The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes

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"I," said Roger, "am Mr. Hamlin, supercargo of this ship."

"But where--what in heaven's name has taken place? Where's Captain
Whidden?"

"Captain Whidden," said Roger, "is dead."

"But when--but what--"

"_Who are you?_" Roger fired the words at him like a thunderclap.

"I--I--I am Mr. Johnston, agent for Thomas Webster and Sons," the man
stammered.

"Sir," cried Roger, "if you are agent for Thomas Webster and Sons, fetch us
food and water and get watchmen to guard this ship while we sleep. Then,
sir, I'll tell you such a story as you'll not often hear."

The well-fed, comfortable man regarded him with a kind of frown. The
situation was so extraordinary that he simply could not comprehend it. For
a moment he hesitated, then, stepping to the side, he called down some
order, which I did not understand, but which evidently sent the boat
hurrying back to the landing. As he paced the deck, he repeated over and
over in a curiously helpless way, "Bless my soul! Bless my soul!"

All this time I was aware of Roger still standing defiantly on the
quarter-deck. I know that I fell asleep, and that when I woke he was still
there. Shortly afterwards some one raised my head and gave me something hot
to drink and some one else repeated my name, and I saw that Roger was no
longer in sight. Then, as I was carried below, I vaguely heard some one
repeating over and over, "Bless my soul! It is awful! Why won't that young
man explain things? Bless my soul!" When I opened my eyes sunlight was
creeping through the hatch.

"Is this not Mr. Lathrop?" a stranger asked, when I stepped out in the open
air--and virtually for the first time, so weary had I been the night
before, saw the pointed hills, the broad river, and the great fleet of
ships lying at anchor.

"Yes," said I, surprised at the man's respectful manner. Immediately I was
aware that he was no sailor.

"I thought as much. Mr. Hamlin says, will you go to the cabin. I was just
going to call you. Mr. Johnston has come aboard again and there's some kind
of a conference. Mr. Johnston does get so wrought up! If you'll hurry right
along--"

As I turned, the strange landsman kept in step with me. "Mr. Johnston is so
wrought up!" he repeated interminably. "So wrought up! I never saw him so
upset before."

When I entered the cabin, Roger sat in the captain's chair, with Mr.
Johnston on his right and a strange gentleman on his left. Opposite Roger
was a vacant seat, but I did not venture to sit down until the others
indicated that they wished me to do so.

"This is a strange story I've been hearing, Mr. Lathrop," said Mr.
Johnston. His manner instantly revealed that my family connection carried
weight with him. "I thought it best you should join us. One never knows
when a witness will be needed. It's one of the most disturbing situations
I've met in all my experience."

The stranger gravely nodded.

"Certainly it is without precedent in my own experience," said Roger.

Mr. Johnston tapped the table nervously. "Captain and chief mate killed by
a member of the crew; second mate--later, acting captain--accused of
abetting the murder. You must admit, sir, that you make that charge on
decidedly inadequate evidence. And one hundred thousand dollars in gold
gone, heaven knows where! Bless my soul, what shall I do?"

"Do?" cried Roger. "Help us to make arrangements to unload the cargo, to
ship a new crew, and to get a return cargo. It seems to me obvious enough
what you 'shall do'!"

"But, Mr. Hamlin, the situation is extraordinary. There are legal problems
involved. There is no captain--bless my soul! I never heard of such a
thing."

"I've brought this ship across the China Sea with only six hands. I assure
you that I shall have no difficulty in taking her back to Salem when a
new crew is aboard." Roger's eyes twinkled as of old. "Here's your
captain--I'll do. Lathrop, here, will do good work as supercargo, I'm sure.
I'm told there's the crew of a wrecked brig in port. They'll fill up our
forecastle and maybe furnish me with a mate or two. You'll have to give us
papers of a kind."

"Lathrop as supercargo? He's too young. He's only a lad."

