"What ship is that?" inquired George.

"His Britannic Majesty's brig—" (name unintelligible). "What ship is that?"

"The Aurora, of London. Why are you out of your station, and without lights, sir? Is there anything wrong?"

"Yes," was the reply, "but don't hail any more; there are enemies at hand. I will sheer alongside you presently, and tell you what to do."

"Enemies at hand, eh!" muttered George. "What can it mean, I wonder? And if there are enemies, by which, I suppose, they mean Frenchmen, in our neighbourhood, those man-o'-war fellows must have eyes like owls to be able to see them in the dark. Just step down into the cabin, if you please, Mr Ritson, and give the mate a call; I don't half like this."

In little more than a minute Mr Bowen was on deck and listening to George's statement of what had already passed, and of his uneasiness. George had just finished speaking, when there was a sound as of a falling handspike, or something of the kind, on board the stranger, followed by a loud ejaculation of—

"Sacr-r-r-r-re nom de—"

The remainder of the exclamation was promptly suppressed, but it was enough; George's suspicions were now fully aroused, and he whispered to the two men standing by him—

"She is French, beyond a doubt; they intended to surprise us, and very nearly they did it, too. But we will not be caught quite so easily this time. Ritson, go forward, rouse the men, and tell them to creep aft under the shelter of the bulwarks; let not one of them show so much as a hair of his head above the rail; and tell them to look lively. And you, Mr Bowen, be good enough to go below and bring up a cutlass apiece for all hands."



CHAPTER FIVE.

"CHOPPEE FOR CHANGEE—A BLACK DOG FOR A BLUE MONKEY."

By the time that the Aurora's crew were on deck, crouching behind the bulwarks aft on the port side, armed, and instructed by George as to what he required of them, the strange sail was within a dozen fathoms of the Aurora's port quarter.

She could now be seen with tolerable distinctness, the outline of the hull and of the lofty canvas showing black as ebony against the dark background of sea and sky; and any doubts which Captain Leicester might have still entertained concerning her, were completely set at rest as he glanced at the cut of her canvas. It was French all over.

Foot by foot the brig—for such she was—crept up to the Aurora, until her bows were in a line with the barque's stern and not more than twenty feet distant. George stood by the main-rigging, watching her, cutlass in hand, calm and determined, his plans already formed for action in the event of his suspicions proving correct.

In the ordinary course of things the two craft were now quite near enough to each other for any communication, however confidential in its nature, to be made without the possibility of its being overheard; but, though George could see that a figure stood on the brig's rail by the main-rigging, not a word was uttered.

Keeping his gaze steadfastly fixed upon the brig, Captain Leicester saw that her helm had suddenly been ported, for she was sheering strongly in toward his own vessel.

"Brig ahoy!" he hailed. "What is it you have to say to me? Do not come too close, sir, or you will be into us."

"Never fear," answered in perfect English the dark figure on board the brig, "we will not carry away so much as a rope-yarn belonging to you. But I must be on board you before I can venture to give you your instructions."

"Oh! very well," said George. "If you intend boarding us, you had better do so by way of our fore-rigging, or you may get a nasty fall; we are very much littered up here abaft with spars and so on."

"Ah, thank you very much; I will take your advice," was the reply.

George saw the man motion with his arm, and the brig's course was altered sufficiently to put her alongside with her gangway even with the Aurora's fore-mast. Another second or two, and the ships gently jarred together, the brig's quarter dropping alongside the barque at the same moment.

"Enfans, allons-nous-en!" exclaimed the voice of the stranger forward, followed by the sound of a leap on to the barque's deck, and a scramble among the spars which littered it there.

"Now is your time, lads; jump for your lives!" exclaimed George in a low, excited tone; and, setting his men the example, he forthwith sprang from his own ship's bulwarks to those of the brig; and dashing at the helmsman, cut him down with his cutlass before the fellow could recover sufficiently from his astonishment to utter a cry. Then, without a moment's pause, he seized the wheel and exerting all his strength, sent it with a single twirl spinning hard over to starboard, where he lashed it.

The shock of collision, slight as it was, caused the two vessels to recoil from each other, and they were barely alongside when they separated again; George's manipulation of the brig's wheel, and a similar manipulation of the Aurora's helm at the last moment before the touching of the two vessels, greatly expediting the separation. By the time, therefore, that George had looked about him, and satisfied himself that the whole of his crew were safely with him on the brig's deck, the two vessels were a dozen feet apart and increasing their distance every second; their bows diverging from each other at almost a right angle.

