seven days later.
the rogues fall out.
there is much of which my log might speak to tell the history of the seven days which followed upon our resolution. we had pledged ourselves to harass the diamond ship by night and day, and bravely had we done so. incessantly now the messages passed from our deck to hers by way of her flags and instruments. threats, defiance, insult—to these we became accustomed. a torture of suspense had been superseded by a dull submission to necessity. joan fordibras was a prisoner, and we could not lift a hand to save her. i did not trust myself to think what she had suffered or what those hours of alternating hope and suspense must have meant to her. no light came to me of the sunniest day. i could but wait and watch.
all this time we lay drifting some two or three miles, i suppose, from the great vessel which harboured the jew and his company. sometimes, when the night was moonless, we ran up boldly and spied the huge ship out, defying her untrained gunners and learning what we would of that which passed upon her decks. there was a cabin aft, i remember, which i named as joan’s; and i would place her therein and depict her in my mind sheltered there from the jew’s anger and the insults of his fellows. how changed she must be from the joan i had seen upon the beach at dieppe, the laughing little thalia of the sandy shore—the joan who had plied me with such earnest questions, looked up at me with eyes so full of doubt and the desire to believe! nor could i hope to be in any sense the figure of her childish romance. she might not even know that white wings followed her at all—possibly they kept her too close a prisoner to learn anything, which the guns did not tell her, of our pursuit and its consequences. such must be my supposition as i watched the yellow light glowing in her cabin windows and said that joan was awake and weary for my coming.
that which perplexed us chiefly was the evident indecision of those who commanded the great ship. at first we thought that they were steering her for a south american port; but after running for twenty-four hours almost due westward, they lay to once more and drifted, without apparent aim, whithersoever the tide of the south atlantic would take them. what their purpose was i could but hazard by conjecture. possibly they waited for another patrol from europe—it may even be that refugees were upon the high seas, and that imroth did not dare to desert them. i could but guess his reasons, i say, and guess-work helped me but little. the nameless ship guarded her secrets too close that i should hope to be the master of them.
now, thus six days had passed, and i will take you to the morning of the seventh, when chancing to be on the poop at a very early hour, balaam, our scotch bo’sun, called my attention to the distant ship, and to something which was passing on her decks.
“there’s nae a pill for the parritch the morn,” said he in his dry fashion; “yon body’s fired no gun, sir, since yesterday noon. may be ’tis pure joy of heart. i’m not knowing rightly, but it’s sufficiently remarkable as you must be thinking.”
this was new, surely, and i gratified the good fellow by admitting as much.
“it looks as though she was running a bit short of ammunition, balaam,” i said. “has there been anything else you have noticed?”
“naething in particular, sir. she’s fired a pop-gun or two, but, may be, she’s over merry the morn. you can hear them for yourself. bide here a moment, and i’ll show you.”
he took his stand by the taffrail and pointed with a tarry hand at the distant ship. day had broken propitiously with a fleece of cloud high in the heavens, and a simmer of splendid sunlight upon the chattering waters. the diamond ship, herself, lay distant perhaps a couple of miles from us. she had sails set to prevent her rolling, but not a vestige of smoke escaped her funnels, nor was there any indication of her being under steam. when i spied out her decks through my powerful glass, i perceived that they were crowded with men.
“why,” i said, “they are fighting among themselves.”
“ay, such kittle-cattle would likely take to that employment.”
“and the guns which they fired—why, it’s providential, man. go and call captain larry at once.”
i am not habitually to be moved to any great display of mental exhilaration; but i confess that this amazing scene robbed me altogether of my self-possession. the surprise of it, the unlooked-for development, the vast possibilities of a mutiny amongst the jew’s men had, it is true, suggested themselves to me in one or other of those dreams of achievement with which we all combat the duller facts of life; but that such a hope should be on the verge of realisation, that i should, with my own eyes, witness the beginning of the fulfilment of it, and hear the guns which justified my dreaming—that, i say, appeared to me the most wonderful thing that had happened since our voyage began.
“larry,” i said, when he came up from the cabin—mcshanus upon his heels, “they are shooting each other, larry. i hope that the news distresses you——.”
he did not reply immediately, but focussing his glass, he directed it upon the distant ship. timothy, in his turn, took his stand beside me, and clapping his hand upon my shoulder, answered for the captain.
“i wish ’em honourable wakes. did ye think of this docther?”
“not as a probability.”
“and what would happen to joan fordibras if they quarrelled amongst themselves?”