"We can get no one else off-hand who has so good an education," said Roger.
"He can write a fair-copy, cipher, and keep books. I'll warrant, Mr.
Johnston, that not even you can catch him napping with a problem in tare
and tret. Above all, the Websters know him well and will be glad to see him
climb."

"Hm! I'm doubtful--well, very well. As you say. But one hundred thousand
dollars in gold--bless my soul! I was told nothing about that; the letters
barely mention it." Mr. Johnston beat a mad tattoo on the arm of his chair.

"That, sir, is my affair and my responsibility. I will answer to the
owners."

"Bless my soul! I'm afraid I'll be compounding piracy, murder, and heaven
knows what other crimes; but we shall see--we shall see." Mr. Johnston got
up and paced the cabin nervously. "Well, what's done's done. Nothing to do
but make the best of a bad bargain. Woolens are high now, praise the Lord,
and there's a lively demand for ginseng. Well, I've already had good
offers. I'll show you the figures, Captain Hamlin, if you'll come to the
factory. And you, too, Mr. Lathrop. If you daren't leave the ship, I'll
send ashore for them. I'm confident we can fill out your crew, and I
suppose I'll have to give you some kind of a statement to authorize your
retaining command--What if I am compounding a felony? Bless my soul! And
one hundred thousand dollars!"

I was glad enough to see Mr. Johnston rowed away from the ship. Roger,
accompanying him, returned late in the evening with half a dozen new men
and a Mr. Cledd, formerly mate of the brig Essay, which had been wrecked a
few weeks before in a typhoon off Hainan. He was a pleasant fellow of about
Roger's age, and had a frank manner that we all liked. The new men, all of
whom had served under him on the Essay, reported him to be a smart officer,
a little severe perhaps, but perfectly fair in his dealings with the crew;
so we were almost as glad to have him in the place of Kipping, as we were
to have Roger in the place of Captain Falk. We had settled down in the
forecastle to talk things over when presently word came that Davie Paine
and I were wanted aft.

"Ben," said Roger to me, cordially, "you can move your things into the
cabin. You are to be supercargo." He tapped his pencil on the table and
turned to Davie with a kindly smile. "You, Davie, can have your old
berth of second mate, if you wish it. I'll not degrade a faithful man.
You'd better move aft to-day, for the new crew is coming aboard to-morrow."

Davie scratched his head and shifted his feet uneasily. "Thank you, sir,"
he said at last. "It's good of you and I'm sure I appreciate it, but I
ain't no great shakes of a scholar and I--well, if it's all the same to
you, sir, I'll stay for'ard with the men, sir."

I was surprised to find how hard it was to leave the forecastle. The others
were all so friendly and so glad of my good fortune, that they brought a
lump to my throat and tears to my eyes. It seemed as if I were taking leave
forever, instead of only moving the length of the ship; and, indeed, as I
had long since learned, the distance from forecastle to cabin is not to be
measured by feet and inches.

"I knew't would come," Neddie Benson remarked. "You was a gentleman's son.
But we've had good times together--ay, and hard times, too." He shook his
head dolefully.

All who were left of the old crew gathered round me while I closed my
chest, and Blodgett and Davie Paine seized the beckets before I knew what
they were about and carried it to my stateroom.

As I passed the galley the cook stopped me. "You ain't gwine far, sah,
praise de Lo'd!" he said. "Dah's a hot time ahead and we gotta stand one by
anotheh. Ah's gwine keep my eye on dat yeh man f'om Boston. Yass, sah! Ah's
gwine keep mah eye on him."

Now what did the cook mean by that, I wondered. But no answer suggested
itself to me, and when I entered the cabin I heard things that drove the
cook and the man from Boston far out of my mind.

"Kipping!" Mr. Cledd, the new chief mate was saying. "Not _William_
Kipping?"

Roger got down the attested copy of the articles and pointed at the neatly
written name: "William Kipping."

Mr. Cledd looked very grave indeed. "I've heard of Falk--he's a vicious
scoundrel in some ways, although too weak to be dangerous of his own
devices But I _know_ Kipping."

