The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes

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In truth I was nearly mad myself, for now it all struck me as funny and I
laughed until I cried, and all the others looked at me, and soon the
natives began to point and laugh themselves. I suppose I was hysterical,
but it created a diversion and helped to save the day; and Neddie Benson
and the man from Boston, whom Roger had sent below, returned soon with
bolts of cloth and knives and pistols and threw them in a heap on the
quarter-deck.

Some word that I suppose meant gifts, went from lip to lip and our allies
eagerly crowded around us.

"Get behind me, men," Roger said in an undertone. "Whatever happens, guard
the companionway. I think we're safe, but since by grace of Providence
we're all here together, we'll take no chances that we can avoid."

The first rays of sunlight shone on the heap of bright stuffs and polished
metal, but the sun itself was no brighter than the face of the chief when
Roger draped over him a length of bright cloth and presented him with a
handsome knife. He threw back his head, laughing aloud, and strutted across
the deck. Turning in grave farewell, he grasped his booty with one arm and,
after a few sharp words to his men, swung himself down by the chains with
the other. To man after man we gave gaudy cloths or knives or, when all
the knives were given away, a cutlass or a gun; and when at last the only
canoes in sight were speeding toward shore like comets with tails of red
flannel and purple calico, we breathed deeply our relief.

"Now, men," said Roger, "we have a hard morning's work in front of us.
Cook, break out a cask of beef and a cask of bread, and get us something to
eat. Davie, you stand watch and keep your eye out either for a native canoe
or for any sign of Falk or his party. The rest of you--all except Lathrop--
wash down the deck and sew those bodies up in a piece of old sail with
plenty of ballast. Ben, you and I have a little job in front of us. Come
into the cabin with me."

I gladly followed him. He was as composed as if battle and death were all
in the routine of a day at sea, and I was full of admiration for his
coolness and courage.

The cabin was in complete disorder, but comparatively few things had been
stolen. Apparently not many of the natives had found their way thither.

"Fortunately," Roger said, unlocking Captain Whidden's chest of which he
had the key, "they've left the spare quadrant. We have instruments to
navigate with, so, when all's said and done, I suppose we're lucky."

He closed the chest and locked it again; then he took from his pocket a
second key. "Benny, my lad," he said, "let's have a look at that one
hundred thousand dollars in gold."

Going into the captain's stateroom, we shut the door and knelt beside the
iron safe. The key turned with difficulty.

"It needs oil," Roger muttered, as he worked over it. "It turns as hard as
if some one has been tinkering with it." By using both hands he forced it
round and opened the door.

The safe was empty.

[Illustration: ]

VI

IN WHICH WE REACH THE PORT OF OUR DESTINATION

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXIV

FALK PROPOSES A TRUCE

As we faced each other in amazed silence, we could hear the men working on
deck and the sea rippling against the hull of the ship. I felt that strange
sensation of mingled reality and unreality which comes sometimes in dreams,
and I rather think that Roger felt it, too, for we turned simultaneously to
look again into the iron safe. But again only its painted walls met our
eyes.

The gold actually was gone.

Roger started up. "Now how did Falk manage that?" he cried. "I swear he
hadn't time to open the safe. We took them absolutely by surprise--I could
swear we did."

I suggested that he might have hidden it somewhere else.

"Not he," said Roger.

"Would Kipping steal from Captain Falk?"

"From Captain Falk!" Roger exclaimed. "If his mother were starving, he'd
steal her last crust. How about the bunk?"

We took the bunk apart and ripped open the mattress. We sounded the
woodwork above and below. With knives we slit the cushion of Captain
Whidden's great arm-chair, and pulled out the curled hair that stuffed it.
We ransacked box, bag, cuddy, and stove; we forced our way into every
corner of the cabin and the staterooms. But we found no trace of the lost
money.

It seemed like sacrilege to disturb little things that once had belonged
to that upright gentleman, Captain Joseph Whidden. His pipe, his
memorandum-book, and his pearl-handled penknife recalled him to my mind as
I had seen him so many times of old, sitting in my father's drawing-room,
with his hands folded on his knee and his firm mouth bent in a whimsical
smile. I thought of my parents, of my sister and Roger, of all the old
far-away life of Salem; I must have stood dreaming thus a long time when my
eyes fell on Nathan Falk's blue coat, which he had thrown carelessly on the
cabin table and had left there, and with a burst of anger I came back to
affairs of the moment.

"They've got it away, Benny," said Roger, soberly. "How or when I don't
know, but there's no question that it's gone from the cabin. Come, let's
clear away the disorder."

