For the Term of His Natural Life Part 14

"Did you take the laudanum?" whispered Blunt, with a twinkle in his eye.

"Some of it," said she. "I will bring you back the bottle to-night."

Blunt walked aft, humming cheerily, and saluted Frere with a slap on the back. The two men laughed, each at his own thoughts, but their laughter only made the surrounding gloom seem deeper than before.

Sarah Purfoy, casting her eyes toward the barricade, observed a change in the position of the three men. They were together once more, and the Crow, having taken off his prison cap, held it at arm's length with one hand, while he wiped his brow with the other. Her signal had been observed.

During all this, Rufus Dawes, removed to the hospital, was lying flat on his back, staring at the deck above him, trying to think of something he wanted to say.

When the sudden faintness, which was the prelude to his sickness, had overpowered him, he remembered being torn out of his bunk by fierce hands--remembered a vision of savage faces, and the presence of some danger that menaced him. He remembered that, while lying on his blankets, struggling with the coming fever, he had overheard a conversation of vital importance to himself and to the ship, but of the purport of that conversation he had not the least idea. In vain he strove to remember--in vain his will, struggling with delirium, brought back s.n.a.t.c.hes and echoes of sense; they slipped from him again as fast as caught. He was oppressed with the weight of half-recollected thought.

He knew that a terrible danger menaced him; that could he but force his brain to reason connectedly for ten consecutive minutes, he could give such information as would avert that danger, and save the ship. But, lying with hot head, parched lips, and enfeebled body, he was as one possessed--he could move nor hand nor foot.

The place where he lay was but dimly lighted. The ingenuity of Pine had constructed a canvas blind over the port, to prevent the sun striking into the cabin, and this blind absorbed much of the light. He could but just see the deck above his head, and distinguish the outlines of three other berths, apparently similar to his own. The only sounds that broke the silence were the gurgling of the water below him, and the Tap tap, Tap tap, of Pine's hammers at work upon the new part.i.tion. By and by the noise of these hammers ceased, and then the sick man could hear gasps, and moans, and mutterings--the signs that his companions yet lived.

All at once a voice called out, "Of course his bills are worth four hundred pounds; but, my good sir, four hundred pounds to a man in my position is not worth the getting. Why, I've given four hundred pounds for a freak of my girl Sarah! Is it right, eh, Jezebel? She's a good girl, though, as girls go. Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of the Crofts, Sevenoaks, Kent--Sevenoaks, Kent--Seven----"

A gleam of light broke in on the darkness which wrapped Rufus Dawes's tortured brain. The man was John Rex, his berth mate. With an effort he spoke.

"Rex!"

"Yes, yes. I'm coming; don't be in a hurry. The sentry's safe, and the howitzer is but five paces from the door. A rush upon deck, lads, and she's ours! That is, mine. Mine and my wife's, Mrs. Lionel Crofton, of Seven Crofts, no oaks--Sarah Purfoy, lady's-maid and nurse--ha!

ha!--lady's-maid and nurse!"

This last sentence contained the name-clue to the labyrinth in which Rufus Dawes's bewildered intellects were wandering. "Sarah Purfoy!"

He remembered now each detail of the conversation he had so strangely overheard, and how imperative it was that he should, without delay, reveal the plot that threatened the ship. How that plot was to be carried out, he did not pause to consider; he was conscious that he was hanging over the brink of delirium, and that, unless he made himself understood before his senses utterly deserted him, all was lost.

He attempted to rise, but found that his fever-thralled limbs refused to obey the impulse of his will. He made an effort to speak, but his tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and his jaws stuck together. He could not raise a finger nor utter a sound. The boards over his head waved like a shaken sheet, and the cabin whirled round, while the patch of light at his feet bobbed up and down like the reflection from a wavering candle. He closed his eyes with a terrible sigh of despair, and resigned himself to his fate. At that instant the sound of hammering ceased, and the door opened. It was six o'clock, and Pine had come to have a last look at his patients before dinner. It seemed that there was somebody with him, for a kind, though somewhat pompous, voice remarked upon the scantiness of accommodation, and the "necessity--the absolute necessity"

of complying with the King's Regulations.

