The Mutineers Part 19

For the moment I could not imagine what he was laughing at, but his next words answered my unspoken question. "Ha ha ha! Right you are, captain!

Just think of 'em, a-sailing home in a ship's boat! Oh, won't they have a pretty time?"

The predicament of six fellow men set adrift in an open boat pleased the man's vile humor. We knew that he believed he was sending us to certain death, and that he delighted in it.

"This fine talk is all very well," said Roger, "and I've no doubt you think yourselves very witty, but let that be as it may. As matters stand now, you've got the upper hand--though I wish you joy of working the ship.

However, if you give us the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread, we'll ask nothing more."

"Ah," said Falk, with a leer at Kipping who was smiling quietly, "the long-boat and a fair allowance of water and bread! Ay, next they'll be wanting us to set 'em up in their own ship." He changed suddenly from a leer to a snarl. "You'll take what I give you and nothing more nor less.

Now then, men, we'll just herd these hearties overboard and bid them a gay farewell."

He stood there, pointing the way with a grand gesture and the late afternoon sun sparkled on the b.u.t.tons of his coat and shone brightly on the fine white shirt he wore, which in better days had belonged to Captain Whidden. "Murderer and thief!" I thought. For although about Captain Whidden's death I knew nothing more than the cook's never-to-be-forgotten words, "a little roun' hole in the back of his head--he was shot f'om behine," I laid Bill Hayden's death at Captain Falk's door, and I knew well by now that our worthy skipper would not scruple at stealing more than shirts.

When Falk pointed to the quarter-boat, the men, laughing harshly, closed in on us and drove us along by threatening us with pistols and pikes, which the bustling steward by now had distributed. And all the while Kipping stood just behind the captain, smiling as if no unkind thought had ever ruffled his placid nature. I could not help but be aware of his meanness, and I suppose it was because I was only a boy and not given to looking under the surface that I did not yet completely recognize in him the real leader of all that had gone astray aboard the Island Princess.

We let ourselves be driven toward the boat. Since we were outnumbered now eleven to six,--not counting the wounded man of course,--and since, compared with the others, we were virtually unarmed, we ought, I suppose, to have been thankful that we were not murdered in cold blood, as doubtless we should have been if our dangerous plight had not so delighted Kipping's cruel humor, and if both Falk and Kipping had not felt certain that they would never see or hear of us again. But we found little comfort in realizing that, as matters stood, although in our own minds we were convinced absolutely that Captain Falk and Mr. Kipping had conspired with the crew to rob the owners, by the cold light of fact we could be proved in the wrong in any court of admiralty.

So far as Roger and I were concerned, our belief was based after all chiefly on supposition; and so craftily had the whole scheme been phrased and manoeuvred that, if you got down to categorical testimony, even Blodgett and Davie Paine would have been hard put to it to prove anything culpable against the other party. Actually we were guilty of mutiny, if nothing more.

The cook still carried his great cleaver and Blodgett un.o.btrusively had drawn and opened a big dirk knife; but Neddie Benson, Davie, and I had no weapons of any kind, and Roger's pistol was empty.

We worked the boat outboard in silence and made no further resistance, though I knew from Roger's expression as he watched Falk and Kipping and their men, that, if he had seen a fair chance to turn the scales in our favor, he would have seized it at any cost.

Meanwhile the sails were flapping so loudly that it was hard to hear Roger's voice when he again said, "Surely you'll give us food and water."

"Why--no," said Falk. "I don't think you'll need it. You won't want to row right home without stopping to say how-d'y'-do to the natives."

Again a roar of laughter came from the men on deck.

As the boat lay under the side of the ship, they crowded to the rail and stared down at us with all sorts of rough gibes at our expense.

Particularly they aimed then-taunts at Davie Paine and Blodgett, who a short time before had been hand-in-glove with them; and I was no little relieved to see that their words seemed only to confirm the two in their determination, come what might, never to join forces again with Falk and Kipping. But Kipping singled out the cook and berated him with a stream of disgusting oaths.

"You crawling black n.i.g.g.e.r, you," he yelled. "Now what'll _you_ give _me_ for a piece of pie?"

Holding the cleaver close at his side, the negro looked up at the fox who was abusing him, and burst into wild vituperation. Although Kipping only laughed in reply, there was a savage and intense vindictiveness in the negro's impa.s.sioned jargon that chilled my blood. I remember thinking then that I should dread being in Kipping's shoes if ever those two met again.

As we cast off, we six in that little boat soon to be left alone in the wastes of the China Sea, we looked up at the cold, laughing faces on which the low sun shone with an orange-yellow light, and saw in them neither pity nor mercy. The hands resting on the bulwark, the hands of our own shipmates, were turned against us.

The ship was coming back to her course now, and some of us were looking at the distant island with the cone-shaped peaks, toward which by common consent we had turned our bow, when the cook, who still stared back at Kipping, seemed to get a new view of his features. Springing up suddenly, he yelled in a great voice that must have carried far across the sea:--

"You Kipping, Ah got you--Ah got you--Ah knows who you is--Ah knows who you is--you crimp's runner, you! You blood-money sucker, you! Ah seen you in Boston! Ah seen you befo' now! A-a-a-ah!--a-a-a-ah!" And he shook his great black fist at the mate.