The Frenchmen, on boarding the Aurora, divided into two parties, one of which rushed forward to secure the crew, while the other made a similar rush aft, for the purpose of overpowering the officers and helmsman. In their astonishment and perplexity at finding the decks deserted, they paused for a moment irresolutely, then hurriedly searched the cabin and forecastle, only to find that the ship was utterly deserted. Then, for the first time, a glimmering of the truth presented itself to the mind of the French leader, and his suspicions were instantly confirmed; for Captain Leicester, having at that moment rallied his crew, led them forward, and, finding that, as he had expected, the Frenchmen had boarded the Aurora with all their available strength, leaving only some five-and-twenty men on board the brig to handle her, he, after a short, sharp tussle, drove these men below and secured complete possession of the brig.

The party on board the Aurora distinctly heard the sounds of the conflict, and waited in breathless expectancy for its termination. They had not long to wait; in little over a couple of minutes Captain Leicester's voice was heard giving the order to shift the helm—the brig having in the meantime gone round until she was head to wind with her canvas flat aback—and to trim over the head-sheets. Then a chorus of curses, both loud and deep, from the deck of the Aurora, proclaimed the chagrin of the Frenchmen on board her at the—to them—extraordinary and unforeseen result of the adventure.

But their captain was a man of indomitable pluck, energy, and readiness of resource, and by no means given to a tame and immediate acceptance of defeat. He realised the situation in a moment, and, determining to make the best of a bad bargain, promptly ordered sail to be crowded upon the Aurora, in the hope of effecting his escape. The night being dark, however, and his men new to the ship, the work went on but slowly; and by the time that the topgallantsails were sheeted home, his own brig was once more alongside, with two red lights hoisted to her gaff-end (the alarm-signal), her ports open, guns run out, and the men standing by them ready to open fire.

As she drew up abreast the Aurora, George hailed—

"Barque ahoy! Let fly your sheets and halliards at once, and surrender, or I will fire into you!"

"All right," was the reply from the French captain; "you have won the game, monsieur, so I will not attempt to rob you of the credit of victory. You managed the affair exceedingly well, mon ami, and have taught me a lesson I shall remember for the rest of my life. You may come on board and take possession as soon as you like."

He then gave the necessary orders in French to his crew; the halliards and sheets were let fly on board the Aurora, George reducing sail at the same time in the brig, and the two vessels, losing way, began gradually to drop into the rear portion of the convoy.

Captain Leicester did not, however, accept the French captain's invitation to go on board and take possession once more of his own ship; that proceeding would have been just a trifle too risky. He had the game in his own hands, and intended to keep it there; so he quietly waited until one of the men-o'-war should come alongside, as he knew would soon be the case, in response to his signal.

In a short time another brig was seen approaching under a perfect cloud of sail, an unmistakably English gun-brig this time, however. Sweeping up on the port quarter of George's prize, an officer sprang into the main-rigging, and hailed—

"Brig ahoy! What brig is that?"

"The Jeune Virginie, French privateer," answered George. "She managed, somehow, to slip in among the fleet unobserved in the darkness, and threw a heavy boarding-party in on the deck of my vessel—the Aurora I suspected her designs just in time, however, and as her crew boarded me, I boarded her, and succeeded in taking possession; the two ships separating immediately and thus preventing the return of the French to their own craft."

"Ah, I see," remarked the officer. "You effected an exchange of ships—'choppee for changee—a black dog for a blue monkey,' eh? And now you want us to get your own ship back for you?"

"Not exactly," answered George with a laugh; "I have already forced her to surrender; that is the craft—the barque immediately under my lee. But I shall feel obliged if you will take charge of the prisoners, and lend me sufficient men to navigate my prize into port."

"Um; well, I really do not quite know about that. I will man your prize for you to-night; but you must see the commodore about the matter in the morning; if he will authorise me to lend you a prize-crew, of course I shall be very happy. By the way, where did the Frenchman come from?"

"When I saw the craft first, she was about a couple of cables' lengths directly astern of us," answered Leicester.

"She was, eh!" remarked the officer. "Well, there will be a pretty row to-morrow about her being allowed to slip in undetected. I will send a boat on board your own ship at once, to remove the prisoners; and, that done, I will tell off a crew to man your prize for you."

This was accordingly done, and an hour after the arrival of the Throstle upon the scene, George and his crew were once more comfortably established on board their own ship.

