The Mutineers by Charles Boardman Hawes

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But the fight suddenly had become bitter earnest, Kipping unquestionably
feared for his life, and the cook knew well that the weapon for which they
fought would be turned against him if his antagonist once got possession of
it.

As Kipping closed his fingers on the handle, the cook grabbed the blade.
Then the mate appeared out of the dark.

"Here, what's this?" he demanded, looming on the scene of the struggle.

I saw starlight flash on the knife as it flew over the bulwark, then I
heard it splash. Kipping got away by a quick twist and vanished. The cook
remained alone to face the mate, for you can be very sure that I had every
discreet intention not to reveal my presence in the dark galley.

"Yass, sah," said the cook, "yass, sah. Please to 'scuse me, sah, but Ah
didn't go foh no premeditation of disturbance. It is quite unintelligible,
sah, but one of de men, sah, he come round, sah, and says Ah gotta give him
a pie, sah, and of co'se Ah can't do nothin' like dat, sah. Pies is foh de
officers and gen'lems, sah, and of co'se Ah don't give pie to de men, sah,
not even in dey vittles, sah, even if dey was pie, which dey wa'n't, sah,
fob dis we'y day Mistah Falk he wants pie and stew'd he come, and me and
he, sah, we sho' ransack dis galley, sah, and try like we can, not even two
of us togetheh, sah, can sca' up a piece of pie foh Mistah Falk, sah, and
he--"

Unwilling to listen longer, the mate turned with a grunt of disgust and
walked away.

After he had gone, the cook stood for a time by the galley, looking
pensively at the stars. Long-armed, broad-shouldered, bullet-headed, he
seemed a typical savage. Yet in spite of his thick lips and protruding
chin, his face had a certain thoughtful quality, and not even that deeply
graven scowl could hide the dog-like faithfulness of his dark eyes.

After all, I wondered, was he not like a faithful dog: loyal to the last
breath, equally ready to succor his friend or to fight for him?

"Boy," he said, when he came in, "Ah done fool 'em. Dey ain' gwine believe
no gammon dat yeh Kipping tells 'em--leastwise, no one ain't onless it's
Mistah Falk. Now you go 'long with you and don't you come neah me foh a
week without you act like Ah ain't got no use foh you. And boy," he
whispered, "you jest look out and keep clear of dat Kipping. Foh all he
talk' like he got a mouth full of butter, he's an uncommon fighter, he is,
yass sah, an uncommon fighter."

He paused for a moment, then added in such a way that I remembered it long
afterward, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

I reached the forecastle unobserved, and as I started to climb into my
bunk, I felt very well satisfied with myself indeed. Not even Kipping had
seen me come. But a disagreeable surprise awaited me; my hand encountered a
man lying wrapped in my blankets.

It was Kipping!

He rolled out with a sly smile, looked at me in silence a long time, and
then pretended to shake with silent laughter.

"Well," I whispered, "what's the matter with you?"

"There wasn't any pie," he sighed--so mildly. "How sad that there wasn't
any pie."

He then climbed into his own bunk and almost immediately, I judged, went to
sleep.

If he desired to make me exceedingly uncomfortable, he had accomplished his
purpose. For days I puzzled over his queer behavior. I wondered how much he
knew, how much he had told Mr. Falk; and I recalled, sometimes, the cook's
remark, "Ah sho' would like to know whar Ah done see dat Kipping befo'."

Of one thing I was sure: both Kipping and Mr. Falk heartily disliked me.
Kipping took every occasion to annoy me in petty ways, and sometimes I
discovered Mr. Falk watching me sharply and ill-naturedly. But he always
looked away quickly when he knew that I saw him.

We still lacked several days of having been at sea a month when we sighted
Madeira, bearing west southwest about ten leagues distant. Taking a fresh
departure the next day from latitude 32 deg. 22' North, and longitude 16 deg. 36'
West of London, we laid our course south southwest, and swung far enough
away from the outshouldering curve of the Rio de Oro coast to pass clear of
the Canary Islands.

* * * * *

"Do you know," said Bill Hayden one day, some five weeks later, when we
were aloft side by side, "they don't like you any better than they do me."

It was true; both Kipping and Mr. Falk showed it constantly.

"And there's others that don't like us, too," Bill added. "I told 'em,
though, that if they got funny with me or you, I'd show 'em what was what."

"Who are they?" I asked, suddenly remembering Roger Hamlin's warning.

"Davie Paine is one."

"But I thought he didn't like Kipping or Mr. Falk!"

"He didn't for a while; but there was something happened that turned his
mind about them."

