Will Weatherhelm: The Yarn of an Old Sailor

by William Henry Giles Kingston

We went on very well for two or three days longer, and then I could not help remarking that there was a considerable change in the manner of the Frenchmen. They were far less obedient and civil than they had been, and when ordered to perform any duty, they went about it in a sulky, disagreeable manner.

Mr Randolph, I thought, did not observe the change, but I mentioned the subject to Andrews.

“I’ll keep my eye on the fellows,” said he. “They’ll find it rather difficult to catch a weasel asleep.”

A few days after this we fell in with a westerly breeze, which increased rapidly into a strong gale, and away we ran before it much faster than the old Mouche had yet been made to fly.

Unfortunately the sea got up, and the ship began to labour very much. The consequence was, as we had expected, the leak we had patched up once more burst open, and it became necessary to keep all hands, watch and watch, at the pumps. Mr Randolph took his spell like the rest of us, and no one seemed to work with a more hearty goodwill.

I watched with some anxiety to see what the Frenchmen would do. First one of them fell down while working at the pumps, and when we picked him up he said that he was so ill he could not labour any more, but must go to his hammock. Then another followed his example, and then a third, and a fourth, till only one remained besides the three blacks, who went on working away as merrily as ever.

The fifth Frenchman seemed suddenly to get into very good humour, and to exert himself as much as any of us. Had the gale continued, I believe that we should all of us really have been knocked up, but happily we very quickly ran out of it, and once more we had smooth water and a fair breeze.

While the sea was still running high, the only Frenchman who remained on deck, as he was coming aft, slipped and fell. Two of the blacks only were near him. They picked him up, while he cried out with pain, asserting that he had either broken his arm or put it out of joint. He insisted on being carried to his hammock, and when Mr Randolph offered to try and doctor him, he shrieked out and declared that he could not bear the pain of being touched. At last we were obliged to let him alone, and then we had all our five prisoners laid up and apparently useless.

It thus became more important than ever to try once more to stop the leak. Mr Randolph and Andrews accordingly set about it as they had done the first time, taking with them two hands. This left only two others, besides me, on deck, and the three blacks. Negroes have, I have always fancied, very little command over their countenances, and if a person is accustomed to watch them, he will always be able to discover, almost as easily as he would among a party of children, whether there is anything in the wind. Now, as I saw the negroes moving about the decks, I felt very sure from the roll of their eyes and the way in which every now and then they exhibited their teeth, that they had a grand secret among them. I stepped aft, and telling the man at the helm to be on his guard, I called Sam Jones, the only other man left on deck, and sent him down into the cabin to collect all the arms he could find, to load the pistols and muskets, and to place them just inside the companion-hatch, so that I could get at them in a moment.

“Now,” said I to Jones, “just go forward as if you were thinking of nothing particular, and then slip quietly down below and tell Mr Randolph that I think there’s something wrong, that he had better be on his guard and return on deck as quickly as possible. Do you jump up again without a moment’s delay. Get a handspike or anything you can lay hold of, and keep guard over the fore-hatchway, and see that neither the blacks nor any of the Frenchmen go down there.”