"Tell me about him,' said Roger.

"Kipping is the meanest, doggonedest, low-down wharf-runner that ever
robbed poor Jack of his wages. That's Kipping. Furthermore, he never signed
a ship's articles unless he thought there was considerable money in it
somewhere. I tell you, Captain Hamlin, he's an angry, disappointed man at
this very minute. If you want to know what I think, he's out somewhere on
those seas yonder--_just_--_waiting_. We've not seen the last of Kipping."

Roger got up, and walking over to the chest of ammunition, thoughtfully
regarded it.

"No, sir!" Mr. Cledd reiterated, "if Kipping's Kipping, we've not seen the
last of him."

[Illustration:]

VII

OLD SCORES AND NEW AND A DOUBTFUL WELCOME

[Illustration]

CHAPTER XXVIII

A MYSTERY IS SOLVED, AND A THIEF GETS AWAY

Innumerable sampans were plying up and down the river, some with masts and
some without, and great junks with carved sterns lay side by side so
closely that their sails formed a patchwork as many-colored as Joseph's
coat. There were West River small craft with arched deck-houses, which had
beaten their way precariously far up and down the coast; tall, narrow sails
from the north, and web-peaked sails on curved yards from the south; Hainan
and Kwangtung trawlers working upstream with staysails set, and a few
storm-tossed craft with great holes gaping between their battens. All were
nameless when I saw them for the first time, and strange; but in the days
that followed I learned them rope and spar.

Vessels from almost every western nation were there, too--bluff-bowed Dutch
craft with square-headed crews, brigantines from the Levant, and ships from
Spain, England, and America.

The captains of three other American ships in port came aboard to inquire
about the state of the seas between the Si-Kiang and the Cape of Good Hope
and shook their heads gravely at what we told them. One, an old friend of
Captain Whidden, said that he knew my own father. "It's shameful that such
things should be--simply shameful," he declared, when he had heard the
story of our fight with the Arab ship. "What with Arabs and Malays on the
high seas, Ladronesers in port--ay, and British men-of-war everywhere!"

He went briskly over the side, settled himself in the stern-sheets of his
boat, and gave us on the quarter-deck a wave of his hand; then his men
rowed him smartly away down-stream.

"Ay, it is shameful," Roger repeated. He soberly watched the other
disappear among the shipping, then he turned to Mr. Cledd. "I shall go
ashore for the day," he said. "I have business that will take considerable
time, and I think that Mr. Lathrop had better come too, and bring his
books."

As we left the ship we saw Mr. Cledd observing closely all that went
forward, and Roger gravely nodded when I remarked that our new mate knew
his business.

At the end of some three weeks of hard work we had cleared the hold,
painted and overhauled the ship inside and out, and were ready to begin
loading at daylight on a Monday morning. However great was Mr. Johnston's
proclivity to get "wrought up," he had proved himself an excellent man of
business by the way he had conducted our affairs ashore when once he put
his hand to them; and we, too, had accomplished much, both in getting out
the cargo and in putting the ship in repair. We had stripped her to her
girt-lines, calked her, decks and all, from her hold up, and painted her
inside and out. She was a sight to be proud of, when, rigged once more, she
swung at her anchorage.

That evening, as Roger and Mr. Cledd, the new second mate, and I were
sitting in the cabin and talking of our plans and prospects, we heard a
step on the companionway.

"Who's that?" Mr. Cledd asked in an undertone. "I thought steward had gone
for the night."

Roger motioned him to remain silent. We all turned.

To our amazement it was the cook who suddenly appeared before us, rolling
his eyes wildly under his deep frown.

"'Scuse me, gen'lems! 'Scuse me, Cap'n Hamlin! 'Scuse me, Mistah Cledd!
'Scuse me, ev'ybody! Ah knows Ah done didn't had ought to, but Ah says,
Frank, you ol' nigger, you jest up 'n' go. Don't you let dat feller git
away with all dat yeh money."

