My head was full of Tom, of that change into fierceness which I had noticed in his whispers, and I dwelt upon his sad, wild saying that I did not know his heart, by which he meant that his heart had been transformed by the wrong that had been done him and by his punishment and sufferings. Never had I felt madder than when I thought of him. I put my hands together, and prayed that if the convicts rose they would successfully seize the ship.
My blood was so hot and the heat of the atmosphere so great that I could not rest. I opened the porthole and put my face into it for the coolness of the air, and for a long while listened to the pleasant, rippling sounds of the water gently broken, and to the gushing of water from the decks and the noise of men’s voices high aloft, and sounding as though the tones came across the sea. The moon was on the other side, but the stars were again plentiful, many meteors sailed in delicate trails of light, and the sea-line ran black against the sheet lightning that played behind it. The dew-laden night-breath fanned my face and cooled me, and by this time having thought myself into some composure of mind I laid my head down and slept.
I was awakened by Frank; day had broken, and on looking through the porthole I saw that it was a fine clear morning, and that the ocean trembled with the brushing of a small wind. I might be sure that nothing had as yet happened; but I was so agitated, felt so cold and pale, that I expressly lingered, hoping to rally, till I suddenly heard the vulgar voice of Mr. Stiles bawling my name, on which I went out quickly.
‘Look here, young man,’ cried Mr. Stiles, ‘if you’re a-going to skulk after this here fashion I shall have to send ye forward with a message to Mr. Balls. D’ye think I’m a-going to do your work?’ And for some time he continued to abuse me, calling me a little idle beast of a stowaway, a worthless, loafing young sojer, and the like. I glanced at him and perceived that his eyes were inflamed and his complexion of a strange unwholesome dye; he had evidently drunk heavily overnight in his terror, and the fumes of the drink were still in his head.
I gave him no heed, but went to my work as usual, and presently wanting water walked to the forecastle for a bucketful instead of to the after-pump, as I wished to see what was going on forward. I took a bucket from the rack near the mainmast and went along the alley; a gang of convicts were scrubbing the main-deck and waist, and another gang were washing themselves in a row near the fore-and-aft barricade. The doctor, who always rose very early, almost as soon as the convicts turned out, stood at the quarter-deck gate looking at the prisoners cleaning the planks.
The last man in the line of those who were washing themselves was Barney Abram; on catching my eye as he lifted his ugly face out of the bucket he smiled, winked and made a singular gesture, the significance of which I could not gather. His back was upon the captains or warders, and the look he gave me was unobserved. I faintly smiled as if I understood him, though I did not, and went on to the forecastle.
The head pump was worked by one or two ordinary seamen; the others were passing buckets along to the boatswain and his mates on the main-deck. I delayed to press forward and fill my bucket, as I wished to look around me, and made as though I waited for a chance, in case I should be watched. The sun was up; the eastern sky was full of pink splendour. I saw no clouds, and the light wind was almost directly aft. The ship floated along very slowly. I had an eye by this time for sea-signs and guessed we should have a calm presently by the glassy appearance of the horizon. I heard men calling out on high, and, directing my eyes aloft, perceived that the main-topgallantmast had been wrecked to the height of the masthead—that is to say, the royal yard still lay across, but the mast had been splintered just above it and showed a foot or two of ragged fangs.
One of the seamen near me said that a hot morning’s job lay before them. Would they make an all-hand business of sending a new topgallantmast aloft?
The other answered: ‘A brimstone hot job it’s going to be, you take your haffidavy, matey! All hands or no hands, a bleedin’ hot job’s afore some of us, roastin’ as the lightning that’s blasted that spar!’ He laughed low and spat and wiped his lips on his wrist.
I knew the speaker by his voice as one of the two seamen whose talk I had overheard. The other stared up at the splintered topgallantmast. It was clear that he was not in the secret.
The sailor’s extraordinary speech left me in no doubt that the attempt to seize the ship would be made, and soon. Not a hint of anything wrong, of anything brewing, was to be discovered. Never had the ship worn a quieter, peacefuller face as she floated along this morning over the smooth, light blue of the tropic sea, bathed in the early silver sunshine, her canvas gleaming like silk, softly lifting and hollowing, and all right with her save that splintered masthead. They were washing down the poop; I saw Will and others hard at work with their scrubbing-brushes; a sentry stood at the head of each ladder, and the captain was now on deck looking up at the injured mast and talking about it with the ship’s carpenter. A single sentry, as heretofore, stood at the quarter-deck gate, another at the main-hatch door, a third on the forecastle; thus the decks were guarded by five armed soldiers, as usual. Those who were off duty lounged with the women and a few children near the booby-hatch, waiting to get their breakfast. The convict cooks were at work in their galley, as I might guess from the smoke which blew from its chimney.
