The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes

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I restrained my chuckles until he had gone, and added the stolen treasures
to the rest of the gifts. What else could I do? Certainly it was beyond my
power to restore them to the rightful owners.

The last chest of tea and the last roll of silk were swung into the hold,
the hatches were battened down, and all was cleared for sailing as soon as
wind and tide should favor us.

That morning Mr. Johnston came aboard, more brisk and pompous than ever,
and having critically inspected the ship, met us in the cabin for a final
word. My new duties as supercargo had kept me busy and my papers were
scattered over the table; but when I started to gather them up and
withdraw, he motioned me to stay.

"Never in all my experience has such a problem as this arisen," he
exclaimed, rubbing his chin lugubriously. "Bless my soul! Who ever heard of
such a thing? Captain and chief mate murdered--crew mutinied--bless my
soul! Well, Captain Hamlin--I suppose you've noticed before, that I give
you the title of master?--well, Captain Hamlin, I fear I'm compounding
felony, but after all that's a matter to be settled in the courts. I'm
confident that I cannot be held criminally responsible for not
understanding a nice point in admiralty. Whatever else happens, the ship
must go home to Salem, and you, sir, are the logical man to take her home.
Well, sir, although in a way you represent the owners more directly than I
do, still your authority is vicariously acquired and I've that here
which'll protect you against interruption in the course of the voyage by
any lawful process. I doubt, from all I've heard, if Falk will go to law;
but here's a paper--" he drew it out of his pocket and laid it on the
table--"signed, sealed and witnessed, stating that I, Walter Johnston,
agent in China for Thomas Webster and Sons, do hereby recognize you as
master of the ship Island Princess, and do invest you, as far as my
authority goes, with whatever privileges and responsibilities are attached
to the office. All questions legal and otherwise, ensuing from this
investure, must be settled on your arrival at the United States of America.
That, sir, is the best I can do for you, and I assure you that I hope
sincerely you may not be hanged as a pirate but that I am by no means
certain of it."

Thus he left-handedly concluded his remarks, and murmuring under his
breath, "Bless my soul," as if in final protest against everything without
precedent, folded his fat hands over his expansive waist-band.

"I thank you, Mr. Johnston," Roger replied gravely, though he could not
completely hide the amusement in his eyes. "I'm sure it is handsome of you
to do so much for us, and I certainly hope no act of piracy or violence, of
which we may have been guilty, will compromise you in the slightest
degree."

"Thank _you_, Captain Hamlin. I hope so myself."

If I had met Roger's glance, I must have laughed outright. The man was so
unconscious of any double edge to Roger's words, and so complacent, that
our meeting was all but farce, when he bethought himself of another subject
of which he had intended to speak.

"Bless my soul!" he exclaimed. "I well nigh forgot. Shall you--but of
course you will not!--go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

Mr. Cledd, who hitherto had sat with a slight smile on his lean Yankee
face, now looked at Roger with keener interest.

"Yes," said Roger, "I shall go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"Now surely, Captain Hamlin, that would be folly; there are other courses."

"But none so direct."

"A long way round is often the shortest way home. Why, bless my soul, that
would be to back your sails in the face of Providence."

Roger leaned forward. "Why should I not go home by way of Sunda Strait?"

"Why, my dear sir, if any one were--er-er--to wish you harm,--and if your
own story is to be believed, there are those who do wish you harm,--Sunda
Strait, of all places in the world, is the easiest to cut you off."

"Mr. Johnston, that is nonsense," said Roger. "Such things don't happen. I
will go home by way of Sunda Strait."

"But, Captain Hamlin,--" the good man rubbed his hands more nervously than
ever,--"but, Captain Hamlin, bless my soul, I consider it highly
inadvisable."

Roger smiled. "Sir, I will not back down. By Sunda Strait we came. By Sunda
Strait we'll return. If any man wishes to see us there--" He finished the
sentence with another smile.

Mr. Cledd spoke up sharply. "Ay, and if a certain man we all know of should
appear, I'm thinking he'd be unpleasantly surprised to find me aboard."

Mr. Johnston rubbed his hands and tapped the table and rubbed his hands
again. So comfortable did he appear, and so well-fed, that he seemed quite
out of place in that severely plain cabin, beside Roger and Mr. Cledd. That
he had a certain mercantile shrewdness I was ready to admit; but the others
were men fearless and quick to act.

"Bless my soul!" he said at last, beating a tattoo on the table with his
soft fingers. "Bless my soul!"