I worked away with the tar-bucket and reflected on this unexpected change
in the attitude of the deep-voiced seaman who, on our first day aboard
ship, had seen Kipping wink at the second mate. It was all so trivial that
I was ready to laugh at myself for thinking of it twice, and yet stupid
old Bill Hayden had noticed it. A new suspicion startled me. "Bill, did
any one say anything to you about any plan or scheme that Kipping is
concerned in?" I asked.

"Why, yes. Didn't they speak to you about it?"

"About what?"

"Why, about a voyage that all the men was to have a venture in. I thought
they talked to every one. I didn't want anything to do with it if Kipping
was to have a finger in the pie. I told 'em 'No!' and they swore at me
something awful, and said that if ever I blabbed I'd never see my little
wee girl at Newburyport again. So I never said nothing." He looked at me
with a frightened expression. "It's funny they never said nothing to you.
Don't you tell 'em I talked. If they thought I'd split, they'd knock me in
the head, that's what they' d do."

"Who's in it besides Kipping and Davie Paine?"

"The two men from Boston and Chips and the steward. Them's all I know, but
there may be others. The men have been talking about it quiet like for a
good while now."

As Mr. Falk came forward on some errand or other, we stopped talking and
worked harder than ever at tarring down the rigging.

Presently Bill repeated without turning his head, "Don't you tell 'em I
said anything, will you, Bennie? Don't you tell 'em."

And I replied, "No."

We then had passed the Canaries and the Cape Verdes, and had crossed the
Line; from the most western curve of Africa we had weathered the narrows of
the Atlantic almost to Pernambuco, and thence, driven by fair winds, we had
swept east again in a long arc, past Ascension Island and Tristan da Cunha,
and on south of the Cape of Good Hope.

The routine of a sailor's life is full of hard work and petty detail. Week
follows week, each like every other. The men complain about their duties
and their food and the officers grow irritable. There are few stories worth
telling in the drudgery of life at sea, but now and then in a long, long
time fate and coincidence conspire to unite in a single voyage, such as
that which I am chronicling, enough plots and crimes and untoward incidents
to season a dozen ordinary lifetimes spent before the mast.

I could not, of course, even begin as yet to comprehend the magnitude that
the tiny whirlpool of discontented and lawless schemers would attain. But
boy though I was, in those first months of the voyage I had learned
enough about the different members of the crew to realize that serious
consequences might grow from such a clique.

Kipping, whom I had thought at first a mild, harmless man, had proved
himself a vengeful bully, cowardly in a sense, yet apparently courageous
enough so far as physical combat was concerned. Also, he had disclosed an
unexpected subtlety, a cat-like craft in eavesdropping and underhanded
contrivances. The steward I believed a mercenary soul, tricky so far as his
own comfort and gain were concerned, who, according to common report, had
ingratiated himself with the second mate by sympathizing with him on every
occasion because he had not been given the chief mate's berth. The two men
from Boston I cared even less for; they were slipshod workmen and
ill-tempered, and their bearing convinced me that, from the point of view
of our officers and of the owners of the ship, they were a most undesirable
addition to such a coterie as Kipping seemed to be forming. Davie Paine and
the carpenter prided themselves on being always affable, and each, although
slow to make up his mind, would throw himself heart and body into whatever
course of action he finally decided on. But significant above all else was
Kipping's familiarity with Mr. Falk.

The question now was, how to communicate my suspicions secretly to Roger
Hamlin. After thinking the matter over in all its details, I wrote a few
letters on a piece of white paper, and found opportunity to take counsel
with my friend the cook, when I, as the youngest in the crew, was left in
the galley to bring the kids forward to the men in the forecastle.

"Doctor," I said, "if I wanted to get a note to Mr. Hamlin without
anybody's knowing,--particularly the steward or Mr. Falk,--how should I go
about it?"

The perpetually frowning black heaped salt beef on the kids. "Dah's enough
grub foh a hun'erd o'nary men. Dey's enough meat dah to feed a whole
regiment of Sigambeezel cavalry--yass, sah, ho'ses and all. And yet Ah'll
bet you foh dollahs right out of mah pay, doze pesky cable-scrapers fo'ward
'll eat all dat meat and cuss me in good shape 'cause it ain't mo', and
den, mah golly, dey'll sot up all night, Ah'll bet you, yass, sah,
a-kicking dey heads off 'cause dey ain't fed f'om de cabin table. Boy, if
you was to set beefsteak and bake' 'taters and ham and eggs down befo' dem
fool men ev'y mo'ning foh breakfas', dey'd come heah hollerin' and cussin'
and tellin' me dey wah n't gwine have dey innards spiled on all dat yeh
truck jest 'cause dem aft can't eat it."

