The Voyage of the Aurora Part 7

"You!" he gasped; "what do you mean by that, you lubber? Lay it on, sir; lay it on hot and heavy, or by Jove I'll have _you_ seized up, and will give you five dozen myself."

"Ay, ay, sir," was the imperturbable reply; and the second stroke was administered with even more threatening preliminaries than the first, but with, if possible, even less effect.

"Put that fellow in irons at once!" shouted the captain, "and let him have no food except bread and water until further orders. You hear, steward? If he has anything more, I will make you responsible for it.

I will teach him--and everybody else--that when I give an order, I will have it obeyed. Now, Rogers," to the boatswain, "take the cat, and give that skulking rascal at the grating the two dozen he so richly deserves."

The boatswain stepped forward, and, without removing his jacket or making any other preparation, sullenly took the cat in his hand. The chief mate meanwhile went off for a pair of handcuffs, and, returning, slipped them on the wrists of the rebellious boatswain's mate.

The second mate, who was still looking on, noticing the behaviour of the boatswain, and the ill-concealed triumph of the crew at Talbot's conduct, now turned to the captain and said--

"Let _me_ play bo'sun's mate for once sir; I'll be bound I'll give the sneaking lubber his proper 'lowance; he'll never get it from any of his shipmates, I can see."

"Very well, do so," said the captain; "let him have it hot and strong; it will show those mutinous scoundrels that we have it in our power to punish them yet."

The second mate waited for no more, but, whipping off his coat and rolling up his shirt-sleeves, s.n.a.t.c.hed the cat out of Rogers' hand, and began at once to administer the punishment.

His first stroke drew blood and forced a shriek of anguish from the quivering lips of his victim, a sound which extorted a laugh of fiendish glee from the captain. A second, third, fourth, and fifth lash followed in slow, deliberate succession, stripping off shreds of skin, and lacerating the back of the sufferer until it presented a sickening sight. At the sixth stroke the shrieks ceased, and the man's head dropped upon his breast.

At this sight the second mate seemed somewhat startled, and looked up inquiringly at the captain.

"Go on," said the latter, with an encouraging nod of the head; "go on and finish the dose; he's only shamming. Put a little more strength into your blows, man; I'll be bound you can fetch another howl or two out of him yet, if you feel inclined."

Thus incited, the second mate actually proceeded with and completed his fiendish task, at the end of which the perspiration poured in a stream down his face, so great had been his exertions.

But not another cry could he wring from his victim, in spite of all his efforts--the poor fellow was insensible, and in that condition was cast off from the grating, and taken below to his hammock. There was no doctor on board, so the unfortunate seaman was left to the clumsy though well-meant ministrations of his shipmates, who did the best they could for him, the captain refusing to supply salve, lint, or in fact anything else with which to dress his wounds.

At dinner that evening the captain was urged by some of the pa.s.sengers to represent to the commodore of the convoying squadron the insubordinate condition of the crew, and to request his a.s.sistance.

This, however, he positively refused to do, roundly a.s.serting his ability to command his own ship; but, as a matter of fact, the only reason for his reluctance to take this step arose out of the conviction that an inquiry would certainly follow as to the causes of the insubordination, from which inquiry, as he was very well aware, he and his officers could hope for nothing but a complete revelation of their own culpability.

At the moment that this course was being urged upon the captain in the saloon, the incident of the flogging, and, indeed, the whole question of their treatment by their officers, was being discussed on the forecastle by the men; and, singular to relate, although Talbot was believed by his officers to be at that instant in irons below, if either of them had walked forward just then, they would have found him snugly seated on deck, free, on the fore-side of the windla.s.s, taking an active part in the discussion. By the time that eight bells had struck, they had fully made up their minds as to their course of action, and the a.s.sembly quietly dispersed.

The next day was that on which the gale burst upon the fleet.

On the signal being made by the _Tremendous_ to "Shorten sail and prepare for bad weather," the _Princess Royal_ was one of the first to manifest signs of obedience. She was at the time under every st.i.tch of canvas she could spread, not because she was a sluggish sailer, for she was the reverse of that, but because, there being a flat calm, it mattered not how much or how little canvas was set, it could make no possible difference in the movements or position of the vessel; and the captain, seeing here a fine opportunity to impose upon his crew--"by way of punishment," as he put it to himself and his officers--a great deal of unnecessary work, ordered all sail, even to the studding-sails, to be set, for the purpose, as he averred, of giving them an airing.

The first thing to be done in the way of shortening sail, therefore, was to take in the studding-sails, which the crew, not being then aware of the danger which threatened the ship, proceeded to do in a very leisurely and deliberate fashion. Their next task was to haul down the smaller staysails, then to clew up and furl royals and topgallantsails.

