“Mercy! mercy! mercy!” shrieked the Portuguese, trembling in every limb. “Me won’t do it any more! Me will do any thing you want me to!”
“If I wasn’t so short-handed, I should blow out your brains!” thundered the mutineer; “but I want every man to work the ship, and so I shall content myself by tying you up in the rigging, and flogging you like a dog! That’s what I call equal rights!”
“No! no! no!” gasped the coward, clasping both hands; “only let me go dis time, and never more will me do what you no like. Me cook for you—wash for you—every t’ing me do, if you let me go!”
But the giant relentlessly dragged the wretch to the mizzen rigging and fastened his wrists to the shrouds.
“And now,” said he, “as soon as I have set the prisoners adrift and have tacked ship, I shall give you a lesson with a rope’s-end that you won’t easily forget!”
The Portuguese continued his cries for mercy; but, without heeding him, the chief of the mutineers now turned, and ordered the New Zealanders to bring the prisoners aft.
“I am going to set you adrift,” he said, addressing the two seamen as soon as he had been obeyed, “and you won’t starve—leastways not just yet, as there’s some provisions in the boat.”
“And Alice!” cried Marline; “you—”
“She’ll go with you,” interrupted Lark, “and there’s the means in the boat to make a tent for her. The craft is stove and won’t hold you long, but you must make the best of it. That’s equal rights!”
“No, blast me if it is!” cried Stump, “and you can’t make it out any way you try. Putting three people in a stove boat is about as unreasonable a thing as can be imagined, seeing as to go down isn’t to go up. You are a parfect humbug, Captain Lark!”