CHAPTER XXX

THROUGH SUNDA STRAIT

Laden deep with tea and silk, we dropped down the Chu-Kiang, past Macao and
the Ladrone Islands, and out through the Great West Channel. Since the
northeast monsoon now had set in and the winds were constant, we soon
passed the tide-rips of St. Esprit, and sighting only a few small islands
covered with brush and mangroves, where the seas broke in long lines of
silver under an occasional cocoanut palm, we left astern in due time the
treacherous water of the Paracel Reefs.

Each day was much like every other until we had put the China Sea behind
us. We touched at the mouth of the Saigon, but found no promise of trade,
and weighed anchor again with the intention of visiting Singapore. Among
other curious things, we saw a number of pink porpoises and some that were
mottled pink and white and brown. Porpoises not infrequently are spotted by
disease; but those that we saw appeared to be in excellent health, and
although we remarked on their odd appearance, we believed their strange
colors to be entirely natural. A fleet of galleys, too, which we saw in the
offing, helped break the monotony of our life. There must have been fifty
of them, with flags a-flutter and arms bristling. Although we did not
approach them near enough to learn more about them, it seemed probable that
they were conveying some great mandarin or chief on affairs of state.

"That man Blodgett is telling stories of one kind or another," Mr. Cledd
remarked one afternoon, after watching a little group that had gathered by
the forecastle-hatch during the first dog-watch. "The fortuneteller fellow,
too, Benson, is stirring up the men."

As I looked across the water at the small island of palms where the waves
were rolling with a sullen roar, which carried far on the evening air, I
saw a native boat lying off the land, and dimly through the mists I saw the
sail of an old junk. I watched the junk uneasily. Small wonder that the men
were apprehensive, I thought.

After leaving Singapore, we passed the familiar shores of eastern Sumatra,
Banka Island and Banka Strait, and the mouths of the Palambang, but in an
inverted order, which made them seem as strange as if we never before had
sighted them. Then one night, heading west against the tide, we anchored in
a rolling swell, with Kodang Island to the northeast and Sindo Island to
the north. On the one hand were the Zutphen Islands; on the other was Hog
Point; and almost abeam of us the Sumatran coast rose to the steep bluff
that across some miles of sea faces the Java shore. We lay in Sunda Strait.

I came on deck after a while and saw the men stirring about.

"They're uneasy," said Mr. Cledd.

"I'm not surprised," I replied.

The trees on the high summit of the island off which we lay were
silhouetted clearly against the sky. What spying eyes might not look down
upon us from those wooded heights? What lawless craft might not lurk beyond
its abrupt headlands?

"No, I don't wonder, either," said Mr. Cledd, thoughtfully.

At daybreak we again weighed anchor and set sail. Three or four times a
far-away vessel set my heart leaping, but each in turn passed and we saw it
no more. A score of native proas manoeuvring at a distance singly or by
twos caused Roger to call up the watch and prepare for any eventuality; but
they vanished as silently as they had appeared. At nightfall we once more
hove to, having made but little progress, and lay at anchor until dawn.

In the darkness that night the cook came up to me in the waist whither I
had wandered, unable to sleep. "Mistah Lathrop," he muttered, "Ah don't
like dis yeh nosing and prying roun' islands whar a ship's got to lay up
all night jes' like an ol' hen with a mess of chickens."

We watched phosphorescent waves play around the anchor cable. The spell of
uneasiness weighed heavily on us both.

The next evening, still beating our way against adverse winds, we rounded
Java Head, which seemed so low by moonlight that I scarcely could believe
it was the famous promontory beyond which lay the open sea. I went to my
stateroom, expecting once again to sleep soundly all night long. Certainly
it seemed now that all our troubles must be over. Yet I could not compose
myself. After a time I came on deck, and found topsails and royals set and
Mr. Cledd in command.

"All goes well, Mr. Lathrop," he said with a smile, "but that darky cook
seems not to believe it. He's prowling about like an old owl."

"Which is he?" I asked; for several of the men were pacing the deck and at
the moment I could not distinguish between them.

"They do seem to be astir. That nearest man walks like Blodgett. Has the
negro scared them all?"

When, just after Mr. Cledd had spoken, Blodgett came aft, we were
surprised; but he approached us with an air of suppressed excitement, which
averted any reprimand Mr. Cledd may have had in mind.

"If you please, sir," he said, "there's a sail to windward."

"To windward? You're mistaken. You ought to call out if you see a sail, but
it's just as well you didn't this time."