The fate of the ship was in my hands—her fate and the lives and fortunes of a crowd of people! A fierce, wild pride, a wicked exultation swelled my heart. There was yet time! The captain was on the poop; I had but to measure the length of the deck to acquaint him with what I knew, and the ship would be saved. And sooner than speak, I would have killed myself. The blood would be on the heads of those who had unjustly sentenced and made a convict and a broken-hearted, ruined man of my sweetheart. Whatever devil had been driven into him was in me too; what he did I would do; what he wished would be my law; let the change that had been worked in him be as frightful as you please, I would lay down my life that he might get his liberty and escape the horrors of the base and degrading term of servitude which he was to complete in a distant land. Yes, I could have saved the ship by whispering a single sentence in the captain’s ear, and had a knife been put into my hand, and had I been compelled either to speak or to stab my heart, I vow to God I would have sheathed the knife in my breast without an instant’s hesitation.
I was not more than five minutes upon the forecastle. Then drawing a bucket of water, I went aft. Captain Barrett and Lieutenant Chimmo, as was their habit in these sultry latitudes, quitted their cabins in their dressing-gowns for a bath in the ship’s head. This refreshing bath they obtained by standing under the pump, whilst their orderlies, as I suppose you would call the soldiers who waited upon them, plied the handle. They returned in twenty minutes, and disappeared in their cabins to dress.
I helped Frank to drape the breakfast-table, but every instant my eye was going toward the open door and windows which overlooked the quarter-deck. My hands trembled; I frequently let things fall; and three or four times Mr. Stiles swore at me for a clumsy young fool and threatened me with Mr. Balls. Frank asked me what was the matter, and I told him I supposed my nerves had been shaken by the storm.
I think it was about a quarter to eight when Captain Barrett and the subaltern emerged from their berths. As they walked to the companion-steps to go on deck, the captain and the doctor descended, and the four came to a stand at the foot of the ladder and talked. I strained my ear. Their chatter was of the lightest—the weather, the wrecked topgallantmast, the soldier who had tumbled down in a fit and who was now well.
Suddenly Mr. Masters, who was on the poop—whether in charge of the watch or not, I can’t say—put his head into the skylight and cried out in a voice loud with terror:
‘Captain Sutherland, the convicts are breaking out! Some of our men have knocked the forecastle sentry down! Quick on deck! The main-hatch sentry’s over-powered and the prisoners are pouring up!’
Just as he spoke a musket was fired—then a second. Some of the women shrieked. A third musket was fired. This was followed by an indescribable roaring noise of groans and yells, accompanied by the sound of the tread of many feet. The captain and the doctor rushed on deck, the two military officers to their cabins, out of which they broke again in a twinkling, each man pulling a pistol out of its case as he ran toward the companion-way and flinging the case down as he bounded up the steps.
‘Here they are!’ shouted the steward, and, followed by Frank, he fled to the steps which led to the poop.
A mass of the convicts were coming toward the recess where the soldiers’ arms were. Gaining the steerage hatchway in a leap or two, I rushed into my cabin, and as I closed my door and bolted it I heard the prisoners shouting as they swarmed into the cuddy. Their footsteps thundered over my head. I saw myself in the wash-stand looking-glass, and was as white as milk. I was only sensible now of the horror that had seized me at the sight of the faces of the convicts. I stood with my hand upon my heart, holding by the side of the upper bunk, breathing fast and listening. But voices could not pierce the thickness of the deck-plank. Nothing took my ear but the confused tread and shuffling movements of feet overhead like to what I had heard when I lay in hiding, only softer because of the carpets.
A horrid fancy seized me. Shots had been fired. Suppose Tom had been wounded or killed! The handle of the door was violently tried and the door shaken and beaten upon. I cried out: ‘Who’s that?’
‘Will Johnstone! Let me in!’
I rushed to the door and opened it, and Will entered. In the time that the door lay open I heard a great shouting and hoarse roaring, distant, as though a fierce struggle were happening on the main-deck, likewise a single musket-shot. This I heard whilst I let Will in. He was deadly white; his eyes were large and strange with a wild stare of horror.
For some moments he could utter no words.
‘Are you hurt?’ I exclaimed.
