The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes

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Leaning back, he bared his teeth and laughed ferociously.

Here was a plot to take the ship! Although we probably had missed the fine
points of it, we could not mistake its general character.

"Ay," said Blodgett, as if we had been discussing the matter for hours,
"but we'll be a pack of bloody pirates to be hanged from the yard-arms of
the first frigate that overhauls us."

It was true. We should be liable as pirates in any port in Christendom.

"Men," said Roger coolly, "there's no denying that in the eyes of the law
we'd be pirates as well as mutineers. But if we can take the ship and sail
it back to Salem, we'll be acquitted of any charge of mutiny or piracy, I
can promise you. It'll be easy to ship a new crew at Canton, and we can
settle affairs with the Websters' agents there so that at least we'll have
a chance at a fair trial if we are taken on our homeward voyage. Shall we
venture it?"

The cook rolled his eyes. "Gimme dat yeh Kipping!" he cried, and with a
savage cackle he swung his cleaver.

"Falk for me, curse him!" Davie Paine muttered with a neat that surprised
me. I had not realized that emotions as well as thoughts developed so
slowly in Davie's big, leisurely frame that he now was just coming to the
fullness of his wrath at the indignities he had undergone.

Turning to the native chief, Roger cried, "We're with you!" And he
extended his hand to seal the bargain.

Of course the man could not understand the words but in the nods we had
exchanged and in the cook's fierce glee, he had read our consent, and he
laughed and talked with the others, who laughed, too, and pointed at
Roger's pistol and cried, "Pom-pom!" and at the cook's cleaver and cried,
"Whish!"

When by signs Roger indicated that we needed sleep the chief issued orders,
and half a dozen natives led us to a hut that seemed to be set apart for
our use. But although we were nearly perishing with fatigue, they urged by
signs that we follow them, and so insistent were they that we reluctantly
obeyed.

Climbing a little hill beyond the village, we came to a cleared spot
surrounded by bushes through which we looked across between the mountains
to where we could just see the open ocean. There, not three miles away, the
Island Princess rode at anchor.

I remember thinking, as I fell asleep, of the chance that Falk and Kipping
would sail away before it was dark enough to attack them, and I spoke of it
to Roger and the others, who shared my fear; but when our savage hosts
wakened us, we knew by their eagerness that the ship still lay at her
anchor. Why she remained, we could not agree. We hazarded a score of
conjectures and debated them with lively interest.

Presently the natives brought us rice and sago-bread and peas.

As I ate and looked out into the darkness where fires were twinkling, I
wondered which was the light I had seen that night when I watched from the
summit of the headland.

Though a gentle rain was falling, the whole village was alive with people.
Men armed with spears and krises squatted in all parts of the hut. Boys
came and went in the narrow circle of light. Women and girls looked from
the door and from the farthest corners. Now and then some one would point
at Roger's pistol and cry, "Pom-pom!" or, to the pride and delight of the
cook, point at the cleaver and cry, "Whish!" and laugh loudly.

Even black Frank had got over his terror of having natives come up without
warning and feel of his arm or his woolly head, though he muttered
doubtfully, "Ah ain't sayin' as Ah likes it. Dah's su'thin' so kind of
hongry de way dey comes munchin' an' proddin' round dis yeh ol' niggeh."

At midnight we went out into the dark and the rain, and followed single
file after our leader along a narrow path that led through dripping ferns
and pools of mud and water, over roots and rocks, and under low branches,
which time and again swung back and struck our faces.

We were drenched to the skin when we came at last to a sluggish, black
little stream, which ran slowly under thick overhanging trees, and in other
circumstances we should have been an unhappy and rebellious crew. But now
the spell of adventure was upon us. Our savage guides moved silently and
surely, and the forest was so mysterious and strange that I found its
allurement all but irresistible. The slow, silent stream, on which now and
then lights as faint and elusive as wisps of cloud played fitfully,
reflected from I knew not where, had a fascination that I am sure the
others felt as strongly as I. So we followed in silence and watched all
that the dense blackness of the night let us see.

Now the natives launched canoes, which slipped out on the water and lay
side by side in the stream. Roger and Neddie Benson got into one; Blodgett
and Davie Paine another; the cook and I into a third, Whatever thoughts or
plans we six might have, we could not express them to the natives, and we
were too widely separated to put them into practice ourselves. We could
only join in the fight with good-will when the time came, and I assure you,
the thought made me very nervous indeed. Also, I now realized that the
natives had taken no chance of treachery on our part: _behind each of us
sat an armed man_.

