She Blows! And Sparm at That!

by William John Hopkins

They got Carter up on the rail, and pitched him into the sea. Then Drew turned to the third mate. He, poor fellow, was not wounded. He saw that his fate was to be left swimming in the middle of the Atlantic, and he tried to meet that fate like a man. It was too much. He could not; and when Drew offered him the choice of joining them or of going over the side, he joined. It is hard to blame him for his choice.

Captain Coffin then saw the men start for him; but it was only to carry him below and to throw him on his bunk, bound as he was. He lay there until the next morning.

Drew came to him about the middle of the forenoon, at just about four bells, and sat down beside him and said he wanted to have a talk. He said that, unfortunately, the third mate had fallen overboard during the night. This may have been true, or he may have been distrusted and have been thrown overboard, or his conscience may have tortured him so that he jumped overboard. Captain Coffin never knew which was the truth, but the fact was that he was no longer there, and the vessel was without a navigator excepting the captain. Drew, therefore, had a proposition to make, and the captain could take it or leave it. It was this: that the captain should navigate, under guard in his cabin, coming out only at night for observations. If he would not consent to that he would follow his three mates.

That was rather a hard choice; but Captain Coffin could see no gain to anybody by his being thrown overboard, while, if he accepted, there might be a chance of getting his vessel back. He did not see how, and he had no plans, but there would be time enough to make them. So he accepted Drew’s offer, on condition that he was to be free in his cabin, and that he was not to be compelled to speak to any of them. Drew smilingly agreed to those conditions; and it had been strictly true that he was “confined to his cabin,” and that he left written instructions on the cabin table every morning. Thereafter, he saw nothing except the view obtained from his stateroom port, and a brief nightly view of the starlit heavens and a wide, dark sea. Drew himself told him where they wanted to go, and he did the rest.

This state of affairs continued until he had navigated, according to instructions, to Amsterdam Island, and had come to anchor there. He knew nothing of what had taken place on the schooner since the mutiny, as he was at all times closely guarded. Then he was told briefly to come along, and was taken ashore with the two other men—both foremast hands—and left there, with nothing but what they had on their persons. Why they did not simply throw all three of them overboard he could not imagine, unless they had had enough of murder; and why he had been permitted to navigate so long, when they had a competent navigator in Wallet, he did not see. But so it was. No doubt Wallet had been navigator since; the nine months that they had been on Amsterdam. His plans—he had made many—had come to nothing, but what could he have done, and why was the situation not better as it was than it would have been if he had allowed himself to be thrown overboard? Tell him that.

To that Captain Nelson growled assent. “Where ’d you get your flag?” he asked.

Captain Coffin straightened in his chair, and brought his fist down on the table. “Gorry!” he cried. “I forgot that flag. I ’ll have to go ashore and take it down. It ’s my undershirt.”

“Only one you had?”

“ ’Course. ’D you think I wore two?”

“Cold?”