The Zenobia—A1 at Lloyd’s—was a beautiful little clipper barque of 376 tons register, and so exquisitely fine were her lines that her cargo-carrying capacity amounted to but a few tons more than her register tonnage; in fact, the naval architect who designed her had been instructed to ignore altogether the question of cargo capacity, and to give his whole attention to the matter of speed, and most faithfully had he carried out his instructions.
For the Zenobia had been designed and built to the order of the firm which owned the famous “Queen” line of sailing clippers trading between London and Natal; and the aim of the Company was to drive off all competitors and secure the monopoly of the passenger trade between London and the Garden Colony. And there was only one way in which that aim could be accomplished, namely, by carrying passengers to and fro in less time and greater comfort than any of the competing lines. The question of cargo did not matter so very much, for at that time—that is to say, about the year 1860—the steam service to South Africa was very different from what it is to-day. The steamers were small, slow, and infrequent; Natal was just then attracting a big influx of well-to-do people from England; passenger rates were high—as also, for that matter, was the freight on such special merchandise as was at that time being carried out to the colony—and those who took credit to themselves for their foresight believed that there was big money to be made in the sailing passenger trade. Needless to say, the competition between the different lines was exceedingly keen: but the owners of the “Queen” line were a very rich corporation; they were prepared to sink money in the effort to secure a monopoly; and the Zenobia was the latest outcome of their rather speculative policy.
At the moment when this story opens—namely, about two bells of the middle watch, on the night of 24 January, 1862—or rather in the early morning of 25 January, to be exact—the barque was somewhere about latitude 25 degrees south, and longitude 27 degrees west. I have not the precise figures by me, nor do they very greatly matter. The night was fine, clear, and starlit, with the moon, well advanced in her fourth quarter, hanging a few degrees above the eastern horizon, and shedding just enough light to touch the wave crests immediately beneath her with soft flashes of ruddy golden light. The wind was piping up fresh from the south-east, and the little clipper was roaring through it under all plain sail to her royals, with the yeast slopping in over her starboard rail at every lee roll and her lee scuppers all afloat; for quick passages were the order of the day, quick passages meant “carrying on”, and Mr Stephen Bligh, the chief mate and officer of the watch, was living fully up to the traditions of the service. This was the Zenobia’s second outward voyage. Her first trip had been accomplished in the unprecedentedly brief period of forty-six days; and it was now the ambition of her skipper and his two mates to beat even that brilliant record. And at the moment there seemed an excellent prospect that this laudable ambition might be achieved, for the morrow would only be our twenty-fourth day out. We had been extraordinarily lucky in the matter of crossing the line, having slid across it with a good breeze, which had run us into the south-east Trades without the loss of a moment; and those same south-east Trades—or something remarkably like them—were still piping up fresh, although we were by this time well beyond their ordinary southern limits.
Our ship’s company amounted to twenty-four all told, namely, Captain John Roberts, our skipper; Mr Stephen Bligh, our chief mate; Mr Peter Johnson, our second mate; Dr John Morrison, our surgeon—ours being one of the few ships in the trade which at that time carried a doctor—the boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, two stewards, twelve men—of whom eight were A.B.’s and four only O.S.—and last, but not least—in our own estimation—two apprentices, Tom Bainbridge, in his fifth year of apprenticeship, being one, while I, Mark Temple, just turned seventeen years of age, and in the third year of my apprenticeship, was the other. There was not much love lost between Bainbridge and myself, by the way, for he was of a sullen, sulky temper, and had tried hard to bully me when I first made his acquaintance in the old Boadicea before joining the Zenobia. But our mutual ill feeling did not greatly matter, for he was in the port watch and I in the starboard, so we very rarely met except when it was a case of “all hands”; consequently we had not very much opportunity to quarrel. And in addition to the above we carried twenty cuddy passengers, of whom six were men, while the remainder consisted of nine ladies and five children. I am afraid the above details are not very interesting, but it is necessary to give them in order that the reader may fully understand what is to follow.
As I have already mentioned, this story may be said to have had its beginning about two bells in the middle watch—or about one o’clock in the morning—on a certain specified date; for until then there had been nothing out of the ordinary to distinguish the voyage from any other. But some five minutes after I had struck two bells, in accordance with the chief mate’s instructions, and the lookout on the topgallant forecastle had responded with the usual cry of “All’s well!” one of the forecastle hands came slouching along aft, and, ascending the poop ladder with a certain suggestion of haste and trepidation, approached the mate.
