His firmness in the matter, his disinclination to accept death when it was decreed him, excited wonderment. As usual in such cases, he had a week in which to take leave of his friends, at the end of which time he was expected to present himself for execution.
During that interval he fomented the rebellion.
The women who had visited Fidette on the Happy Shark had repeated and enlarged upon the cruel incident of the Portuguese’s death. The young insurgent leader caught up this act as one of injustice, and gathered around him a faithful band of fifty rebellious spirits like himself. They seized a derelict that was occupied only by a caretaker, fortified it and scorned the mandate of the Grand Council.
Hansko Yap, as he was called, announced that the purpose of himself and his followers was to avenge the death of Fernandez. But the real motive was to humiliate the Kantoon of my ship for the manner in which he had persisted in bringing about the sentence of death. Spurred on by the courage of despair, the young leader developed into a veritable Commander Cushing.
With utter fearlessness he prepared the most deadly engine that could be sent against his adversaries. This consisted of a large spar—the foremast of his own ship—which was neatly tapered to a point, and this capped with iron. The spar was eighty feet long, and as straight as an arrow.
The method of attack was to use this spar as a battering ram to break holes through the assailed ships. With entire indifference to the presence of sharks, forty of the young men who had joined in the rebellion would spring into the water, clasp the spar tightly under one arm, and with the disengaged hand propel the floating mast at a high rate of speed. Starting back a thousand feet or more from the derelict they intended to assail, they would bring their engine of destruction forward with a rapid and regular stroke of great power until within five feet of the vessel, when, at a signal from their leader, all would dive. The crash was so great that the hull of a wooden vessel was always broken in.
With iron steamers the damage was less serious, but it was only a question of time and repetition when a seam would open and the plates start apart. Being without any means of stopping the inflow of water, the Sargassons of the doomed ship methodically prepared themselves for death, and stood upon the deck chanting their weird, funereal song until the ship gradually settled and took its final plunge.
Such had been the experience in the attacks upon all vessels prior to the assault on the Happy Shark.
Already this bold opponent of public order had sunk a dozen ships, and had caused it to be made known among the entire community that our craft must accept the same fate.
As the defense had been placed completely in my hands, I took the precaution of having twenty boats in the water ready to be manned and sent out at a moment’s notice. In similar cases the oarsman took his place in the stern of the boat, while in the bow was a sailor armed with a very sharp knife. The defense, therefore, was likely to be very stubborn, because a score of semi-savages, armed with huge swords, would be able to make a very serious attack upon twice as many men swimming in water. Excepting a few men who were already in the boats, keeping them in order so that they could be promptly manned, the rest of the crew lay asleep upon the deck, all armed with spears or cutlasses, awaiting the boarding party.