Turning his ferocious scowl full upon me, the savage-looking darky handed
me the kids. "Dah! you take doze straight along fo'ward." Then, dropping
his voice to a whisper, he said, "Gimme yo' note."

Knowing now that the cook approached every important matter by an
extraordinarily indirect route, I had expected some such conclusion, and I
held the note ready.

"Go long," he said, when I had slipped it into his huge black hand. "Ah'll
do it right."

So I departed with all confidence that my message would go secretly and
safely to its destination. Even if it should fall into other hands than
those for which it was intended, I felt that I had not committed myself
dangerously. I had written only one word: "News."

[Illustration]

II

IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER AN ARAB SHIP

[Illustration]

CHAPTER VI

THE COUNCIL IN THE CABIN

Sometimes in the night I dream of the forecastle of the Island Princess,
and see the crew sitting on chests and bunks, as vividly as if only
yesterday I had come through the hatchway and down the steps with a kid of
"salt horse" for the mess, and had found them waiting, each with his pan
and spoon and the great tin dipper of tea that he himself had brought from
the galley. There was Chips, the carpenter, who had descended for the
moment from the dignity of the steerage; calmly he helped himself to twice
his share, ignoring the oaths of the others, and washed down his first
mouthful with a great gulp of tea. Once upon a time Chips came down just
too late to get any meat, and tried to kill the cook; but as the cook
remarked to me afterwards, "Foh a drea'ful impulsive pusson, he wah n't
ve'y handy with his fists." There was Bill Hayden, who always got last
chance at the meat, and took whatever the doubtful generosity of his
shipmates had left him--poor Bill, as happy in the thought of his little
wee girl at Newburyport as if all the wealth of the khans of Tartary were
waiting for him at the end of the voyage. There was the deep-voiced Davie,
almost out of sight in the darkest corner, who chose his food carefully,
pretending the while to be considerate of the others, and growled amiably
about his hard lot. Also there was Kipping, mild and evasive, yet amply
able to look out for his own interests, as I, who so often brought down the
kids, well knew.

When, that evening, Bill Hayden had scraped up the last poor slivers of
meat, he sat down beside me on my chest.

"If I didn't have my little wee girl at Newburyport," he said, "I might
be as gloomy as Neddie Benson. Do you suppose if I went to see a
fortune-teller I'd be as gloomy as Neddie is? I never used to be gloomy,
even before I married, and I married late. I was older than Neddie is
now when I married. Neddie ought to get a wife and stop going to see
fortune-tellers, and then he wouldn't be so gloomy."

Bill would run on indefinitely in his stupid, kindly way, for I was almost
the only person aboard ship who listened to him at all, and, to tell the
truth, even I seldom more than half listened. But already he had given me
valuable information that day, and now something in the tone of his
rambling words caught my attention.

"Has Neddie Benson been talking about the fortuneteller again?" I asked.

"He's had a lot to say about her. He says the lady said to him--"

"But what started him off?"

"He says things is bound to come to a bad end."

"What things?"

As I have said before, I had a normal boy's curiosity about all that was
going on around us. Perhaps, I have come to think, I had more than the
ordinary boy's sense for important information. Roger Hamlin's warning had
put me on my guard, and I intended to learn all I could and to keep my
mouth shut where certain people were concerned.

"It's queer they don't say nothing to you about what's going on," Bill
remarked.

For my own part I understood very well why they should say nothing of any
underhanded trickery to one who ashore was so intimately acquainted with
Captain Whidden and Roger Hamlin. But I kept my thoughts to myself and
persisted in my questions.

"What is going on?"

"Oh, I don't just make out what." Bill's stupidity was exasperating at
times. "It's something about Mr. Falk. Kipping, he--"

"Yes?" said that eternally mild voice. "Mr. Falk? And Kipping? What else
please?"

Both Bill and I were startled to find Kipping at our elbows. But before
either of us could answer, some one called down the hatch:--

"Lathrop is wanted aft."

Relieved at escaping from an embarrassing situation, I jumped up so
promptly that my knife fell with a clatter, and hastened on deck, calling
"Ay, ay," to the man who had summoned me. I knew very well why I was wanted
aft.

Mr. Falk, who was on duty on the quarter-deck, completely ignored me as I
passed him and went down the companionway.

"At least," I thought, "he can't come below now."

