All Adrift.
“Aye, colonel,” sang out the skipper, as if in response to these words of the French captain, “to avenge him; that’s what all of us here have sworn to do, I know, for I can answer for them as if I were speaking for myself. Yes, and so we will, too. We’ll avenge him—the poor fellow whom they butchered. We will, by George!”
“Begorrah!” exclaimed Garry O’Neil. “You can count on me for one on that job, as I tould ye before, and I don’t care how soon we begin it, cap’en!”
“And me too,” put in old Mr Stokes, again becoming very enthusiastic. “The whole lot must be punished, sir, when we catch them!”
“I thought so,” said the skipper, looking round at us and then turning to the colonel with a proud air. “You see, sir, we’re all unanimous; for I can answer for this lad Haldane, here, though the poor chap’s too bashful to speak for himself!”
“I know what the gallant youth can do already,” said the other, looking at me kindly as I held up my head like the rest, but with a very red face. “Thank you, gentlemen all, for your promises. Well, then, on my friend Captain Alphonse putting the matter in the way he did, to make an end of my story, I held back, and all that day—it was last Saturday—we remained on the defensive, we five holding the after part of the ship, and the Haytians and mutineers of our crew the forecastle. All of us, though, kept on the watch; they looking out for land, we for help in response to our signal flag half-mast high.
“But neither party saw what they looked out and longed for; no corner of land on the horizon gratified the desire of their eyes, no ship hove in sight to bless ours with the promise of relief!
“The next morning, Sunday, it came on to blow, and our vessel was taken aback and nearly foundered. Fortunately, though, the mutineers not interfering, most of them being seasick forwards, Captain Alphonse and Basseterre started down into the waist to cast off all the sheets and halliards they could reach, letting everything fly; whereupon we drove before the wind and so escaped any mishap from this source, at all events!
“Probably on account of their prostration from the effects of sea-sickness, our enemies did not molest us in any way throughout the day; but towards the morning my little Elsie came up the companion-way in a state of great terror, saying she heard a sort of scratching in the hold below, and that Ivan, her dog, was growling as if he smelt somebody trying to get in, though we could not hear the dog on deck from the noise of the wind and sea, and a lot of loose ropes and swinging spars which were making a terrible row aloft.
“I went down at once with her, and without even taking the trouble to listen I could clearly distinguish the sound of tapping beneath the cabin deck, despite the confused jabbering of Monsieur Boisson, and the shrill tones of his wife.