“I lay awake nearly all last night. You know I have always thrown myself before the entrance to the little cabin.”
The seaman nodded his head.
“Well, about four o’clock this morning, I heard two of the men talking. Yonder red-bearded, blear-eyed fellow who is whittling a stick as he whistles, was the principal speaker.”
“Ah, Gough,” replied the master, “he is the worst character on board; it was Gough tried to persuade the men to break into the spirit-room, when tired of the work at the pumps. I can believe anything of him.”
“Well, he held out a dazzling picture of life in Madagascar. He talked of the warm welcome given by the Queen of the island to the English, he painted a life of luxury and ease, instead of one of toil and privation, saying we might sight the island any moment.”
“The scoundrel!” muttered the old master between his clenched teeth, “I see it all now.”
“He told of the gold on the raft, and how with it they might be kings and nobles in the land. How the wind was dead fair, and they had but to stretch forth their hands to help themselves.”
“Not while I live—not while I live, the mutinous scoundrel,” growled the seaman.
“You are not intended to live,” replied the soldier. “We were all to die, unprepared, and therefore incapable of resistance. Adams and Simmonds were to share our fate, the raft to be seized, and the loss of the brig to cover that of the crew and passengers.”
“And Dona Isabel?” inquired the captain.