In a few minutes the women came up out of the ’tweendecks one by one, every woman with a child in her arms, for there were eight and eight, though every woman was not a mother. The poor creatures’ eyes were red with weeping, their faces white with fear. The husband of one of them had been killed that morning. They were dressed in bonnets and shawls. My heart was cold as I watched them. They went to the side and passed one by one down the gangway ladder; the great crowd of convicts looked on. Not a word was uttered whilst the women walked through the lane of armed men. As they entered the boat, their husbands eagerly clasped and kissed them and kissed the children; it was like a meeting of the survivors of some terrible disaster, and the tears stood in my eyes.
The boat seemed crowded when the women were in her, though, at a pinch, another ten or twelve persons might have found space.
‘Off with you dow and bake roob for the other boats!’ shouted Abram. ‘Head right away and be th’kful you’ve falled idto the ’a’ds of hubade people! If you ha’g about dear us, s’elp be Peter, we’ll fire idto you!’
A soldier seized an oar and shoved the boat off. When she had gone clear by her own length, the soldiers threw over the remaining oars and began to row. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon; a long morning had been spent in getting that big boat out, storing, crowding, and sending her adrift. I looked around the sea; not the least breath of air anywhere dyed the molten resplendent surface that brimmed in a breast of delicate blue silver light into the morning distances. The soldiers rowed vigorously, as though all in the boat feared the convicts would play them some murderous trick if they hung within reach.
A number of people got on the line of bulwark-rail and watched the boat as she drew away. I had thought to hear a hundred vile, blasphemous insults flung after her, but nothing was said in that way. The fellows laughed and talked and pointed, but no man called out.
Barney Abram came on the poop, followed by Mr. Bates, as though the mate had been ordered to attend. The sweat was running from the prize-fighter’s face, and the scars about his brow and forehead were knitted into a scowl. My heart beat fast. I dreaded a quarrel between him and Tom, for Abram swung the deadliest fist of any man in England. Greatly to my relief, however, spite of his dark and sweating face, which seemed to give the lie to his behaviour, his manner was conciliatory.
‘You shouldn’t lose your tepper so easily, Butler,’ said he. ‘What’s the good of exciti’g yourself? You start this gentlebud off’—here he motioned to Mr. Bates—‘who talks a lot of rot to the people about yardarbs. I walked hib rou’d the deck to oblige you, that the people bight see he’s by fr’e’d; and thed, excited by you, he jaws theb about yardarbs. If they had taken hib at his word!’ He looked up, and pointing, exclaimed with his extraordinary smirking grin: ‘That’s what I thi’k you gentlebud of the sea call a yardarb. Gallus high, ain’t it, by rosebud?’ And he turned his fiery black eyes upon me.
‘The women are safe, and I’m satisfied,’ answered Tom. ‘Abram, I had looked for more humanity at your hands. You—a man of your reputation,’ he added, with an angry, sarcastic smile that instantly faded, ‘to truckle to such beasts as we’ve had to live amongst ever since we’ve found ourselves together in irons; but the matter’s ended,’ he exclaimed, with a sort of sudden bustle and hurry in his manner. ‘Let’s get the other boats away. There’s a destination to be settled and arrangements for working the ship to be made. This weather is good for talk, but it may change in an hour.’
‘Right,’ exclaimed Abram. ‘Bates, call up your bed and give your orders.’
‘Captain Butler,’ exclaimed the poor mate, ‘let me leave this ship with the crew.’