CHAPTER VII.ADRIFT.
As soonas the steward had fastened the hatch of the run, he made his way to the deck. Tom Lark was standing near the mizzen-mast watching the operations of three of the men, who, in obedience to his orders, had commenced to unlash an old half-shattered boat that was secured to the beams, extending crossways above the quarter-deck.
“Come! come! bear a hand there!” he shouted. “We must get the boat alongside as soon as possible. Here, you, steward,” he added, turning to that functionary, “jump up there, and help those men.”
“Ay, ay, sir,” said the Portuguese, in a cringing tone of voice; “me glad to do what you tell me!” and he mounted to the beams.
The lashings were soon unfastened, and, by means of a tackle, which had been rigged over the steerage hatch, a few days previously, the boat was hoisted, and then lowered alongside.
“It leaks bad,” said Driko, who had jumped into the vessel, for the purpose of receiving the oars, and the other articles which Lark had ordered to be passed into it.
“Never mind the leak,” said the giant; “the little craft is good enough for those that are to occupy it. I shall let ’em have some provision for the sake of the gal. That’s what I call equal rights!”
A breaker of fresh water, another of hard bread, together with pork and beef, were accordingly placed in the vessel. Then followed a couple of line-tubs, a boat-sail, and a bucket of tar, with a brush.
“The two rascals can make a tent with them things for the gal. I haven’t any thing againsther, and so don’t see why she shouldn’t be made as comfortable as she can be, considering the circumstances, and according to the law of equal rights.”
The ship was now running at the rate of about seven knots, along the eastern edge of the floe, and, as the boat had been lowered upon the larboard side, it was between the ship and the ice—the latter not being further than five fathoms from it.
“If me may be so bold,” said the steward, obsequiously, to the self-constituted captain, “me would like to ask whether you be going to put de prisoners in de boat?”
“Ay, ay,” answered Lark, roughly; “but why do you ask?”
“Because me wanted to know whether me shouldn’t go into de cabin and tell Miss Alice to get ready, and gag de mouths of dat Stump and Marline.”
“And why should they be gagged?” cried the giant. “You must be mad!”
“Oh, because me t’ink you no like to hear dem—especially dis Stump—talk to you, and call you bad names!” stammered the frightened Portuguese, who readily foresaw that, the instant the hatch was opened, the villainous trick which he had performed, without the sanction of Lark, would be discovered. The reader will, therefore, understand the reason why he wished to obtain the consent of the giant to the measure he had proposed. Should he succeed in doing this, he might make his way rapidly from the run to the spot occupied by the prisoners, and conceal the furnace before the main hold could be opened. The smoke, that had already emanated from the coal, would, of course, be perceived, and would excite much astonishment. But the gags in the mouths of the prisoners would prevent them from betraying the author of the mischief.
Thus far, and no further, extended the hastily-formed conclusions of the Portuguese, who was certainly not a very deep thinker. It did not occur to his confused brain that the gags would at once be taken from the prisoners to enablethemto explain the cause of the smoke, and of their own half-senseless condition!
“Yes, you must be mad!” cried the giant, as he fixed his great, round eyes upon the livid face of the steward; “and I don’t know but what it would be as well for me to set you adrift with the prisoners. That would be equal rights!”
“Oh, no! no!” cried Joseph, trembling from head to foot; “me no like to go with dem. Dey kill me,sure!”
“Very well, then, don’t talk any more about gags, and such nonsense. If you do, I shall think you are mad, and I don’t want any madmen in this ship. Off with the main-hatch, men!” he added, turning to the two islanders at his elbow; “and move about lively, for we’ve lost time enough already.”
He was obeyed with alacrity, but the hold had scarcely been opened, when an exclamation of astonishment from the Kanakas drew the giant to the spot in time to inhale the gas, and to perceive the thin puffs of smoke that curled upward from the hatch.
With a loud oath, he leaped through the opening, and hethen perceived the burning coal, and, also, that his two prisoners were gagged. To pass the heated furnace to the Kanakas, with an order to throw it overboard at once, was, with the mutineer, the work of an instant; then, lifting each of the two prostrate men, one after the other, in his herculean arms, he soon had them placed on deck.
“Now then!” he cried, as he climbed to the combings of the hatch, “take those gags from the mouths of the prisoners.”
