The Blood Ship Part 29

"Ah, well, I fear I've overstayed my welcome this visit," he said, finally. He got to his feet, and stood before Newman with legs spraddled and arms akimbo; drinking in l.u.s.tfully the picture of the other man's utter misery. "Interesting chat we've had--old times, future, and all that--eh, Roy? But a sailor's work, you know--like a woman's--never done. I have duties to attend to, Roy. But I will return--ah, yes, you know I will return. You'll wait here for me, eh, Roy? Anxiously awaiting my return, counting the bells against my coming. Well--remember--eight bells in the middle watch."

He turned and stepped towards the ladder. With his foot raised to the bottom step, he stopped, and stared aloft, mouth agape. I stared too, and listened.

We heard a shot, a single pistol shot.

The captain wheeled upon Newman. His hand flew to his pistol pocket.

But he did not draw. He would have died then and there, if he had, for I was tensed for the leap.

But he was uncertain. This was not the hour--and the other shots, the volley, we both expected did not come. Instead, came the second mate's voice bellowing orders, "Connolly--the wheel! Hard alee! Weather main brace!" Then, clearer, as he shouted through the cabin skylights, "Captain--on deck, quick!"

It was the hail for which I had waited so long and anxiously. But the news that came with it was strange and startling.

"The man at the wheel," shouted Lynch, "has jumped overboard with the mate!" Then his cry went forward, "Man overboard!"

Swope leaped for the ladder. I saw consternation in his face as he scurried aloft.

So I knew that this was something he hadn't arranged.

CHAPTER XXII

I was at Newman's side before Captain Swope's feet vanished from the ladder. If he had paused to close the lazaret hatch behind him, he must surely have seen me. But he did not pause; I heard his steps racing up the companion stairs to the p.o.o.p, and his voice shouting his command: "Watch the main deck, Mister! Light a flare!"

I threw my arms about Newman, and babbled in his ear. "Oh, the beast!--it's I--Jack--the devil, I heard what he said!--come to free you!" Truth to tell, the things I had overheard unnerved me somewhat, and I was incoherent, almost, from rage and horror.

But Newman brought me to myself in short order. "I know--but not so loud--they'll hear you!" Aye, his first words, and he smiled into my face. This man on the rack smiled, and thought clearly, whilst I babbled. "Be quick," he bade me. "Cut the lashings."

I obeyed in jig time. The chains of both the hand and foot irons were secured to the limbers by rope lashings. With two strokes of my knife I severed them. Before I could catch him, Newman fell forward upon his face. His misused limbs could not support him.

I knelt by his side, sobbing and spluttering, and fishing in my pocket for the key the lady had given me. It was the sight of his raw, bleeding wrists and ankles that maddened me; aye, the sight of them would have maddened a saint. You will recall that the Old Man had commanded that Newman's wrists be tightly cuffed; and he had seen to it that the leg cuffs were equally tight. Tight ironing was a favorite sport of Swope's; he was notorious for it among sailormen. I saw the results upon Newman.

The flesh above the irons was puffed and inflamed; the constriction and chafing had broken the skin, and the cuffs upon both arms and legs were buried in the raw wounds. Exquisite agony--aye, trust Swope to produce that! I had to push back the swollen, bruised ma.s.s before I could insert the little flat key, and effect the release.

When I had them off, I turned Newman over on his back, and, with my arm about him, prepared to lift him erect. Before I could do so, a.s.sistance arrived. Light feet pattered down the lazaret ladder; there was a swish of skirts, a gasp, and the lady was on her knees by Newman's side. "Roy--Roy--I was in time--" she cried. Her arms went around his neck.

I released him to her for the instant, and straightened up and listened. There was noise on deck, and confusion. The ship was in stays; she hung there, aback. I could hear Lynch, somewhere forward, bawling orders; and overhead, Swope sang out to the wheel, and then hailed the roundhouse.

