CHAPTER XXII.

FOUR BELLS IN THE DOG-WATCH.

All the next day there blew a gale, and Captain Phillips, anxious to make the most of it, as the wind was fair, squared his yards, with all that he dared to spread upon them. So sharp was the aforesaid gale, that on a taut bowline, no vessel could have shown more than a single sail, perhaps; but the Hermione tore on before the hurrying blast, with her fore and main courses bellying out before it, and her three topsails set with a single reef in each.

Ere long, Captain Phillips was heard to shout:

"Away aloft, men—shake the reefs out of the topsails—masthead the yards."

Cheerfully enough the watch sprang aloft and obeyed the order. And now the foam flew in white sheets over her sharp bows, rolling aft to the break of the quarter-deck, from whence it surged forward again, and gurgled through the scuppers on each side alternately.

Astern a tremendous sea kept rolling after her, for waves and wind and all were with her now, and she sped before them at the rate of eleven knots an hour; thus it required all the strength of Pedro Barradas and of Noah Gawthrop, who volunteered for it, to hold the wheel, and steer her steadily.

Inspirited by the speed with which his brave ship tore along through foam and spray, Captain Phillips walked briskly to and fro, with his hands thrust into the pockets of his glazed storm-jacket, a gutta-percha speaking-trumpet under one arm, and his jolly red face shining with pleasure and drops of spray, as he glanced alternately aloft, over the quarter, or at Mr. Quail, who smiled approvingly.

"Hurrah, old ship!" said he; "now she goes through it! now she walks along with a will. She smells the Mauritius already, I think."

"The Bird Islands, or the Mozambique, more likely," muttered Pedro to Noah.

"What the devil have we to do with either one or the other?" asked Noah, with sulky suspicion.

"There she goes!" continued the captain; "and on she shall crack as long as her sticks hold together. Mr. Quail, get preventer-braces reeved; ship tackles on the backstays, haul all taut, and belay."

All day the gale held on thus, and about nightfall, when it began to abate into a steady breeze, in which the swinging booms of the lower studding-sails dipped at times like birds' wings in the brine, the Hermione must have run more than 120 miles, and she was about that distance off the most southern portion of the coast of Natal.

How often had Captain Phillips and Mr. Basset wished to be fairly round the Cape of Good Hope—to have doubled it, though it was far away from dear old England; yet it was a necessary feature or point to be achieved in the voyage. They were fairly round the great Cape of Storms now, and the vessel's course was east and northerly, with a calm sea and a fair wind.

Every one should have been in the highest spirits; but, save Ethel and Rose, Morley and his three companions, all were cloudy, anxious, and dull; for Captain Phillips, his officers, and Mr. Basset felt themselves still menaced by secret dangers.

During the most of this day Morley had remained below with Ethel. Rose was working beads on a cigar-case for the doctor, and Tom Bartelot, with Morrison, remained by choice on deck.

"Now that we can be of service, Captain Phillips," said Tom, "we must be allowed to take our turn of duty. I know that sick folks are soon deemed little better than skulkers aboard ship."

"How so?"

"When one has to take a fellow's trick at the helm, another his look-out aloft, or out upon the booms, a third his watch, and a fourth something else, they soon weary of him."

"True," replied Captain Phillips, in a low voice, as they drew near the break of the deck, and beyond ear-shot of that tall son of Columbia, Mr. William Badger, who was at the wheel, with his very long legs, half-cased in very short trousers, placed very far apart; "but your arrival on board, if a lucky circumstance for you all, has been rather a godsend to me."

"Indeed! How? The ship doesn't look short-handed."

"Ah! here comes Mr. Ashton; and please call your mate here. I have something to say to you all."

Tom beckoned Morrison, who had been busy coiling and belaying some of the running rigging, for the crew had become exceedingly untidy and neglectful.

Badger's keen eyes peered from under his beetling brows, as if he strove to see, what he could not overhear, the conversation that ensued, when Captain Phillips detailed the secret state of his crew, and the daring project which the doctor had heard so freely canvassed in the forecastle.

Bartelot and Morrison heard the honest captain's narrative with astonishment and indignation, but Morley with a terror and agony very much akin to Mr. Basset's, under the same circumstances.

"In such a state of matters, why did you not haul up for Table Bay, where some ships of war are sure to be?" asked Bartelot.

"Such was my intention; but the same hurricane that destroyed your ship drove mine too far to the southward. That circumstance made us the means of saving you; but I lost thereby a chance of thinning out, or altogether dispersing the crew, and shipping another."

"Aye, aye," observed Morrison; "what between crews of Lascars and coloured men, Chinese junks and piratical Bornese boats, there are many craft disappear in these seas, and at Lloyd's the typhoons are held responsible for all."

"If that fellow who is at the wheel, and two who are named Barradas, were quietly overboard, I could manage the rest, I think."

"Barradas! are they Spaniards?" asked Tom.

"Spanish South Americans—two of that bad lot who are so often to be seen loafing about the Liverpool docks."

"Troublesome hands always."

"And these two are among the worst—the very worst. They were chums of that fellow Hawkshaw in Texas and Mexico, at the gold diggings, and elsewhere, it would appear. They are two brothers, named Pedro and Zuares—at heart, pirates both."

"Barradas!" said Morley, striving to remember; "that name seems familiar to me."

"Have you forgotten the name of the old hermit—the 'darvish,' as Noah called him—whom we buried on the island, and whose papers I read to you?" asked Morrison.

"Don Pedro Zuares de Barradas," said Bartelot.

"I remember now. I have his Spanish cross below," said Morley. "Good Heavens! if these should be his sons! The names are the same. How singular!"