The canoes shot ahead so swiftly under the pressure of the paddles that
they seemed actually to have come to life. But they moved as noiselessly as
shadows. We glided down the stream and out in a long line into a little
bay, where we gathered, evidently to arrange the last details of the
attack. I heard Roger say in a low voice, "We'll reach the ship about three
bells and there couldn't be a better hour." Then, with a few low words of
command from the native chief, we spread out again into an irregular,
swiftly moving fleet, and swept away from the shore.

As I looked back at the island I could see nothing, for the cloudy sky and
the drizzly rain completely obscured every object beyond a limited circle
of water; but as I looked ahead, my heart leaped and my breath came
quickly. We had passed the farthest point of land and there, dimly in the
offing, shone a single blurred light, which I knew was on the Island
Princess.

CHAPTER XXII

WE ATTACK

In the darkness and rain we soon lost sight even of those nearest us on
each side, but we knew by the occasional almost imperceptible whisper of a
paddle in the water, or by the faintest murmur of speech, that the others
were keeping pace with us.

To this day I do not understand how the paddlers maintained the proper
intervals in our line of attack; yet maintain them they did, by some means
or other, according to a preconcerted plan, for we advanced without hurry
or hesitation.

Approaching the ship more closely, we made out the rigging, which the soft
yellow light of the lantern dimly revealed. We saw, too, a single dark
figure leaning on the taffrail, which became clear as we drew nearer. I was
surprised to perceive that we had come up astern of the ship--quite without
reason I had expected to find her lying bow on. Now we rode the gentle
swell without sound or motion. The slow paddles held us in the same place
with regard to the ship, and minutes passed in which my nervousness rose to
such a pitch that I felt as if I must scream or clap my hands simply to
shatter that oppressive, tantalizing, almost unendurable silence. But when
I started to turn and whisper to the cook, something sharp and cold pricked
through the back of my shirt and touched my skin, and from that time on I
sat as still as a wooden figurehead.

After a short interval I made out other craft drawing in on our right and
left, and I later learned that, while we waited, the canoes were forming
about the ship a circle of hostile spears. But it then seemed at every
moment as if the man who was leaning on the taffrail must espy us,--it
always is hard for the person in the dark, who sees what is near the light,
to realize that he himself remains invisible,--and a thousand fears swept
over me.

There came now from somewhere on our right a whisper no louder than a
mouse's hiss of warning or of threat. I scarcely was aware of it. It might
have been a ripple under the prow of the canoe, a slightest turn of a
paddle. Yet it conveyed a message that the natives instantly understood.
The man just behind me repeated it so softly that his repetition was
scarcely audible, even to me who sat so near that I could feel his breath,
and at once the canoe seemed silently to stir with life. Inch by inch we
floated forward, until I could see clearly the hat and coat-collar of the
man who was leaning against the rail. It was Kipping.

From forward came the cautious voices of the watch. The light revealed the
masts and rigging of the ship for forty or fifty feet from the deck, but
beyond the cross-jack yard all was hazy, and the cabin seemed in the odd
shadows twice its real size. I wondered if Falk were asleep, too, or if we
should come on him sitting up in the cabin, busy with his books and charts.
I wondered who was in the galley, where I saw a light; who was standing
watch; who was asleep below. Still we moved noiselessly on under the stern
of the ship, until I almost could have put my hands on the carved letters,
"Island Princess."

Besides things on deck, the light also revealed our own attacking party.
The man in front of me had laid his paddle in the bottom of the canoe and
held a spear across his knees. In the boat on our right were five natives
armed with spears and krises; in the one on our left, four. Beyond the
craft nearest to us I could see others less distinctly--silent shadows on
the water, each with her head toward our prey, like a school of giant fish.
In the lee of the ship, the pinnace floated at the end of its painter.

Still the watch forward talked on in low, monotonous voices; still Kipping
leaned on the rail, his head bent, his arms folded, to all appearances fast
asleep.

I had now forgotten my fears. I was keenly impatient for the word to
attack.

A shrill wailing cry suddenly burst on the night air. The man in front of
me, holding his spear above his head with one hand, made a prodigious leap
from the boat, caught the planking with his fingers, got toe-hold on a
stern-port, and went up over the rail like a wild beast. With knives
between their teeth, men from the proas on my right and left boarded the
ship by the chains, by the rail, by the bulwark.