The islanders obeyed, and, as soon as the sufferers had recovered sufficiently to speak, Lark addressed them:
“It was against my orders that you were served in the way you have been; for, although I owe you a grudge for disputing my authority, I wouldn’t go to work to satisfy it in any such sneaking manner as charcoal and gags, which ain’t in the vocabulary of equal rights. Who was the man that did this mischief? I wish to know, so that I can punish him.”
“Ay, ay!” cried Stump, for, thanks to an excellent constitution, both himself and his friend were rapidly recovering from the effects of the deadly carbon. “Ay, ay; that’s a square question, and desarves to be squarely answered. In the first place, then, you are parfectly correct when you say that the way we’ve been treated isn’t in the ‘vocalbubblery’ of equal rights. Them that has suffered as we have can be reasonably sartain upon that p’int, and I’ll say, in concluding, that, if I ever get hold of the head of Portuguese Joe—which was the creatur’ that caused all our woes—I shall give it a miraculous punching.”
The eyes of the giant flashed fire, and, rushing aft to the mizzen-mast, near which the steward had stationed himself, he caught the trembling wretch by the throat, and shook him until he was almost senseless.
“You miserable imp! Do you dare to go against the orders of Captain Lark? Do you dare to setmyauthority at defiance? Do you dare—”
“Mercy! mercy! mercy!” shrieked the Portuguese, trembling in every limb. “Me won’t do it any more! Me will do any thing you want me to!”
“If I wasn’t so short-handed, I should blow out your brains!” thundered the mutineer; “but I want every man to work the ship, and so I shall content myself by tying you upin the rigging, and flogging you like a dog! That’s what I call equal rights!”
“No! no! no!” gasped the coward, clasping both hands; “only let me go dis time, and never more will me do what you no like. Me cook for you—wash for you—every t’ing me do, if you let me go!”
But the giant relentlessly dragged the wretch to the mizzen rigging and fastened his wrists to the shrouds.
“And now,” said he, “as soon as I have set the prisoners adrift and have tacked ship, I shall give you a lesson with a rope’s-end that you won’t easily forget!”
The Portuguese continued his cries for mercy; but, without heeding him, the chief of the mutineers now turned, and ordered the New Zealanders to bring the prisoners aft.
“I am going to set you adrift,” he said, addressing the two seamen as soon as he had been obeyed, “and you won’t starve—leastways not just yet, as there’s some provisions in the boat.”
“And Alice!” cried Marline; “you—”
“She’ll go with you,” interrupted Lark, “and there’s the means in the boat to make a tent for her. The craft is stove and won’t hold you long, but you must make the best of it. That’s equal rights!”
“No, blast me if it is!” cried Stump, “and you can’t make it out any way you try. Putting three people in a stove boat is about as unreasonable a thing as can be imagined, seeing as to go down isn’t to go up. You are a parfect humbug, Captain Lark!”
“Silence!” said Lark, sternly, “you are an ignoramus and don’t know any thing about my laws, which I again tell you are all founded upon the great principle of equal rights. This is my ship—you came aboard of it—you rebel against my authority—and I set you adrift in astoveboat to punish you for the mutiny, which is perfect justice, and would be understood as such by any person who, like me, believes in equal rights.”
“Well, shiver me!” replied the shipkeeper, giving vent to a whistle something like the piping of a boatswain’s mate, “if you don’t pull and twist things about in the most lubberly fashion I ever saw,and all for the purposeof making ’em look ship-shape, which they can’t and never will be for all that, sohelp me Stump. Why, skin my eyes! you might as well put a greenhorn in a tub on deck and then insist for a sartainty that he could lift himself clear of the bulwarks by pulling upon the sides of the tub. Them that says the days of miracles is past would be mistaken if the doctrine ‘breeched’ by you was a true one, which isn’t the case, by any means.”
“That’s enough,” said Lark, “that’s enough. The more you talk the more you show your ignorance of the entire subject of our argument. I don’t wish to say any more to you for I perceive that you know nothing of equal rights!” And, turning impatiently away, he ordered one of the islanders to go below and bring Alice to the deck.
“Tell her from me,” said Marline, addressing the man as he was about to depart upon his mission, “to wrap herself up as comfortably as she can, as, thanks to this rascal,” he added, directing an angry glance toward Lark, who received it with the most imperturbable coolness, “she is about to undergo many privations and hardships!”
