The Mutineers Part 6

I worked away with the tar-bucket and reflected on this unexpected change in the att.i.tude 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 pa.s.sed 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--ya.s.s, sah, ho'ses and all. And yet Ah'll bet you foh dollahs right out of mah pay, doze pesky cable-sc.r.a.pers 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, ya.s.s, 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."

[Ill.u.s.tration]

II

IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER AN ARAB SHIP

[Ill.u.s.tration]

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 sc.r.a.ped 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 ash.o.r.e 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 embarra.s.sing 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 pa.s.sed him and went down the companionway.