All this while, Mr McCarthy had been fumbling at the fastenings of the hatchway, where the remainder of the crew were supposed to be imprisoned; but when he and Frank Harness, who lent his assistance, had at last got off the cover by a violent effort, not a soul appeared, rushing up as they expected, nor was there any response to their summons—“All hands on deck!”
What could have become of them all?
The mysterious silence below was a proof that something unforeseen had happened!
Chapter Twenty.
Notice to Quit!
The mystery, however, was soon solved.
Hardly had the strange disappearance of the crew from below been discovered, than the whole of the missing men, with Mr Adams at their head and Kate Meldrum bringing up the rear, rushed up the companion-ladder on to the poop with a loud “hurrah,” as if with the intention of taking part in the contest with the band of mutineers:— their mortification may be imagined when they found that, as the first mate expressed it in his happy Irish way, “they were jist in toime to be too late, sure!”
But, had the mutineers not so rapidly abandoned the ship, the arrival of his rescue party on the scene of action would no doubt have tended to considerably alter the complexion of events; and the credit of organising the force and bringing the men from such an unexpected quarter with so great a dramatic effect had to be shared equally between Miss Kate Meldrum and Snowball, the cook—Mr Adams being only admitted as a partner in the scheme at the last moment.