"What's that?" Roger cried sharply.

"Yass, sah! Yass, sah! Hun f'om Boston! He's got de chisel and de hammer
and de saw."

We all stared.

"Come, come, doctor," said Roger. "What's this cock-and-bull story?"

"Yass, sah, he's got de chisel and de hammer and de saw. Ah was a-watchin',
yass, sah. He don't fool dis yeh ol' nigger. Ah see him sneakin' round when
Chips he ain't looking."

For a moment Roger frowned, then in a low, calm voice he said, "Mr. Cledd,
you'll take command on deck. Have a few men with you. Better see that your
pistols are well primed. You two, come with me. Now, then, Frank, lead the
way."

From the deck we could see the lanterns of all the ships lying at anchor,
the hills and the land-lights and a boat or two moving on the river. We
hurried close at the negro's heels to the main hatch.

"Look dah!" The negro rested the blunt tip of one of his great fingers on
the deck.

Some sharp tool had dropped beside the hatch and had cut a straight, thin
line where it fell.

"Chisel done dat."

We were communicating in whispers now, and with a finger at his lips the
cook gave us a warning glance. He then laid hold of the rope that was made
fast to a shears overhead, swung out, and slid down to the very keelson.
Silently, one at a time, we followed. The only sound was our sibilant
breathing and the very faint shuffle of feet. Now we could see, almost
midway between the hatches, the dim light of a candle and a man at work.
While we watched, the man cautiously struck several blows. Was he scuttling
the ship? Then, as Roger and the cook tiptoed forward, I suddenly tripped
over a piece of plank and sprawled headlong.

As I fell, I saw Roger and the cook leap ahead, then the man doused the
light. There was a sound of scuffling, a crash, a splutter of angry words.
A moment later I heard the click of flint on steel, a tiny blaze sprang
from the tinder, and the candle again sent up its bright flame.

"Come, Ben, hold the light," Roger called. He and Frank had the man from
Boston down on the limber board and were holding him fast. The fight,
though fierce while it lasted, already was over.

The second mate now handed me the candle, and bent over and examined the
hole the man had cut in the ceiling. "Is the scoundrel trying to sink us?"
he asked hotly.

Roger smiled. "I suspect there's more than that behind this little
project," he replied.

The man from Boston groaned. "Don't--don't twist my arm," he begged.

"Heee-ha-ha!" laughed the cook. "Guess Ah knows whar dat money is."

"Open up the hole, Ben," said Roger.

I saw now that there was a chalk-line, as true as the needle, from
somewhere above us in the darkness, drawn along the skin of the hold
perpendicular to the keelson, and that the man from Boston had begun to cut
at the bilge where the line crossed it.

He blinked at me angrily as I sawed through the planks. But when with
chisel and saw I had removed a square yard of planking and revealed only
the bilge-water that had backed up from the pump well, he brightened. Had
the Island Princess not been as tight as you could wish, we should have had
a wetter time of it than we had. Our feet were wet as it was, and the man
from Boston was sadly drabbled.

"There's nothing there?" said Roger, interrogatively. "Hm! Put your hand in
and feel around."

I reluctantly obeyed. Finding nothing at first, I thrust my arm deeper,
then higher up beyond the curve. My fingers touched something hard that
slipped away from them. Regardless of the foul water, I thrust my arm in
still farther, and, securing my hold on a cord, drew out a leather bag. It
was black and slimy, and so heavy that I had to use both hands to lift it,
and it clinked when I set it down.

"I thought so," said Roger. "There'll be more of them in there. Fish them
out, Bennie."

While Roger and the cook sat on the man from Boston and forced him down
into the evil-smelling bilge-water, the second mate and I felt around under
the skin of the hold and drew out bag after bag, until the candle-light
showed eighteen lying side by side.

"There ought to be two more," said Roger.

"I can't find another one, sir," the second mate replied.