‘No, but I have seen—but I have seen—oh, the bloody villains! One stabbed Chimmo in the throat, and they threw him overboard alive. He levelled his pistol and shot a man. He was mad to do it. He stood no chance. They wrenched the musket out of a sentry’s hand and bayoneted him and tossed him into the sea, alive like the subaltern.’
Horror overcame the poor fellow. The memory of the shocking sights seemed to paralyse him; his jaw moved, but he ceased to speak. I was horror-stricken too, but not as he, for he had beheld what he described. But impatience was rending my heart; I could not give him time.
‘Have you seen Tom?’
He answered with a nod.
‘Is he safe?’
The poor lad dryly swallowed and wiped his blanched lips and said huskily: ‘Yes; he told me to run to this cabin and keep with you. He’ll be here soon. He stays to save Mr. Bates’s life.’
‘The convicts will not hurt us,’ said I. ‘Tom stipulated for our safety.’
‘I guessed that,’ he exclaimed. ‘When they rushed upon the poop they struck out and stabbed to right and left of them, but none offered to hurt me. Butler stood on the ladder where the sentry had been bayoneted.’
‘He didn’t do it?’ I shrieked.
‘No; it was a young convict with a purple face, who kept yelling like a madman. Butler stood on the ladder and shouted to me, and I ran to him. He put his arm round my neck and said: “Will, it’s a bloody business. I could have stopped it by peaching, but they would have killed me; and what was to become of Marian?” A line of convicts was drawn across the quarter-deck, and they saw Butler with his arm round my neck. He told me that he had seen you run into the steerage and that I should find you in your cabin.’
He was now beginning to breathe with more freedom, and something of the dreadful, staring look was passing out of his eyes. He listened and then said: ‘They’ll not hurt us. Butler seems to have authority. Did he plan this frightful business?’
‘No, but he would not hinder it. Why should he? He’s an innocent man, and must have his liberty. Let those who swore his freedom away, who sentenced him, who have ruined our lives and made him what he is, be responsible for this.’
‘It couldn’t have happened,’ he exclaimed, ‘but for our men. Many of them are as vile as the worst of the convicts. I was on the poop and saw it all, and it was as quickly done as letting go a topsail-halliards. The prisoners’ messmen massed themselves as usual past the main-hatch at breakfast-time; I noticed some of our sailors loafing near the convicts’ galley within leap of the main-hatch sentry. I also saw a cluster of seamen standing close in the way of the forecastle sentry’s walk. I heard a loud shout; I’ll swear it was the prize-fighter’s voice. In an instant the forecastle sentry was knocked down by the seamen; the main-hatch sentry was seized from behind and disarmed by the sailors who rushed from the convicts’ galley. The messmen threw down their breakfast utensils as a sort of second signal; I watched and saw it all, Marian; quicker than I can talk the convicts on deck made for the quarter-deck barricade-gate, and fast as water pours through a scupper-hole the prisoners came streaming up out of their quarters. The quarter-deck sentry levelled his piece and fired, and a convict dropped. The convicts forced the gate; the sentry bayoneted the first of them and was then knocked down; his musket was wrested from him, and a brutal ruffian beat his head in with the stock as the poor fellow lay on his back. The poop sentries fired at the convicts as they burst through the barrier, but in a few moments the prisoners got possession of the arms in the recess and swarmed up by either ladder. Oh, it was a splendid, maddening, frightful sight to see those two soldiers, one at each ladder, holding the steps against the yelling mob until one was beaten down and killed as I have told you!’
‘Hark to the noise overhead!’ I cried. ‘The cuddy is full of men!’
Through the open porthole came faintly, like voices at a distance across the water, sounds of the shouting on deck. The wind had dropped. A sheet calm had fallen. Through the cabin window I saw the sea stretching to its dim, hot confines in a vast spread of soft silver blue, with scarce a breathing of swell to stir the ship.
‘What have they done with the captain?’ I asked.
‘As I ran to join Butler, a crowd of convicts gathered round the captain and doctor, as though to force them off the poop. I don’t think they hurt them.’
I asked some other questions. He had rallied, and now talked with something of composure.
‘Hush!’ cried he suddenly. ‘There are people outside.’
The door of the cabin next mine was beaten. Mine was then hammered on.
‘Are you there, Johnstone?’
It was Tom, and in a heart-beat I threw open the door. Beside him stood Mr. Bates, the chief officer of the ship. On my showing myself, Tom extended his arms and gathered me to his breast and held me tight. I broke into a little passion of sobs, but shed no tears.
‘You are free,’ I cried, drawing from him and grasping his hands and looking into his dear eyes.