“i dare not think of it, timothy—she would be in her cabin. why do you make me think of it? are not the circumstances eloquent enough?”
he cringed away from me—excellent fellow that he was, and i knew that he blamed his own indiscretion—and spoke no further word for many minutes. all hands on the yacht had now come up to see a spectacle at once so terrible and unlooked for. upon my part, i stood by the taffrail to watch the puffs of heavy white smoke and try to depict the tragedy then consummated on the decks of the diamond ship. what a scene of horror and bloodshed it must be! i could readily imagine that there had been two parties, and that they had come first to words and then to the arbitrament of deeds. some of the jew’s men, i said, had been for running to a south american port, others had been for standing by such of their comrades as sycamore’s relief might bring. they fell to hot talk upon it, i might suppose, and then to blows. and now we could hear the crack of their rifles and could see the smoke of them soaring upwards amid the taut white sails even to the truck of the mainmast. what sights and sounds that curtain of the vapour must hide from us! and who shall wonder if the situation provoked us to a rashness without precedent. we had temptation enough, surely.
“larry,” i said, “i am going to see what is happening yonder. let mr. benson know that we shall want all the steam he can give us. there is no risk to anyone. please let the men understand as much.”
“you are going up to the ship, sir?”
“within a biscuit toss, and nearer perhaps——”
“it’s staking much, sir.”
“so little, larry, that we’ll have our breakfasts while we watch them. even mr. mcshanus, you observe, is not disturbed. i believe that he imagines himself in a theatre——”
but timothy mcshanus answered this for himself.
“indade and i do,” said he, “and no more disturbed than a man at a hanging. set a dish of parritch before me and ye shall see. faith, should i weep tears because one thief is cutting another thief’s throat? divil a tear at all.”
we laughed at this splendid earnestness, while larry went up to the bridge, and timothy himself came up to me and spoke a more serious word.
“ye are easier in your mind,” he said, scanning my face closely. “’tis good to see it, ean, me bhoy. ye don’t think miss joan will suffer—now, do ye?”
“she will suffer, but only in her fears, timothy. the danger comes later, when this is over. i do not think of it because i hope to share it with her.”
“good god, ye are not going on board, man?”
“i am going on board, timothy—that is, if my judgment leads me to believe it possible. i’ll tell you in half-an-hour’s time.”
he was too amazed to reply to me, and for many minutes he stood there, plucking at his iron-grey whiskers and whistling softly. the yacht stood by this time within half-a-mile of the great ship, and every furlong she made set the fascinating picture before us in clearer focus. that our approach would be observed or any notice taken of us, i never for one moment believed. whatever cause of quarrel set those wolves at each other’s throats, they fought, it was plain, with the desperation of maniacs.
taking my stand upon our forward bridge i could clearly discern a group of men defending the fo’castle, and another in ambush behind the superstructure amidships. a powerful glass disclosed the prone figures of such as had already fallen; while the intervals, when a restless breeze carried the haze of smoke to the eastward, permitted a fuller view of the spectacle revolting in its detail.
the villains were evidently enraged beyond all measure. i could see them in the death-grip, here wrestling as athletes upon a stage; there fighting upon their hands and knees, as savages who cut and slash at the face and head and heart in insurpassable lust of blood and life. but beyond this, the greater terror was to know that the ship sheltered joan fordibras, and that she must be the witness to this debauch. what could it mean to such a one to suffer that? again i say that i had no courage to think of it. our own situation forbade such thoughts. we were running right up as though to ram the leviathan before us, and the very voices of the combatants could now be distinguished by us; while the sunlight showed us the shimmer of the knives, the reeling figures, and the death agonies of our enemies. had we been of the mind, we could have sent them to the bottom with a torpedo from our tube, and no man among us been a penny the worse for our temerity. but to such a vengeance as that we had no call; nor did we so much as contemplate it while joan remained their hostage. it was sufficient to watch them as we would; to wait and hope for the first fruits of a tragedy so providential.
we had come to no agreement upon the nature of our approach or upon the limits which prudence should set to it. i left it to larry’s wise head, and i could have done no better. a splendid seaman, he proved himself that day to be also a master of tactics which kept our yacht astern of the big ship, and crept up to her upon such an angle that risk of detection—at least until the fight should be over—need hardly be considered. not until we were within a cable’s length of their poop did he bring white wings to—and there we lay, rolling to a gentle swell, half the hands on deck, some on the riggings, the officers with timothy and myself on the bridge; as amazed a company as sailed the atlantic that day.
i have told you that the contending parties upon the deck of the rogue had taken their stands respectively at the fo’castle, and by the superstructure amidships. this seemed to point to the conclusion that the seamen of the ship had mutinied upon their officers; and larry i found to be of my opinion.