Honest Vickers, though agonized for the safety of his child, would not abate a jot of his duty, and had sternly come to visit the sick men, aware as he was that such a visit would necessitate his isolation from the cabin where his child lay. Mrs. Vickers--weeping and bewailing herself coquettishly at garrison parties--had often said that "poor dear John was such a disciplinarian, quite a slave to the service."

"Here they are," said Pine; "six of 'em. This fellow"--going to the side of Rex--"is the worst. If he had not a const.i.tution like a horse, I don't think he could live out the night."

"Three, eighteen, seven, four," muttered Rex; "dot and carry one. Is that an occupation for a gentleman? No, sir. Good night, my lord, good night. Hark! The clock is striking nine; five, six, seven, eight! Well, you've had your day, and can't complain."

"A dangerous fellow," says Pine, with the light upraised. "A very dangerous fellow--that is, he was. This is the place, you see--a regular rat-hole; but what can one do?"

"Come, let us get on deck," said Vickers, with a shudder of disgust.

Rufus Dawes felt the sweat break out into beads on his forehead. They suspected nothing. They were going away. He must warn them. With a violent effort, in his agony he turned over in the bunk and thrust out his hand from the blankets.

"Hullo! what's this?" cried Pine, bringing the lantern to bear upon it.

"Lie down, my man. Eh!--water, is it? There, steady with it now"; and he lifted a pannikin to the blackened, froth-fringed lips. The cool draught moistened his parched gullet, and the convict made a last effort to speak.

"Sarah Purfoy--to-night--the prison--MUTINY!"

The last word, almost shrieked out, in the sufferer's desperate efforts to articulate, recalled the wandering senses of John Rex. "Hush!" he cried. "Is that you, Jemmy? Sarah's right. Wait till she gives the word."

"He's raving," said Vickers.

Pine caught the convict by the shoulder. "What do you say, my man? A mutiny of the prisoners!"

With his mouth agape and his hands clenched, Rufus Dawes, incapable of further speech, made a last effort to nod a.s.sent, but his head fell upon his breast; the next moment, the flickering light, the gloomy prison, the eager face of the doctor, and the astonished face of Vickers, vanished from before his straining eyes. He saw the two men stare at each other, in mingled incredulity and alarm, and then he was floating down the cool brown river of his boyhood, on his way--in company with Sarah Purfoy and Lieutenant Frere--to raise the mutiny of the Hydaspes, that lay on the stocks in the old house at Hampstead.

CHAPTER IX. WOMAN'S WEAPONS.

The two discoverers of this awkward secret held a council of war.

Vickers was for at once calling the guard, and announcing to the prisoners that the plot--whatever it might be--had been discovered; but Pine, accustomed to convict ships, overruled this decision.

"You don't know these fellows as well as I do," said he. "In the first place there may be no mutiny at all. The whole thing is, perhaps, some absurdity of that fellow Dawes--and should we once put the notion of attacking us into the prisoners' heads, there is no telling what they might do."

"But the man seemed certain," said the other. "He mentioned my wife's maid, too!"

"Suppose he did?--and, begad, I dare say he's right--I never liked the look of the girl. To tell them that we have found them out this time won't prevent 'em trying it again. We don't know what their scheme is either. If it is a mutiny, half the ship's company may be in it. No, Captain Vickers, allow me, as surgeon-superintendent, to settle our course of action. You are aware that--"

"--That, by the King's Regulations, you are invested with full powers,"

interrupted Vickers, mindful of discipline in any extremity. "Of course, I merely suggested--and I know nothing about the girl, except that she brought a good character from her last mistress--a Mrs. Crofton I think the name was. We were glad to get anybody to make a voyage like this."