‘Not yet! Not yet!’ he answered hoarsely, as though his voice had been strained by shouting. ‘But, dear heart, we are together and may talk together now. Mr. Bates, step in.’
They were alone. He shut the door when the mate entered.
‘This is Marian Johnstone, the lady I was to have married, the lady who accompanied me on board this ship in the East India Docks. She followed me into this accursed vessel and, herself a woman of wealth and a lady by birth, has waited at your table, stooped to the vile drudgery of the cuddy, worked like a convict, associated with men no better than convicts, that she might be in sympathy with me in my degradation. May she find a reward!’ he cried, raising his hands and speaking in a broken voice. ‘Do you stare, Mr. Bates? Why, yes, to be sure; she was a boy and a cabin bottle-washer to your habit of thought down to a minute ago. But the secret of her sex is yours. This is her cousin, Will. Sir, on your honour, this lady is still a boy amongst us, and you know nothing. Consider our company. Give me your hand upon it.’
Mr. Bates extended his hand, and Tom grasped it. The mate was a man of a somewhat slow turn of mind. He looked at me hard whilst he retained his grasp of my sweetheart’s hand, and said: ‘I have been thinking as much for some time. There never was a boy with your skin and eyes. Butler’s a lucky man!’
‘A wronged man!’ I cried.
‘I said so when I read the papers, and I’ve been saying it ever since aboard this ship, as you know, Johnstone.’
‘She shipped as Simon Marlowe,’ said Tom, ‘and so she remains—that’s understood. Mr. Bates, you stop here with her and Johnstone. I’ll bring Abram and others presently. The wolves are tearing the cuddy to pieces in their rage to eat and drink. No man’ll harm you as my friend. You three are my friends—friends!’ he cried, and again he took me in his arms and held me to him, then passionately broke away and said, speaking fast and harshly and with a fierceness I had noticed in his whispers: ‘They’ll not hurt you! The devils are helpless without me. There’s not a navigator amongst them. It was concerted I was to take charge, and I do so on my own terms.’
‘What have they done with the captain?’ cried Mr. Bates.
‘He’s in the prisoners’ quarters along with the doctor and Captain Barrett and the survivors of the guard. I fear the bad part of your sailors more than the convicts. There must be no bloodshed. But let them yell and roar. Give the mad spirits of the brutes time to languish. They have their liberty, but it is not the liberty of the shore, and they’ll not know what to do with it presently when they sober down and look around. Marian, my brave heart!’ For the third time he pressed me to him and stepped out, bidding us leave the door unbolted and to stay till he returned.
His face was white, hard and wild; his manner that of one who is full of rage and whose struggle to command it fills his eyes with the light of madness. Mr. Bates gazed at me when the door closed upon my sweetheart, and, plunging his hands in his pockets, said: ‘I owe him my life. He locked me in my cabin, and a number of the convicts were forcing the door when he thrust through and brought me out. He shouted: “Men, I have three friends; two are youngsters below, this is the third. You know our compact. You know who this man is. You have seen him often enough. He is an old shipmate of mine and a friend, and if a hair of his is harmed, you sail the ship yourselves.” The cuddy was full of convicts; but there fell a silence whilst he roared this out. He has a noble voice. He put his arm through mine and walked me to the hatch. The devils fell away from me and started shouting on other matters, as though I was out of it and concerned them no longer. He saved my life. They’ve killed poor Masters. They would have killed me.’
‘Is the second mate dead?’ gasped Will.
‘Butler told me so. Masters showed fight when they killed the sentry and rushed on to the poop, and he was cut down. So Butler told me as we came here. The convicts got hold of the soldiers’ arms, and it was all done out of hand. And what’s to become of the ship?’
‘What will they do with the captain and the doctor?’ said Will.
‘How many have been killed?’ I asked.
‘Three convicts were dropped by the sentries,’ answered Will. ‘Suppose them dead. Then two soldiers. Then the lieutenant and Mr. Masters. The tally’ll run to near half a score, sir,’ said he, looking at the mate.
‘And you’re a cousin of this lady?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘I’m no lady on board this ship. Pray take heed, sir!’ I cried.
‘She has nothing to do with this business!’ cried my cousin. ‘She was afraid of losing sight of Captain Butler if she followed him in another ship.’
The poor man durst not ask questions, for fear of offending me.
‘What noise is that?’ cried Will.