“the hands have turned it up, and the dead-weight is going under,” said he, with an indifference to the suffering we witnessed that i had hardly looked for—“i shouldn’t wonder if you are responsible, sir. a thieves’ crew is for fair weather. let a cloud come up as big as a man’s hand and they’ll run for port though davy jones takes the tiller. they’ve had enough of it—any man could see that with half an eye. and heaven help the jew if he hauls his flag down.”
“you mean, larry, that we have got on their nerves, and they can’t stand us any more. i shouldn’t wonder. they think we have support behind, and are waiting for a government ship. that must be it—but if so, what do they want imroth to do? is it to run to port? they would hardly expect to land without trouble.”
“men like that never know what they want, doctor. did you ever see a malay run amok? well, i’ve been round the corner of a plantation hut when a yellow devil was taken with the idea that the exercise was good for him, and mighty quick i skipped, to be sure. that man wanted nothing in particular. it was an eastern way of tearing up newspapers and smashing the crockery. those fellows yonder don’t know what’s the matter with them, and they are going to cut up the jew to see. i wish ’em luck, but i’d sooner be aboard here than eating macaroons on their deck, and that’s the truth of it. ask mr. mcshanus what he thinks. perhaps he’d like to put off in a small boat?——?”
i looked at timothy, and saw that he was as white as the planks on which he stood. viewed from afar, the spectacle had been one of fire and smoke and imagined fury. but proximity made of it a picture of savage bloodshed, revolting in its fury and gruesome in its detail.
one incident stands out in my mind, horrible beyond others, yet an example of many the day was to show me. i recollect that just as we brought the yacht to, a man tried to creep out of the big cabin amidships, which plainly sheltered many of the jew’s party on the diamond ship. the seamen by the fo’castle spied him immediately, and one of them fired a pistol at him—it was evident that the bullet struck him in the shoulder, for he clapped his hand there quickly, and then trying to run to his comrades, he fell heavily upon deck. now began a scene such as i hope never again to witness. the wounded man lay upon the deck, hidden from our sight, of course, but plainly the object of a violent combat.
on the one side were his friends making frantic efforts to drag him to safety; on the other, the frenzied seamen shooting blindly at the place where they believed him to lie, and so at once preventing his escape and the approach of his companions. baffled in their desire to kill him out of hand—for the corner of the cabin amidships prevented that—they, nevertheless, so frightened him that he lay cowed like a wounded bird, and thus afraid to rise to his feet or to make any effort to save himself, one of the hands from the fo’castle crept round the superstructure presently and deliberately cast a grappling anchor over the poor fellow’s body.
in an instant now the sailors had their victim. how the anchor had caught him, whether by the flesh or by his clothes, my position upon the bridge forbade me to see; but i could clearly perceive the hands pulling upon the rope and hear the ferocious exultation which such success provoked. yard by yard they dragged the man to his doom. a quick imagination could depict him clinging madly to the combing of the forward hatch, clutching at the capstan and the windlass, contesting every inch of that terrible journey at whose end a score of unclasped knives awaited him. for myself, i turned my eyes away when the moment came and shut my ears to the dying man’s cry as it rang out, in fearful dread of death, over the hushed waters. they had killed him now, and while their shouts of triumph still echoed in the still air, they flung the body overboard, and it sank immediately from our sight. such was their vengeance, such the punishment for what wrong, inflicted or imaginary, we knew not, nor cared to ask.
a great silence fell during the after moments of this tragedy—as though awe of it had compelled a mutual truce between the combatants. i do not know precisely at what moment larry gave the order, but certain it is that the yacht began to steam slowly away from the ship when the dead man’s body fell into the sea; and having made a wide detour, we raced at some speed presently almost due south, as though pursuit of us had already begun. this was a course i could not protest against. let the rogues agree, and our position were precarious indeed. larry had perceived as much, and wisely stood away from them.
“they’ll be kissing each other if they spy us out,” said he. “i don’t believe they’ve any shell for the big guns, doctor, but they could do a power of mischief with the monkeys on the tops. we are as well off in the gallery as the stalls, especially in between times. let us stand by where we shan’t amuse them so much.”
the wisdom of it forbade reply. we had pushed rashness to the last extremity, and had come to no hurt. the truce over yonder was unmistakable. when a steward reminded me that none of us had taken any breakfast. i heard him patiently.
“bring it to the deck,” i rejoined.
and so four silent men—for mr. benson had joined us—sat about the table beneath the aft awning, and each, fearing to express the great hope which animated him, sipped his coffee methodically, and spoke of commonplace things.