"And they were comrades of Hawkshaw, you say, Captain Phillips?"

"Comrades, or shipmates, or something—nothing good, you may be assured."

And now Morley, just as Dr. Heriot joined them, recalled Hawkshaw's strange story of how the one named Zuares committed—unwittingly, however—the awful crime of matricide, in the Barranca Secca—that savage story which he related on a summer evening in Acton Chase, to the Bassets and Pages; and now, by a strange fatality, their lot was all cast together within the narrow compass of a single ship, upon the wide and lonely sea.

"These are most calamitous tidings," said Morley, in a low and troubled voice, as he passed his arm through Heriot's, and drew him aside; "love, they say, laughs at danger; but here, Dr. Heriot, love may weep," he added, almost with a groan.

"Hang it, man, call me Heriot—Leslie Heriot, or whatever you like; but drop the doctor, it sounds so precious stiff, especially when—when we both love these two girls."

"Well," said Morley, who, as an Englishman, had his local or national prejudices, but meant to be complimentary, "for a Scotchman, you are a nice fellow, Heriot; but—but Ethel and Rose, what are we to do now?"

"Fight to the last gasp for them, that is all," replied Heriot, stoutly.

While they were conversing thus, Noah Gawthrop approached Captain Bartelot, and, in his own fashion, began to state that he had heard some strange hints dropped by the watch at night, by others that lounged about the windlass-bitts and forecastle; that some of the crew had been whetting their knives on the carpenter's grindstone, that all were on the alert, and were, he added, "sartainly up to summut that looked like squalls, or mischief."

As an old man-o'-war's man, Noah knew well how unpleasant was the reputation of being a tale-bearer, and that, if it was bad ashore, it was deemed ten times worse at sea; but in the Aurora he had acquired certain ideas of discipline which had never left him, so he considered that he was only doing his duty in this matter.

"What do you mean to do, your honour?" he asked of Captain Phillips, in a husky whisper.

Phillips gave him a grim smile, and showed the butt of a revolver in his breast-pocket.

"Oh, the poor girls below," said Morley.

"I have perilled my life many times, young gentleman," said Phillips—"many times on land, but oftener still on the great highway of waters, and, though scared a bit, I ain't going to be frightened now; and, believe me, my ship shall not be taken without a scrimmage. Let these mutinous curs come on and do their worst, I'm ready for them—life for life, and man to man."

"Hooray, and the Haurora for ever. Beat to quarters—them's my sentiments," said Noah, with a voice so loud that long Badger, at the wheel, craned his scraggy neck to listen, and opened his eyes and ears very wide indeed. "D——n their limbs! I hopes to see 'em all with their ears nailed to the mainmast, and here's the fist as will handle the hammer and nails."

As he made this unwise exclamation, he stepped aft, to relieve Badger at the wheel, and that ungainly personage, avoiding the group who were at the gangway, passed forward to the forecastle, where he at once informed his colleagues that he "rayther reckoned that old man-o'-war shark had blowed the whole affair upon them."

Deeply-muttered oaths and vows of vengeance on poor old Noah were the immediate result.

"Por mi honor!" exclaimed Pedro, who was polishing the blade of his knife on the sole of his shoe; "so, so, this is what old sticking-plaster is up to—eh?"

"In course, my Spanish gamecock."

"El espio y picaro! (spy and scoundrel)," said Pedro, grinding his teeth.

"The old corksucker!" growled the rest, using in this the most opprobrious epithet known at sea.

"He's a old man-o'-war's man, and, I reckon, has got notions o' discipline, doffing his hat to the quarter-deck, and other darned nonsense whipped into him, nigger fashion, by the boatswain's cat. To try gettin' over such fellows is summut like reefing of a stun'sail, or anythin' else that's next to useless."

Having delivered himself of this aphorism, Badger proceeded to "darn" sundry parts of Noah's person, such as his eyes and limbs, and by the unanimous vote of all he was consigned to very warm latitudes indeed.

Amid this, the ship's bell struck. It was the appointed time—four bells in the second dog-watch—and then, pale as a spectre, or looking like an evil spirit whom the sound had summoned—Cramply Hawkshaw descended through the scuttle into the little apartment, or fore-cabin, a close and squalid den, where his appearance was greeted with shouts of ironical welcome and applause, in which the watch on deck joined.

We have already detailed a scene in this unpleasant quarter of the ship; but have little desire to rehearse another, and so shall be brief.

With a mocking grimace on his moustached lip, and a ferocious gleam in his wild black eyes, Pedro presented Hawkshaw to the crew as a new companero amigo—associate and friend.

"Hitch in, mates—make room for the capting," said Badger, drawing in his long, lean, and misshapen legs. "So having 'ad a spell in limbo aft, you're bound for the bunks forward, eh? Come, Pedro, prodooce the dev'l's bones—let him have a shy with the ivories. I reckon he's got an eye on the gals aft, as well as ourselves; and I say, capting—Jeerusalem! ain't the black eyes o' that oldest gal regular Broadway shiners!"

In his misery and rage, Hawkshaw had slunk forward, and joined the crew with two ideas uppermost in his mind: that he would yet revenge himself on Morley Ashton, and might also have the haughty Ethel at his mercy—that she yet might be his, and his only, despite fate, fortune, and friends, and despite her own aversion for him.

But when he found himself among this crew of desperadoes, whose obscene lips bandied about the names of those so pure and gentle, fair and tender, as Ethel and Rose Basset, the old times of Laurel Lodge came to memory, and though bad, hardened, and desperate, Hawkshaw felt his soul die within him.

But it was too late for receding now!