"Roundhouse, there--on deck and lend a hand! Man the lifeboat--lifeboat falls, there! For G.o.d's sake, Mister--what's the matter there on deck?"

Oh, he was worried, was Swope. It showed in his voice; for once his tone was not full and musical, it was shrill and screechy. He was sorely shaken, madly anxious to save his faithful jackal; the Eliminator had not planned Fitzgibbon's removal.

Thoughts, questions, rushed through my mind. I listened for other sounds, for shots and shouts and sounds of strife. For there was confusion up there on the dark decks, and the captain had forgotten his caution and withdrawn his ambush. I knew that Boston and Blackie would not overlook this chance; promise or no promise they would profit by this occasion.

It was this thought that spurred me to action. We must get out of this hole we were in; the lazaret was a trap. The die was cast; the mutiny was on--or would be in a moment.

I said as much to my companions. Newman attempted to get to his feet.

"A hand, Jack--it must be stopped," he said.

I gave him the hand. More than that, I took him upon my back and tottered up the ladder with him, the lady a.s.sisting as well as she was able. She knew what had happened on deck, and she told us in a word or two.

She had not been able to find Wong (we afterwards discovered that Wong had gone forward to the galley, and surprised the crew at a conference, and had been detained prisoner by them), so she crawled up the companion ladder herself, and lurked in the cuddy, waiting for a chance to speak with Lynch. The n.i.g.g.e.r was at the wheel, she said.

Fitzgibbon walked up to him and struck him--as he had struck him many, many times before. But this time n.i.g.g.e.r did not submit--he whipped out his knife and stabbed the mate. More than that, he grasped the mate in his powerful arms, dragged him to the taffrail, and flung him overboard. It happened so quickly that neither Connolly, the tradesman, nor Lynch, both of whom were on the p.o.o.p, could interfere.

But Lynch took a shot at n.i.g.g.e.r, and perhaps struck him, for n.i.g.g.e.r went over the rail and into the sea with his victim.

It was n.i.g.g.e.r, despised, half-lunatic n.i.g.g.e.r, who was not in my reckoning, nor in Swope's, who put the match to the tinder and upset such carefully laid plans. As I feared, the revolt of the crew blazed up immediately. My shipmates were eager, too eager. As it turned out, their precipitancy was to cost them their chance of victory, for they began to riot while the three tradesmen were still handy to the roundhouse door, though, indeed, they had no knowledge, as had I, of the captain's ambuscade.

I staggered into the saloon, and set Newman down upon the divan which ran around the half-round, and which was but a step from the hatch. He got to his feet at once, and, though the lady and I stretched out our arms to catch him, this time he did not fall. He swayed drunkenly, and hobbled when he took a step, but such was his vitality and so strong the urge of his will, that life was already returning to his misused limbs.

It was just then that pandemonium broke out on deck--a shot, a string of shots and a bedlam of howls and yells. Overhead was bedlam, too.

The skipper's tune changed instanter. He had been singing out to Mister Lynch to "topsail haul," and to the tradesmen to man the boat falls--but now he was screaming to the latter in a voice shaken with excitement--or panic--to regain their posts, to get into the roundhouse and "turn loose on 'em--pepper 'em! And, for G.o.d's sake, throw out the flares!"

Oh, the Great Eliminator was shocked most unpleasantly In that moment, I think--to discover, when his trusty mate was overboard, that his mutinous crew had firearms!

I looked to Newman for orders, for he was now in command of our forlorn hope. But he had his arm about the lady's shoulders, and was speaking urgently into her ear. My thought was of a place to hide. I ran towards the cabin alleyway. I had no intention of going out on that dangerous deck, my object was to see if the inner door to the sail-locker was unlocked. In the sail-locker, I thought, we could hide, the three of us, until the fight died down.