Mr. Cledd turned his back on Blodgett after looking hard up the wind.

"If you please, sir, I've got good eyes." Blodgett's manner was such that
no one could be seriously offended by his persistence.

"My eyes are good, too," Mr. Cledd replied rather sharply. "I see no
sail."

Nor did I.

Blodgett leaned on the rail and stared into the darkness like a cat. "If
you please, sir," he said, "I beg your pardon, but I _can_ see a sail."

Now, for the first time I thought that I myself saw something moving. "I
see a bank of fog blowing westward," I remarked, "but I don't think it's a
sail."

After a moment, Mr. Cledd spoke up frankly. "I'll take back what I've just
said. I see it too. It's only a junk, but I suppose we'd better call the
captain."

"Only a junk!" Blodgett repeated sharply. "When last we saw 'em, a junk was
all they had."

"What's that?" Mr. Cledd demanded.

"Ay, ay, sir, they was sailing away in a junk, sir."

Mr. Cledd stepped to the companionway. "Captain Hamlin," he called.

The junk was running free when we first sighted her, but just as she was
passing astern of us, she began to come slowly about. I could see a great
number of men swaying in unison against the helm that controlled the
gigantic rudder. Others were bracing the curious old sails.

"I wish she were near enough for us to watch them handle the sails on the
after masts," I said.

She had a pair of mizzen-masts, one on the larboard side, one on the
starboard, and I was puzzled to know how they were used.

"She'll pass close aboard on this next tack," Mr. Cledd replied. "I think
we'll be able to see." He had paused to watch her manoeuvres.

"Here's the doctor," Blodgett murmured.

Black Frank was coming aft with a quick humpy walk. "'Scuse me, sah, 'scuse
me!" he said. "But I's skeered that we--"

Mr. Cledd now had gone to the companion. "Captain Hamlin," he called again,
"there's a junk passing close aboard."

I heard Roger's step on the companion-way. It later transpired that he had
not heard the first summons.

"Mah golly! Look dah!" the cook exclaimed.

The junk was looming up dangerously.

Mr. Cledd caught my arm. "Run forward quick--quick--call up all hands," he
cried. Then raising the trumpet, "Half a dozen of you men loose the
cannon."

Leaping to the spar deck, I ran to do his bidding, for the junk now was
bearing swiftly down upon us. On my way to the forecastle-hatch I noted the
stacked pikes and loaded muskets by the mainmast, and picked out the most
likely cover from which to fire on possible boarders. That my voice was
shaking with excitement, I did not realize until I had sent my summons
trembling down into the darkness.

I heard the men leaping from their bunks; I heard Roger giving sharp
commands from the quarter-deck; I heard voices on the junk. By accident or
by malice, she inevitably was going to collide with the Island Princess. As
we came up into the wind with sails a-shiver, I scurried back to the stack
of muskets.

Neddie Benson was puffing away just behind me. "I didn't ought to 'ave
come," he moaned. "I had my warning. Oh, it serves me right--I might 'a'
married the lady."

"Bah, that's no way for a _man_ to talk," cried Davie Paine.

It all was so unreal that I felt as if I were looking at a picture. It did
not seem as if it could be Ben Lathrop who was standing shoulder to
shoulder with Neddie Benson and old Davie. There was running and calling on
all sides and aloft. Blocks were creaking as the men hauled at braces and
halyards; and when the ship rolled I saw that the men on the yard-arms were
shaking the courses from the gaskets. Although our crew was really too
small to work the ship and fight at the same time, it was evident that
Roger intended so far as possible to do both.

But meanwhile the junk had worn ship and she still held her position to
windward. Suddenly there came from her deck the flash of a musket and a
loud report. Then another and another. Then Roger's voice sounded sharply
above the sudden clamor and our own long gun replied.

Flame from its muzzle burst in the faces of the men at the bow of the junk,
and the ball, mainly by chance, I suppose, hit her foremast and brought
down mast and sail. Then the junk came about and bumped into us abreast,
with a terrific crash that stove in the larboard bulwark and showered us
with fragments of carved and gilded wood broken from her towering bow.

CHAPTER XXXI

PIKES, CUTLASSES, AND GUNS

As I hastily poured powder into the pan of my musket, a man sprang to our
deck and dashed at Davie Paine, who thrust out a pike and impaled him as if
he were a fowl on a spit, then reached for a musket. Another came and
another; I saw them leap down singly. One of our new men whom we had signed
at Canton raised his cutlass and sliced down the third man to board us;
then they came on in an overwhelming stream.