I now hit upon an idea. "Here," said I, "here's what will do the work." I
had picked up a six-foot pole and the others eagerly seized upon my
suggestion.

I worked the pole into the space between the inner and outer planking while
the man from Boston blinked at me angrily, and fished about with it until I
discovered and pried within reach two more leather bags.

"Well done!" Roger cried. "Cook, suppose you take this fellow in
tow,--we've a good strong set of irons waiting for him,--and I'll help
carry these bags over under the hatch."

Calling up to Mr. Cledd, Roger then instructed him to throw down a
tarpaulin, which he did, and this we made fast about the twenty bags.
Having taken several turns of a rope's end round the whole, Roger, carrying
the other end, climbed hand-over-hand the rope by which we had lowered
ourselves, and I followed at his heels; then we rigged a tackle and, with
several men to help us, hauled up the bundle.

"Cap'n Hamlin, sah," the cook called, "how's we gwine send up dis yeh
scound'l?"

"Let him come," said Roger. "We'll see to him. Prick his calves with a
knife if he's slow about it."

We heard the cook say in a lower voice, "G'wan, you ol' scalliwaggle";
then, "Heah he is, cap'n, heah he come! Watch out foh him. He's
nimble--yass, sah, he's nimble."

The rope swayed in the darkness below the hatch, then the fellow's head and
shoulders appeared; but, as we reached to seize him, he evaded our
outstretched fingers by a quick wriggle, flung himself safely to the deck
on the far side of the hatch, and leaping to the bulwark, dove into the
river with scarcely a splash.

Some one fired a musket at the water; the flash illuminated the side of the
ship, and an echo rolled solemnly back from the shore. Three or four men
pointed and called, "There he goes--there--there! See him swimming!" For a
moment I myself saw him, a dark spot at the apex of a V-shaped ripple, then
he disappeared. It was the last we ever knew of the man from Boston.

CHAPTER XXIX

HOMEWARD BOUND

We had the gold, though, twenty leather bags of it; and we carried it to
the cabin and packed it into the safe, which it just filled.

"Now," said Roger, "we _have_ a story to tell Mr. Johnston."

"So we have!" exclaimed Mr. Cledd, who had heard as yet but a small part of
this eventful history. "Will you tell me, though, how that beggar ever knew
those bags were just there?"

"Certainly." Roger's eyes twinkled as of old. "He put them there. When the
islanders were everywhere aboard ship, and the rest of us were so much
taken up with them and with the fight we'd just been through that we
didn't know what was on foot,--it was still so dark that he could work
unnoticed,--he sneaked below and opened the safe, which he had the craft to
lock again behind him, and hauled the money forward to the hatch, a few
bags at a time. Eventually he found a chance to crawl over the cargo, start
a plank in the ceiling, drop the bags down inside the jacket one by one,
and mark the place. Then, holding his peace until the cargo was out of the
hold, he drew a chalk line straight down from his mark to the lower deck,
took bearings from the hatch, and continued the line from the beam-clamp to
the bilge, and cut on the curve. There, of course, was where the money had
fallen. He worked hard--and failed."

Then I remembered the hatch that had been pried off when the natives were
ranging over the boat.

Early next morning Roger, Mr. Cledd, and I, placing the money between us in
the boat and arming ourselves and our men, each with a brace of pistols,
went ashore. That brief trip seems a mere trifle as I write of it here and
now, so far in distance and in time from the river at Whampoa, but I truly
think it was as perilous a voyage as any I have made; for pirates, or
Ladronesers as they were called, could not be distinguished from ordinary
boatmen, and enough true stories of robbery and murder on that river passed
current among seafaring men in my boyhood to make the everlasting fortune
of one of those fellows who have nothing better to do than sit down and
spin out a yarn of hair-raising adventures. But we showed our cocked
pistols and passed unmolested through the press, and came at last safe to
the landing.

Laboring under the weight of gold, we went by short stages up to the
factory, where Mr. Johnston in his dressing-gown met us, blessing his soul
and altogether upset.

