Chapter Sixteen.
In which Jack’s cruise is ended, and he regains the Harpy.
A few more days passed, and, as was expected, the mutineers could hold out no longer. In the first place, they had put in the spile of the second cask of wine so loosely when they were tipsy that it dropped out, and all the wine ran out, so that there had been none left for three or four days; in the next, their fuel had long been expended, and they had latterly eaten their meat raw; the loss of their tent, which had been fired by their carelessness, had been followed by four days and nights of continual rain. Everything they had had been soaked through and through, and they were worn out, shivering with cold, and starving. Hanging they thought better than dying by inches from starvation; and, yielding to the imperious demands of hunger, they came down to the beach, abreast of the ship, and dropped down on their knees.
“I tell you so, Massa Easy,” said Mesty: “damn rascals, they forget they come down fire musket at us every day: by all de powers, Mesty not forget it.”
“Ship ahoy!” cried one of the men on shore.
“What do you want?” replied Jack.
“Have pity on us, sir—mercy!” exclaimed the other men, “we will return to our duty.”
“Debbil doubt ’em!”
“What shall I say, Mesty?”
“Tell ’em no, first, Massa Easy—tell ’em to starve and be damned.”