Seeing that it would be suicide to attempt to maintain our ground, and that
we already were cut off from the party on the quarter-deck, we retreated
forward, fighting off the enemy as we went, and ten or a dozen of us took
our stand on the forecastle.

Kipping and Falk and the beach-combers they had gathered together had
conducted their campaign well. Some half of us were forward, half aft, so
that we could not fire on the boarders without danger of hitting our own
men. Davie Paine clubbed his musket and felled a strange white man, and
Neddie Benson went down with a bullet through his thigh; then the pirates
surged forward and almost around us. Before we realized what was happening,
we had been forced back away from Neddie and had retreated to the
knightheads. We saw a beast of a yellow ruffian stab Neddie with a kris,
then one of our own men saw a chance to dart back under the very feet of
our enemies and lay hold of Neddie's collar and drag him groaning up to us.

They came at us hotly, and we fought them off with pikes and cutlasses; but
we were breathing hard now and our arms ached and our feet slipped. The
circle of steel blades was steadily drawing closer.

That the end of our voyage had come, I was convinced, but I truly was not
afraid to die. It was no credit to me; simply in the heat of action I found
no time for fear. Parry and slash! Slash and parry! Blood was in my eyes. A
cut burned across my right hand. My musket had fallen underfoot and I
wielded a rusty blade that some one else had dropped. Fortunately the flesh
wound I got from the musket-ball in our other battle had healed cleanly,
and no lameness handicapped me.

We had no idea what was going on aft, and for my own part I supposed that
Roger and the rest were in straits as sore as our own; but suddenly a
tremendous report almost deafened us, and when our opponents turned to see
what had happened we got an instant's breathing-space.

"It's the stern-chasers," Davie gasped. "They've faced 'em round!"

The light of a torch flared up and I saw shadowy shapes darting this way
and that.

There were two cannon; but only one shot had been fired.

Suddenly Davie seized me by the shoulder. "See! See there!" he cried
hoarsely in my ear.

I turned and followed his finger with my eyes. High on the stern of the
junk, black against the starlit sky, I saw the unmistakable figure of
Kipping. He was laughing--mildly. The outline of his body and the posture
and motion of his head and shoulders all showed it. Then he leaped to the
deck and we lost sight of him. Where he had mustered that horde of
slant-eyed pirates, we never stopped to wonder. We had no time for idle
questions.

I know that I, for one, finding time during the lull in the fighting to
appraise our chances, expected to die there and then. A vastly greater
force was attacking us, and we were divided as well as outnumbered. But if
we were to die, we were determined to die fighting; so with our backs to
the bulwark and with whatever weapons we had been able to snatch up in our
hands, we defended ourselves as best we could and had no more respite to
think of what was going on aft.

Only one stern gun, you remember, had been fired. Now the second spoke.

There was a yell of anguish as the ball cut through the midst of the
pirates, a tremendous crash that followed almost instantly the report of
the cannon, a sort of brooding hush, then a thunderous reverberation
compared with which all other noises of the night had been as nothing.

Tongues of flame sprang skyward and a ghastly light shot far out on the
sea. The junk heaved back, settled, turned slowly over and seemed to spread
out into a great mass of wreckage. Pieces of timber and plank and spar came
tumbling down and a few men scrambled to our decks. We could hear others
crying out in the water, as they swam here and there or grasped at planks
and beams to keep themselves afloat.

The cannon ball had penetrated the side of the junk and had exploded a
great store of gunpowder.

Part of the wreckage of the junk was burning, and the flames threw a red
glare over the strange scene aboard the ship, where the odds had been so
suddenly altered. Our assailants, who but a moment before had had us at
their mercy, now were confounded by the terrific blow they had received;
instead of fighting the more bravely because no retreat was left them, they
were confused and did not know which way to turn.

Davie Paine, sometimes so slow-witted, seemed now to grasp the situation
with extraordinary quickness. "Come on, lads," he bellowed, "we've got 'em
by the run."

Again clubbing his musket, he leaped into the gangway so ferociously that
the pirates scrambled over the side, brown men and white, preferring to
take their chances in the sea. As he charged on, I lost sight of him in the
maelstrom of struggling figures. On my left a Lascar was fighting for his
life against one of our new crew. On every side men were splashing and
shouting and cursing.

