"Gentlemen, these men want every shilling on this ship. Give it them now and save your lives, for you have no alternative. If you give the money up, you have my word that they won't touch you."
"If there's a God above," exclaimed the young captain, "they shall pay for this day's work with their lives. I hand my specie over under this protest; but don't deceive yourselves—half the war-ships in Europe shall follow you within a week."
He turned away, and presently the ruffians with me had lowered money to the value of a hundred and fifty thousand pounds into their launch. The third mate seemed then somewhat cowed by my interference, and though he went round the ship and cried "Bail up!" every time he met a passenger, he did not touch one of them. I remained on the bridge a silent spectator of it all; and when at last we put off again, and the launch was full of the jewels and the money, it seemed that I had passed through a hideous dream.
At the time, I shrank from the ruffians in the boat as from men who were savage fiends and a hundred times assassins; and their brutality of speech and threat fell upon ears that would not hear; nor did their pretence of doing me violence then and there move me one jot. I maintained a stubborn indifference, my pistol still in my hand, my teeth shut in the defiance of them, until we reached the great craft, and joined Black upon the gallery. There, the man John explained that I had stood between him and his purpose of hanging the skipper of the Bellonic; indeed, with such warmth and anger, that I thought my end had come upon the spot.
"You barking cub," said Black, more quietly than usual, but none the less to be feared for that, "what d'ye mean by interfering with my men and my orders?"
"To save you from yourself," I answered, looking him full in the face; "you've killed children on that ship, if that's news to you!"
He had a spy-glass in his hand, and he raised it as though to strike me; but I continued to look him full in the face, and he remained swaying his body slightly, his arm still above his head. Then, suddenly it dropped at his side, as though paralysed; and he turned away from me.
"Get to your kennel," said he; "and don't leave it till I fetch you."
I was glad to escape, if only for a few moments, from the danger of it; and I went to my cabin in the upper gallery, but not before the angry shouts of the men convinced me that Black had risked much on my behalf for the second time. Even when my own door was locked upon me, such cries as "You're afeared of him!" "Is he going to boss you, skipper!" and other jeers were audible to me; and the uproar lasted for some time, accompanied at last by the sound of blows, and cries as of men whipped. But no one came to me except the negro who brought my meals; and whatever danger there was of a mutiny was averted, as Dr. Osbart told me later in the day, by the appearance of a second passenger ship on the horizon. The report of the single shot, by which we brought her to, shook me in my berth, where I lay thinking of the horrid scenes of the morning; and for some time I scarce dared look from my window, lest they should be repeated. Only after a long silence did I open the port, and see a majestic vessel, not a hundred yards from us, with our launch at her side; and I could make out the forms of our men walking amongst the passengers and robbing them.
The details of this attack Osbart told me with keen relish when he came in to smoke a cigar with me after my dinner.