As well as we could we put back the numerous things we had thrown about,
and such litter as we could not replace we swept up. But wisps of hair
still lay on the tables and the chairs, and feathers floated in the air
like thistle-down. We had little time for housewifery.

We found the others gathered round the galley, eating a hearty meal of salt
beef, ship's bread, and coffee, at which we were right glad to join them.
Roger had a way with the men that kept them from taking liberties, yet that
enabled him to mingle with them on terms far more familiar than those of a
ship's officer. I watched him as he sat down by Davie Paine, and grinned at
the cook, and asked Neddie Benson how his courage was and laughed heartily
at Blodgett who had spilled a cup of coffee down his shirt-front--yet in
such a way that Blodgett was pleased by his friendliness rather than
offended by his amusement. I suppose it was what we call "personality."
Certainly Roger was a born leader. After our many difficulties we felt so
jolly and so much at home,--all, that is, except the man from Boston, who
sat apart from the rest and stared soberly across the long, slow seas,--
that our little party on deck was merrier by far than many a Salem
merrymaking before or since.

I knew that Roger was deeply troubled by the loss of the money and I
marveled at his self-control.

Presently I saw something moving off the eastern point of the island.
Thinking little of it, I watched it idly until suddenly it burst upon me
that it was a ship's boat. With a start I woke from my dream and shouted,
"Sail ho! Off the starboard bow!"

In an instant our men were on their feet, staring at the newcomer. In all
the monotonous expanse of shining, silent ocean only the boat and the
island and the tiny sails of a junk which lay hull down miles away, were to
be seen. But the boat, which now had rounded the point, was approaching
steadily.

"Ben, lay below to the cabin and fetch up muskets, powder, and balls,"
Roger cried sharply. "Lend a hand, Davie, and bring back all the pikes and
cutlasses you can carry. You, cook, clear away the stern-chasers and stand
by to load them the minute the powder's up the companionway. Blodgett, you
do the same by the long gun. You, Neddie, bear a hand with me to trice up
the netting!"

Spilling food, cups, pans, and kids in confusion on the deck, we sprang to
do as we were bid. In the sternsheets of the approaching boat we could make
out at a distance the slim form of Captain Nathan Falk.

The rain had stopped long since, and the hot sun shining from a cloudless
sky was rapidly burning off the last vestige of the night mist as Captain
Falk's boat came slowly toward us under a white flag. A ground-swell gave
it a leisurely motion and the men approached so cautiously that their oars
seemed scarcely more than to dip in and out of the water.

With double-charged cannon, with loaded muskets ready at hand, and with
pikes and cutlasses laid out on deck, one for each man, where we could
snatch them up as soon as we had spent our first fire, we grinned from
behind the nettings at our erstwhile shipmates. Tables had turned with a
vengeance since we had rowed away from the ship so short a time before.
They now were a sad-looking lot of men, some of them with bandages on their
limbs or round their heads, all of them disheveled, weary, and unkempt. But
they approached with an air of dignity, which Falk tried to keep up by
calling with a grand fling of his hand and his head, "Mr. Hamlin, we come
to parley under a flag of truce."

I think we really were impressed for a moment. His face was pale, and he
had a blood-stained rag tied round his forehead, so that he looked very
much as if he were a wounded hero returning after a brave fight to arrange
terms of an honorable peace. But the cook, who heartily disapproved of
admitting the boat within gunshot, shattered any such illusion that we may
have entertained.

"Mah golly!" he exclaimed in a voice audible to every man in both parties,
"ef dey ain't done h'ist up cap'n's unde'-clothes foh a flag of truce!"

The remark came upon us so suddenly and we were all so keyed up that,
although it seems flat enough to tell about it now, then it struck us as
irresistibly funny and we laughed until tears started from our eyes. I
heard Blodgett's cat-yowl of glee, Davie Paine's deep guffaw, Neddie
Benson's shrill cackle of delight. But when, to clear my eyes, I wiped away
my tears, the men in the other boat were glaring at us in glum and angry
silence.

"Ah, it's funny is it?" said Falk, and his voice me think of the times when
he had abused Bill Hayden. "Laugh, curse you, laugh! Well, that's all
right. There's no law against laughing. I've got a proposition to put up to
you. You've had your little fling and a costly one it's like to be. You've
mutinied and unlawfully confined the master of the ship, and for that
you're liable for a fine of one thousand dollars and five years in prison.
You've usurped the command of a vessel on the high seas unlawfully and by
force, and for that you're liable to a fine of two thousand dollars and ten
years in prison. Think about that, some o' you men that haven't a hundred
dollars in the world. The law'll strip and break you. But if that ain't
enough, we've got evidence to convict you in every court of the United
States of America of being pirates, felons, and robbers, and the punishment
for that is death. Think of that, you men."