“God bless the little thing!” ejaculated Stump, in a fervent tone. “It’s a raal shame—blow me if it isn’t, to turn that sweet creatur’ out of house and home, who hasn’t never done nothing to desarve such punishment. I’d lay down my life for her any moment—ay, more than that, I’d give her my pigtail if such a present would do her any good. But you’ll be brought to justice, Captain Lark. Them that acts like you, must be brought to justice in the end!”
“Amen!” answered Lark, ironically, and at that instant his attention was drawn to another quarter by the sudden loud flapping of the ship’s canvas against the masts.
“How do you head there?” he thundered to the man at the wheel.
“No’th, half east, sir—the wind has hauled ahead!”
“Ay, ay, so it has!” cried Lark; “keep her off for the present, White Squall!”
“Ay, ay, sir,” answered the islander, as he put up his wheel.
But, as the vessel fell off, a cracking, grinding sound was heard under the weather quarter, and upon looking over the rail, the mutineer perceived that that part of the ship had swung against the ice, forcing into it the boat alongside witha power that caused the already injured planks to give way in several places.
“Unhook the tackle, Driko, and let the boat go. It’s no use now, for it’s stove so bad that it wouldn’t float an infant. We’ll set the prisoners adrift on the ice, and if they choose to fish up the boat, afterward, they can do so. That’s equal rights!”
By the time he concluded, the New Zealander had obeyed his order, and both men watched the boat until it had sunk out of sight among the huge blocks of ice.
“Now then, luff!” shouted Lark to the helmsman.
“Ay, ay, sir!” and down went the helm.
Then, as the ship came into the wind, the giant, with the assistance of Driko, succeeded in backing the main topsail.
A minute later and the vessel had drifted with the current alongside of the floe.
“Now then,” said Lark, as he fastened the lower part of a rope around the breast of Marline, just beneath the arm-pits, “over you go!”
And motioning to the islander to take hold of the other part of the piece of rigging, he passed the still bound harpooner over the ship’s rail, and, cautioning Driko to maintain his hold, let go of his burden. But the rope slipped from the hands of the islander, and as a natural consequence, the young man was precipitated to the ice with a force which, for a few minutes, deprived him of his senses.
He partially regained them in time to see the corpulent body of Stump—bound hand and foot—dangling above him as it was being lowered to the ice, and also the form of Alice Howard, as the young girl, closely wrapped in her fur cloak, and with a pale countenance, was descending the ship’s side by means of the man-ropes and the steps which had been prepared for her accommodation.
The young man raised himself upon his elbow, feeling bewildered, and half inclined to believe that he was dreaming. But the rough voice of Tom Lark, and a far gentler voice uttered at nearly one and the same moment, soon dissipated the mist from his brain, and enabled him to comprehend the truth.
“Round with the yards, men. Lively! lively!”
“Dear Harry, speak to me—are you much hurt?”
Then the vision of the ship fading away in the mist, as she boomed upon her new course, was partially hidden from the eyes of the harpooner by the fair young face of Alice Howard that was bent full of sympathy toward his own, while she proceeded to cut, with his sheath-knife, the cords about his ankles and wrists.
“My own Alice, here on the ice! Heaven help her!” cried Marline, as he threw his arm impulsively around the waist of the sweet girl. “Without shelter—without—”
“Answer me, Harry, are you much hurt?”
“If we could erect some kind of a canopy to cover you—ay, if we could only do that,” continued the harpooner, still, in his anxiety for the comfort of Alice, forgetting to answer her question, “then there would be some consolation in the matter.”
“Youarehurt—badly injured!” murmured the girl, with tears in her eyes, “and that is the reason why you will not reply to me.”
“Hurt? No, indeed—I was only stunned!” And the young man sprung lightly to his feet.
Alice also arose, and placed her hand upon the shoulder of her lover, looking into his face with a bright smile.
“I amsoglad,” she said, “I am happy now!”
“Ay, ay, but blow me if I am!” grunted Stump, who, with his hands and his ankles so closely bound that he was forced to sit in a “doubled-up” position upon the cold surface of the ice, was certainly in an uncomfortable situation. “No, not a bit of it. These quarters are worse than that cursed hold; and if you don’t untie me pretty soon, I shall commit suicide—much as that goes against the Stump nature—by rolling over the edge of the ice into the water.”