The Zenobia continued to run to the westward during the whole of that day before a wind that steadily softened down, hour after hour, until by two bells in the first dog-watch it was little more than a mere breathing, scarcely strong enough to keep the heavy courses filled. And we could tell by the motion of the ship that the sea as well as the wind was going down, for by the time that the above-named hour arrived we were bowing and swaying upon the fast-subsiding swell as easily and gently as though the ship had been a cradle rocked by a mother’s hand.
Things had been tolerably quiet out on deck during the forenoon, but later on, when the men had turned-to after their dinner, we heard sounds outside the house which indicated a considerable amount of activity on the part of the mutineers; the booms and planks which were stowed on the roof of our prison were overhauled, and several of them were flung down on deck; then “Welshy” came in and cast loose the carpenter, ordering him to bring his chest of tools outside. This was presently followed by the sounds of sawing and hammering; later on we heard certain orders being given which indicated that the mast and yard tackles were being sent aloft; and finally there was a great commotion and laughing out on deck, intermingled with the alarmed bleatings of some sheep, which were housed in the longboat.
“Ah,” ejaculated the skipper as these last-named sounds reached our ears, “I know what that means! They are clearing out the longboat preparatory to getting her over the side, and mean to turn us adrift in her. And not us only, but also the unfortunate passengers; for if they had not intended to send them as well as ourselves away, they would have kept the longboat and given us one of the quarter boats, which would have been amply big enough to have accommodated us seven—or six, if they mean to keep Chips with them.”
“He won’t stay, sir, you may take my word for that,” observed the boatswain. “Parsons is a straight chap—as straight as they make ’em; and you’ll find that he’s not the sort of man to have no truck wi’ mutineers—not he!”
“But they may compel him to stay,” objected the skipper. “He would be a very useful sort of man for them to have with them, and they may not give him the choice of going or staying.”
“Yes, that’s very true,” agreed Murdock. “But if they asks him to stay he’ll say ‘No’, and likewise give ’em to understand that if they keep him by force he won’t do no work for ’em. And they knows Chips, and understands that if he says a thing like that he’ll stick to it, if it’s only to spite ’em. No, I don’t believe as they’ll want to keep any man against his will, because that always means trouble, sooner or later, and Muster Bainbridge is far too ’cute to run the risk of anything of that sort. Besides, there’s Joe Caton—he says as he sarved his time in a shipbuilder’s yard, and is as good a ship’s carpenter as you’ll find goin’; he’s stoppin’ with ’em of his own accord, I reckon, and Bainbridge will be satisfied with him.”
“Well, perhaps it may be so; we shall soon know,” agreed the skipper. “But,” he continued, with a sigh of anxiety, “if they mean to turn the passengers as well as ourselves adrift—and I feel assured that they do—I wish Bainbridge would let me advise him in the matter of fixing up the longboat for the reception of the women and children. They will need many little comforts that an inexperienced lad, such as he is, will never think of; and it will be bad enough for the poor souls, even if everything that is possible is done for their welfare. And the longboat alone will not be big enough to take us all with any degree of safety, to say nothing of comfort.”
“We must watch for an opportunity, and give him our views upon the matter,” said the chief mate. “I wonder whether—”
At that moment the sliding door of the house in which we were confined was thrust back, and Lloyd—otherwise “Welshy”—entered. And behind him, ranged up athwart the deck outside, were to be seen a number of the seamen, each with a rifle in his hand and a cutlass girt about his waist. It was evident that the mutineers had lost no time in hunting up the ship’s arm chest—at that time an almost obsolete item of a ship’s equipment—and providing themselves with the means of effectually suppressing anything in the nature of resistance on our part, or an attempt to recapture the ship.