Falk lowered his head until his red scarf, which he had knotted about his
throat, made the ghastly pallor of his face seem even more chalky than it
was, and thrust his chin forward and leveled at us the index finger of his
right hand. The slowly rolling boat was so near us now that as we waited to
see what he would say next we could see his hand tremble.

"Now, men," he continued, "you've had your little fling, and that's the
price you'll have to pay the piper. I'll get you, never you fear. Ah, by
the good Lord's help, I'll see you swinging from a frigate's yard-arm yet,
unless"--he stopped and glared at us significantly--"unless you do like I'm
going to tell you.

"You've had your fling and there's a bad day of reckoning coming to you,
don't you forget it. But if you drop all this nonsense now, and go forward
where you belong and work the ship like good seamen and swear on the Book
to have no more mutinous talk, I'll forgive you everything and see that no
one prosecutes you for all you've done so far. How about it? Nothing could
be handsomer than that."

"Oh, you always was a smooth-tongued scoundrel" Blodgett, just behind me,
murmured under his breath.

The men in the two parties looked at each other in silence for a moment,
and if ever I had distrusted Captain Falk, I distrusted him four times more
when I saw the mild, sleek smile on Kipping's face. It was reassuring to
see the gleam in black Frank's eyes as he fingered the edge of his cleaver.

I turned eagerly to Roger, upon whom we waited unanimously for a reply.

"Yes, that's very handsome of you," he said reflectively. "But how do we
know you'll do all that you promise?"

Falk's white face momentarily lighted. I thought that for an instant his
eyes shone like a tiger's. But he answered quietly, "Ain't my word good?"

"Why, a _gentleman's_ word is always good security."

There was just enough accent on the word "gentleman" to puzzle me. The
remark sounded innocent enough, certainly, and yet the stress--if stress
was intended--made it biting sarcasm. Obviously the men in the boat were
equally in doubt whether to take offense or to accept the statement in good
faith.

"Well, you have my word," said Falk at last.

"Yes, we have your word. But there's one other thing to be settled. How
about the owners' money?"

For a moment Falk seemed disconcerted, and I, thinking now that Roger was
merely badgering him, smiled with satisfaction. But Falk answered the
question after only brief hesitation, and Roger's next words plunged me
deep in a sea of doubt.

"Why, I shall guard the owners' money with all possible care, Mr. Hamlin,
and expend it in their best interests," said Falk.

"If that's the case," said Roger, "come alongside."

CHAPTER XXV

INCLUDING A CROSS-EXAMINATION

Falk tried, I was certain, to conceal a smile of joy at Roger's simplicity,
and I saw that others in the boat were averting their faces. Also I saw
that they were shifting their weapons to have them more readily available.

Our own men, on the contrary, were remonstrating audibly, and to my lasting
shame I joined them.

A queer expression appeared on Roger's face and he looked at us as if
incredulous. I suddenly perceived that our rebellious attitude hurt him
bitterly. He had led us so bravely through all our recent difficulties! And
now, when success seemed assured, we manifested in return doubt and
disloyalty! I literally hung my head. The others were abashed and silent,
but I knew that my own defection was more contemptible by far than theirs,
and had Roger reproached me sharply, I might have felt better for it.
Instead, he spoke without haste or anger in a voice pitched so low that
Falk could not possibly overhear him.

"We simply _have_ to hold together, men. All to the gangway, now, and stand
by for orders."

That was all he said, but it was enough. Thoroughly ashamed of ourselves,
we followed him to the gangway whither the boat was coming slowly.

Roger assumed an air of neutral welcome as he reached for the bow of the
pinnace; but to us behind him he whispered sharply, "Stand ready, all
hands, with muskets and pikes."

"Now, then, Captain Falk," he cried, "hand over the money first. We'll stow
it safe on board."

"Come, come," Falk replied. "Belay that talk." He was
standing ready to climb on deck.

"The money first," said Roger coolly.

Suddenly he tried to hook the bow of the pinnace, but missed it as the
pinnace dipped in the trough.

The rest of us, waiting breathlessly, for the first time comprehended
Roger's strategy.