Criminal though he was, to find himself the chosen comrade and companion of these wretches, filled up the full measure of his misery; but no sympathy can be wasted on him, when we remember the crimes of which he had been guilty, and the keen suffering he had caused to Ethel, to Morley, and to others.

In mockery, and in a pretended spirit of good fellowship, Pedro's loaded dados were produced from his sea-chest, and they proceeded again to cast lots for wives among the women in the cabin, amid roars of laughter, cheers, and other noises, while, to enhance the general din, Mr. Badger smashed the mess-beef kid, dashed the butter gallipot to pieces, and danced a hornpipe on the tin bread-barge.

This noisy laughter was heard distinctly in the cabin.

"Surely that sounds jolly and well," said Tom Bartelot, as the party from the deck entered it; "fellows who laugh so loudly cannot mean much mischief."

"Ah, you don't know them," said Captain Phillips, in a low voice.

"Mischief?" said Ethel, looking up inquiringly.

"What, is it possible that you don't know?" Morley was beginning, when Mr. Basset placed a finger on his lip warningly.

Those extremely hilarious sounds in the forepart of the ship were simply caused by the lots for sweethearts or wives being cast anew.

Ethel had fallen to Pedro Barradas, thanks to his peculiarly-constructed dice; Rose fell to the share of Bill Badger; and Nance Folgate, the old nurse, to Hawkshaw; and hence the yells and screams of laughter that ascended from the fore-scuttle, and rang upon the still and starlight night.

CHAPTER XXIII.

THE CRISIS AT LAST.

On the morrow, a gale like that we have described carried the ship still farther on her course; but again, towards evening, the sea and wind went down together, and a calm and lovely night stole over the world of waters.

Morley had intended to speak to the two Barradas about what he suspected—his knowledge of their secret history. Had he found an opportunity for doing so, much evil would, perhaps, have been averted, as he might have exercised a little influence over them; but one time they were aloft in the rigging, at another, tarring down the backstays, clapping on chafing gear, or otherwise occupied most of the day, as they now began to feel a personal interest in the ship; so no opportunity occurred, and the fatal evening of the intended mutiny crept on.

And, notwithstanding that he was a quiet and peaceable man, and possessed of much of the caution usually attributed to his countrymen, matters were precipitately brought to a crisis by Morrison, Tom Bartelot's Scotch mate, as we shall soon have occasion to show.

On this night our old friend was at the wheel, as a volunteer; and, as the atmosphere was singularly calm, Morley and Ethel, Rose and Heriot, were on deck, sometimes seated in pairs, conversing in low and confidential tones, or promenading, arm-in-arm, between the break of the deck and the taffrail.

Mr. Basset and the captain were smoking near the companion-hatch, Mr. Quail had turned in below, and the second mate, Foster, had charge of the ship, whose lofty spread of snow-white canvas shimmered with a weird effect in the light of the rising moon, which heaved up at the horizon, the size of three European moons—sublime and vast—to shed a blaze of silver radiance far across the sea.

Noah's hints had already made Captain Phillips take in his studding-sails and royals, so the ship was now running snugly and easily, under the fore and main-course, topgallant-sails, jib and spanker.

Ethel sat silently, with her hands clasped on Morley's left arm, for the moonlight on the water, the stars above, and his familiar voice, made her think of home, and the beautiful garden at Laurel Lodge, with its ribbon-borders of pinks, mignonette, and scarlet geraniums; its roseries, its gigantic sweet peas, her sister's boasted azaleas, which Hawkshaw had ridiculed in an evil hour; its avenues of laurels and stately old sycamores.

She now drew forth her mother's miniature, which she wore in her breast, at the end of a slender gold chain. It had been taken in that dear mother's youth, when she closely resembled Ethel herself.

Who that surveyed that soft, bright, smiling face, could realise the idea that it was the image of one who had long been dead, and had passed away.

So, as Ethel gazed upon it, her mother's figure, expression of face, and tone of voice, the embodiment of that gentle friend and loving mentor, all a mother should be, "the best and most beautiful of earth's creatures," rose to memory, strangely mingled with recollections of her death and of her funeral, on a sunny day, in peaceful Acton churchyard, while the familiar bell tolled solemnly in the old grey Norman tower, and when the turf looked so green, the fresh earth so brown, and that awful and mysterious grave, as it yawned beneath the old yew tree, so deep, so terrible!

Then there was the reverend rector, her father's dearest friend, reading the beautiful and impressive service for the faithful departed, while his voice faltered and his eyes glistened. It was the last day of an English autumn, when the leaves of the tall oaks in the Chase, and the foliage of every coppice, were brown and crisp, and when all the world seemed hushed and still; when even the village urchins who clambered on the churchyard wall were mute, and sat uncovered, and no sound stirred the air but the rector's voice, and the solemn bell that boomed in the time-worn tower, and shook its ivy leaves.

So all that sad and mournful day came vividly back and unbidden to memory now.

"Mamma, dear, dear mamma! she did so love you, Morley!" said Ethel, as she closed the miniature, and placed it tenderly in her bosom.

Inspired by livelier thoughts on the other side of the quarter-deck, merry Rose Basset and the doctor were leaning over the bulwarks, and watching the luminous animacula that gleamed in the passing waves.

In the second chapter of our history, we have related how Mr. Basset had considered the early engagement between Morley Ashton and Ethel the mere fancy of a boy and girl—a fancy which separation, or the spirit of change, might cause to wear away and be forgotten.

But now, by his most providential restoration, by the strength of their mutual regard, by what the poor fellow had undergone; by what Ethel, too, had suffered, and, more than all, by the necessity for securing her future happiness, he felt himself bound to do the utmost in his power to advance Morley's interests, when they all reached their new home in the Mauritius, and a reiterated promise to this effect had made the young pair supremely happy.