“Good a’ternoon, gen’lemen,” observed “Welshy”, with a grin that might indicate either triumph or an attempt at ingratiation; “splendid weather for a boat trip, ain’t it? I’m come to cast yer loose, and I dare say ye’ll be much obliged to me—for it can’t be very comfortable to sit there, hour a’ter hour, with your feet lashed together and your hands tied behind your backs; but, ye see, we agreed as it was best to take no risks, and then there’d be no call for bloodshed—I dare say you all understands what I means. Yes,”—as he proceeded to cast off the skipper’s lashings—“I’ve come to cast ye all adrift. But let me warn ye all not to dream of attemptin’ anything foolish, for we’ve got the ship and we means to keep her; and them rifles is all loaded with ball cartridge, and the men as carries ’em’ll shoot to kill if e’er a one of ’em sees any of you doin’ what you didn’t ought to do. You understand, Cap’n? And you, Mr. Mate? And the rest of yer?”
At these pointed questions we severally intimated that we understood, for indeed we could do nothing else. Whereupon the glowering scoundrel resumed:
“That’s all right, and just as it should be. We ain’t none of us got nothin’ against e’er a one of yer, and we don’t want to have no vi’lence, if it can be helped—and there won’t be none onless you yourselves brings it about. But if you does—well, stand clear, that’s all I got to say. Now, we bein’ all agreed that we don’t want no vi’lence nor bloodshed nor nothin’ in any ways disagreeable, and also bein’ agreed that we prefers to have this here ship all to our own selves, it have been decided to send you gents, and the ladies and gen’lemen aft, away in the longboat, to go just exac’ly where you bloomin’ well likes. There’s twenty-eight of yer, all told, includin’ the women and kids; and the longboat’ll just comfortably hold yer all, with provisions and water for three weeks. Our new skipper, Cap’n Bainbridge, says that in this weather, and wi’ this purty little breeze, you ought to be able to make the South American coast in ten days, easy.”
“Ten days!” exploded the skipper. “Yes, no doubt—if this wind holds and the fine weather lasts. But suppose that it doesn’t, what then?” He pulled himself up short, panting and breathless with anger, got a pull upon himself, recovered his self-control, and then said, in a perfectly quiet and steady voice:
“Look here, Lloyd, you are a seaman of experience, and ought to understand—and do understand, I have no doubt—that to send a heavily loaded open boat away upon a ten days’ voyage with only three weeks’ provisions and water is—well—practically downright murder. I must see your—er—Mr. Bainbridge about this, I really must; and you must arrange that I have an opportunity to do so. I cannot and will not undertake the responsibility of such a voyage as that which is proposed, nor, I am sure, will Mr. Bligh or Mr. Johnson. I shall simply refuse to go in the boat.”
“And I too,” added the chief mate.
“Ditto,” tersely added Johnson.
“You’ll refuse to go, eh?” snarled Lloyd. “And suppose we makes yer; suppose—”
“There is no use in supposing anything,” interrupted the skipper. “You profess to be anxious to avoid anything in the nature of force or bloodshed. Very well; I tell you that there will be both if you scoundrels persist in turning us all adrift under such circumstances as you have named. No, stand back; don’t attempt violence with me, my fine fellow. I am free now, and if you dare to lay your filthy hands upon me I will kill you with this,” and he shook his clenched fist savagely in Lloyd’s face. “Now,” he continued authoritatively, “go aft and tell Bainbridge that I want to see him—that I must and will speak to him before I leave this ship.”
To my great surprise the man obediently turned away, and, with a low-spoken word or two to the armed men who remained on guard outside the door, swung round the end of the house and walked aft, as we could tell by the sound of his receding footsteps.
He was absent about a quarter of an hour, during which Captain Roberts quietly cast off the chief mate’s lashings, then the pair of them released Mr. Johnson and the boatswain, who in turn released the sailmaker and myself, all being done under the eyes of the armed guard before the door, who looked stolidly on without protest by word or deed. We had scarcely done this when we became aware that the ship was being brought to the wind; and presently the order was given to man the braces. There were the usual “Yo-ho! yo-hip! round with her, boys!” and the like cries, which the British merchant seaman deems it necessary to indulge in when he is pulling and hauling; and presently we understood that the ship was hove-to on the starboard tack, with her head to the northward. Then the order was given to man the capstan; and the men were heaving round when Lloyd returned, and, with a grin of comprehension at finding us all released from our bonds, informed the skipper that Bainbridge was willing to see him. Whereupon Captain Roberts left us, and, escorted by “Welshy”, went aft.