“Will ye mind steppin’ for’ard a minute, sir?” he enquired. “There’s a strong smell o’ burnin’ down in the fo’c’sle, and—”
“A strong smell of burning?” interrupted Mr Bligh. “The dickens there is! Yes, of course I’ll go. Temple,” turning to me, “just keep a lookout for a minute or two while I’m gone, will ye?”
“Ay, ay, sir,” I replied; and the mate dashed down the poop ladder and went scurrying away forward, regardless of the drenching showers of spray that came flying in over the weather cathead with every mad plunge of the overdriven ship.
For the next five minutes I paced anxiously to and fro along the weather side of the poop, with my ears wide open for any sudden outcry that might confirm the awful suspicion of fire having broken out below; but I heard nothing save the continuous hiss and roar of the sea under the lee bow and along the bends, the heavy slop of water in over the rail with every lee roll of the ship, and the thunder and piping of the wind aloft, and I was beginning to hope that it was no worse than a false alarm, when the man who a few minutes previously had come aft to summon the mate came running—yes, positively running—along the deck again. He stumbled up the poop ladder and came to me, puffing and panting, with every sign of the most extreme agitation, and delivered his message.
“Mr Temple!” he gasped—the skipper always insisted upon the “midshipmen” apprentices being “Mistered” by the foremast hands, upon the ground that we were officers, if only in embryo—“Mr Temple, the mate says will ye please slip below and quietly call Cap’n Roberts without disturbin’ the passengers. Ye are to tell him that the ship’s afire in the forehold, and that Mr Bligh will be much obliged if he’ll come for’ard to the fo’c’sle at once. And when ye’ve done that, ye’re to continue your lookout on the poop until ye’re relieved.”
“Ay, ay, Mason, I’ll do that,” I answered. Then, as we turned together to leave the poop, I asked: “Is the matter serious, Mason? Has Mr Bligh actually found the seat of the fire; and is there a chance of our being able to master it?”
“Can’t say, as yet,” answered the man. “We ain’t actually found the fire; but it’s there all right.”
I shivered involuntarily, although the night was warm, for I happened to know that a good deal of the cargo which we were carrying was of a highly combustible character, such as furniture, pianos, Manchester goods, and the like, to say nothing of several cases of sporting ammunition. I knew that if once the fire happened to get a good hold upon such material as that the chances were all against our being able to master it, especially in such a strong breeze as was then blowing.
And if we should be compelled to leave the ship—!
I thought of those poor helpless women and children peacefully sleeping down below, and of what their plight might be if we were driven to take to the boats out there in the heart of the South Atlantic, hundreds of miles from the nearest land.
Tiptoeing my way to the skipper’s cabin, I rapped gently with my knuckles on the panel of the door, and bent my head to listen for a reply. I knew that Captain Roberts was a light sleeper, and judged that it would not take much to awake him. Nor was I mistaken, for immediately following upon my low knock came the quiet reply:
“Hillo! who is there, and what is it?”
“It is I—Temple—sir,” I replied. “May I enter?”
For answer I heard the light thud of bare feet inside the cabin as the skipper sprang from his bunk; and the next instant the door quietly opened and Captain Roberts stood before me.
“What is it, Temple?” he demanded. “Anything wrong?”
“Yes, sir, I’m afraid there is,” I replied in low tones. “Mr Bligh is down in the forecastle, and he has just sent a message aft to me directing me to call you and say that he is afraid fire has broken out in the fore hold, and that he will be much obliged if you will kindly go to him at once.”
“Fire!” ejaculated the skipper. “In the fore hold, you say? Humph! I don’t notice any smell of it here,” and he started sniffing violently as he stooped for his slippers and put them on. “Who gave the alarm?”
“Mason, sir,” I replied. “He came aft, just after two bells, and reported a strong smell of burning down in the forecastle. Mr Bligh went for’ard at once, leaving me to keep a lookout on the poop; and he had been gone about five minutes when Mason again came aft with a message directing me to call you.”
“I see,” answered the skipper. “Very well,” as he emerged from his cabin and quietly closed the door behind him, “you go back to the poop and keep an eye upon the ship. I shall not be long.” And with one bound, as it seemed to me, he was out on deck and running forward. As for me, I returned to my station on the poop, which I anxiously paced backward and forward in momentary expectation of hearing the call for “All hands!”