"Well," says Pine, "look here. Suppose we tell these scoundrels that their design, whatever it may be, is known. Very good. They will profess absolute ignorance, and try again on the next opportunity, when, perhaps, we may not know anything about it. At all events, we are completely ignorant of the nature of the plot and the names of the ringleaders. Let us double the sentries, and quietly get the men under arms. Let Miss Sarah do what she pleases, and when the mutiny breaks out, we will nip it in the bud; clap all the villains we get in irons, and hand them over to the authorities in Hobart Town. I am not a cruel man, sir, but we have got a cargo of wild beasts aboard, and we must be careful."

"But surely, Mr. Pine, have you considered the probable loss of life?

I--really--some more humane course perhaps? Prevention, you know--"

Pine turned round upon him with that grim practicality which was a part of his nature. "Have you considered the safety of the ship, Captain Vickers? You know, or have heard of, the sort of things that take place in these mutinies. Have you considered what will befall those half-dozen women in the soldiers' berths? Have you thought of the fate of your own wife and child?"

Vickers shuddered.

"Have it your way, Mr. Pine; you know best perhaps. But don't risk more lives than you can help."

"Be easy, sir," says old Pine; "I am acting for the best; upon my soul I am. You don't know what convicts are, or rather what the law has made 'em--yet--"

"Poor wretches!" says Vickers, who, like many martinets, was in reality tender-hearted. "Kindness might do much for them. After all, they are our fellow-creatures."

"Yes," returned the other, "they are. But if you use that argument to them when they have taken the vessel, it won't avail you much. Let me manage, sir; and for G.o.d's sake, say nothing to anybody. Our lives may hang upon a word."

Vickers promised, and kept his promise so far as to chat cheerily with Blunt and Frere at dinner, only writing a brief note to his wife to tell her that, whatever she heard, she was not to stir from her cabin until he came to her; he knew that, with all his wife's folly, she would obey unhesitatingly, when he couched an order in such terms.

According to the usual custom on board convict ships, the guards relieved each other every two hours, and at six p.m. the p.o.o.p guard was removed to the quarter-deck, and the arms which, in the daytime, were disposed on the top of the arm-chest, were placed in an arm-rack constructed on the quarter-deck for that purpose. Trusting nothing to Frere--who, indeed, by Pine's advice, was, as we have seen, kept in ignorance of the whole matter--Vickers ordered all the men, save those who had been on guard during the day, to be under arms in the barrack, forbade communication with the upper deck, and placed as sentry at the barrack door his own servant, an old soldier, on whose fidelity he could thoroughly rely. He then doubled the guards, took the keys of the prison himself from the non-commissioned officer whose duty it was to keep them, and saw that the howitzer on the lower deck was loaded with grape.

It was a quarter to seven when Pine and he took their station at the main hatchway, determined to watch until morning.

At a quarter past seven, any curious person looking through the window of Captain Blunt's cabin would have seen an unusual sight. That gallant commander was sitting on the bed-place, with a gla.s.s of rum and water in his hand, and the handsome waiting-maid of Mrs. Vickers was seated on a stool by his side. At a first glance it was perceptible that the captain was very drunk. His grey hair was matted all ways about his reddened face, and he was winking and blinking like an owl in the sunshine.

He had drunk a larger quant.i.ty of wine than usual at dinner, in sheer delight at the approaching a.s.signation, and having got out the rum bottle for a quiet "settler" just as the victim of his fascinations glided through the carefully-adjusted door, he had been persuaded to go on drinking.

"Cuc-come, Sarah," he hiccuped. "It's all very fine, my la.s.s, but you needn't be so--hic--proud, you know. I'm a plain sailor--plain s'lor, Srr'h. Ph'n'as Bub--blunt, commander of the Mal-Mal- Malabar. Wors' 'sh good talkin'?"