The steward, when I appeared, raised his eyebrows and almost dropped his
tray; then he paused in the door, inconspicuously, as if to linger. But
Captain Whidden glanced round and dismissed him by a sharp nod, and I found
myself alone in the cabin with the captain, Mr. Thomas, and Roger Hamlin.

"I understand there's news forward, Lathrop," said Captain Whidden.

Roger looked at me with that humorous, exasperating twinkle of his eyes,--I
thought of my sister and of how she had looked when she learned that he was
to sail for Canton,--and Mr. Thomas folded his arms and leaned back in his
chair.

"Yes, sir," I replied, "although it seems pretty unimportant to be worth
much as news."

"Tell us about it."

To all that I had gathered from Bill Hayden I added what I had learned by
my own observations, and it seemed to interest them, although for my own
part I doubted whether it was of much account.

"Has any one approached you directly about these things?" Captain Whidden
asked when I was through.

"No, sir."

"Have you heard any one say just what this little group is trying to
accomplish, or just when it is going to act?"

"No, sir."

"Do you, Lathrop, know anything about the cargo of the Island Princess? Or
anything about the terms under which it is carried?"

"Only in a general way, sir, that it is made up of ginseng and woolen goods
shipped to Canton."

Captain Whidden looked at me very sharply indeed. "You are positive that
that is all you know?"

"Yes, sir--except, in a general way, that the cargo is uncommonly
important."

The three men exchanged glances, and Roger Hamlin nodded as if to
corroborate my reply.

"Lathrop," Captain Whidden began again, "I want you to say nothing about
this interview after you leave the cabin. It is more important that you
hold your peace than you may ever realize--than, I trust, you ever _will_
realize. I am going to ask you to give me your word of honor to that
effect."

It seemed to me then that I saw Captain Whidden in a new light. We of the
younger generation had inclined to belittle him because he continued to
follow the sea at an age when more successful men had established their
counting-houses or had retired from active business altogether. But twice
his mercantile adventures had proved unfortunate, and now, though nearly
sixty years old and worth a very comfortable fortune, he refused to leave
again for a less familiar occupation the profession by which he had amassed
his competence. I noticed that his hair was gray on his temples, and that
his weathered face revealed a certain stern sadness. I felt as if suddenly,
in spite of my minor importance on board his ship, I had come closer to the
straightforward gentleman, the true Joseph Whidden, than in all the years
that I had known him, almost intimately, it had seemed at the time, in my
father's house.

"I promise, sir," I said.

He took up a pencil and with the point tapped a piece of paper.

"Tell me who of all the men forward absolutely are not influenced by this
man Kipping."

"The cook," I returned, "and Bill Hayden, and, I think, Neddie Benson.
Probably there are a number of others, but only of those three am I
absolutely sure."

"That's what I want--the men you are absolutely sure of. Hm! The cook,
useful but not particularly quick-witted. Hayden, a harmless, negative
body. Benson, a gloomy soul if ever there was one. It might be better
but--" He looked at Mr. Thomas and smiled. "That is all, Lathrop; you may
go now. Just one moment more, though: be cautious, keep your eyes and ears
open, and if anything else comes up, communicate with Mr. Hamlin or,--" he
hesitated, but finally said it,--"or directly with me."

As I went up on deck, I again passed Mr. Falk and again he pretended not to
see me. But although he seemed to be intent on the rolling seas to
windward, I was very confident that, when I had left the quarter-deck, he
turned and looked after me as earnestly as if he hoped to read in my step
and carriage everything that had occurred in the cabin.

CHAPTER VII

THE SAIL WITH A LOZENGE-SHAPED PATCH

It was not long before we got another warning even more ominous than the
one from the captain of the Adventure. On Friday, July 28, in latitude
19 deg. 50' South, longitude 101 deg. 53' East,--the log of the voyage, kept beyond
this point in Mr. Thomas's own hand, gives me the dates and figures to the
very day for it still is preserved in the vaults of Hamlin, Lathrop &
Company,--we sighted a bark to the south, and at the captain's orders wore
ship to speak her. When she also came about, we served out pikes and
muskets as a precaution against treachery, and Mr. Falk saw that our guns
were shotted. But she proved to be in good faith, and in answer to our hail
she declared herself the Adrienne of Liverpool, eight days from the
Straits, homeward bound. Her master, it appeared, wished to compare notes
on longitude, and a long, dull discussion followed; but in parting Captain
Whidden asked if there was news of pirates or marauders.