But when I came to look more closely it appeared that any such formal call would be quite superfluous, for presently a light flashed out from the windows of the small house just abaft the foremast, in which the boatswain, carpenter, sailmaker, cook, and the two stewards were berthed, and by its rather feeble beams I perceived that the fore deck was full of men crouching under the shelter of the topgallant forecastle; I presumed, therefore, that upon the first alarm of fire they had turned out and dressed, and had been sent on deck by the mate to be out of the way while the investigation below was being made. It was about this time that I noticed, with keen satisfaction, the fact that the wind was not blowing quite as strongly as it had been during the earlier part of the watch.
I was beginning to think that the skipper was remaining below rather a long time, and was drawing the most disquieting conclusions from the circumstance, when one of the crew—a man whom I recognised as Owen Lloyd, generally known among his messmates as “Welshy”—came aft and entered the little house abaft the main hatch, where Bainbridge and I had our lodging. A few seconds later a small glimmer from the open door showed that the man was lighting the lamp which illuminated our snuggery; and a minute or two afterwards Lloyd emerged again and went forward, while Bainbridge also stepped out on deck and disappeared beneath the break of the poop. He was gone some three or four minutes, then reappeared, accompanied by Mr Johnson, the second mate, whom he had evidently been directed to call, for the pair immediately proceeded forward at a trot. I decided that the matter was assuming a distinctly serious aspect. Some five minutes later Bainbridge came aft, and, ascending to the poop, remarked to me in his usual surly, offhand manner:
“You’re wanted at once in the forecastle, Temple, and I’m to keep the lookout in your place.”
“Right!” I replied. “How are they getting on for’ard? Have they found the fire yet?”
“Go and look for yourself, sonny, and don’t waste valuable time in stopping to ask silly questions,” was the ungracious reply I received; and I suppose it was the reflection that it served me right for persisting in my attempts to be civil to the lout that drove out of my head the thought which had flashed into it for an instant, that it was rather queer that the skipper should have sent for me at a moment when Bainbridge was actually on the spot and would serve his purpose quite as well. So, all unsuspectingly, I trundled away forward, and, flinging my legs over the coaming of the fore scuttle, dropped down into the forecastle, noting en passant that a dozen or more of the hands were still huddling together under the shelter of the topgallant forecastle. As I was in the very act of swinging myself down off the coaming I thought I caught the sound of a subdued chuckle emanating from somebody among this group; but before I had time to give the matter a thought, or wonder what might be the cause of such ill-timed mirth, my feet reached the deck of the forecastle, and I found myself the centre of a group of some half a dozen of the crew, with the slush lamp swinging violently with the motion of the ship, and darting its feeble rays hither and thither as it hung suspended from a smoky beam overhead. And in that same instant I caught a momentary glimpse of the forms of Captain Roberts, Mr Bligh, and Mr Johnson, bound hand and foot, and with gags in their mouths, huddled up in three of the recently vacated bunks. As for the supposed fire, there was neither sight nor smell of it.
“What the—” I began. But before I could utter another sound I felt my head dragged violently back and a big gag thrust between my jaws, while my arms and legs were at the same instant seized by powerful hands and lashed so securely that I could not have moved either of them by so much as an inch, no, not to save my life. The work was done with the speed and precision that might be expected of men accustomed to the manipulation of ropes and the tying of knots; and then I was lifted off my feet and flung with scant ceremony into one of the unoccupied bunks.
“There! that’s the last one; the passengers can be left until to-morrer mornin’ to be dealt with,” exclaimed a voice which I recognised as that of “Welshy”. “And now, lads,” the voice continued, “let’s go on deck and take some of the ‘muslin’ off her; there’s no use in strainin’ the hooker all to pieces, and Bainbridge says as we’re quite far enough south a’ready.”
Bainbridge! Could it be possible that Bainbridge was mixed up with this vile conspiracy? For conspiracy it was, clearly enough, to obtain possession of the ship without the necessity to fight for her; the bound forms of the skipper and the two mates—to say nothing of myself—proved it beyond a doubt. And a very cunningly devised scheme it was, too, ably planned and most efficiently executed—the enticement of the mate into the forecastle by the suggestion of fire; then, after just the right lapse of time, the fictitious message to the skipper through me, followed by the summons of the second mate, and, finally, the capture of my insignificant self. It was much too subtle a scheme to be evolved by the uninventive brain of the average British shellback, and I fancied that I recognised a certain Bainbridge-like neatness of touch and finish in it all. But perhaps I was prejudiced, for I never liked the fellow. Yet, if he was not in it, why was he still free, instead of being down in the forecastle, a captive, like the rest of us? I remembered now that on several occasions I had seen him fraternising with the men for’ard during the dog-watches; but I had thought nothing of it at the time beyond reflecting that to me it seemed to be rather bad form on his part, and not by any means conducive to good discipline.
