“We’ll see to that,” said the old salt. “Now we know she’s sailing north we’ll see she keeps so, or there’ll be the mischief in it.”
“Come away now,” said I, “your friends will be missing you; and what will become of your first, second, third, and fourth without you?”
It did not tend to raise the spirits of the four noble mariners as they passed round the guns to hear the laughter and cries of “nor’-east by east it is, sir,” which greeted their passage. Nor did they quite recover till they returned to the arms of their comrades, who bore them off with the glorious news that a fresh cask of rum had been broached, and that the lights of Yarmouth were already visible on the horizon.
Chapter Thirty.
“Battle and murder and sudden death.”
It was past midnight, and in two hours the summer night would be past. After that, further mystification as to our course would be impossible; but could we hold on till then, with half a gale of wind behind us, we should be well over to the Dutch side, and clear at any rate of the mutinous atmosphere which infected Yarmouth Roads and the Nore.
The men, having, as I supposed, satisfied themselves that the Zebra was being sailed according to their own directions, decided to wait till daylight, by which time they counted on the encouragement and company of the Yarmouth mutineers, before they finally hoisted the red flag and took possession of the ship. Meanwhile they applied themselves assiduously to the liquor, an indulgence which, in the case of a good many of the land-lubbers of their company, must have been seriously spoiled by the rolling of the ship and their first acquaintance since we left Dublin with really dirty weather.
I reckoned that we were some twelve leagues from the Dutch coast, with the wind shifting westerly and sending heavy seas over our counter, when the grey dawn lifted and showed us a waste of water, with nothing visible but a single speck on the eastern horizon.