"Yes," was the reply. "Much news and bad news." And the master of the
Adrienne thereupon launched into a tale of piracy and treachery such, as I
never had heard before. Leaning over the taffrail, his elbows out-thrust
and his big hands folded, he roared the story at us in a great booming
voice that at times seemed to drown the words in its own volume. Now, as
the waves and the wind snatched it away, it grew momentarily fainter and
clearer; now it came bellowing back again, loud, hoarse, and indistinct.

It was all about an Arab ship off Benkulen; Ladronesers and the havoc they
had wrought among the American ships in the China Sea; a warning not to
sail from Macao for Whampoa without a fleet of four or five sail; and
again, about the depredations of the Malays. The grizzled old captain
seemed to delight in repeating horrible yarns of the seas whence he came,
whither we were going. He roared them after us until we had left him far
astern; and at the last we heard him laughing long and hoarsely.

"What dat yeh man think we all am? He think we all gwine believe dat yeh?
Hgh!" the cook growled.

But Neddie Benson dolefully shook his head.

Parting, the Adrienne and the Island Princess continued, each on her
course, the one back round the Cape of Good Hope and north again to
Liverpool, the other on into strange oceans beset with a thousand dangers.

We sailed now a sea of opalescent greens and purples that shimmered and
changed with the changing lights. Strange shadows played across it, even
when the sky was cloudless, and it rolled past the ship in great, regular
swells, ruffled by favoring breezes and bright beneath the clear sun.

At daylight on August 3 we saw land about nine miles away, bearing from
east by south to north, a long line of rugged hills, which appeared to be
piled one above another, and which our last lunar observations indicated
were in longitude 107 deg. 15' East; and we made out a single sail lying off
the coast to the north.

The sail caught and held our attention--not that, so far as we then could
see, that particular sail was at all remarkable: any sail, at that time and
in that place, would have interested us unusually. Mindful of the warnings
we had received, we paused in our work to watch it. Kipping, with a sly
glance aft, left the winch with which he was occupied and leaned on the
rail. Here and there the crew conversed cautiously, and on the quarter-deck
a lively discussion, I could see, was in progress.

We were so intent on that distant spot of canvas which pricked the horizon,
that a fierce squall, sweeping down upon us, almost took us aback.

The cry, "All hands on deck!" brought the sleeping watch from the bunks
below, and the carpenter, steward, and sailmaker from the steerage. The
foresail ripped from its bolt ropes with a deafening crack, and tore to
ribbons in the gale. As the ship lay into the wind, I could hear the
captain's voice louder than the very storm, "Meet her!--Meet her!--Ease her
off!" But the reply of the man at the wheel was lost in the rush of wind
and rain.

I had been well drilled long since in furling the royals, for on them the
green hands were oftenest practised; and now, from his post on the
forecastle, Mr. Thomas spied me as I slipped and fell half across the deck.
I alone at that moment was not hard at work, and, in obedience to the
captain's orders, during a lull that gave us a momentary respite, he sent
me aloft.

It was quite a different thing from furling a royal in a light breeze. When
I had got to the topgallant masthead, the yard was well down by the lifts
and steadied by the braces, but the clews were not hauled chock up to the
blocks. Leaning out precariously, I won Mr. Thomas's attention with
greatest difficulty, and shrieked to have it done. This he did. Then,
casting the yard-arm gaskets off from the tye and laying them across
between the tye and the mast, I stretched out on the weather yard-arm and,
getting hold of the weather leech, brought it in to the slings taut along
the yard. Mind you, all this time I, only a boy, was working in a gale of
wind and driven rain, and was clinging to a yard that was sweeping from
side to side in lurching, unsteady flight far above the deck and the angry
sea. Hauling the sail through the clew, and letting it fall in the bunt, I
drew the weather clew a little abaft the yard, and held it with my knee
while I brought in the lee leech in, the same manner. Then, making up my
bunt and putting into it the slack of the clews, the leech and footrope and
the body of the sail, I hauled it well up on the yard, smoothed the skin,
brought it down abaft, and made fast the bunt-gasket round the mast.
Passing the weather and lee yard-arm gaskets round the yard in turn, and
hauling them taut and making them fast, I left all snug and trim.

From aft came faintly the clear command, "Full and by!" And promptly, for
by this time the force of the squall was already spent, the answer of the
man at the wheel, "Full and by, sir."

In this first moment of leisure I instinctively turned, as did virtually
every man aboard ship, to look for the sail that had been reported to the
north of us. But although we looked long and anxiously, we saw no sail, no
trace of any floating craft. It had disappeared during the squall, utterly
and completely. Only the wild dark sea and the wild succession of mountain
piled on mountain met our searching eyes.

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