Falk looked up at him angrily. "That'll get you nowhere," he retorted.
"Come, stand away, or so help me, I'll see you hanged anyhow."

Roger smiled at him coldly. "The word of a gentleman? The money first,
Captain Falk."

"Well, if you are so stupid that you haven't discovered the truth yet, I
haven't the money."

"Where is the money?"

"In the safe in the cabin, as you very well know," replied Falk.

"You lie!" Roger responded.

With a ripping oath, Captain Falk whipped out his pistol.

"You lie!" Roger cried again, hotly. "Put down that pistol or I'll blow you
to hell. Stand by, boys. We'll show them!"

Though we were fewer than they, we had them at a tremendous disadvantage,
for we were protected by the bulwarks and could pour our musket-fire into
the open boat at will, and in a battle of cutlasses and pikes our advantage
would be even greater.

"Don't a flag of truce give us no protection?" Kipping asked in that
accursedly mild voice--I could not hear it without thinking of poor Bill
Hayden, and to the others, they told me later, it brought the same bitter
memory.

"How long since Cap'n Falk's ol' unde' shirt done be a p'tection?" muttered
the cook grimly.

"Yes, laugh! Laugh, you black baboon! Laugh, you silly little fool,
Lathrop!" Falk yelled. "I'll have you laughing another time one of these
days. Give way men! We'll have out their haslets yet."

A hundred feet from the ship, the men rested on their oars, and Falk put on
a very different manner. "Roger Hamlin," he cried, "you ain't going to send
us away, are you?"

I was astounded. As long as I had known Falk, I had never realized how many
different faces the man could assume at the shortest notice. But Roger
seemed not at all surprised. "Yes," he said, shortly, "we're going to send
you away, you black-hearted scoundrel."

"Good God! We'll perish!"

Although obvious retorts were many, Roger made no reply.

Now Kipping spoke up mildly and innocently:--

"What'll we do? We can't land--the Malays was waiting for us on shore with
knives, all ready to cut our throats. We can't go to sea like this. What'll
we do?"

"Supposing," cried old Blodgett, sarcastically, "supposing you row back to
Salem. It's only three thousand miles or more. You'll find it a pleasant
voyage, I'm sure, and you'd ought to run into enough Ladronesers and Malays
to make it interesting along the way."

"Ain't we human?" Kipping whined, as if trying to wring pity from even
Blodgett. "Ain't you going at least to give us a keg o' water and some
bread?"

"If you're not out of gunshot in five minutes," Roger cried, "I'll train
the long gun and blow you clean out of water."

Without more ado they rowed slowly away, growing smaller and smaller, until
at last they passed out of sight round the point.

"Ah me," sighed Neddie Benson, "I'm glad they're gone. It's funny Falk
ain't quite a light man nor yet a real dark man."

"_Gone_!" Davie repeated ominously. "_I_ wish they was gone." He looked up
at the furled sails. "They ain't--and neither is we."

"There's work to be done," said Roger, "and we must be about it. Leave the
nets as they are. Stack the muskets in the waist, pile the pikes handy by
the deckhouse, and all lay aft. We'd best have a few words together before
we begin."

A moment later, as I was busy with the pikes, Roger came to me and
murmured, "There's something wrong afoot. The after-hatch has been pried
off."

I noticed the hatch once more the next time I passed it, and I remembered
seeing the man from Boston emerge from the hold. But there was so much else
to be attended to that it was a long, long time before I thought of it
again.

When we had done as Roger told us, we gathered round him where he waited,
leaning against the cabin, with his hands in his pockets.

"We're all in the same boat together, men," he began. "We knew what the
chances were when we took them. If you wish to have it so, in the eyes of
the law we're pirates and mutineers, and since Falk seems to have got away
with what money there was on board, things may go hard with us. _But_--" he
spoke the word with stern emphasis--"_but_ we've acted for the best, and I
think there's no one here wants to try to square things up by putting Falk
in command again. How about it?"

"Square things up, is it?" cried Blodgett. "The dirty villain would have us
hanged at the nearest gallows for all his buttery words."

"Exactly!" Roger threw back his head. "And when we get to Salem, I can
promise you there's no man here but will be better off for doing as he's
done so far."

"But whar's all dat money gone?" the cook demanded unexpectedly.

"I don't know," said Roger.

"What! Ain' dat yeh money heah?"

"No."

At that moment my eye chanced to fall on the man from Boston, who was
looking off at the island as if he had no interest whatever in our
conversation. The circumstances under which he had stayed with us were so
strange and his present preoccupation was so carefully assumed, that I was
suddenly exceedingly suspicious of him, although when I came to examine the
matter closely, I could find no very definite grounds for it.