I saw Kipping leap suddenly forward and whirl about like a weasel in his
tracks. His yell for all hands sounded high above the clamor of the
boarders. Then some one jabbed the butt of a spear into my back and,
realizing that mine was not to be a spectator's part in that weird battle,
I scrambled up the stern as best I could.

The watch on deck, I instantly saw, had backed against the forecastle where
the watch below was joining it. Captain Falk and some one else, of whose
identity I could not be sure, rushed armed from the cabin. Then a missile
crashed through the lantern, and in the darkness I heard sea-boots banging
on the deck as those aft raced forward to join the crew.

I clambered aboard, waving my arms and shouting; then I stood and listened
to the chorus of yells fore and aft, the _slip-slip-slip_ of bare feet, the
thud of boots as the Americans ran this way and that. I sometimes since
have wondered how I escaped death in that wild melee in the darkness.
Certainly I was preserved by no effort of my own, for not knowing which way
to turn, ignored by friend and foe alike, almost stunned by the terrible
sounds that rose on every side, I simply clutched the rail and was as
unlike the hero that my silly dreams had made me out to be--never had I
dreamed of such a night!--as is every half-grown lad who stands side by
side with violent death.

Of Kipping I now saw nothing, but as a light momentarily flared up, I
caught a glimpse of Captain Falk and his party sidling along back to back,
fighting off their assailants while they struggled to launch a boat. Time
and time again I heard the spiteful crack of their guns and their oaths and
exclamations. Presently I also heard another sound that made my heart
throb; a man was moaning as if in great pain.

Then another cried, with an oath, "They've got me! O Tom, haul out that
spear!" A scream followed and then silence.

Some one very near me, who as yet was unaware of my presence, said, "He's
dead."

"Look out!" cried another. "See! There behind you!"

I was startled and instinctively dodged back. There was a crashing report
in my face; the flame of a musket singed my brows and hair, and powder
stung my skin. Then, as the man clubbed his gun, I dashed under his guard,
scarcely aware of the pain in my shoulder, and locking my right heel behind
his left, threw him hard to the deck, where we slipped and slid in a warm
slippery stream that was trickling across the planks.

Back and forth we rolled, neither of us daring to give the other a moment's
breathing-space in which to draw knife or pistol; and all the time the
fight went on over our heads. I now heard Roger crying to the rest of us to
stand by. I heard what I supposed to be his pistol replying smartly to the
fire from Falk's party, and wondered where in that scene of violence he had
got powder and an opportunity to load. But for the most part I was rolling
and struggling on the slippery deck.

When some one lighted a torch and the flame flared up and revealed the grim
scene, I saw that Falk and his remaining men were trying at the same time
to stand off the enemy and to scramble over the bulwark, and I realized
that they must have drawn up the pinnace. But I had only the briefest
glimpse of what was happening, for I was in deadly terror every minute lest
my antagonist thrust a knife between my ribs. I could hear him gasping now
as he strove to close his hands on my throat, and for a moment I thought he
had me; but I twisted away, got half on my knees with him under me, sprang
to my feet, then slipped once more on the slow stream across the planks,
and fell heavily.

In that moment I had seen by torchlight that the pinnace was clear of the
ship and that the men with their guns and spikes were holding off the
natives. I had seen, too, a spear flash across the space of open water and
cut down one of the men. But already my adversary was at me again, and with
his two calloused hands he once more was gripping my throat. I exerted all
my strength to keep from being throttled. I tried to scream, but could only
gurgle. His head danced before me and seemed to swing in circles. I felt
myself losing strength. I rallied desperately, only to be thrown.

Then, suddenly, I realized that he had let me go and had sat down beside me
breathing heavily. It was the man from Boston whose nose had been broken.
He eyed me curiously as if an idea had come upon him by surprise.

"I didn't go to fight so hard, mate," he gasped, "but you did act so kind
of vicious that I just had to."

"You what?" I exclaimed, not believing my ears.

"It's the only way I had to come over to your side," he said with a
whimper. "Falk would 'a' killed me if I'd just up an' come, though I wanted
to, honest I did."

I put my hand on my throbbing shoulder, and stared at him incredulously.

"You don't need to look at me like that," he sniveled. "Didn't I stand by
Bill Hayden to the last along with you? Ain't I human? Ain't I got as much
appreciation as any man of what it means to have a murderin' pair of
officers like Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping? You don't suppose, do you, that
I'd stay by 'em without I had to?"