I heard a kind of pounding, like the stroke of a pump or the hitting of timber. Mr. Bates put his head out of the door to listen. A dull, confused tumult of voices came down the hatch—wild cries as of mad or drunken delight; but I seemed to catch a level note in the hubbub, and supposed that the first delirium and wild-beast-like transports were passing.
Mr. Bates was about to shut the door, when he was arrested by a noise of rushing feet. He looked out, and said: ‘Here’s a mob of convicts streaming into the steerage!’
I pushed past him and took the door-handle from his grasp, opened the door wide, and stood in the way. The convicts were abreast of me in a moment, twenty or thirty of them. They shouted as they ran, using language which has gone from my memory. I guessed they had come to sack the cabins down here, from the nature of their shouts one to another; but they roared so hoarsely, their oaths were so plentiful and unintelligible, their speech so hard to understand, some of them being of the provinces, that I could only conjecture their designs. My voice, though contralto, was piercing and clear. I cried out: ‘Do you know who we are?’
‘Ain’t they Butler’s lot?’ shouted one of them.
‘Yes, the three of us,’ I cried. ‘He’ll be here in a moment, along with Barney Abram. We’re keeping out of the muddle above till you’ve found out who’s your friends.’
‘It’s the spunky young devil as jawed the doctor,’ said a voice.
‘This is my cabin,’ said I. ‘There’s nothing to take in it. But what’s your friend’s, he keeps, don’t he? Look here! I’ve been with you, if not of you, and tasted every joy of yours but your irons, curse them!’ and with a swaggering, bouncing, rollicking manner I sprang to my bunk and pulled out the convict mattress and pillow and flung them on the deck. ‘No. 240,’ I cried, pointing, and forcing a shout of laughter.
Some of the convicts echoed that insane burst of merriment. Their laughter was hideous with its note of raw hoarseness.
‘What’s that bundle there?’ cried one of them, a heavy-jawed, low-browed ruffian.
‘Skins and yacks and dummies is it, my bulger? Where’s your pal?’ cried another man.
‘Show out! Show out!’ roared a third voice.
‘It’s woman’s clothes. Look and then let them be,’ I cried, still preserving my bouncing, dare-devil air.
They were elbowing in; the atmosphere was sickening with the fellows’ warm, hard breathing. Many of them, I judged, had got at the cuddy stock of liquor. Will and the mate stood side by side in a corner. Never shall I forget the show of faces that confronted me; men with broken noses; one with a hare-lip; one with a diabolical squint. Some were gray, two or three a flaming red. But the features and colour counted for nothing; their looks were devilish and horrible, and the prevailing expression an infuriate triumph of the basest spirits, inflamed by drink and animated yet by the brutal and maddening lust of plunder.
At this instant I heard Tom’s voice at the back of the crowd. He cried out: ‘Is this fair? Is this how their promises are to be kept? What have they done? Abram, help me to clear this cabin.’
The rearmost of the convicts were violently twisted out of the doorway; as Tom forced his way in, the fellows reeled to the thrust of his elbows. Abram was shouting: ‘Out, you cub! A bargid’s a bargid. You’ve no right here!’ And whilst he shouted he lay about him, and some of the men absolutely flew before the prodigious thrust of his arm, tumbling others down as they bounded, until perhaps a dozen of the felons lay sprawling in the passage outside the cabin door, cursing, roaring, laughing and filling the place with the infernal din of a madhouse.
‘Is it all right with you, Marlowe?’ cried Tom passionately.
‘All right,’ I answered, ‘and right also with our two friends.’
‘Dow look here!’ exclaimed Barney Abram, whom I did not instantly recognise, for he had removed his convict clothes and wore a long pea-coat, cap and trousers belonging to Captain Sutherland. ‘Look here!’ he exclaimed, addressing the convicts, who stood in a crowd at the cabin door. ‘Our agreebet with Butler was that his two yug freds was to be let alode. It was probised. Why dote you keep your word? D’ye dow where y’ are? You’re at sea, and there’s dot a bad you cad trust the ship to but Butler,’ and here he put his immense hand upon Tom’s shoulder. ‘There’s a third party he’s asked our kideness for. He shall have it. We owe hib do grudge. The chief bate of this ship’s always beed a quiet bad. Did ady bad ever hear hib slig a hard word at a prisoder? He’s Butler’s fred, ad that’s edough. Butler’s our fred, ad’ll carry you in safety to where you bay scatter. Ate that what you want?’
‘We never came ’ere to ’urt ’em,’ said one of the convicts.