On the following morning the affair was officially reported to the commodore, who put himself into a tremendous passion about it, declaring that such an occurrence reflected indelible disgrace upon the whole British navy, and that he would bring to court-martial every one of the officers belonging to the convoying ships;—which, however, seeing that at bottom he was a fine, good-hearted old fellow, he never did. And after abusing everybody else, he sent for George, complimented him upon his gallantry publicly on the quarterdeck of the Tremendous, offered to obtain a commission for him (an offer which our hero was foolish enough to decline), and gave his hearty consent to the proposed borrowing of a prize-crew.

But the affair did not by any means end here; for on the following night, which was almost as dark as the preceding one, three ships belonging to the merchant-fleet under convoy gave an unusual and altogether extraordinary amount of trouble to the captains of the gun-brigs by their persistent straggling; and, suspicion being at length aroused, they were all found to be in the hands of French prize-crews, having been surprised and captured by the Jeune Virginie immediately prior to her unsuccessful attempt upon the Aurora. Had they been only a little less anxious to effect their escape, they might, as the event proved, have accomplished it without the slightest difficulty.

About 2 p.m. on the day following the recapture of these three vessels, the weather being at the time stark calm, with an overcast sky, the signal to "shorten sail and prepare for bad weather," was exhibited on board the commodore's ship—the old Tremendous. It was very difficult to make out the signal, the flags hanging from the masthead in such close, motionless folds that it was almost impossible to identify them; so, after a long and anxious scrutiny of them through his telescope, George, thinking he must surely have misinterpreted the message, dived below to take a look at his barometer. A single glance at it was sufficient to show him that he was not mistaken, the mercury having fallen a full inch in little more than two hours.

When he returned to the deck again, which he did immediately, the various ships were lying with their heads all round the compass, the merchantmen showing no signs that they understood the signal; but on board the men-o'-war the crews were seen to be very busy reefing topsails; the topgallant and royal-masts and yards being already sent down on deck.

Captain Leicester lost no time in following their example, as far as he was able. To send down on deck any of his top-hamper, with his limited crew, was of course quite out of the question, but he called all hands, and, hurrying them aloft, set them to work, first to furl all the light upper canvas, and then to close-reef both topsails. This done, he ordered them to furl the main and fore courses, which were already clewed up.

Part of the crew were already on the main-yard, and the remainder, having completed the reefing of the fore-topsail, had descended from aloft forward and were on their way up the main-rigging to assist in the stowing of the main-sail, when a heavy black, threatening-looking cloud-bank, which lay stretched along the western horizon, was seen to suddenly burst open, revealing a broad copper-tinted rent, which widened with alarming rapidity.

George's quick eye detected the change in an instant, and knowing what it meant, and that there was no time to lose, hailed the crew with a loud shout of—

"Now then, my lads, look alive aloft there, and toss up that main-sail smartly. If you are quick about it, you may yet get the gaskets round it before the gale strikes us; if you are not, we shall lose the sail, and very probably some of you, too."

The men answered with a cheery "Ay, ay, sir," and set to work with a will, Leicester and the chief mate springing aft to the wheel at the same moment.

In the meantime the broad yellow rent in the clouds to the westward had spread very considerably, the vapour overhead had gathered way, and was scudding rapidly across the sky in an easterly direction, and already, upon the western horizon, a long, rapidly advancing line of white foaming water gave unmistakable indications of the close proximity of the hurricane. The old Tremendous now did what she could to hurry up the laggards, by firing rapid signal-guns; and the crews of the several ships, waking up at last, were seen swarming aloft, when it was too late, to shorten sail.

The Aurora was lying with her head pointed to the southward, with her starboard broadside presented square to the wind, when the gale first struck her. Her skipper, anxious to save his canvas, if possible, kept his men aloft as long as he dared, urging and encouraging them with his voice to exert themselves to their utmost; but when he saw the old Tremendous bow under the first stroke of the blast as though she meant to "turn the turtle" altogether, he thought it was high time to look to the safety of his crew.

"Make fast, and come down at once, lads," he shouted; "down with you, for your lives; the canvas must take care of itself now."

Startled by the anxious sharpness of the hail, the men hurriedly knotted the gaskets, just as they were, and scuttled in off the yard like so many frightened squirrels.

They were all in the main-rigging when the hurricane burst upon the ship. With a terrific, unearthly streaming roar it rushed upon her, and the barque, as if conscious of her utter inability to withstand its tremendous strength, instantly went over on her beam-ends, with her lower yard-arms dipping into the water. The men in the lee-rigging were almost completely sheltered by the hull of the ship, and they had therefore but little difficulty in holding on. But they were obliged to remain where they were, the lower portion of the shrouds being buried some eight feet deep in water, thus precluding the possibility of the men descending to the deck; whilst to go aloft again and endeavour to descend to windward, was as much as their lives were worth. They had a practical illustration of this in the fact that two of the men in the weather shrouds were actually torn from their hold, and dashed with such violence against the main-top that one man had his arm, and the other, three of his ribs broken.