Now, high above the uproar, I heard a voice, at once familiar and strange.
For a moment I could not place it; it had a wild note that baffled me. Then
I saw black Frank, cleaver in hand, come bounding out of the darkness. His
arms and legs, like the legs of some huge tarantula, flew out at all angles
as he ran, and in fierce gutturals he was yelling over and over again:--

"Whar's dat Kipping?"

He peered this way and that.

"Whar's dat Kipping?"

Out of the corner of my eye I saw some one stir by the deck-house, and the
negro, seeing him at the same moment, leaped at my own conclusion.

In doubt whither to flee, too much of a coward at heart either to throw
himself overboard or to face his enemy if there was any chance of escape,
the unhappy Kipping hesitated one second too long. With a mighty lunge the
negro caught him by the throat, and for a moment the two swayed back and
forth in the open space between us and our enemies.

I thought of the night when they had fought together in the galley door.
Momentarily Kipping seemed actually to hold his own against the mad negro;
but his strength was of despair and almost at once we saw that it was
failing.

"Stop!" Kipping cried. "I'll yield! Stop--stop! Don't kill me!"

For a moment the negro hesitated. He seemed bewildered; his very passion
seemed to waver. Then I saw that Kipping, all the while holding the negro's
wrist with his left hand, was fumbling for his sheath-knife with his right.
With basest treachery he was about to knife his assailant at the very
instant when he himself was crying for quarter. My shout of warning was
lost in the general uproar; but the negro, though taken off his guard, had
himself perceived Kipping's intentions.

By a sudden jerk he shook Kipping's hand off his wrist and raised high his
sharp weapon.

From the shadow of the deck-house one of Kipping's own adherents sprang to
his rescue, but Davie Paine--blundering old Davie!--knocked him flat.

For an instant the cook's weapon shone bright in the glare of the torches.
Kipping snatched vainly at the black wrist above him, then jerked his knife
clean out of the sheath--but too late.

"Ah got you now, you pow'ful fighter, you! Ah got you now, you dirty scut!"
the cook yelled, and with one blow of his cleaver he split Kipping's skull
to the chin.

* * * * *

When at last we braced the yards and drew away from the shattered fragments
of the junk, which were drifting out to sea, we found that of the lawless
company that so confidently had expected to murder us all, only five living
men, one of whom was Captain Nathan Falk, were left aboard. They were a
glum and angry little band of prisoners.

Lights and voices ashore indicated that some of our assailants had saved
themselves, and by their cries and confused orders we knew that they in
turn were rescuing others. Of their dead we had no record, but the number
must have been large.

Of us six who had defied Falk in that time long ago, which we had come to
regard almost as ancient history, only Neddie Benson had fallen. Although
we had laughed time and again at the charming plump lady who had prophesied
such terrible events, it had proved in bitter earnest a sad last voyage for
Neddie.

From the low and distant land there continued to come what seemed to be
only faint whispers of sound, yet we knew that they really were the cries
of men fighting for their lives where the sea beat against the shore.

"Ah wonder," said the cook, grimly, "how dem yeh scalliwaggles gwine git
along come Judgment when Gab'el blows his ho'n and Peter rattles his keys
and all de wicked is a-wailin' and a-weepin' and a-gnashin' and can't git
in nohow. Yass, sah. Ah guess dis yeh ol' nigger, he's gwine sit on de
pearly gate and twiddle his toes at 'em."

He folded his arms and stood in the lantern light, with a dreamy expression
on his grotesque face such as I had seen there once or twice before. When
he glanced at me with that strange affection shining from his great eyes,
he seemed like some big, benign dog. Never had I seen a calmer man. It
seemed impossible that passion ever had contorted those homely black
features.

But the others were discussing the fate of our prisoners. I heard Roger
say, "Let me look at them, Mr. Cledd. I'll know them--some of them anyway.
Ah, Captain Falk? And the carpenter? Well, well, well! We hadn't dared hope
for the pleasure of your company on the return voyage. In fact, we'd quite
given it up. I may add that we'd reconciled ourselves to the loss of it."

I now edged toward them, followed by the cook.

"Ay, Mr. Hamlin, it's all very well for you to talk like that," Falk
replied in a trembling voice from which all arrogance had not yet vanished.
"I'm lawful master of this here vessel, as you very well know. You're
nothing but a mutineer and a pirate. Go ahead and kill me! Why don't you?
You know I can tell a story that will send you to the gallows. What have I
done, but try to get back the owners' property and defend it? To think that
I could have knocked you and that addle-pated Ben Lathrop on the head any
day I wished! And I wished it, too, but Kipping he said--"

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