‘We’ll forward ’eb od to you later!’ exclaimed Abram, turning his head without turning his body and shouting with his massive hand at the side of his mouth: ‘Jodsud’—here he addressed a convict named Johnson, one of several armed men who guarded the entrance of the main-hatch; it was this Johnson who had bawled down to the doctor and others to come up—‘there’s roob for twedy bore id the lo’g boat! Call ’eb up!’
Tom made a stride to the head of the poop-ladder, and, in a voice whose accents rang through the ship like a volley of pistol shots, shouted: ‘Hold! Abram, the next to come up and enter the long-boat are the women and children!’
The mass of convicts looked up at him; indescribable was the effect of this universal turning of faces one way.
‘Dot lo’g ago you wouldn’t ’ave anything to do with this busidess!’ shouted Abram savagely. ‘What wasn’t your busidess thed isd’t goi’g to be your busidess dow!’
‘I’ll have no discussion!’ cried Tom with the utmost ferocity. ‘I’m a man of my word. Blood has been shed, and now you want to round off the murders with the most hellish piece of separation ever perpetrated on the high seas. We have lived together,’ he cried to them all in clear, fierce, powerful tones, ‘for many months, in the hulk and here, and I know there are scores amongst you who detest the thought of keeping poor women and little children from their husbands, whose sole offence has been their duty. Am I right? You are under the influence of men who, as your responsible leaders, elected by yourselves, should be the last to advise you to blacken yet what, God knows, is black enough, by a fiendish act of brutality and inhumanity!’
‘We don’t want to be jawed,’ bawled a tipsy convict. ‘Better bring the doctor aboard again if that’s to be the lay.’
‘Butler,’ shouted Abram, ‘I’b blowed if you’re goi’g to have your way id everythi’g!’
‘But I’ll have my way in this! I’ll have my way in this!’ cried Tom with a note of madness in his voice and the look of a madman in his face. ‘You begged me to take charge. Fifty of you whined and petitioned me, as the only navigator amongst you, to command this ship if you seized her. And I consented—on what terms? No cruelty, I said, and safety for three friends. There’s to be cruelty now—cruelty so hellish that the vilest heart amongst you must sicken and shrink if it will but give the intention a thought. You’re playing me false in this, Abram. I say—don’t do it! Don’t do it!’ he cried, raising his voice and brandishing his arms at the great mob below.
I glanced at the long-boat at this moment. The doctor had pricked his ears and was sitting looking up at the ship with a pale face of astonishment. Captain Barrett, erect in the boat, listened and stared. Captain Sutherland repeated three or four times: ‘Who is it? Who is it?’ For Tom was not to be seen by them; indeed, nobody was visible along the whole line of the ship to those people low-seated save Abram at the gangway and the fiddler and me and Will at the rail.
Some fellow near the mainmast hoarsely shouted: ‘Butler wants it all his own way. Let him chuck it and rot! There’s Bates, the mate of the ship. He’s be’n kep’ to oblige Butler. He’s a navigator. He’ll do the trick.’