If the eyes of the men who looked over the side of the ship were wide open with surprise before, they seemed to blaze with amazement at the next remark by Thursday.
“Where d’ye hail from, an’ what’s your name?” he asked, as Charlie made fast to the rope which was thrown to them.
“The Topaz, from America, Captain Folger,” answered the captain, with a smile.
With an agility worthy of monkeys, and that might have justified Jack and Bill looking for tails, the brothers immediately stood on the deck, and holding out their hands, offered with affable smiles to shake hands. We need scarcely say the offer was heartily accepted by every one of the crew.
“And who may you be, my good fellows?” asked Captain Folger, with an amused expression.
“I am Thursday October Christian,” answered the youth, drawing himself up as if he were announcing himself the king of the Cannibal Islands. “I’m the oldest son of Fletcher Christian, one of the mutineers of the Bounty, an’ this is my brother Charlie.”
The sailors glanced at each other and then at the stalwart youths, as if they doubted the truth of the assertion.
“I’ve heard of that mutiny,” said Captain Folger. “It was celebrated enough to make a noise even on our side of the Atlantic. If I remember rightly, most of the mutineers were caught on Otaheite and taken to England, being wrecked and some drowned on the way; the rest were tried, and some acquitted, some pardoned, and some hanged.”
“I know nothin’ about all that,” said Thursday, with an interested but perplexed look.
“But I do, sir,” said the man whom we have styled Jack, touching his hat to the captain. “I’m an Englishman, as you knows, an’ chanced to be in England at the very time when the mutineers was tried. There was nine o’ the mutineers, sir, as went off wi’ the Bounty from Otaheite, an’ they’ve never bin heard on from that day to this.”