“They may have left it in the door,” I hazarded. “Who locked him in?”
“Rogers and Moore, sir. They are the two ringleaders in this here business.”
We had by this time reached the mate’s cabin; but found the door locked, and the key missing. As I tried the door-handle I thought I heard a groan from the interior; so, without wasting time to search about for the key, I set my back against the bulkhead of the passage and my foot against the door by the lock, and the next moment we had the door open. A shapeless object upon the floor of the cabin, indistinctly seen in the semi-darkness which pervaded the place, proved to be the mate, lying just as he had been carelessly flung in there, hours before, with his wrists and heels lashed together behind his back. The poor fellow was in a dreadful state, having lain there all those hours in excruciating agony from the cruel pressure of the lashings about his limbs, which, with brutal carelessness, had been drawn so tight as to have completely stopped the circulation of the blood in his extremities. His limbs were now swollen almost out of recognition; he had bitten his lower lip right through in the extremity of his torment; his beard was drenched with bloody foam; and our efforts to release him occasioned him such exquisite agony that he fainted under our hands. A sharp knife, however, speedily freed him from his bonds, after which Joe and I gently chafed his swollen wrists and ankles until the circulation of the blood was restored; but it was nearly an hour before the poor fellow was able to move with any degree of freedom.
At length, however, he pronounced himself ready for action; when, going on deck, and arming ourselves with a heavy brass belaying-pin each, the three of us proceeded forward, resolutely determined to stand no nonsense whatever from anybody who should presume to interfere with us.
It was, therefore, a distinctly unfortunate circumstance for Rogers that he should, a moment or two previously, have awakened from his drunken sleep and staggered to his feet with, apparently, some confused notion of taking a look round the ship and assuring himself that all was right; for, coming face to face with Forbes and Joe as they rounded the corner of the galley, he was promptly felled by the latter with a blow from a belaying-pin that must have caused him discomfort for many a day afterwards, while its immediate effect was to stretch him out upon the deck senseless and bleeding. The sound of his fall disturbed one or two of the rest—all of whom were sprawled out inertly upon the foredeck, in the midst of empty and overturned bottles and pannikins—just sufficiently to cause them to raise their heads and grumble out a few unintelligible words; but we had no difficulty whatever with them, and in less than half an hour we had the whole of them securely bound, hand and foot, and lying at our mercy. Having reduced them to this condition, and disarmed them, we distributed them about the deck fore and aft, lashing each man separately to a ringbolt, cleat, or other convenient mooring in such a way that no man might be within another’s reach—for I had heard before now of men releasing each other by working at the lashings with their teeth—and then left them to recover their sober senses at their leisure, while we busied ourselves about other matters.
Our first act was to lower the port quarter-boat, get into her, and pull ashore to the creek, where we found Sir Edgar and his party pretty much as I had left them; he and Miss Merrivale being the only two still awake. Our arrival was greeted with a shout of delight from the baronet that effectually awoke the sleepers; and the whole party quickly tumbled into the boat, Sir Edgar and Lady Emily vying with each other in the heartiness of their congratulations at our success and the eagerness with which they asked for details of the adventure. Miss Merrivale, on the contrary, was strangely silent, contenting herself with a warm clasp of the hand at the moment of our reunion; and presently, when we had shoved off again for the ship, I noticed that she was furtively crying. I concluded that the reaction from the long hours of suspense that she had just passed through had proved rather too much for her nerves, and so prudently appeared to take no notice whatever of her little break-down. We soon reached the ship, and, upon my solemn assurance that they might do so with absolute safety, the rescued party at once retired below to their respective cabins; Miss Merrivale only lingering behind for a moment to say—
“I have no words to express how glad and thankful I am that you have been successful in your hazardous enterprise. You are a brave man, as well as a—But,”—with a sudden, merry smile, “I will not say more, lest I make you vain. Good night!”
I was beginning to feel a bit puzzled at this young lady’s manner, which seemed to have undergone a subtle, indescribable change within the last twelve hours that was as incomprehensible as it was pleasant. It was just then, however, scarcely a suitable moment for speculation upon such an inscrutable subject as the deportment of a lovely and charming woman to a simple sailor like myself; so I dismissed the matter from my mind and turned to the consideration of other subjects, less agreeable, but calling more imperatively for my immediate attention.
The first thing was to summon Forbes and Joe to a council of war for discussion of the question what was to be done with the mutineers. There were some of them that it would be obviously impossible to retain on board the ship with the least chance of safety to ourselves; but I scarcely believed they could all be equally bad, and I was in hopes that, upon consultation with Joe, I should learn that we might trust a sufficient number of them to enable us to make the voyage to Valparaiso in safety, where I thought it probable I might be able to pick up an entire new crew, without very much difficulty. On submitting the question to him, however, Joe gave it as his very decided opinion that there were only three out of the eleven mutineers whom it would be in the least degree prudent to trust; those three being the negro, the Swede, and Barr, one of the Americans. These three we accordingly gave the benefit of the doubt, for the moment; and, that point settled, we next proceeded to draw up a list of such articles as we deemed absolutely necessary to the welfare of the men whose conduct had rendered it imperative that we should maroon them.
After some consideration, the contents of this list resolved themselves into: each man’s personal effects in their entirety, including weapons and ammunition, the latter, however, to be securely screwed up in a stout wooden case, so that it might not be got at and used against us whilst effecting the transfer of the mutineers to the shore; a saw, hammer, chisel, and an assortment of nails; half a dozen barrels of beef, and the same of bread; a half-chest of tea, a few pounds of coffee, and some sugar; a cock and three hens; some cooking utensils; a little crockery; matches; and an old main-course; which, with the axes, shovels, picks, rope, blocks, and spars used in securing the treasure, and which still remained on shore, ought, we considered, to furnish them with the means to make themselves fairly comfortable until they should be taken off. This important matter decided, the next thing was to get everything up and passed into the boat—a task which fully occupied us until daylight; by which time the effects of the carouse showed signs of passing off, and the men began to awake in a measure to a consciousness of their situation. A few of them—Rogers, Moore, and O’Connor especially—gave vent to their indignation and disgust in a continuous flood of the vilest language, mingled with blood-curdling threats of the vengeance that they would wreak upon us some time in the future; but the rest accepted their impending fate with sullen stoicism. We, meanwhile, comfortably conscious that, for the present at least, they were utterly powerless to fulfil any of their threats, or otherwise work us any evil, went composedly on with our work; first conveying to and landing all the baggage on the sandy beach of the creek, and then ferrying the marooned men ashore, with their hands securely lashed behind them. We had determined to land only eight of them; and when this had been done, and we were all ready to leave them, we cut the bonds of the last man ashore, and left him to free his companions at leisure, thus effectually insuring ourselves against any trouble from the marooned party at the last moment. Then, having shouted to them a parting promise that we would make known the fact of their presence on the island to the first British man-o’-war we met with, together with the cause of their being left there, we paddled quietly on board again, and set to work to provide ourselves with a much-needed breakfast.