Rose and the doctor were the next consideration; what was to be done with them?

The excitement consequent to recent events; the expected outbreak among the crew; the discovery of the wreck, its occupants, and their story, together with Hawkshaw's villainy, had so fully occupied the attention of all on board, that Heriot had scarcely found an opportunity for broaching a matter, which Captain Phillips's jokes had quite prepared our friend, the judge, to have laid before him, for his earnest consideration and kindly sympathy—neither of which he had quite made up his mind to accord; but Rose had always flirted with some one; and when two favourable occasions came to pass, Heriot was dissuaded by her thoughtlessly saying:

"Now, don't bother yet, my dear old darling Leslie," for this was her unromantic style ("a jolly one," the doctor thought it) of addressing him.

Mr. Basset would have been blind indeed, had he not seen the growing intimacy which existed between them; but he had no idea that matters had proceeded the length of interchanged promises. Neither did he observe the ring which Rose now wore on her engaged-finger—to wit (for the information of the uninitiated), the third of the right hand; and to use a hackneyed phrase, "as fairy" a finger as ever rejoiced in that pleasant decoration, for among Rose's chief beauties were her hands, plump, white, and tiny.

Recent events, we have said, prevented explanations, or any account of what the doctor's prospects were.

"Not much, they are, certainly, dear, dear Rose," whispered Heriot, as they sat together in the moonlight, while the ship still sped before the wind, with all the reefs out of her topsails. "I have, one way and another, but 100l. a year at present. Had I more, I would have sought out a snug practice at home, and not roved about as the surgeon of a sea-going merchantman."

"Then you would not have met me, sir," said Rose, with waggish asperity.

"But I have an uncle, a jolly old fellow, who loves me well, for my mother was his only sister; and he loves me for that, perhaps, rather than any merits of my own."

"My poor modest Leslie! well—and this uncle?"

"When he dies—distant may the day be when he does so!—I shall come into 400l. per annum more. If at the Isle of France, I could battle the watch——"

"Battle what?"

"Oh, it is an old college phrase; I mean, fight my way into a practice somehow. With you to cheer me on, we should do very well. Then, an M.D., to get a practice, must have a wife."

"Why?"

"What is the difference between a doctor and a student? 'There is but a degree between them,' says some one; but until the student has the magical letters M.D. added to his name, he is nothing, and even then he will never get the passepartout to private houses, unless he has a wife; and where could I find one dearer, sweeter, more playful and joyous, more charming than——"

"Me, you would say?"

"Yes."

Then here, as no one was looking, there followed a sound which made honest Morrison, who was at the wheel, "prick up his ears," and laugh quietly to himself in the moonlight.

A ship, of course, does not offer the lover-like facilities of shady lanes, green thickets, rosy bowers, or flowery garden walks; but it produces a thousand occasions for polite attention, amidst its rolling, tumbling, and pitching about, its extreme discomfort and peculiarity, which are not given by the solid and immovable earth, and which the fair dwellers thereon do not require; but it is, nevertheless, a very awkward place for indulging in little bits of osculation—a phrase for which I refer my fair reader to her dictionary, if she knows it not.

All as yet was quiet in the Hermione.

The embers of discord were still smouldering amid the crew, and the brave ship flew steadily over the shiny waters of the moonlit sea, her ghostly shadow falling far across them.

Inspired by the calm and beauty of the night, Morrison, as he leaned thoughtfully over the wheel, his left hand grasping an upper spoke, and his right hand a lower one, thinking, perhaps, of his present shattered prospects, without ship or funds, his distant home, and his mother's cottage by the Dee, was singing to himself in a low and plaintive voice.

Ethel looked up and listened, though she scarcely knew the language in which he sang—a portion of a sweet little song (by some local poet), and which he recalled, as we do now, from memory, though perhaps he may have heard it from his mother, to whom this brave and honest fellow was attached, with a devotion that was almost childish.

"The tear dims my e'e
    As I look to heaven hie,
    And sigh to be free
Frae want and frae wae;
    But I dinna see the road,
    For between me and my God
    A darkness has come doon,
Like the mist on the brae.

"The nicht is wearin' past,
    The mist is fleein' fast,
    And heaven is bricht at last
To the closin' e'e;
    In the hollow o' the hill,
    The weary feet are still,
    And the weary heart is hame
To its ain countrie."

At that moment the ship's bell clanged.

"Stand by to heave the log—relieve the wheel," cried Mr. Foster.

After considerable delay Badger, the Yankee, came slowly shambling aft, to "take his trick" at the helm, and at the same time the whole crew came scrambling noisily up the fore-scuttle, where the watch on deck joined them, and they gathered in a group about the windlass-bitts.

Captain Phillips, Mr. Basset, and Tom Bartelot, exchanged glances of intelligence and inquiry, while the second named, inspired by some miserable foreboding, grew deadly pale.

"You have not hurried yourself, mate," said Morrison.

"No; didn't intend to, I reckon," drawled the Yankee, in his nasal twang.

"Why did you not come aft the moment the bell struck?"

"Now, stranger," said Badger, in a tone of mock expostulation, "d'ye wish your few brains blowed out with the cook's bellows, or not, that you asks questions or gives orders here?"

"Take the wheel, and take it in silence," said Morrison, haughtily and sternly; for, although no mate on board the Hermione, he still felt the habit of authority strong within him.