As I recalled these occasions to mind, while I lay there in that close, evil-smelling bunk, I idly wondered whether he had used them for the purpose of seducing the men from their duty and allegiance and persuading them to join him in this outrageous act of unprovoked mutiny. For unprovoked it most assuredly was: the owners were most liberal providers, the food was the best obtainable, and the allowance of it far exceeded the Board of Trade scale; the men had grog as well as lime juice served out to them regularly every day; the skipper was easy-going with them to a degree; and neither of the mates could, by the wildest stretch of imagination, be termed a slave-driver, although of course both exacted a certain amount of daily work; and, finally, the afternoon watch below was never called upon except when necessity demanded it; in short, the Zenobia was as comfortable a ship as any sailor need wish to go to sea in. No; I was certain that this atrocious seizure of the ship had not originated in discontent on the part of the men, who were neither better nor worse than the average British seaman. They had been played upon by skilful hands; their baser passions had been so strongly appealed to that their better judgment had been blinded; and I felt morally convinced that there was not a man among the legitimate occupants of the forecastle who possessed the ability to do this thing.
Then, I asked myself, who was the master spirit who had contrived so effectually to blind and mislead those simple-minded men, and so powerfully to influence them that they had eventually permitted themselves to be betrayed into an act that converted them into outlaws, with every man’s hand against them? And why had they done it? They had no grievance, real or imaginary, against any of their officers: that fact was patent from the manner in which the seizure of the ship had been effected; there had been none of the brutal violence, the bloodshed, which usually accompanies a mutiny upon the high seas. Then why, I mentally repeated, had the men mutinied at all?
And the answer that came to my mind was—Bainbridge! Yes, prejudice and ill feeling apart, I could think of no other individual in the ship with the will and the disposition to concoct and carry out such a scheme. To begin with, he was the only discontented person, so far as I knew, on the ship. And his discontent was of that dangerous kind which is dissatisfied not with any one particular thing, but with everything. He was poor and—as I understood—practically friendless, except for an uncle who had apprenticed him to the sea in order to get rid of him; he was restive under discipline, his character being strongly imbued with that false pride which chafes at a subordinate position. I had often heard him declare that he was born to be a leader of men, and had laughed at what seemed to me to be his inordinate conceit. He hated work as heartily as he loved trashy, sensational literature; and he displayed a quite childish love of dainty food and showy clothes. And these were not his only faults: he was an unblushing liar; he scoffed at such old-fashioned virtues as honesty and truth and godliness; he sneered at me every time that he found me on my knees offering up my morning and nightly petitions to my Maker; he was cruel when he had the chance to be so; and, in short, he seemed surcharged with gall and bitterness.
He possessed only one redeeming point, so far as I could ever discover, and that was that he was a splendid navigator. He prided himself upon his skill with the sextant, and often used to assert—in that cynical way of his that might be either jest or earnest, one could never tell which—that some day he would become a pirate king and establish himself magnificently on some fair island of the Pacific! Heavens! thought I, could it be possible that the fellow had actually been in earnest, and that this mutiny was the outcome of his evil ambition? It certainly looked very much like it.
Meanwhile, during the time that these thoughts and speculations had been running through my head, the hands on deck had been noisily engaged in shortening sail, and from the time that they took about the job, and the easier, more buoyant movements of the ship, I conjectured that they had taken in not only the royals, but also the topgallantsails, together with, probably, the flying jib and a few of the lighter staysails. Then, when the mutineers had done all that they deemed necessary in the way of shortening sail, four of them came down into the forecastle, and with the aid of a rope, the bight of which was passed round our bodies, the skipper, the mates, and I were hauled up on deck and carried into the fore house, where we found the boatswain, Chips, and Sails as securely trussed up as ourselves. And there, still gagged and bound helplessly hand and foot, we were left to our meditations until, after a very eternity, as it seemed, of extreme discomfort, first came the daylight and finally eight bells of the morning watch, when the sliding door of the house was thrust open and one of the men entered—a fellow named Adams.