"Never in my life," he cried, clasping his hands, "have I seen such men as
you. And now, pray, what brings you here?"

"We have come with one hundred thousand dollars," said Roger, "to be paid
to the Chinese gentleman of whom you and I have spoken together."

Mr. Johnston looked at the lumpy bundles wrapped now in canvas and for once
rose to an emergency. "Come in," he said. "I'll dispatch a messenger
immediately. Come in and I'll join you at breakfast."

We ate our breakfast that morning with a fortune in gold coin under the
table; and when the boat came down the river, bringing a quiet man whom Mr.
Johnston introduced as the very person we were seeking, and who himself in
quaint pidgin English corroborated the statement that he it was who had
sent to Thomas Webster the five teakwood chests, we paid him the money and
received in return his receipt beautifully written with small flourishes of
the brush.

"That's done," said Roger, when all was over, "in spite of as rascally a
crew as ever sailed a Salem ship. I am, I fear, a pirate, a mutineer, and
various other unsavory things; but I declare, Mr. Cledd, in addition to
them all, I am an honest man."

The coolies already had begun to pass chests of tea into the hold when we
came aboard; and under the eye of the second mate, who was proving himself
in every respect a competent officer,--in his own place the equal, perhaps,
of Mr. Cledd in his,--all hands were industriously working. The days passed
swiftly. Work aboard ship and business ashore crowded every hour; and so
our stay on the river drew to an end.

Before that time, however, Blodgett hesitantly sought me out one night.
"Mr. Lathrop," he said with a bit of constraint, "I and Davie and Neddie
and cook was a-thinkin' we'd like to do something for poor Bill Hayden's
little girl. Of course we ain't got no great to give, but we've taken up a
little purse of money, and we wondered wouldn't you, seein' you was a good
friend to old Bill, like to come in with us?"

That I was glad of the chance, I assured him. "And Captain Hamlin will come
in, too," I added. "Oh, I'm certain he will."

Blodgett seemed pleased. "Thinks I, he's likely to, but it ain't fit I
should ask the captain."

Promising to present the plea as if it were my own, I sent Blodgett away
reassured, and eventually we all raised a sum that bought such a royal doll
as probably no merchant in Newburyport ever gave his small daughter, and
enough silk to make the little maid, when she should reach the age for it,
as handsome a gown as ever woman wore. Nor was that the end. The night
before we sailed from China, Blodgett came to me secretly, after a
mysterious absence, and pressed a small package into my hand.

"Don't tell," he said. "It's little enough. If we'd stopped off on some o'
them islands I might ha' done better. Thinks I last night, I'd like to send
her a bit of a gift all by myself as a kind of a keepsake, you know, sir,
seeing I never had a little lass o' my own. So I slips away from the others
and borrows a boat that was handy to the shore and drops down stream
quiet-like till I comes in sight of one of them temples where there's gongs
ringing and all manner of queer goings-on. Says I,--not aloud, you
understand,--'Here, my lad, 's the very place you're looking for, just
a-waiting for you!' So I sneaks up soft and easy,--it were a rare dark
night,--and looks in, and what do I see by the light o' them there crazy
lanterns? There was one o' them heathen idols! Yes, sir, a heathen idol as
handy as you please. 'Aha!' says I,--not aloud, you understand, sir,--'Aha!
I'll wager you've got a fine pair o' rubies in your old eye-sockets, you
blessed idol.' And with that I takes a squint at the lay o' the land and
sees my chance, and in I walks. The old priest, he gives a squawk, but I
cracks him with a brass pot full of incense, which scatters and nigh chokes
me, and I grabs the ear-rings and runs before they catches me, for all
there's a million of 'em a-yammering at my heels. I never had a chance at
the eyes--worse luck! But I fared well, when all's said and done. It was a
dark night, thank heaven, and the boat was handy. The rings is jade. She'll
like 'em some day."

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