"I knowed a man at Cape Cod, in the state of Massachusetts," continued Badger, still delaying, and speaking slowly through his long nose; "a Scotchman he was, Mr. Morrison, and the very moral o' you, with a hook nose and chin, that 'ad hold a ginger-nut between 'em, who fed sea-gulls with iron filings, and sold their wings for steel pens. A 'cute crittur! But, as I said, he was called a Scotchman, though I calc'lates he was a Yankee Jew of Hirish parentage."

"If you don't take the wheel, I'll show you the foretop with a vengeance, my fine fellow," said Morrison, who could stand anything but sneers at his country.

"You're riled a bit, you air, and your monkey's getting up. You've been too well fed, mate," drawled Badger. "I reckons that at home, in your own little clearin' of a country, you fed upon fir shavings and cold water. As for decent junk, reg'lar old hoss, and plum-duff, I calc'late you never heerd on 'em afore. Now, in this here craft, as the junk's atrowcious, so that even an 'ungry Scotchman or a blue shark wouldn't look at it, we mean to have a blow-out to-night in the cabin, and on the best in the steward's locker too."

At that moment Mr. Foster, who, with Joe, had been heaving the log-line, on hearing words, came aft, and took the wheel from the hands of Morrison, who was trembling with suppressed passion.

"Go forward, you rascally carrion," said the Scotchman, "or, by the heavens above us, I soon will make blue sharks' meat of you."

Badger drew his knife, which gleamed in the moonlight, but at the same instant he was laid sprawling on the deck by a blow from the butt-end of a revolver with which Captain Phillips had armed Morrison, and which the latter swung at the full length of his arm and with no unsparing hand.

The cry of rage uttered by Badger was answered by a yell from the forecastle, and all the crew came rushing aft, armed with knives, capstan-bars, and some with pistols, which they had hitherto secreted in their sea-chests.

"Below, ladies, below—into the cabin, and barricade the door; quick, quick!" cried Captain Phillips, as Ethel and Rose, to their astonishment and terror, were hurried, almost thrust down, the companion-stair.

Then several pistol-shots were exchanged, and a furious struggle instantly took place on deck.

CHAPTER XXIV.

HOW THE SHIP BROACHED TO.

At the time of this outbreak the Hermione was, as we have stated, somewhere about 100 miles off the mouth of Algoa Bay, and not, as Pedro had calculated, near the entrance of the Mozambique Channel.

Hurried, actually thrust into the cabin by the hands of Morley Ashton, Dr. Heriot, and others, Ethel and Rose Basset's terror and astonishment may be imagined; and greatly were these emotions increased by the sounds they heard on deck—the sudden uproar, the stamping of feet, as of men engaged in a deadly struggle, the oaths, imprecations, and occasional discharge of pistols.

If Captain Phillips and his friends were disagreeably surprised to find that the crew possessed some four or five old ship pistols, which they had hitherto kept secretly in their sea-chests, they, on the other hand, were much more disappointed on discovering that the officers and passengers were fully prepared for them—alike forewarned and forearmed; and the sudden appearance of their pistols and revolvers, as shot after shot flashed from them in the clear tropical moonlight, baffled the first rush aft of Pedro and his brother, for most of the crew, following Hawkshaw's prudent example, suddenly retreated to the forecastle, their own peculiar region and quarters.

A ball from Pedro's pistol found a harmless victim, for he shot dead poor Joe the steward. But at the same moment a ball from Heriot's revolver grazed the assassin's left ear, tearing a ring out of it, and as he rushed back with a bewildered air, at first believing himself to be shot through the head, Morrison followed him past the long-boat, showering, with a capstan-bar, such blows upon him as would have prostrated any other man than Barradas, who turned twice upon his pursuer, to whom he opposed in vain his clubbed pistol and the blade of his Albacete knife.

Poor Mr. Foster, who, as related, had taken the wheel from Morrison, was now assailed by Badger, the long Yankee, who had gathered himself up from the deck, where he had lain sprawling.

"Villain!" exclaimed Foster, as he clung to the spokes of the wheel, which he dared not relinquish lest the ship should bring to by the lee, and as he glanced the while with irrepressible agitation at the upheld knife of the wretch who had grasped his collar, and held it at the full length of his long, lean, muscular left arm. "Villain, would you lift your knife to me?"

"Ah, you 'tarnal Britisher, I would choke you like a weasel," hissed the Yankee through his yellow teeth.

"Do be quiet, Badger," urged Foster, as he thought of his poor wife and little ones asleep in their beds at home. "Have you no pity—no fear?"

"Nayther, I reckon," snivelled the Yankee.

"No conscience?" asked Foster, as he felt the grasp tightening on his collar.

"Conscience be d——! as we say in Californy. I left my blessed conscience at Cape Horn long ago. Do you understand that?" said Badger, ferociously.

Down came the threatening knife, flashing in the moonshine. Foster quitted the wheel and leaped aside, leaving the collar of his jacket in Badger's hand; but the point of the blade gave him a severe slash on the right shoulder.

Filled with rage and fear, the second mate broke away, and plunged down the companion-stair into the steerage in search of a loaded weapon. Tom Bartelot and Mr. Basset followed him, on the same errand, and the crew, believing that a fight had begun, once more made a furious rush aft, and thus, being now minus five of their number, the captain, with Morley, Heriot, and Noah Gawthrop, found themselves driven, under a shower of blows and missiles, past the break of the quarter-deck, and, ultimately, down below, where they all fell in a heap upon Mr. Quail, who had turned out, half dressed, on hearing the row on deck.

The last to effect a retreat was Morrison, who had emptied the six barrels of his revolver without hitting anyone, but having a capstan-bar, a weapon to which he was more accustomed, he gave way, step by step, with his face to the foe; but ultimately he was beaten down the companion-stair, covered with blood, which flowed from a wound on his right temple.