I was somewhat impressed by his argument, and he, perceiving it, continued
vehemently, "I _had_ to fight with you. They'd 'a' killed you, too, if I
hadn't."

There was truth in that. Unquestionably they would have shot me down
without hesitation if we two had not grappled in such a lively tussle that
they could not hit one without hitting the other.

We got up and leaned on the bulwark and looked down at the boat, which rode
easily on the slow, oily swell. There in the stern-sheets the torchlight
now revealed Falk.

"I'm lawful master of this vessel," he called back, looking up at the men
who lined the side. "I'll see you hanged from the yard-arm yet, you
white-livered wharf-rats, and you, too, you cabin-window popinjay!"--I knew
that he meant me.--"There'll come a day, by God! There'll come a day!"

The men in the boat gave way, and it disappeared in the darkness and mist,
its sides bristling with weapons.

But still Falk's voice came back to us shrilly, "I'll see you yet a-hanging
by your necks," until at last we could only hear him cursing.

CHAPTER XXIII

WHAT WE FOUND IN THE CABIN

Now some one called, "Ben! Ben Lathrop! Where are you?"

"Here I am," I cried as loudly as I could.

"Well, Ben, what's this? Are you wounded?"

It was Roger, and when he saw with whom I was talking he smiled.

"Well, Bennie," he cried, "so we've got a prisoner, have we?"

"No, sir," whimpered the man from Boston, "not a prisoner. I come over, I
did."

"You what?"

"I come over--to your side, sir."

"How about it, Ben?"

"Why, so he says. We were having a pretty hard wrestling match, but he says
it was to cover up his escape from the other party."

"How was I to get away, sir, if I didn't have a subterfoog," the prisoner
interposed eagerly. "I _had_ to wrastle. If I hadn't have, they'd 'a' shot
me down as sure as duff on Sunday."

For my own part I was not yet convinced of his good faith. He had gripped
my throat quite too vindictively. To this very day, when I close my eyes I
can feel his hard fingers clenched about my windpipe and his knees forcing
my arms down on the bloody deck. He had let me go, too, only when we both
knew that Captain Falk and his men had put off from the ship. It seemed
very much as if he were trying to make the best of a bad bargain. But if,
on the other hand, he was entirely sincere in his protestations, it might
well be true that he did not dare come over openly to our side. The problem
had so many faces that it fairly made me dizzy, so I abandoned it and tore
open my clothes to examine the flesh wound on my shoulder.

"Ay," I thought, when I saw where the musket-ball had cut me at close
range, "that was a friendly shot, was it not?"

Roger himself was not yet willing to let the matter fall so readily. His
sharp questions stirred the man from Boston to one uneasy denial after
another.

"But I tell you, sir, I come over as quick as I could."

Again Roger spoke caustically.

"But I tell you, sir, I did. And what's more, I can tell you a lot of
things you'd like to know. Perhaps you'd like to know--" He stopped short.

Roger regarded him as if in doubt, but presently he said in a low voice,
"All right! Say nothing of this to the others. I'll see you later."

Captain Falk and his crew, meanwhile, had moved away almost unmolested.
Their pikes and guns had held off the few natives who made a show of
pursuing them, and the great majority of our allies were running riot on
the ship, which was a sad sight when we turned to take account of the
situation.

Three natives were killed and two were wounded, not to mention my injured
shoulder among our own casualties; and two members of the other party in
the crew were sprawled in grotesque attitudes on the deck. Counting the one
who was hit by a spear and who had fallen out of the boat, it meant that
Falk had lost three dead, and if blood on the deck was any sign, others
must have been badly slashed. In other words, our party was, numerically,
almost the equal of his. Considering the man from Boston as on our side, we
were seven to their eight. The lantern that we now lighted revealed more of
the gruesome spectacle, and it made me feel sick to see that both the man
from Boston and I were covered from head to foot with the gore in which we
had been rolling; but to the natives the sight was a stupendous triumph;
and the cook, when I next saw him, was walking down the deck, looking at
the face of one dead man after another.

By and by he came to me where, overcome by a wave of nausea, I had sat down
on the deck with my back against the bulwark. "Dey ain't none of 'em
Kipping," he said grimly. Then he saw my bleeding shoulder and instantly
got down beside me. "You jest let dis yeh ol' nigger took a hand," he
cried. "Ah's gwine fix you all up. You jest come along o' me!" And helping
me to my feet, he led me to the galley, where once more he was supreme and
lawful master.