Captain Leicester, on seeing the near approach of the hurricane, had, after hailing his men to come down from aloft, lashed the wheel hard-a-starboard, and then, accompanied by Mr Bowen, he hurried away to the foot of the main-mast, where they cast off the starboard fore-braces and hauled in upon the larboard until they had braced the topsail as sharp up as it was possible for two men to get it. The result of this manoeuvre was that, when the gale struck the Aurora, her main-topsail, which was a-shiver, was blown clean out of the bolt-ropes in an instant, as also was the foresail and the partially-stowed main-sail; whilst the fore-topsail was strongly filled at once, and being luckily a new sail, and standing the strain upon it bravely, it quickly began to drag the ship through the water. As soon as she gathered way, her bows began to pay off, and presently she recovered her upright position with a jerk which snapped both her topgallant-masts close off by the caps.

The wheel was now righted, and away the Aurora went, scudding dead before it, under her close-reefed fore-topsail only. The crew now made the best of their way down on deck, the head-yards were squared, and an effort was made to clear away the wreck, two of the men volunteering for, and succeeding in, the dangerous task of going aloft to cut away the fore and main-topgallant rigging.

George now had time to look about him a little, and observe the state of affairs prevailing outside his own ship. On all sides were to be seen ships—men-o'-war as well as merchantmen—scudding, like his own, before the irresistible fury of the gale. Nearly every ship had suffered damage of some sort, either to sails, spars, or rigging; and out of them all, very few had come better out of the first buffet than the Aurora. Here was to be seen a craft with topgallant-masts and jib-boom gone, and her canvas hanging from her yards in long tattered streamers; there another with nothing standing above her lower mastheads; here a barque with her main-yard carried away; there a stately ship with her mizzenmast and all attached still towing astern, and the crew busy cutting away at the rigging which held the shattered spar; here another fine ship, totally dismasted; and there, now far astern, more than one dark object lying low in the water, and but imperfectly seen through the flying spindrift, which George Leicester knew only too well were the hulls of ships which had capsized, and whose crews would be left to perish miserably, since no human power could possibly save them in an hour like that.

It soon became evident to the crew of the Aurora, that though they had so far escaped with comparatively slight damage, they could certainly not regard their ship as by any means free from peril so long as they remained in the company of the rest of the fleet. So many ships scudding together almost helplessly before the fury of the gale could not but prove a very great source of danger to each other, now that it was no longer possible to regulate their rate of sailing; and George soon found himself confronted with a new anxiety, that of being in danger of a collision. The sea was rising with extraordinary rapidity, and the various craft soon began to steer wildly, sheering so rankly, first to one side and then to the other, that many of them threatened to broach-to altogether.

The Aurora was a very smart little vessel under her canvas, as she now proved by keeping pace with two large ships, one of which lay on her port-bow, and the other on her starboard beam. So even was the rate of sailing of the three that neither of them, anxious as each was to accomplish the feat, could draw away from the others; and the strength of the gale was such that it was equally impossible for them either to make or to reduce sail. There they remained, therefore, maintaining exactly the same relative position to each other, now sheering uncontrollably inwards, so that each man held his breath and braced himself for the shock which seemed inevitable, and which, under such circumstances, must result in the total destruction of both ships; and, anon, surging as wildly off in opposite directions.

To add still further to Captain Leicester's embarrassments, the trio of ships were rapidly overhauling a fourth, which was wallowing along dead ahead of the Aurora. She was a large craft, apparently of about eight hundred tons measurement; her three topmasts were carried away close off by the caps; the wreckage was all lying inboard, cumbering up her decks; her courses and staysails were blown to ribbons; and she was steering so badly that it was difficult to say where she was going, except that her general direction was to leeward. George saw that, should he overtake this vessel before getting clear of the two which already hampered him so seriously, a catastrophe was inevitable, and he speedily made up his mind that the Aurora's speed must be sufficiently reduced to allow of her dropping astern and into the wake of one or the other of his present consorts. The only means by which, under the circumstances, this could be accomplished was by sacrificing the fore-topsail; and he accordingly called for a volunteer to assist him in the task. Mr Bowen and the carpenter both proffered their services, and, selecting the latter, and requesting the chief mate to take charge of the deck and superintend the conning of the ship, George went forward, followed by the carpenter, and led the way aloft. Now that they were scudding before it, the strength of the wind was no longer felt to its full extent; it was still powerful enough, however, to make the journey aloft full of peril, and the two adventurers were compelled to make frequent pauses on their way, in order to avoid being blown out of the rigging. At length, however, they reached the yard, and, producing their knives, began to work their way outwards from the mast, one toward each yard-arm, cutting the seizings as they came to them. Their task was soon accomplished; for when half the seizings were cut, the wind saved them all further trouble by carrying away the remainder; the sail gave one terrific flap—which sprung the fore-yard—and then, tearing out of its bolt-ropes, went soaring away ahead of them, like a flake of cloud.

