“Why,” I said, “they are fighting among themselves.”
“Ay, such kittle-cattle would likely take to that employment.”
“And the guns which they fired—why, it’s providential, man. Go and call Captain Larry at once.”
I am not habitually to be moved to any great display of mental exhilaration; but I confess that this amazing scene robbed me altogether of my self-possession. The surprise of it, the unlooked-for development, the vast possibilities of a mutiny amongst the Jew’s men had, it is true, suggested themselves to me in one or other of those dreams of achievement with which we all combat the duller facts of life; but that such a hope should be on the verge of realisation, that I should, with my own eyes, witness the beginning of the fulfilment of it, and hear the guns which justified my dreaming—that, I say, appeared to me the most wonderful thing that had happened since our voyage began.
“Larry,” I said, when he came up from the cabin—McShanus upon his heels, “they are shooting each other, Larry. I hope that the news distresses you——.”
He did not reply immediately, but focussing his glass, he directed it upon the distant ship. Timothy, in his turn, took his stand beside me, and clapping his hand upon my shoulder, answered for the Captain.
“I wish ’em honourable wakes. Did ye think of this docther?”
“Not as a probability.”
“And what would happen to Joan Fordibras if they quarrelled amongst themselves?”
“I dare not think of it, Timothy—she would be in her cabin. Why do you make me think of it? Are not the circumstances eloquent enough?”