After Lorenzo had disappeared, Sebastian ordered his men to take charge of the three prisoners in the canoe, who were accordingly brought on deck. Jack Jimmy, who after his fear had been lulled by the apparent harmless treatment of the Indians, had fallen fast asleep, was the most struck when awakening, with the extraordinary position in which he found himself suddenly placed. When he got on deck, he stood as if his limbs would not support him; he first looked aloft at the tapering masts of the schooner, then on the deck, and when his eyes fell on the men by whom he was surrounded, he opened his mouth for an instant in mute amazement, and succeeded at length to give expression to his terror in the words—“Garamighty! way me be? Wha dish ya?”
“Softly, my little man,” said the sentinel, in a voice that contrasted strangely with the weak shriek of the terror-stricken Jack Jimmy, “we don’t speak so loud here.”
“Massa, me hush,” was the immediate answer of Jack Jimmy, and he closed his lips as firmly as he could, as an earnest of his determination to keep silence; but in the dark the white of his eyes may have been seen revolving from object to object with the rapidity of lightning.
“Follow this way,” said a man, who had received instructions from the officer, to the prisoners; and he led them down a narrow stair-case to a small cabin in the foremost part of the vessel. “This is where you are to sleep to-night,” said he to them, after they had been ushered in: “do you require anything?”
The captives answered in the negative.
“Well,” continued the man, “make yourselves comfortable for the night, and be awake betimes to-morrow to see our captain—he gets up early.”
He then posted himself at the door of the cabin, with his cutlass in his hand, like one who was to pass the whole night there. Not a sound more was heard on board the schooner that night.
When morning had arrived, the prisoners were brought on deck, and requested to be prepared to appear before the captain immediately.
The strange vessel on board of which they found themselves, could be better examined by daylight than by the dim star-gleam of the preceding night. The long level deck was scoured as white as snow; not a speck, not a nail-head, not the minutest particle of anything could be discovered upon it. The very seams were filled up in such a manner, that the material which made them impervious to water, imparted an appearance of general cleanliness. The halliards were all beautifully adjusted at the foot of each mast, and made up for the moment in the shape of mats, or other fanciful forms. The belaying pins, that were lined with brass, were beautifully polished, while the tapering masts were as clean and as smooth as ivory. The arrangement of the deck, also, was exceedingly neat: nothing but a few beautiful and simple machines for hoisting were to be seen, and in properly-disposed recesses in the bulwarks, glimpses might be caught of the rude instruments of destruction—of pikes that looked horrible even in their places of rest,—axes whose shining edges made the blood run chill, and grappling-irons, whose tortuous and crooked prongs made the nerves recoil with the thoughts of agony which they brought up. An awning, as white as the deck which it sheltered, was spread from the stem to the stern of the schooner.