After looking at us meditatively for a moment, and carefully examining our lashings to assure himself that they still held firmly, he removed the gags from our mouths—for which I, for one, was profoundly thankful—and informed us that breakfast was about to be brought to us, and that our hands would be loosed to enable us to partake of it. But he warned us that his instructions were to shoot at the slightest sign of an attempt on our part to break out of the house, or the slightest uplifting of our voices, and to give point to the statement he exhibited a fully loaded revolver, which Captain Roberts at once recognised as his own personal property.
“And pray, who gave you those instructions, Adams?” demanded the skipper.
“I ain’t allowed to say,” answered the man. “But I was to tell you,” he continued, “that you ain’t none of yer permitted to talk to any of us men, or to ask us any questions; and if you persist in doin’ so you’re to be gagged again.”
“Very well,” agreed the skipper artfully; “then we will not ask you anything that you feel you ought not to tell. But I suppose you will have no objection to tell me, without asking, what has been done with regard to the passengers?”
“The gen’lemen have been lashed up, same as yourselves, and locked away, two in a cabin; while the women folk and the kids is locked up all safe in the other cabins; so there ain’t no chancet of none of ’em bein’ able to slip for’ard and help yer anyways. And now, don’t you ask me nothin’ more, because I ain’t goin’ to answer yer,” replied Adams, with some show of testiness.
“But I suppose you can tell us, if you choose, what your new skipper, Bainbridge, is going to do with us,” I insinuated. “He is not going to keep us cooped up here until a man-o’-war comes along and captures the ship, is he?”
“Now, look ’e here, Mister Temple, don’t you go for to try to pump me, or it’ll be the worse for yer,” expostulated Adams. “I ain’t got nothin’ against you, and I don’t want to hurt yer if I can help it, but s’help me! I’ll have to shove that there gag back into yer mouth if you don’t clap a stopper on that tongue of yours. Ah, here comes cooky with the grub!” he announced, with a sigh of relief, as the “Doctor” made his appearance at the door with a well-loaded tray.
The picture which that tray presented was conclusive evidence that, whatever might be the ultimate intentions of the mutineers toward us, they did not mean to starve us to death, for the breakfast that was placed before us consisted of the best that the steward’s pantry could produce. And we all did the fullest justice to it, even the skipper making a hearty meal, although I believe it was not so much because he had a good appetite as that he had a very shrewd suspicion of what lay before him, and was exceedingly doubtful as to when he would next have the opportunity to sit down to a good, well-cooked meal. As for me, I was healthily hungry, and was altogether too young and of too sanguine a temperament to feel very anxious as to what was to be the outcome of the adventure; moreover, I was unburdened by responsibility of any sort, and I therefore ate and drank until I was fully satisfied.
We were still busy with our breakfasts when an alteration in the motion of the ship apprised us all of the fact that the helm had been put up, and that we were now running off with the wind on our port quarter; and the next moment we heard a voice, which I instantly recognised as Bainbridge’s, summoning the men to the braces. The yards were trimmed very nearly square, then came an order to loose, sheet home, and hoist away the topgallantsails and royals; next the men who had gone aloft to loose those sails were ordered to rig out the port studdingsail-booms and to set the royal and topgallant studdingsails on their way down; and finally the topmast and lower studdingsails were set, and the Zenobia went rolling and wallowing away to the westward under every rag that could be packed upon her.
No remark was made upon this so long as the man Adams remained with us; but when at length we had finished our breakfast, had reluctantly submitted to be trussed up again—because we could not help ourselves, and nothing could be gained by offering an unavailing resistance—and were once more shut in and left to ourselves, the skipper turned to Mr Bligh and remarked:
“Now, what does the scoundrel mean by this shift of helm, think you? We are only about four or five degrees to the southward of Rio at this moment. Can the man be such a fool as to think of running in until he sights the coast and then turning us adrift to get ashore as best we can? Because, if he does, we’ll have a British man-o’-war after him in no time.”
“I don’t believe the boy is quite such an ass as that; indeed, I regard him as being very far from an ass—except in this one particular instance of organising this mutiny,” answered Bligh. “I haven’t the slightest notion of what he intends to be after, but I think we may be quite certain that Bainbridge won’t give us much of a chance to report him until he has had time to get well out of the neighbourhood. What say you, Johnson? He was in your watch, and you should know him a good deal better than I do.”