But my design was frustrated. Before I reached the sail-locker, the door to the deck, at the end of the alleyway, burst open, and the tradesman, Morton, pitched headlong over the base-board. He scrambled to his hands and knees and scuttled towards me. There was a whistling thud near my head. I leaped back into the cabin, out of range, so quickly I tripped and sat down hard upon the deck. For a shot fired after the fleeting Morton had just missed my skull.

Morton crawled into the saloon, and looked at me with a stupid wonder in his face. He was wounded; he nursed his shoulder, and there was a spreading stain upon his white shirt.

"They have guns--in the rigging," says he. Then he grunted, and collapsed, unconscious.

The heavy roar of shotguns, for which my ear was c.o.c.ked, did not come.

There were two pistols in action overhead, and pistol shots rattled forward, and I could tell from the sounds that a free fight was raging somewhere on the main deck. But the heavier discharges did not come.

For an instant I thought--aye, and hoped!--that the tradesmen had been cut off from the roundhouse.

Suddenly the saloon grew bright with a reflected glare. I was on my feet again, and I peered into the alleyway, looking out through the door Morton had opened. The roundhouse cut off any view of the main deck, but I could see that the whole deck, aye, the whole ship, was alight with a growing glare, a dazzling greenish-white light.

Then I knew what Captain Swope meant when he screamed for "flares."

Distress flares, signal flares, such as a ship in trouble might use.

He had stocked the roundhouse with them.

Cunning, aye, deadly cunning. This was something Boston and Blackie had not dreamed of. A flare thrown on deck when the men came aft--and slaughter made easy for the defenders of the roundhouse!

Something of this I spoke aloud to Newman. There was no answer, and I became conscious he was not behind me. I wheeled about. Newman, with the lady's a.s.sistance, was hobbling up the ladder to the deck above. I swore my amazement and dismay at what seemed to me madness, but I hurried after them, and emerged on the p.o.o.p at their heels.

The night was banished by the strong light flaring forward. That was my impression when I leaped out on deck. When I turned forward, I saw the whole ship, clear to the foc'sle, bathed in that light. Not one, but a half dozen flares were burning at once; they had been thrown upon the deck both to port and starboard. Everything on the decks was brightly revealed, every ringbolt, the pins in the rails, deadeyes, sails, gear, aye, every rope in the rigging was boldly etched against the glowing background. With that one sweeping glance I took in the scene. High up in the main rigging, almost to the futtock shrouds, the figure of a man was revealed: he was blazing away in the direction of the p.o.o.p with a revolver. On the deck, near the mainmast, the second mate was laying about him with a capstan bar, and a dozen men seemed boiling over each other in efforts to close with him. Other figures lay motionless upon the deck.

So much for what I saw forward; what concerned me that instant was what was right before my eyes. Captain Swope was leaning against the mizzen fife rail, screened by the mast from those forward, returning the fire of the man in the rigging--but no, even as I clapped eyes upon him, he shot, and I saw he aimed, not at the man in the rigging, but at the group fighting on the deck. At his second officer, no less! Aye, and I understood in a flash why I had not beard the shotguns; the tradesmen had not Swope's murderous intent towards Mister Lynch. and they held their fire because they could not rake the gang without hitting Lynch.

The tradesman, Connolly, was crouched against the companion hatch; he was staring after Newman and the lady, mouth agape. He saw them directly they appeared on deck, which Swope did not. He raised his gun uncertainly, then lowered it, then raised it again, covering Newman's broad back--and by that time I was upon him, my clutch was upon his wrist, and my right fist impacted violently against his head. It was a knockout blow, at the base of the brain, and he slumped down, unconscious. I straightened up, with the gun in my hand.

It was at this instant that Captain Swope became aware of our presence.

It was Newman, himself, who attracted his attention--aye, and the attention of the whole ship, as well.

For Newman had marched into the light. He stood now almost at the forward p.o.o.p rail, with his arms raised above his head; and he sent his voice forward in a stentorian hail, a cry that was like a thunderclap.