In no time at all he had a kettle of water on the stove, in which the coals
of a good fire still lingered, and with a clean cloth he washed my wound so
gently that I scarcely could believe his great, coarse hands were actually
at work on me. "Dah you is," he murmured, bending over the red, shallow
gash that the bullet had cut, "dah you is. Don' you fret. Ah's gwine git
you all tied up clean an' han'some, yass, sah."

The yells and cries of every description alarmed and agitated us both. It
was far from reassuring to know that that mob of natives was ranging the
ship at will.

"Ef you was to ask me," Frank muttered, rolling his eyes till the whites
gleamed starkly, "Ah's gwine tell you dis yeh ship is sottin', so to speak,
on a bar'l of gunpowder. Yass, sah!"

An islander uttered a shrill catcall just outside the galley and thrust his
head and half his naked body in the door. He vanished again almost
instantly, but Frank jumped and upset the kettle. "Yass, sah, you creepy
ol' sarpint," he gasped. "Yass, sah, we's sottin' on a bar'l of gunpowder."

I am convinced, as I look back on that night from the pinnacle of more than
half a century, that not one man in ten thousand has ever spent one like
it. Allied with a horde whose language we could not speak, we had boarded
our own ship and now--mutineers, pirates, or loyal mariners, according to
your point of view--we shared her possession with a mob of howling heathens
whose goodwill depended on the whim of the moment, and who might at any
minute, by slaughtering us out of hand, get for their own godless purposes
the ship and all that was in her.

The cook cautiously fingered the keen edge of his cleaver as we looked out
and saw that dawn was brightening in the east.

"Dat Falk, he say he gwine git us yet," the cook muttered. "Maybe so--maybe
not. Maybe we ain't gwine last as long as dat."

"All hands aft!"

Frank and I looked at each other. The galley was as safe and comfortable as
any place aboard ship and we were reluctant to leave it.

"_All hands aft!_" came the call again.

"Ah reckon," Frank said thoughtfully, "me and you better be gwine. When
Mistah Hamlin he holler like dat, he want us."

Light had come with amazing swiftness, and already we could see the deck
from stem to stern without help of the torches, which still flamed and sent
thin streamers of smoke drifting into the mist.

As we emerged from the galley, I noticed that the after-hatch was half
open. That in itself did not surprise me; stranger things than that had
come to pass in the last hour or two; but when some one cautiously emerged
from the hold, with a quick, sly glance at those on the quarter-deck, I'll
confess that I was surprised. It was the man from Boston.

Smiling broadly and turning his black rat-like eyes this way and that, the
chief of our wild allies, who held a naked kris from which drops of blood
were falling, stood beside Roger. Blodgett was at the wheel, nervously
fingering the spokes; Neddie Benson stood behind him, obviously ill at
ease, and Davie Paine, who had got from the cabin what few of his things
were left there, to take them forward, was a little at one side. But the
natives were swarming everywhere, aloft and alow, and we knew only too well
that no small movable object would escape their thieving fingers.

"Ef on'y dem yeh heathen don't took to butcherin'!" the cook muttered.

The prophetic words were scarcely spoken when what we most feared came to
pass. One of the islanders, by accident or design, bumped into Blodgett,--
always erratic, never to be relied on in a crisis,--who, turning without a
thought of the consequences, struck the man with his fist a blow that
floored him, and flashed out his knife.

That single spark threatened an explosion that would annihilate us. Spears
enclosed us from all sides; krises leaped at our throats.

"Come on, lads! Stand together," Blodgett shrieked.

With a yell of terror the cook sprang to join the others, and bellowing in
panic, swung his cleaver wildly.

The man from Boston and Neddie Benson shrank back against the taffrail as a
multitude of moving brown figures seemed to swarm about us. Then I saw
Roger leap forward, his arms high in air, his hands extended.

"Get back!" he cried, glancing at us over his shoulders.

As all stopped and stared at him, he coolly turned to the chief and handed
him his pistol, butt foremost. Was Roger mad, I wondered? He was the sanest
man of all our crew. The chief gravely took the proffered weapon and looked
at Blodgett, whose face was contorted with fear, and at the Malay, who by
now was sitting up on deck blinking about him in a dazed way. Then he
smiled and raised his hand and the points of the weapons fell.

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