“If you are speaking of Bainbridge,” answered the second mate, “I fully agree with you that he is very far from being a fool—quite the other way about, indeed; and from what I know of the young villain I should say that he may be depended upon to give us the smallest possible chance of reporting him quickly. My opinion is this. So far, and up to the moment of shifting her helm, the Zenobia has been following the usual ship track to the south’ard and round the Cape; hence we have been liable to fall in at any moment with other ships, which would not exactly suit Bainbridge’s book. Therefore he has shifted his helm and is now running off the track far enough to avoid meeting with other ships. In my opinion he will continue so to run until he considers himself quite out of danger; but what he will do afterward, and how he will dispose of us, I’ll leave it to a better guesser than myself to imagine. The only thing that I feel at all certain about is that he will not murder us; if he had intended to do that he would not have taken such elaborate pains to get us alive and uninjured into his power.”
“Quite so; I fully agree with you there,” returned the skipper. “The thing that I can’t fathom is the young scoundrel’s motive for taking the ship, and what he proposes to do with her now that he has her. By the way, Mr Temple, it was you, I think, who first named Bainbridge as the ringleader of this rascally job; what led you to fix it upon him so pat?”
“Well, sir,” said I, “the fact is that after they brought us in here and left us, bound hand and foot and gagged, so that we could neither move nor talk, I endeavoured to beguile the time by asking myself who was responsible for the seizure of the ship, and then trying to find an answer to the question.” And forthwith I proceeded to give a résumé of the cogitations which had ultimately led to my fixing the blame for the affair upon Bainbridge’s shoulders. In the course of my remarks I happened to mention that at first I had been inclined to suspect the man nicknamed “Welshy”, but that I had soon come to the conclusion that the fellow had not the brains necessary to plan such a coup and carry it out to a successful conclusion in the masterly manner which had distinguished the actual operation.
“Ah! but ‘Welshy’ was in it, though,” cut in the boatswain. “I know he was; for he and Bainbridge was for ever gettin’ away together by theirselves and talkin’ by the fathom. ‘Welshy’ is one of these here Socialist buckos who’s got the notion that all hands ought to be on the same level, and that nobody ought to have more of anything than anybody else; he’s a rare hand at preachin’ about equality and the rights o’ man, is ‘Welshy’, and I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if it turned out that ’twas he as first give Mr Bainbridge the idee of seizin’ the ship. And even if he wasn’t, I know that he is pretty well mixed up in it, for he was everlastin’ly yarnin’ about the hardships and wrongs of sailormen, and throwin’ out hints, like. I didn’t take no notice of ’em at the time—in fac’ Chips and I used to argufy with and laugh at him; but now, since this here mutiny job have happened, I seem to see that all his talk had a purpose, and that he was feelin’ around, like, with the idee of findin’ out how many of us might be depended upon to back up him and Bainbridge in the seizure of the ship.”
“And it would appear that he was successful in winning over all hands except you three,” remarked the skipper. “Did he ever attempt to sound either of you?”
“Ay, that he did, sir; lots o’ times, now that I comes to think of it,” answered the boatswain. “But nothin’ what you might call definite, you understand. I s’pose he pretty soon saw that Chips and Sails and me weren’t likely to have any truck wi’ such an idee as mutiny and seizin’ the ship, so he soon knocked off talkin’ to us about it. I reckon that he used to report to Bainbridge pretty often, tellin’ him what he had said, and how we had took it; and I expect it was Mr B. who told him not to say anything more to us about it.”
“Yes,” agreed the skipper, “I fancy you have got the hang of the thing pretty accurately, bos’n; but it was a pity that it never occurred to either of you to mention the matter to me or Mr Bligh. It would have given us a notion of what was brewing, and put us on our guard.”
But Murdock, Parsons, and Simpson all vehemently protested that Lloyd’s remarks were of so very general a character, and bore so striking a resemblance to the ordinary “grousing” universally met with in a ship’s forecastle, which really means nothing, that it never occurred to either of them to attach any especial significance to what unfortunately had proved to be an exceptional case. A great deal more was said upon the matter before it was dropped; but the remarks were mostly of a desultory character, and as they have no particular bearing upon the thread of this story it is unnecessary to repeat them.
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.
Zenobia
“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.