Meanwhile, we who were left behind in the forward house gathered from the various sounds which reached us that the longboat was now being hoisted out; and presently we heard the heavy splash of her as she was dropped into the water alongside. This was followed by an order to overhaul and unhook the yard tackles; and in the comparative silence that then ensued we occasionally caught the alternate murmur of the skipper’s and Bainbridge’s voices: but they were speaking in ordinary conversational tones, and the multitudinous sounds of the ship—the faint rustle of canvas aloft, the patter of reef-points, the creaking of the yards and timbers, the wash of water alongside, and the subdued hum of many voices on deck—prevented us from catching a word of what was being said. However, we gathered that Captain Roberts had been protesting against turning so many people adrift in the longboat alone, for presently we heard Bainbridge shout an order to lower away the captain’s gig, which, next to the dinghy and jollyboat, was the smallest boat belonging to the ship. But she was roomy enough to accommodate ten people comfortably, without ballast, or seven with provisions and water enough to last her crew for three weeks; and I considered that if Bainbridge was indeed going to give us the gig as well as the longboat, with, of course, an adequate supply of provisions and water, we should be able to manage tolerably well in anything short of a gale.
Presently Lloyd, who appeared to be acting as Bainbridge’s lieutenant, came forward again and entered the house. “Now, then, gen’lemen,” he remarked, with the grin which he seemed to think it necessary to assume when addressing us, “the longboat’s all ready, and the passengers is waitin’ to go down into her, so you’d better come along and see to the stowin’ of ’em. And Mr. Bainbridge have agreed to let you have the gig also; so you ought to be as happy and comfortable as sandboys. But don’t forget what I told yer about our not wantin’ to have no trouble nor bloodshed. The ship’s ours, and we means to keep her, so if you wants to go away with whole skins, what you’ve got to do is to get from alongside as quick as possible, and without makin’ no trouble; for as sure as any of ye attempts to make trouble there’ll be bloodshed, and don’t you forget it. Mr. Bligh, you and Mr. Johnson be to go first and see to the stowin’ of the passengers; and when the longboat’s got her complement the rest of yer can foller.”
“You are not taking any chances, Lloyd, are you?” laughed Mr. Bligh sarcastically, as he rose to his feet. “Although all hands of you appear to be armed, you are not going to run the risk of having too many of us loose out on deck at once, for fear of what we might do, eh? Well, you are a fine, courageous lot of mutineers, I must say! You wouldn’t even chance a fight with a single one of us when you started out to take the ship, but must needs entice us for’ard, one man at a time, upon the pretence that fire had broken out in the hold. Ugh! I don’t envy Bainbridge his crew of bold buccaneers—not a little bit!” and with a scornful laugh he swaggered out on deck, followed by the second mate.
A minute later we heard his voice speaking to the passengers and calling upon them by name, one by one, to pass down the side, the women and children first. And it was pitiful to hear the low moaning and sobbing of some of the poor creatures as they reluctantly left the firm, spacious deck of the ship and fearfully clambered down the side ladder into the dancing longboat, which looked so small and dangerous a refuge in comparison with the bulk of the barque. The embarkation of the passengers proceeded slowly, because of the women and children among them, all of whom were frightened, while many of them were weeping bitterly, despite the best efforts of husbands, fathers, brothers, and male friends to encourage them. But at length the last passenger went down over the side and was assigned his place in the longboat, and then Lloyd again came forward and summoned those of us who remained in the house to follow him; and as we passed out on deck and started to walk aft to the gangway, the five armed seamen who had mounted guard over us followed at our heels.