Fighting inch by inch, there is little doubt that, at this crisis, the crew might have forced an entrance to the cabin, especially if some had entered by the skylight; but now a yell burst from them, followed by a tremendous crash, and the sound as of a vast ruin descending on the deck.

On Foster abandoning the helm, the ship, which had been running with a spanking breeze upon her starboard quarter, broached to; by swinging round, all her sails were taken aback upon the weather-side, the sudden strain was more than her spars could bear, and the fall of a maintopmast, which had been sprung (i.e., split) in a recent gale, brought down the fore and mizzen, with all their yards and hamper, clean off at the cap of each; and thus, in a moment the beautiful Hermione was a scene of as great a ruin and disorder aloft as she was below.

The wilderness of masts, yards, booms, sails, blocks, and gearing that suddenly descended on their heads somewhat cooled the ardour of the crew, and severely injured two or three of them; but Pedro, a thorough seaman, gave instant orders to cut, clear away, and coil up, while, rushing to the wheel, his powerful hands soon made it revolve; the Hermione's head fell round, once more the wind came on her quarter, her fore and main courses, jib, and driver swelled out before it, and she stood on, but slowly, crippled and shorn of all her fair proportions.

This unexpected misfortune to the mutineers gave those whom they had for a time vanquished and driven below time to gather their energies, to reload their weapons, consider their position and resources, and to put in requisition those plans originally formed for the defence of the cabin, their stronghold, and chiefly of the two Misses Basset.

The huge trunk, filled with Mr. Basset's law books (which fortunately came too late on board to be shot with other lumber into the hold) was slued round, and jammed across the cabin-door, which was further secured by its usual bolts and fastenings.

Heriot's pair of pistols, two revolvers, a double-barrelled fowling-piece, and a sharp hatchet, were their only weapons, but they had plenty of ammunition, all made up in cartridges, and so they resolved to expend it to some purpose.

"My ship! my ship! my poor ship! everything seems to have gone to the devil aloft," groaned Captain Phillips, in an agony of rage and mortification.

"Oh, papa—dear papa—what has happened? What means that dreadful noise on deck?" asked Ethel and Rose together, as they clung to their bewildered parent, and saw with alarm their companions' blanched, flushed, and, in some instances, blood-stained faces. Dr. Heriot and Morley Ashton were both bleeding; the former from a scalp wound, and the latter from a cut in the lip. "Oh, papa! tell us what all this means?"

"It means that those infernal villains have risen to murder us all, ladies; but don't be alarmed for all that," said Captain Phillips, as he reloaded his revolver, while a horrible hurly-burly was heard on deck, where the crew, under the orders of Barradas the elder, were cutting away or securing so much of the rigging and spars as might be useful to them, even to bringing on board the jib-boom, which had been snapped off at the cap, and hung in the guys at the end of the whiskers, with the sail drooping in the water; and all the while they worked amid a storm of oaths, imprecations, and threats.

Among other things cast adrift was the body of poor Joe, whose pockets were soon investigated—his pipe, knife, tobacco-box, and a few coppers appropriated by Messrs. Sharkey and Bolter—after which they cast him over to leeward with as much indifference as if he had been a dead gull or bit of "old horse" (i.e., mouldy junk).

Meanwhile, overcome with horror and anxiety for the probable future of his two daughters, poor Mr. Basset was completely bewildered, and, for a time, as Captain Phillips said, "had no more pith in him than an empty sack." Reclined on the stern-locker, he pressed his daughters to his breast, keeping, as if for protection, an arm round each, and he exclaimed more than once:

"Oh God! most merciful of all who show mercy, protect my poor girls."

"He has committed their protection to you, sir," said Tom Bartelot, rather impatiently; "only show a little pluck, like the rest of us, and we shall weather these villains yet—aye, work them to an oil, if they don't fire or sink the ship."

"Oh, what new—what sudden horror is this?" exclaimed Ethel, wringing her hands, and then clasping them over her temples, while she turned her flashing eyes on each in succession.

"No sudden 'orror at all, marm," said Noah Gawthrop, as he tightened his waist-belt, rolled up the sleeves of his shirt, and looked everywhere about to spit, but, being in the cabin, restrained the impulse; "we've known o' the rig they were goin' to run this long time past."

"And Hawkshaw?" asked Ethel, shuddering.

"Is a leader among them," replied Morley, applying a handkerchief to his bleeding lip. "I never had a better opportunity for clearing off old scores than to-night, but somehow he never——"

"Oh, Morley, dear! leave vengeance to other hands," said Ethel, imploringly. "Dear, dear papa," she added, laying her pale brow on Mr. Basset's cheek, "and so it was this knowledge—this horrible dread hanging over you—that has given such a mournful tenderness to your voice and manner for some time past."

Her voice, so mellow and thrilling, pierced poor Basset's heart: he could only answer by his tears.

"Oh, Morley, love!" said Ethel, in a low, beseeching voice, "say something to comfort poor papa."

But Morley could only press Mr. Basset's hand in silence, for, in fact, the poor fellow knew not what to say. Rose had tied her little handkerchief round the doctor's head, and it seemed a more agreeable remedy than the piece of court-plaster he had hastily stuck on his scar.

To Ethel the watchful, mysterious, solicitous, and almost sorrowful regard which her father had so long exhibited towards herself and Rose was quite accounted for now.

"Oh, my poor papa—my own papa!" she exclaimed, as she threw her arms round his neck, and nestled with her lovely face close to his, "I have no fear of death; I would face it courageously—but you, and Rose, and Morley. Oh, I fear that the blow which kills me may kill you all, too, you love me so much—so much more than I have deserved, dear papa!"

