"No, I thank you," answered Howe, putting the stopper back into the bottle. "We don't do the heavy jobs, and then provide for those who are too cowardly to help us."
"We are in the same boat with you; and it isn't fair to let our fellows suffer while you have water."
"You wouldn't go in with us. We have only a bottle apiece," pleaded Howe.
Raymond appealed to others in the room, but all of them were of one mind. The salt beef had created a tremendous thirst among those who had eaten it, and all who had water made large draughts upon the supply. The bottles had contained pickles, olives, ketchup, and other similar articles, so that the water was not very palatable. In the course of the forenoon, Raymond and his party stealthily attempted to obtain possession of these bottles, but the runaways were too vigilant for them; and before dinner the thirsty ones were exceedingly uncomfortable, to say the least. They tried to conceal their condition from the Faithful as much as possible, but they were all very nervous and disquieted.
At one o'clock, after the regular dinner of roast beef and rice pudding had been served to the Faithful, the tables were again prepared for the rebels; but the bill of fare was corned beef and hard bread—not a drop of water. Peaks and the head steward paced the unsteady floor, as they had done at breakfast time. Raymond, whose tongue and lips were parched with thirst, became desperate again, and attempted to force his way into the kitchen. He was seized by the boatswain, and the more he struggled, the more he was shaken up. He refused to behave himself, and Peaks thrust him into the brig.
CHAPTER IX.
THE LAST OF THE MUTINEERS.
The gale continued to blow ugly and gusty during the day, until eight bells in the afternoon. The fog hung heavy over the ocean, and the bell was rung every five minutes, in accordance with the English Admiralty instructions. The ship had been standing close-hauled to the north-north-west since noon, when she had tacked, at the warning of the fog signal, made at some light station on the coast of France, in the vicinity of Cape de La Hague. For four hours she had been on her present course, and was therefore approaching the coast of England again. At the beginning of the first dog-watch, there were some signs of a change of weather. The fog appeared to be lifting, and the wind came in less violent gusts.
In the steerage, among the rebels, the most unalloyed misery prevailed. The runaways had exhausted their supply of water under the pressure of thirst caused by the salt provision, though they had not yet begun to be very uncomfortable. Certainly they had, as yet, no thought of yielding, but were rather studying up the means of obtaining a new supply of water. Raymond's party were only waiting for the boatswain's call to ask permission to join their shipmates on deck; but, most provokingly, no call came. Their leader had been discharged from the brig as soon as he ceased to be violent; for the principal did not wish to punish any one for the mutiny, preferring to let it work its own cure on the diet he had prescribed.