They were all aloft, in the act of stowing these sails, when the hurricane burst upon them. They fortunately saw its approach in time to save themselves, and, leaving the canvas drooping loose from the yards, hurriedly descended to the deck by way of the backstays, and were scarcely there when, with the first furious rush of the wind, the three topmasts went, one after the other in quick succession, the wreckage falling on deck and lumbering it fore and aft.

The crew regarded the mishap with stolid satisfaction. The delay which it would occasion in the prosecution of the voyage was nothing to them; the ship was stripped of everything above her lower mastheads, leaving so much the less canvas for her crew to handle, and that was all they cared about at the moment. A little later on in the day they saw that if the gale lasted--of which there was every prospect--the loss of her spars would result in her separation from the remainder of the fleet, and as they remarked upon this to each other, the men smiled grimly, and exchanged certain short pithy remarks which, had they been heard by the occupants of the saloon, would have produced a feeling of grave uneasiness.

The crew were, of course, at once set to work to clear away the wreck, and this they forthwith proceeded to do, for their own sakes, however, rather than out of respect to the captain's orders, the heavy spars dashing about the deck with the roll of the ship in a manner which made it positively dangerous to be there at all.

By nightfall the rest of the fleet had pa.s.sed out of sight to the eastward, scattered like chaff before the angry breath of the hurricane, and the _Princess Royal_ was left to fight out her battle alone. By dint of almost superhuman exertions, the shattered spars had been secured, the main-sail cut away from the yard, and such other dispositions made as would allow of her being kept dead before the wind, and out of the trough of the sea during the coming night; and when the captain took his seat at the head of the saloon-table at dinner that evening, he was full of boastful exultation over the prompt obedience of his crew, frequently congratulating his pa.s.sengers upon their being on board a ship in charge of such capable officers as himself and his mates. Of course he did not actually say this in so many words, but the burden of his remarks amounted to it, and nothing less.

The second mate had the middle watch on that eventful night, and just after he had struck four bells, and the wheel had been relieved, he was inexpressibly scandalised by hearing above the howling of the gale loud sounds of singing and jocularity on the forecastle.

Such sounds were of so very unusual a character on board the _Princess Royal_ that, coupled with the circ.u.mstance of their being uttered in the middle watch of all times in the world, he was at first so astonished as to be quite unable to believe his own ears. Very soon, however, they were repeated, one of the men actually breaking into a rollicking song, the burden of which was an invocation to "Let us all be jolly, boys,"

under every conceivable combination of circ.u.mstances.

"Jolly! The scoundrels! How dare they so much as think of such a thing at a time when they were living under the ban of their officers' severe displeasure? And the ship a perfect wreck aloft, too!" It was simply monstrous; the second mate's righteous anger blazed up into full fury at once, and, advancing to the break of the p.o.o.p, he roared out in stentorian tones--

"Silence, there, for'ard! What do you mean, you unmannerly swabs, by disturbing the ship fore and aft with your infernal howling at this time of night?"

Either the "unmannerly swabs" had not heard him, or they were so utterly lost to all sense of the respect due to their officer as to pay no attention to his polite adjuration, for the song was continued, with some attempt at a chorus.

The second mate was not in the habit of speaking twice to those under him, and he did not attempt to do so now. Drawing his knotted "colt"

out of his pocket, he descended the p.o.o.p-ladder, and hurried forward as fast as the heavy rolling of the ship would permit, determined to teach the "howling thieves" a lesson they would not readily forget.

Meanwhile, though he was blissfully ignorant of the fact, sharp eyes had been watching his motions for some time; and his foot was scarcely on the top step of the p.o.o.p-ladder when Jim Martin, the owner of a pair of the aforesaid sharp eyes, exclaimed--

"Hurrah, my bullies! Keep it up; here he comes. The shark has bolted the bait without so much as smelling at it."

The group of men cl.u.s.tered on the forecastle made a slight restless movement, as men sometimes will when they are conscious of the approach of a great crisis in their lives, and the voice of the singer quavered the merest trifle. Another moment, and the second mate was among them, his eyes flashing with anger and his colt uplifted to strike.

"What the deuce?"

Before he could utter another word, his legs were cut from under him by the sweeping blow of a handspike, and he fell with a crash to the deck, the back of his head striking so violently on the planking as to momentarily stun him. In an instant a belaying-pin was thrust between his teeth and secured there with a lashing of spun-yarn; and then, before he had sufficiently recovered to realise his position, he was turned over on his face, his arms drawn behind him, and his wrists and ankles firmly lashed together.

"Very neatly managed," remarked Talbot approvingly, as his gaze rested on the prostrate figure on the deck. "Now, mates, what's the next move?

