"Fill a bucket with spun-yarn, and greased flax, with sulphur and bilge-water—ain't that the medical compound for rats——"
"Nonsense," said Tom; "you would burn the ship——"
"As he has often threatened to do," said Carlton, "and may do yet."
A most extraordinary scheme was proposed by one man, that we should launch the longboat, throw into her some bags of bread and gang-casks of water, unship the compass, double-bank the oars, and shove off for the coast of South America, after scuttling the brig and leaving Antonio to his fate.
We were in a horrible state of perplexity, and I seemed to see constantly before me the gashed bodies of my two kind, brave, and hospitable friends—Captain Weston and Marc Hislop—lying in their berths dead and unavenged, with their destroyer beside them!
We had the capstan-bars, and with these it was proposed to assail him when next he came on deck. Then we had the carpenter's tools, among which a hand-saw, an auger, an adze, and a hatchet, made very available weapons, and these, with the old cutlass and harpoons which figured on the night we crossed the line, were speedily appropriated. I was armed with a heavy claw-hammer, and, vowing firmly to stand by each other, we resolved to lynch Antonio the moment he came out of his den.
While we were thus employed in devising the means of punishment, the dark shadows of night passed away; the morning sun came up in his tropical splendor, and the blue waves of the southern sea rolled around us in light, but not a sail was visible on their vast expanse.
The crew seemed pale and excited, as they might well be, and by buckets of water we cleansed the deck from the blood that stained it.
The morning advanced into noon, and the vessel was steered her due course, for the wind was still fair. Ned Carlton was at the wheel, and the men were all grouped forward, when suddenly Antonio appeared on deck with a knife in his sash and a revolver in each hand.
He was so pale that his olive face seemed almost a pea-green, and a black crust upon his cruel lips showed the extent of his potations in the cabin. He glanced into the binnacle, and perceiving that the brig was still being steered her old course, he cried, in a hoarse voice,—