While we were all still talking together in the saloon, Briggs, the chief steward, entered in a state of great indignation, and, addressing himself to Carter, informed him that the men demanded fried ham and various other dainties from the cabin stores for breakfast, and upon his venturing to remonstrate with them had darkly hinted that unless he produced the required provisions at once, together with several bottles of rum, it would be the worse for him.
“What do you say, Mr Grenvile?” demanded Carter, appealing to me. “Shall we let them have what they ask for?”
“Certainly,” I said, “seeing that at present we are not in a position to refuse them and make good our refusal. Let them have whatever they ask for, but be as sparing as you possibly can with the grog; we do not want them to have enough to make them quarrelsome, or to render them unfit to go ashore.”
“It goes mightily against the grain with me to serve out those good cabin stores to such a pack of drunken loafers as them, sir,” remonstrated Briggs.
“Never mind,” said I. “We are in their hands at present, and cannot very well help ourselves. You shall have your revenge later, when we have got the rascals safe below in irons.”
So they had what some of them inelegantly described as “a good blow-out” that morning in the forecastle, while we were having our own breakfast in the cabin; and, so far as drink was concerned, Tonkin was wise enough to see to it that, in view of their projected trip ashore, no man had more liquor than he could conveniently carry.
And while we sat at breakfast the gentlemen who had been on deck gave us the result of such observations as they had been able to make from the poop, which, after all, did not amount to much, the only conclusion at which they had arrived being that we were ashore on the inner edge of a sandbank which had formed athwart the mouth of a river, the extent of which could not be seen from the ship in consequence of the fact that there were two points of land, one overlapping the other, which hid everything beyond them. These two points, the general added, were thickly overgrown with mangroves, and the land immediately behind was low and densely wooded, coconut trees and palms being apparently very plentiful, while a few miles inland the ground rose into low hills, from the midst of which a single mountain towered into the air to a height of some five or six thousand feet.
We were still dawdling over breakfast when we heard sounds of movement out on deck, and presently Briggs, who had been instructed to reconnoitre from the pantry window, which commanded a view of the main-deck, sent word by one of the under-stewards that some of the mutineers were getting tackles up on the fore and main yard-arms, while others were employed in clearing out the longboat, which was stowed on the main hatch; and a few minutes later the cook came aft with the intelligence that he had received imperative orders to kill and roast a dozen fowls for the men to take ashore with them, and also to make up a good-sized parcel of cabin bread, butter, pots of jam, pickles, and a dozen bottles of rum, in order that they might not find themselves short of creature comforts during their absence from the ship. This seemed to point to the fact that they intended to undertake their projected excursion in the longboat instead of taking the two gigs—a much greater piece of luck than I had dared to hope for,—and also suggested an intention on their part to make a fairly long day of it. I did not hesitate to instruct Briggs to see to it that their supply of grog should on this occasion be a liberal one, for the longer they remained out of the ship, the more time we should have in which to make our preparation.
The weather was intensely hot, and the mutineers manifested no inclination to exert themselves unduly. It was consequently almost eleven o’clock in the forenoon ere the longboat was in the water alongside, and another quarter of an hour was spent over the making of the final preparations; but at length they tumbled down over the side, one after another, with a good deal of rough horseplay, and a considerable amount of wrangling, and pushed off. The general and three or four of the other passengers were on the poop, smoking under the awning—which they had been obliged to spread for themselves,—and observing the movements of the men under the cover of a pretence of reading; and when the longboat had disappeared the general came down to apprise me of that fact, and also of another, namely, that the steerage passengers Hales and Cruickshank, and two seamen, armed to the teeth with pistols and cutlasses—the latter at least, in all probability, taken from my men—had been left behind for the obvious purpose of taking care of the ship and keeping us in order during the absence of the others.