"Alas, Ethel! it is not death only that I fear for you, my sweet and innocent lamb—and Rose——"

"Below there, ahoy!" hailed a hoarse voice down the companion-stair, after the hurly-burly had somewhat ceased on deck.

"It is the voice of that villain, Sharkey," said Quail.

"The murderer of poor Manfredi," added Dr. Heriot.

"Below there, you swabs and cork-suckers! have you all gone to sleep?" hailed the squat mutineer.

"Hollo!" responded Noah, "what do you want, gallows-bird?"

"We want the two girls. Give them up, and come on deck. Tumble up, or it will be the worse for every man jack of you."

"How so, you squab ragamuffin?" asked Captain Phillips.

"We'll drop down the skylight, and make precious short work with you all," was the hoarse response.

"Come on then, one at a time, or all together—we are ready for you," said Captain Phillips.

At the same moment the cover of the skylight was roughly wrenched off, and the chill night wind poured through the cabin, extinguishing the lamp.

A noisy and derisive cheer followed.

"Silence fore and aft. Por vida del demonio guardad vuestra maldita garulla (i.e., "Hold your cursed clack"). Ere long I shall let you know who is captain of the ship now," cried a deep bass voice there was no mistaking, and the dark visage of Pedro Barradas was seen looking down, just as Heriot led Ethel and Rose to their cabin, when he whispered to them to take courage, and closed the door. "Surrender, and give up your arms, or I shall set fire to the ship," added Barradas.

"What will you gain by doing so?" asked Captain Phillips, feeling with his fingers if the caps on his revolver were all right, and taking a full sight at Pedro's head, which he could see above the rim of the skylight.

"Gain? Not much, certainly, unless it be vengeance," replied the Mexican, hoarsely.

"Vengeance, you miscreant? Of what can you, accuse me? Surely I never wronged you."

"I have nearly lost an ear by the hand of one among you."

"That infliction you brought upon yourself."

"If you do not surrender in less than twenty minutes, I shall fire the ship or scuttle her, and then shove off with all the boats, leaving you to drown like a rat in a trap," continued Pedro.

"Fool, as well as villain, what purpose would that serve, but to destroy you all? Do you know how far we are from land?" asked the captain.

"I know that we are off the mouth of the Mozambique, and will soon make the land by steering nor'-nor'-east," replied the mutineer, with a grin.

"You are wrong, Pedro Barradas—by Heaven you are! We are only off the Bay of Algoa."

"Well, if this wind holds good, and we keep the ship under her courses and lower studding-sails, we will make the channel soon enough for our purpose. But ha, ha! Senor Capitano, do you hear that?" he added, as the sound of axes was heard; "we are starting the main-hatch to get at the bread and spirit room, so while you starve here, we shall drink and be jolly."

Captain Phillips groaned as he heard those sounds, which indicated a further destruction of the ship; but, taking a sure aim at Pedro, he fired! The red flash and sharp report of the pistol were followed by a yell of rage.

"A miss is as good as a mile," cried Badger, the Yankee; and Pedro, whose cheek was grazed by the ball, replied by firing into the cabin a random shot, which lodged in the table; and now, with pistols and the double-barrelled fowling-piece, there ensued a regular skirmish, in which our friends, in the dark seclusion of the cabin, had all the best of it, the mutineers' mode of warfare being simply a waste of ammunition, as some four or five of them in succession continued to dart past the open skylight, down which they fired at random.

Too terrified to weep, Ethel and Rose, clasped in each other's arms, reclined on their knees against the side of their bed, with poor old nurse Folgate grovelling on the carpet beside them.

Every instant they heard the sharp reports of the pistols, and saw the explosions flashing through the slits in their cabin-door, and all unaccustomed to the horrors of such an event, they could scarcely believe that they were not in a dream.

Who could imagine that such a scene would occur on board of a London ship? But they knew not the evils that attend a mixed crew.

Ignorant of the chances and casualties of voyaging on the deep, Ethel and Rose, but particularly the former, was utterly bewildered by this terrible episode, in which she found herself and friends involved. Every shot, every sound, made her heart leap for her father and her lover.

She had pictured to herself how, with Morley by her side, she would tend for life the declining years of her only and beloved parent—tend him as her mother would have wished her to do. He, on the other hand, had hoped to tend, watch, guide, and see her and Rose far on the chequered highway of life; but now it seemed as if they were all about to be torn from each other—he to suffer a violent and cruel death, they dishonour and death together.

Rose! Rose! Poor Ethel's soul shrank within her at this crisis; but it was more with fear for dear, merry little Rose than for herself.

For some time the exciting skirmish we have described continued, without anyone being hit, apparently, either above or below, till Morley felt someone close by utter a low heavy moan, or sigh, and then fall suddenly and heavily against him.

"Quail—Mr. Quail," he exclaimed, "is this you? Are you hurt—are you hit?"

It was poor Mr. Quail who, unable to reply, fell on the floor of the cabin with blood bubbling from his mouth. A lucifer-match was promptly applied to a candle, a light procured, and the wounded man was laid on the floor of the captain's state-room, where Dr. Heriot soon discovered that he was quite dead, being shot in the head by a common nail, a proof that the ammunition of the enemy above was running short.

"My God! Poor Quail—his wife and little ones!" exclaimed honest Captain Phillips, with deep emotion. "Oh, gentlemen, when will these horrors end?"

A low groan from Mr. Basset alone replied, and the features of the hapless mate soon grew livid and ghastly in the flickering light of the candle, as the damps and the pallor of death stole over them together.

