The fate of the ship was in my hands—her fate and the lives and fortunes of a crowd of people! A fierce, wild pride, a wicked exultation swelled my heart. There was yet time! The captain was on the poop; I had but to measure the length of the deck to acquaint him with what I knew, and the ship would be saved. And sooner than speak, I would have killed myself. The blood would be on the heads of those who had unjustly sentenced and made a convict and a broken-hearted, ruined man of my sweetheart. Whatever devil had been driven into him was in me too; what he did I would do; what he wished would be my law; let the change that had been worked in him be as frightful as you please, I would lay down my life that he might get his liberty and escape the horrors of the base and degrading term of servitude which he was to complete in a distant land. Yes, I could have saved the ship by whispering a single sentence in the captain’s ear, and had a knife been put into my hand, and had I been compelled either to speak or to stab my heart, I vow to God I would have sheathed the knife in my breast without an instant’s hesitation.
I was not more than five minutes upon the forecastle. Then drawing a bucket of water, I went aft. Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Chimmo, as was their habit in these sultry latitudes, quitted their cabins in their dressing-gowns for a bath in the ship’s head. This refreshing bath they obtained by standing under the pump, whilst their orderlies, as I suppose you would call the soldiers who waited upon them, plied the handle. They returned in twenty minutes, and disappeared in their cabins to dress.
I helped Frank to drape the breakfast-table, but every instant my eye was going toward the open door and windows which overlooked the quarter-deck. My hands trembled; I frequently let things fall; and three or four times Mr. Stiles swore at me for a clumsy young fool and threatened me with Mr. Balls. Frank asked me what was the matter, and I told him I supposed my nerves had been shaken by the storm.
I think it was about a quarter to eight when Captain Barrett and the subaltern emerged from their berths. As they walked to the companion-steps to go on deck, the captain and the doctor descended, and the four came to a stand at the foot of the ladder and talked. I strained my ear. Their chatter was of the lightest—the weather, the wrecked topgallantmast, the soldier who had tumbled down in a fit and who was now well.
Suddenly Mr. Masters, who was on the poop—whether in charge of the watch or not, I can’t say—put his head into the skylight and cried out in a voice loud with terror:
‘Captain Sutherland, the convicts are breaking out! Some of our men have knocked the forecastle sentry down! Quick on deck! The main-hatch sentry’s over-powered and the prisoners are pouring up!’
Just as he spoke a musket was fired—then a second. Some of the women shrieked. A third musket was fired. This was followed by an indescribable roaring noise of groans and yells, accompanied by the sound of the tread of many feet. The captain and the doctor rushed on deck, the two military officers to their cabins, out of which they broke again in a twinkling, each man pulling a pistol out of its case as he ran toward the companion-way and flinging the case down as he bounded up the steps.
‘Here they are!’ shouted the steward, and, followed by Frank, he fled to the steps which led to the poop.
A mass of the convicts were coming toward the recess where the soldiers’ arms were. Gaining the steerage hatchway in a leap or two, I rushed into my cabin, and as I closed my door and bolted it I heard the prisoners shouting as they swarmed into the cuddy. Their footsteps thundered over my head. I saw myself in the wash-stand looking-glass, and was as white as milk. I was only sensible now of the horror that had seized me at the sight of the faces of the convicts. I stood with my hand upon my heart, holding by the side of the upper bunk, breathing fast and listening. But voices could not pierce the thickness of the deck-plank. Nothing took my ear but the confused tread and shuffling movements of feet overhead like to what I had heard when I lay in hiding, only softer because of the carpets.
A horrid fancy seized me. Shots had been fired. Suppose Tom had been wounded or killed! The handle of the door was violently tried and the door shaken and beaten upon. I cried out: ‘Who’s that?’