The smile on Kipping's face was swept away by a look of consternation. With a quick motion he raised his loaded pistol, which he had primed anew, and fired on us; then, s.n.a.t.c.hing another from one of the crew, he fired again, and stood with the smoking weapons, one in each hand, and a snarl fixed on his face.

Captain Falk was staring at the negro in wrath and amazement, and there was a stir on the deck that aroused my strong curiosity. But the cook was groaning so loudly that we could hear no word of what was said, so we bent to the oars with all our strength and rowed out of range toward the distant island.

Kipping's second ball had grazed the negro's head and had left a deep furrow from which blood was running freely. But for the thickness of his skull I believe it would have killed him.

Once again the sails of the Island Princess, as we watched her, filled with wind and she bore away across the sapphire blue of the sea with all her canvas spread, as beautiful a sight as I have ever seen. The changing lights in the sky painted the water with opalescent colors and tinted the sails gold and crimson and purple, and by and by, when the sun had set and the stars had come out and the ocean had darkened, we still could make her out, smaller and ghostlike in the distance, sailing away before light winds with the money and goods all under her hatches.

Laboring at the oars, we rowed on and on and on. Stars, by which we now held our course, grew bright overhead, and after a time we again saw dimly the sh.o.r.es of the island. We dared not stay at sea in a small open boat without food or water, and the island was our only refuge.

Presently we heard breakers and saw once more the bluff headlands that we had seen from the deck of the Island Princess. Remembering that there had been low sh.o.r.es farther south, we rowed on and on, interminably and at last, faint and weary, felt the keel of the boat grate on a muddy beach.

At all events we had come safely to land.

CHAPTER XVIII

ADVENTURES ASh.o.r.e

As we rested on our oars by the strange island, and smelled the warm odor of the marsh and the fragrance of unseen flowers, and listened to the _wheekle_ of a night-hawk that circled above us, we talked of one thing and another, chiefly of the men aboard the Island Princess and how glad we were to be done with them forever.

"Ay," said Davie Paine sadly, "never again 'll I have the handle before my name. But what of that? It's a deal sight jollier in the fo'castle than in the cabin and I ain't the scholar to be an officer." He sighed heavily.

"It warn't so jolly this voyage," Neddie Benson muttered, "what with Bill Hayden pa.s.sing on, like he done."

We were silent for a time. For my own part, I was thinking about old Bill's "little wee girl at Newbury-port" waiting for her stupid old dad to come back to her, and I have an idea that the others were thinking much the same thoughts. But soon Blodgett stirred restlessly, and the cook, the cleaver on his knees, cleared his throat and after a premonitory grunt or two began to speak.

"Boy, he think Ah ain't got no use foh boys," he chuckled. "Hee-ha ha! Ah fool 'em. Stew'd, he say, 'Frank, am you with us o' without us?' He say, 'Am you gwine like one ol' lobscozzle idjut git cook's pay all yo' life?'

"'Well,' Ah says, 'what pay you think Ah'm gwine fob to git? Cap'n's pay, maybe? 0' gin'ral's pay? Ya.s.s, sah. Ef Ah'm cook Ah'm gwine git cook's pay.'

"Den he laff hearty and slap his knee and he say 'Ef you come in with us, you won't git cook's pay, no' sah. You is gwine git pay like no admiral don't git if you come in with us. Dah's money 'board dis yeh ol'

ship.'

"'Ya.s.s, sah,' says I, suspicionin' su'thin' was like what it didn't had ought to be. 'But dat's owner's money.'

"Den stew'd, he say, 'Listen! You come in with me and Cap'n Falk and Mistah Kipping, and we's gwine split dat yeh money all up'twix' one another. Ya.s.s, sah! But you all gotta have nothin' to do with dat yeh Mistah Hamlin and dat yeh c.o.c.ky li'le Ben Lathrop.'

"'Oh no,' Ah says inside, so stew'd he don't heah me. 'Guess you all don't know me and dat yeh Ben Lathrop is friends.'

"Den Ah stop sudden. 'Mah golly,' Ah think, 'dey's a conspiration a-foot, ya.s.s, sah, and if dis yeh ol' n.i.g.g.e.r don't look out dey gwine hu't de boy.'

If Ah gits into dat yeh conspiration, den Ah guess Ah'll snoop roun' and learn what Ah didn't had ought to, and when time come, den mah golly, Ah'll took good keer of dat boy. So Ah done like Ah'm sayin' now, and Ah says to stew'd, 'Ya.s.s, sah, ya.s.s, sah,' and Ah don't let boy come neah de galley and Ah don't give him no pie nor cake, but when time come Ah take good keer of him, and Ah's tellin' you, Ah knows a lot 'bout what dem crawlin'

critters yonder on ship think dey gwine foh to do."

With a glance toward me in the darkness that I verily believe expressed as much genuine affection as so villainous a black countenance could show, Frank got out his rank pipe and began packing it full of tobacco.

Here was further evidence of what we so long had suspected. But as I reflected on it, with forgiveness in my heart for every snub the faithful, crafty old darky had given me and with amus.e.m.e.nt at the simple way he had tricked the steward and Falk and Kipping, I recalled his parting remarks to our worthy mate.

"What was that you said to Mr. Kipping just as we gave way this afternoon?"

I asked.

"Hey, what dat?" Frank growled.

"When had you seen Kipping before?"

There was a long silence, then Frank spoke quietly and yet with obvious feeling. "Ah got a bone to pick with Kipping," he said, "but dat yeh's a matter 'twix' him and me."