Meanwhile the crash of axes was heard in the hold, where already some of the mutineers were making their way in search of plunder, through the cargo, hoping to make a breach in the bulkhead and reach the store where the ship's provisions and spirits were kept.

CHAPTER XXV.

THE CABIN ATTACKED.

Some of the mutineers now proceeded to throw various missiles, such as cold shot, ship-buckets, spare or fallen blocks from aloft, the carpenter's paint-pots, and so forth, into the ship's cabin; but only in one instance, when Tom Bartelot received a contusion on the shoulder, from a wooden marline-spike flung at random, did any of these take effect, as our friends lurked securely, pistol in hand, in the recesses of the upper stern-lockers, in the berths, and so forth, but none as yet could foresee where this strife was to end, or who would first come to terms, before the ship was utterly destroyed, as it bade fair to be, if this internal war continued.

Now the voice of Barradas was heard, giving orders to cast loose one of the carronades on the quarter-deck.

"What are they about to do with the carronade?" asked Morley, as he listened intently.

"Lower it between decks, to fire through the bulkhead," suggested the old man-o'-war's man, Noah.

"But have they any round shot?" asked Morley.

"We have six rounds for each gun round the coaming of the main-hatch," said Captain Phillips, with a very dejected air; "and there are plenty more in the hold. Shot are wanted sometimes in the Indian seas."

"And the powder?"

"Is all kept in a little magazine near the taffrail—the powder required for immediate service, I mean."

"The gun is cast loose," said Bartelot; "if Noah's idea be their game, it is all up with us, as they may bowl us to death without danger of resistance."

"Unless when they are at work in the hold, we make a sally, regain possession of the deck, ship on the main-hatch, and smother the whole brood!" said Phillips, with a more savage emotion than ever before glowed in his kind and jolly breast.

A few minutes of painful suspense served to show that the intentions of the mutineers were quite different.

They were heard to break open the powder magazine, and load the carronade, which, with loud yells, and much vociferation, they urged forward to the rim of the skylight with such force as nearly to break the framework to pieces, and over it, by using capstan-bars as levers, they levelled and depressed the gun, by hoisting up the hind wheels of the carriage, and driving home quoins under the breach, till the muzzle was at the angle of forty-five degrees, and pointed almost towards the bulkhead of the little cabin in which Ethel and Rose were weeping and praying.

Scarcely a moment was given for question or consideration, ere Quaco, the black Virginian, came rushing aft from the caboose, with his sable cheekbones shining, and his yellow eyes aflame, as he flourished a red-hot poker, which, as an extempore match, he applied to the touch-hole.

A sudden and blinding flash, with a cloud of suffocating smoke, filled all the cabin, and there was a report, or concussion, which made the ship reel to her centre; a hundred splinters seemed to fly in every direction, but still no personal danger was done, though the gun had been charged, not with round shot, but with a bag of nails, nearly all of which crashed through the centre of the mahogany table, and lodged in the deck below.

It was not until the first blink of dawn that those in the cabin knew this; their first idea being, that a round shot had been sent through the vessel's bottom; but, mad and furious though the mutineers were, there was a method in their proceedings, and to utterly destroy the ship was no part of their daring plan.

Wailing cries of terror came from the ladies' cabin, and wild and noisy ones from the old nurse; but no one was hurt there, though all were nearly stifled by the smoke of the discharge, ere it rose slowly through the open skylight, and floated away into the still night air.

As the sailors were withdrawing the gun, taking advantage of its recoil, a volley of pistol-shots from below whistled about them, and Dr. Heriot, with a steady aim of the fowling-piece, sent a charge of buck-shot from both barrels into the face and shoulders of one fellow, who was immediately borne forward to the care of Quaco, who, greatly to his own delight, and with all the mingled fun and cruelty peculiar to his dingy race, proceeded to extract them from the bleeding wretch, more curiously than skilfully, with the prongs of a carving-fork.

They now lashed the gun to its port again, and retired forward, to consult probably.

The ship's bell was no longer struck to call the watches, but the man at the wheel was regularly relieved, and, though sometimes exposed to shots from the cabin, he was never fired on. Under her courses and other lower sails, the ship was steered to the north-east, but her exact course those in the cabin knew not, as the tell-tale compass had gone to wreck long ago, under the missiles showered so liberally through the skylight.

By the sounds that came aft from time to time, it was evident that the crew were eating, drinking, and making merry in the region of the forecastle; but the fears of those in the cabin were increased by this hilarity, which increased the evil chances that overhung the ship, if a gale came on, and found her with her crew and rigging in such a state of disorder, and half the main-hatch open!

As day dawned, and the armed lurkers in the once trim cabin looked around them, its aspect filled them with exasperation and dismay.

The mahogany table, polished to perfection by poor Joe, was split, and literally torn to pieces by the contents of the carronade; and below it, the planks were thickly sown with nails. All the missiles we have enumerated, the fire buckets, double and single blocks, six-pound shot, holystones, and "prayer-books," &c., encumbered the floor; and there, cold, white, and ghastly, lay the stiffened corpse of the unfortunate Mr. Quail, with many a spot and patch of blood, that had dropped from the cuts and scars of his companions.

Taking advantage of the lull in the hostilities, Morley, Bartelot, and Noah Gawthrop added all the missiles that strewed the floor to the barricade behind the cabin-door; Mr. Foster procured more caps and ammunition for their fire-arms; Heriot prepared plasters and bandages for their flesh wounds and bruises, while Mr. Basset and the captain took some wine-and-water, with biscuits, to Ethel, Rose, and their old attendant, as the only breakfast they had to offer. After this, unknown to their fair friends in misfortune, Morrison and Foster made preparations to launch the mortal remains of the poor mate into the deep.