As we cleared the galley, which formed part of the structure in which we had all been confined, the whole of the after part of the ship, from the fore end of the main hatchway, came into view, and we saw that the vessel was indeed, as we had supposed, hove-to on the starboard tack, with her mainyard laid almost square, the mainsail brailed up, and the remainder of her canvas set; and the fabric was full of the sound of a gentle creaking of timbers, trusses, and parrals, and the soft rustling of the white cloths overhead. She had no way on her, but was curtsying and rolling gently on a long, sluggish swell that came creeping up from the eastward. Apart from the swell, the sea was quite smooth, its surface being scarcely wrinkled into a pure, delicate blue tint by the easterly breeze, which had died down to so gentle a zephyr, that the lighter canvas and even the topsails flapped to the masts with every heave and dip of the hull. The sky was cloudless, save away down toward the west, where a great mass of vapour, broken up into small patches, blazed crimson and gold in the rays of the declining sun, and gilded and reddened the sleepy undulations beneath it.
Bainbridge, with his peaked cap thrust aggressively to the back of his head, his brass-buttoned blue serge jacket opening to display his white shirt and flowing black silk necktie, and also, incidentally, a brace of revolvers, suggestively stuck in the broad elastic belt which girt his waist, and with a smile of insolent triumph upon his dark, saturnine, but otherwise rather good-looking face, stood alone at the break of the poop, with both hands thrust deep into his trousers pockets and his white-canvas-shod feet planted wide apart, watchfully regarding the proceedings on the main deck beneath him; while the whole of the crew, with the exception of the cook and the five men who constituted our especial bodyguard, were drawn up athwart the deck and along the face of the poop structure, each man armed with a rifle, and with a sheathed cutlass girt about his waist. Captain Roberts and Mr. Bligh stood together at the open lee gangway, through which and above the lee rail could be seen the tossing masts of the longboat.
As our little party approached him the skipper turned, and, after running his eye over us for a moment, said:
“Mr. Temple, I shall be obliged to ask you, the carpenter, and Sails to go with Mr. Johnson in the gig. The longboat is already pretty well crowded, considering that part of her complement consists of women and children. You will find that the gig already has four breakers of fresh water in her, which will serve for ballast, but you will have to provision her from the longboat, as Bainbridge absolutely refuses to give us so much as another biscuit. You will find Mr. Johnson already in her. Just jump down and lend him a hand, if you please.”
The gig, with her mast already stepped, was lying outside the longboat, with Mr. Johnson in her, while Chips, in the longboat, was overhauling the stock of provisions in the latter and passing a certain portion into the gig according to the second mate’s instructions. It was a bit of a job to get to her across the crowded longboat, but I had just stepped into her and was about to address Johnson when I stopped short, for I heard Captain Roberts’s voice raised in a final appeal to the men.
“My lads,” he said in a loud, clear voice, “before I quit the ship I want to give you a last chance to undo the evil that you have this day done, and to avert from yourselves the punishment that most surely awaits you if you persist in following the path into which you have been beguiled by a plausible young scoundrel—”
“Meaning me, eh, Skipper?” jeered Bainbridge, with a harsh laugh, from the poop above.
“Even now, men,” continued the captain, ignoring Bainbridge’s interruption, “at this last moment, it is not too late for you to withdraw from your unholy compact and return to your duty. You are not to blame for what has happened; you have simply been deceived and led astray by one who ought to have known better than to tempt you to a step which can only end in your destruction. I ask you to lay down those arms and place yourselves at my mercy; and I promise you, upon my honour as a seaman and a gentleman, that if you will do so not one of you except your ringleader shall ever hear another word about the matter—”
“Stop! Shut up! Not another word, as you value your life!” yelled Bainbridge, suddenly flying into a fury and whipping a revolver out of his belt. “So that is your little game, is it? You would bribe those men to betray me, to put me into your power! Very well! Now you jump down into that longboat at once; and if you dare to open your mouth again and speak another word of temptation to the men, I’ll blow your head off,” and he wound up with an oath.
