Then the body vanished in a whirlpool, with a downward jerk that made our hearts shudder!
The prisoners were ropes-ended without mercy by Manuel Gautier and the other two mates; they were also repeatedly drenched by buckets of salt water, and we stood by with cocked muskets until the whole—ten Spaniards and one Lascar—were secured in the cable tier, where an armed sentinel watched them day and night during the remainder of the voyage, a duty that frequently came to my turn, as I was a kind of waister on board, and was seldom sent aloft.
So ended this exciting and most deplorable affair, which might have proved the destruction of the ship and of every well-disposed person on board.
The twilight was passing with tropical rapidity, and when all was over, the hands were sent aloft to reduce the canvas.
"Stand by the studdingsail-halyards," shouted Manuel Gautier, in his own language. These sails were soon taken in, and the lower spars boom-ended alongside, while the royals and skysails were sent on deck, the loose shot were replaced in the rack round the coaming of the main-hatch, all loose ropes were tightly belayed or coiled away; and now, as the freshening breeze came more and more aft, the stately Spanish merchant ship bade good-night to the shores of Poison Island, and bore away through the silent sea toward the Cape de Verd.
CHAPTER XLIX.
THE COAST OF AFRICA.
All these scenes made a terrible impression upon me. It seemed now indeed that the boyish "dream of life was at an end, and that its action had begun."
The whole affair, in all its details, furnished ample scope for conversation in the cabin for some time after; and too well we knew what our fate would have been, but for the promptitude of Estremera, and the courage of Marc Hislop and his Englishmen.
To each of the latter, the Dutch governor of Surabaya, grateful for his preservation from a cruel death, gave a gold doubloon, and José Estremera added five dollars per man.