Come, Ned," to the boatswain, "you're to be our new skipper, you know; give us your orders, cap'n, and we'll be 'yours obejently.'"

"Well, then, if you're all agreed upon that, shipmates, my first order is for one of you--you Tom--to go aft into the saloon and knock at the 'old man's' door [Note 1], and ask him to come on deck at once, as Mr Thomson have met with a haccident. Two more of you'll wait for him outside the door, and when he steps out 'pon deck sarve him the same as you've sarved our respected friend here. Then do the same with Mr Nicholls (the chief mate)."

These orders were so skilfully executed, that in a quarter of an hour the mutineers had the captain and his two _aides_ prisoners--bound and helpless in their hands, without the slightest alarm having been given to the other occupants of the saloon. The larboard watch was then called; and from their first eager questions when aroused it became evident that the seizure of the ship was a carefully planned affair, of which all in the forecastle were fully cognisant.

The seamen having paraded on deck, and been, with the aid of a lantern, carefully inspected by the boatswain to ascertain that there were no recreant spirits among them now that the crisis had arrived, each man-- excepting a half-dozen left in charge of the deck--was provided with a short length of well-stretched ratline, carrying which, they proceeded in a body to the saloon, and, entering the state-rooms, surprised in their sleep and secured without difficulty the whole of the male pa.s.sengers, pinioned them firmly, and then, after depriving them of such weapons as they happened to possess, locked them up in their own cabins.

The ladies were only disturbed so far as was necessary to make them acquainted with the fact that the ship had changed hands, and that, if they had only the good sense to acquiesce in the arrangement, they would be perfectly unmolested. The cook and stewards were also called, and, having been left in ignorance of the proposed mutiny lest they should inadvertently let the secret slip, addressed in somewhat similar terms; whereupon they at once declared their readiness to throw in their lot with the mutineers, and were forthwith sworn in.

Note 1. The master of a merchant-ship is frequently spoken of by his crew as "the old man," whether his years happen to be few or many.

CHAPTER SEVEN.

LIEUTENANT WALFORD FINDS HIMSELF IN AN EXCEEDINGLY UNPLEASANT POSITION.

On the morning following the seizure of the _Princess Royal_ by her misguided crew, the day broke tardily, revealing to the mutineers a wild, threatening sky, a high and increasing sea, the curling foam-crests of which raced after the ship menacingly, and an unbroken horizon all round. Not a solitary sail of any description was visible; they were alone, at the mercy of the towering mountain-surges, and of the gale which howled deafeningly past them. The sight which on that morning presented itself from the p.o.o.p of the crippled ship was one to make the stoutest heart quail, to impress the onlooker with an overpowering sense of his own insignificance compared with Him who holds the ocean in the hollow of His hand, and of the blasphemous arrogance of those who would presume to take upon themselves one of the functions of the Almighty, and, in the blindness of their anger, attempt to mete out to their fellow-men that justice which it is His alone to repay.

Yet no such idea presented itself to the mutineers; or, if it did, each man was careful to conceal it from all the rest. They had been systematically down-trodden and ill-treated from the commencement of the voyage; their lives had been made a burden to them; and now--having at last been provoked into the throwing off of their yoke of insupportable bondage--they thirsted for revenge upon the authors of their miseries.

As might be expected, the whole internal economy of the ship was upset from the moment that she fell into the hands of the mutineers. Their first act, on the morning in question, was to transfer the male pa.s.sengers from the cabin to the forecastle, and to remove their own belongings aft into the state-rooms thus rendered vacant. The ladies, of whom, fortunately, there were only half a dozen on board, were permitted for the present to retain possession of their state-rooms, being given to understand, however, that it was only upon the express condition that they were to make no attempt whatever to meddle with the arrangements of the mutineers, nor to communicate in any way with the male pa.s.sengers confined in the forecastle.

These arrangements completed, Rogers ordered the steward to prepare and serve to the mutineers in the saloon the best breakfast that the resources of the ship would allow; the pa.s.sengers in the forecastle to be served with such a meal as ordinarily fell to the lot of the seamen; while the deposed captain and the two mates were to be left entirely without food of any kind. These orders were carried out to the letter; the unfortunate ladies being compelled to take their seats as usual at the breakfast table, and share the meal of the mutineers.

This being over, the table was cleared; spirits and tobacco were called for, and Rogers, from his seat at the head of the saloon-table, gave orders that the captain and the two mates should be brought aft, and put upon their trial before a court of the whole crew.

"There's one more as I votes we try at the same time, and that's the sodger-officer as got poor d.i.c.ky Rudd his flogging," observed one of the men.