But Captain Roberts was not to be deterred so easily from seizing the only opportunity that had thus far presented itself by which he might make an effort to regain the command of the ship and his ascendancy over her crew, nor was he at all the sort of man to be frightened from his duty by the flourishing of a pistol before his eyes. It was his duty to nullify this mutiny if he could, and therefore he turned to the men again.
“Lads,” he said, “bethink yourselves. What sort of a future is to be yours if you persist—?”
Crack! Bainbridge’s pistol barked out from the poop, and poor Captain Roberts reeled back, clutching his breast, from which the red blood was spouting, into the arms of Mr. Bligh, who was standing close by him. And Bainbridge, startled perhaps at what he had done—for the skipper had always behaved like a father to him—lost the last vestige of his self-control, and became in a moment the very personification of a raving, bloodthirsty maniac. Levelling his still smoking revolver at Bligh, he commanded the latter, with a very tornado of curses, instantly to place the body of the captain in the longboat and shove off from the ship’s side forthwith, unless he wished to share the skipper’s fate.
Still supporting the swooning body of the captain in his arms, Bligh allowed his gaze to search in turn the face of each of the armed men who now clustered round him, and seeing nothing to justify the hope that a further appeal would meet with the least success, replied:
“All right, my lad, I’m going—worse luck for you! Here, one of you,”—to the crew—“just drop your shooting-iron for a minute, if you’re not afraid of me, and lend me a hand to lower the skipper over the side, will ye?” Then, as one of the men mechanically obeyed, the mate murmured in his ear: “I’m sorry for you silly buckos, for this means the hang-man’s noose for all hands of you. But there’s time for you yet. If you repent before we’re out of sight, all you have to do is to bear up in chase of us and run the ensign up to the fore royal-mast-head. I shall know what that means, and you’ll have no reason to regret it. Now then,” aloud, as the two took the skipper’s body between them, “handsomely does it. Below there, boatswain, just ease the captain down, and lay him in the main sheets where the doctor can get to work upon him.”
Between them they somehow contrived to get the unfortunate skipper’s body down the side and into the sternsheets of the longboat, where Dr. Morrison at once proceeded to examine the wound; and the moment that this was done Mr. Bligh scrambled down the side ladder, made his way aft among the women and children, who were huddled together, most of them sobbing quietly with their faces buried in their hands, seized the tiller, and, thrusting it hard-over, gave the word to shove off and make sail. The order was promptly obeyed, and five minutes later the longboat, with the gig towing astern, was running off to leeward, with both standing lugs and her jib set; while those of us who were watching the barque saw her head sheets trimmed aft and her mainyard swung as she slowly gathered way and stood to the nor’ard and eastward, close-hauled on the starboard tack.
We had been under way about ten minutes when Mr. Bligh hailed Mr. Johnson to haul up alongside; and when we had done so he said:
“Mr. Johnson, now that Captain Roberts is so seriously hurt I shall want you to come into the longboat with me, because I am the only one at present capable of navigating her, and—you understand me, I’m sure. Temple, you will have to take command of the gig, and do the best you can with her. That young scoundrel has not permitted any of us to bring our sextants with us; he has not even given us a chart, or so much as a boat compass, so we shall have to do the best we can without them. But I have been considering the situation, and have come to the conclusion that our best plan will be to make for Rio, which, according to my rough reckoning, bears about west and by no’th, true; distant, say, twelve hundred miles: and we shall have to shape our course for it, as nearly as we can, by the sun and stars. This plan has the advantage that by continuing to steer a westerly course we are bound to hit the South American coast somewhere, even if we should miss Rio; and we also stand a very good chance of falling in with and being picked up by something bound round the Horn. So much for that part of the business. Next, as we are a bit crowded here, and the boat is rather deeper than I like, you will have to take the boatswain in exchange for Mr. Johnson; and—” he paused and ran his eye speculatively over the crowd in the longboat. Then, addressing them generally, he said, “I wonder whether one of you gentlemen would care to go in the gig with Mr. Temple? As you can all see and feel for yourselves, we are rather uncomfortably crowded aboard here, and the boat would be all the safer if she were relieved of the weight of even one of you, while there is plenty of room in the gig, and she is just as safe as the longboat. I suppose I need not tell you that Temple is an excellent seaman and navigator, while the gig is the faster boat of the two and will probably arrive at least a couple of days ahead of us.”