Blodgett was watching him, too, and I think that Roger followed our gaze
for suddenly he cried, "You there!" in a voice that brought the man from
Boston to his feet like the snap of a whip.

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir!" he replied briskly.

"What are you doing here, anyway?" Roger demanded. The fellow, who had
begun to assume as many airs and as much self-confidence as if he had been
one of our own party from the very first, was sadly disconcerted. "Why I
come over to your side first chance I had," he replied with an aggrieved
air.

"What were you doing in the cabin when the natives were running all over
the ship?"

The five of us, startled by the quick, sharp questions, looked keenly at
the man from Boston. But he, recovering his self-possession, replied coolly
enough, "I was just a-keeping watch so they wouldn't steal--I kept them
from running off with the quadrant."

"Keeping watch so _nobody'd_ steal, I suppose," said Roger.

"Yes, sir! Yes, sir! That's it exactly."

Suddenly my mind leaped back to the night when Bill Hayden had died, and
the man from Boston had made that cryptic remark, to which I called
attention long since. "He said he could tell something, Roger," I burst
out. But Roger silenced me with a glance.

Turning on the fellow again, he said, "If I find that you are lying to me,
I'll shoot you where you stand. What do you know about who killed Captain
Whidden?"

For once the fellow was taken completely off his guard. He glanced around
as if he wished to run away, but there was no escape. He saw only hostile
faces.

"What do you know about who killed Captain Whidden?"

"Mr. Kipping killed him," the fellow gasped, startled out of whatever
reticence he may have intended to maintain. "Yes, sir! Yes, sir!"

"Do you expect me to believe that Kipping shot the captain? If you lie to
me--" Roger drew his pistol. By eyes and voice he held the man in a
hypnosis of terror.

"He did! I swear he did. Don't shoot me, sir! I'm telling you the very
gospel truth. He cursed awful and said--don't point that pistol at me, sir!
I swear I'll tell the truth!--'Mr. Thomas is as good as done for,' he said.
'There's only one man between us and a hundred thousand dollars in gold.'
And Falk--Kipping was talking to Falk low-like and didn't know I was
anywhere about--and Falk says, 'No, that's too much.' Then he says,
wild-like, 'Shoot--go on and shoot.' Then Kipping laughs and says, 'So
you've got a little gumption, have you?' and he shot Captain Whidden and
killed him. Don't point that pistol at _me_, sir! I didn't do it."

Roger had managed the situation well. His sudden and entirely unexpected
attack had got from the man a story that a month of ordinary
cross-examinations might not have elicited; for although the fellow had
volunteered to tell all he knew, his manner convinced me that under other
circumstances he would have told no more than he had to. Also he had
admitted being in the cabin while the natives were roaming over the ship!

CHAPTER XXVI

AN ATTEMPT TO PLAY ON OUR SYMPATHY

For the time being we let the matter drop and, launching a quarter-boat for
work around the ship, turned our attention to straightening out the rigging
and the running gear so that we could get under way at the earliest
possible moment. Twice natives came aboard, and a number of canoes now and
then appeared in the distance; but we were left on the whole pretty much to
our own devices, and we had great hopes of tripping anchor in a few hours
at the latest.

Roger meanwhile got out the quadrant and saw that it was adjusted to take
an observation at the first opportunity; for there was no doubt that by
faulty navigation or, more probably, by malicious intent, Falk had brought
us far astray from the usual routes across the China Sea.

Occasionally bands of natives would come out from shore in their canoes and
circle the ship, but we gave them no further encouragement to come aboard,
and in the course of the morning Roger divided us anew into anchor watches.
All in all we worked as hard, I think, as I ever have worked, but we were
so well contented with the outcome of our adventures that there was almost
no grumbling at all.

When at last I went below I was dead tired. Every nerve and weary muscle
throbbed and ached, and flinging myself on my bunk, I fell instantly into
the deepest sleep. When I woke with the echo of the call, "All hands on
deck," still lingering in my ears, it seemed as if I scarcely had closed my
eyes; but while I hesitated between sleeping and waking, the call sounded
again with a peremptory ring that brought me to my feet in spite of my
fatigue.

"All hands on deck! Tumble up! Tumble up!" It was the third summons.

When we staggered forth, blinded by the glaring sunlight, the other watch
already had snatched up muskets and pikes and all were staring to the
northeast. Thence, moving very slowly indeed, once more came the boat.

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