry turn of this business—one thrusting his tongue in his cheek, a second winking his eye, and a third hawking as if he had a rheum.
However, they said not one word, and having set Lady Biddy on shore very tenderly, they shoved off and returned to the ship.
Now, not knowing which way to turn nor what to do, for her position being so unexpected, and feeling like one set alone in another world, Lady Biddy rested her hand on the tree by which she stood, and in a kind of maze watched the boat returning to the ship.
Then she began to wonder how long it would be ere the men would be dispersed and I should come to her, and what means we should find of getting to that town Rodrigues had spoken of.
The men left the boat and went up on board, and still Lady Biddy watched, as if she had but just woke from her sleep, and was dazed (as she told me); but of a sudden a great shout burst upon her ear, and as quickly it flashed upon her intelligence that a false trick had been put upon her, which she might have foreseen had she been as subtle as Rodrigues, which (thanks be to God) she was not. Then for the first time it occurred to her that while she was being carried to the shore Rodrigues might send part of his company below to take the powder from the armory, or to be prepared with muskets to shoot me dead the moment I lifted the trap.
And now hearing this shout she was convinced that precautions had been taken to prevent the blowing up of the ship, and the men were rushing into the cabin to take me.
But this was not the worst. As she strained her eyes, as if to pierce the side of the ship and know my fate, she perceived a boat shoot from the further side of the ship and turn towards her. For a moment she believed that I had contrived to escape, for there was but one man in the boat; but looking more narrowly she perceived, to her horror, that the man was Tonga the negro; and coming towards her he raised a terrible yell of savage joy and triumph.
Rodrigues, true to his word, had offered the black a reward for the pain he had been put to; and now, as he came on exulting to satiate his lust and vengeance, my poor Lady Biddy screamed aloud to me.
But it was too late; and Lady Biddy, feeling she was now most surely undone, could not even cry again for help.