A pause of a few seconds’ duration followed this appeal, and then a Mr. Cunningham—who happened to be the only unattached male passenger among the party—arose and said:
“If you consider the change desirable I shall be very pleased to go in the gig; in fact, I am the only male passenger who has no ‘encumbrance’ with him in the shape of wife or child, therefore it will make no difference at all to me which boat I happen to be in.”
“That being the case, we will make the exchange at once, and then you, Temple, had better make sail and get over the ground as fast as you can,” said Mr. Bligh.
And therewith the gig was hauled up close alongside the longboat and the transfer at once effected, Mr. Johnson turning over to the bigger boat while the boatswain and Mr. Cunningham joined us in the gig. The transfer was not a lengthy process, for Bainbridge had not permitted any of us to bring away any of our belongings, and at that moment the richest of us had only what he or she happened to be wearing in the way of clothing. Then, as the chief mate cast off our painter and thrust the two boats apart, he said:
“Make sail, Temple, and crack on for all you are worth. And, as soon as you get in, report the mutiny, get the British Consul to send out a tug or something, with provisions and water, to look for us; and see that he reports the matter at once to the nearest naval station within reach, so that the men-o’-war may be dispatched to seek the Zenobia, and get hold of her before she has time to do very much mischief. And don’t forget that your course is west and by no’th—or, as near as may be, in the eye of the setting sun when he reaches the horizon. Goodbye, and a quick passage to you!”
“Goodbye, sir,” I returned; “and the same to you! I trust that the doctor will be able to put the captain on his feet again by the time that you get in. I will remember all your instructions, and lose not a moment in carrying them out directly we arrive. Goodbye, all! Hoist away, bos’n; and, Simpson, boom out the sheet with that boathook.”
The sun was by this time within ten minutes of his setting, and glowed, a great, palpitating disk of incandescent red, through a thin veil of innumerable small, closely clustering clouds that stretched in gorgeous tints of gold, crimson, and purple against a background of very pale green, right athwart the horizon ahead, their colours being brilliantly reflected in the softly rippling, slowly moving undulations that came creeping up after us, heaving us gently up on their ample breasts and then sweeping on ahead of us straight toward the sinking luminary. The wind had just strength enough in it to keep the sheet of our single lug from sagging into the water, and the gig was sliding smoothly along, with the small sound of lapping, gurgling water under her, at the rate of about three knots in the hour, leaving behind her a thin, swirling wake of small bubbles and tiny whirlpools that vanished upon the breast of the next on-coming swell. The longboat, under fore and main standing lugs and a small jib, deeply loaded as she was, was doing a knot less than ourselves, and we soon passed and slid ahead of her; while away down in the north-eastern board, broad on our starboard quarter, the topsails and upper canvas of the barque shone primrose-yellow above the ridges of the swell as she stood away from us, heading about nor’-north-east, close-hauled on the starboard tack.
There was every prospect that we were about to have a fine night, almost too fine, in fact, to suit us: for although light winds meant smooth water, which in its turn meant safety for deeply laden open boats, we had a long road before us and not too many provisions or too much water for our sustenance during our journey; and for my own part, if I could have had my choice, I would have preferred a little more wind, provided that it was fair—even although it involved a somewhat heavier sea—to help us on our way.