‘D’ye know them now?’ shouted Tom. ‘Look, and tell all hands of you, fore and aft, that these three are my friends and are not to be molested. If they are not well used by you all, if the smallest injury befalls them through any one of you, I instantly chuck the job of navigating the ship. You may threaten me; you may torture me; you may hang me. I’ll fling the navigating instruments overboard, and leave the ship to drown you on a lee shore or to run foul of an English man-of-war.’
I cannot express the savageness with which he spoke; the hatred and contempt with which he surveyed the crowd of ugly rascals.
‘That’s plaid English! Are you satisfied?’ cried Barney Abram, clapping his hands on his thighs and stooping and howling his words at them.
‘Come along, bullies! No use wasting time here!’ cried a voice.
In a moment the convicts broke away. They burst into the cabin next door and filled the pantry, and I heard them laughing and yelling as they flung the food they found at one another and dashed the crockery against the bulkhead. Tom shut the door.
‘Ad ’ow are you, yug gentlebud?’ said Abram, offering me his hand. ‘So the doctor wadted to bake be your pal, eh? He preaches a good serbud,’ he added, shutting one eye and looking at Mr. Bates. ‘What d’ye thik of this, sir, for a piece of orgadisatiod? Is it prettily badaged?’
‘It is grandly managed,’ said I, answering for the mate, who seemed incapable of speech, and who stood staring at the repulsive, massive, small-poxed face and wonderful figure of the prize-fighter with looks of dread and aversion. ‘You, Mr. Abram, will have been the genius of this splendid stroke.’
‘I thik I bay claib to ’ave ’ad a small ’ad in it,’ he answered, with an indescribable smirk of self-complacency, as he gazed at Tom.
‘Hark at those brutes outside!’ cried my sweetheart. ‘There’ll be no navigation, there’ll be nothing to be done with the ship if those hell-hounds are not to be brought under some sort of government.’
‘You bust let theb howl it out of thebselves. They’ve got at the drik and that’s dot going to quiet ’eb,’ said Abram. ‘Perhaps sub of theb will be jubping overboard presedly, or going for each other with the soldiers’ sballarbs; we’re rather duberous.’
He spoke with a great affectation of gentility and superiority. At any other time I should have burst into a fit of laughter at the fellow’s grotesque, genteel air, coupled with the indescribable leering smirk of self-complacency that was fixed upon his pitted face.
‘Captain Butler, what use can you make of me?’ said Mr. Bates, finding his voice on a sudden. ‘I owe you my life, and I want to prove myself grateful, and I want to show myself grateful for Mr. Abram’s friendship and protection.’
‘Let Mr. Bates go and take charge of the deck,’ said Tom, looking at Abram.
Abram, with a cunning grin, shook his head. ‘Trust the ship to wud of her bates! Reckon that he’s going to steer you to the port agreed upod for our dispersal? He’ll wait upod you!’ said Abram.
‘The ship must be watched,’ said Tom. ‘Suppose a squall should burst down upon us! Suppose something with paddle-wheels and a white pennant flying should heave into sight!’ he added with an oath which I had never before heard in his mouth, and looking Abram fiercely in the face as he spoke. ‘How am I to teach these wretches common-sense? The ship must be watched!’ he shouted. ‘Am I to be your only man? Is it to be a twenty-four-hours’ look-out with me day after day until I bring you in sight of the land we agree to make? Bates, you are still first mate of this ship under me. You won’t go wrong. You’ll have no chance. I’d blow out the brains of any man who’d imperil the liberty I’ve regained this morning!’
His eyes flashed, his face filled with blood, he took a step and put his arms round my neck and stood so, scarcely sensible, it seemed to me, of what he did.
‘I’ll back you, Tom!’ said I. ‘The liberty you’ve this day got you’ll keep.’
Abram burst out laughing. I felt, and was amazed to feel Tom’s influence over this ruffian.
‘Your little fred’s got the spu’k, Butler,’ said he. ‘A bugful of it wouldn’t hurt that lad there,’ he continued, nodding at Will.
‘He is my cousin,’ said I. ‘Don’t question his courage. He’s fresh from seeing men butchered and thrown alive overboard. You are the greatest fighter in all England, with the finest endurance and pluck of any man that ever entered a ring; therefore, Mr. Abram, you have a soft heart. Courage and kindness go hand in hand. Bear with that lad. He is horror-stricken.’
‘Do deed for such sedsatiods, by warbler,’ said the prize-fighter, grinning with gratification and stepping up to Will. ‘Give us your arb. I’ll take yours, Bates. Dow let’s step od deck. I wadt air ad a drink.’