Thus relieved, the Aurora's speed sensibly diminished and by the time that George was once more down on deck, they were able, by watching their opportunity, to sheer in under the stern of the ship which had before lain upon their port-bow, and thus place the Aurora comparatively out of harm's way.

They were only just in time. The ship ahead was overtaken, and, in sheering into her new position, the Aurora was compelled to shave close past the stranger's stern. Glancing up at her as they shot past, with a feeling of deep gratitude at their escape, George saw a little crowd of passengers huddled together upon her poop, like frightened sheep. They were all looking at the Aurora, evidently fully aware of the danger from which they had so narrowly escaped; and among them George suddenly recognised a face which he had more than half hoped he would never see again—the face of his successful rival, as he believed him to be, Lieutenant Walford.

George waved his hand in recognition, the salutation was half reluctantly returned, and then the two craft separated; but not before George had had time to read the name painted on her stern—the Princess Royal, of London.



CHAPTER SIX.

THE MUTINY ON BOARD THE "PRINCESS ROYAL."

It now becomes necessary that we should for a short time forsake the Aurora, and follow the fortunes of the Princess Royal.

At the moment of our making the acquaintance of this vessel a very unsatisfactory state of affairs happened to prevail on board her. She was, as we have already seen, a large ship, as ships went at that time, being of 870 tons register, and capable of carrying close upon 1200 tons dead-weight. She had saloon accommodation for forty passengers, and carried an armament of twelve 9-pounders upon her main-deck, the intention of her owners being that she should fight her own way, if necessary, to and fro across the ocean, and so be independent of convoy.

But on her present voyage this plan had to be abandoned, the activity of the press-gangs, and the consequent scarcity of seamen being such that she cleared out of the port of London with only thirty men in her forecastle; a crew wholly inadequate to successfully defend a ship of her size in the extremely likely event of her encountering an adversary. She was therefore compelled, like many others, to avail herself of the protection of convoy.

Upon her arrival at Plymouth, she, like the Aurora, received a visit from a man-o'-war's boat, which carried off four of her best men, reducing her number of seamen to twenty-six. It will thus be seen that, when she finally sailed out of English waters, she was very short-handed.

Now, as Jack is to this day, so he ever has been—an inveterate grumbler; he will find something to growl about. It is not to be wondered at, therefore, that, with such good cause, there should be constant dissatisfaction in the Princess Royal's forecastle.

But though Jack is, and always has been, such a grumbler, and though probably nothing on earth will ever cure him of this habit—for habit only it is—yet, even where there is good and sufficient cause for discontent, a little judicious management, forbearance, and sympathy will prevent the mischief from going any further.

Unfortunately, however, for the Princess Royal and all connected with her, the measures adopted by those in authority on board her for the suppression of this quickly-discovered spirit of discontent were the extreme opposite of judicious. The master—as is sometimes the case with masters of very fine ships—was haughty and overbearing, possessed of a highly-exaggerated opinion of his own importance, turning a deaf ear to all the complaints of his crew, and treating them with an impatience and superciliousness of manner which made him heartily detested. The chief mate, an arrant sycophant, taking his cue from his superior officer imitated him to the utmost extent of his ability, with a like result; while the second mate was a blustering bully, whose great pride and boast it was that he could always make one man do the work of two. Hence, from the very commencement of the voyage, the quarterdeck and the forecastle, instead of pulling together and making an united effort to overcome the difficulties of their position, rapidly grew to regard each other with mutual feelings of enmity and distrust.

Matters had consequently, as might be expected, been steadily growing from bad to worse, from the first moment of sailing; and on the day before the gale a very unpleasant incident had occurred on board.

It arose in this way. On the second mate's watch being called, one of the men remained in his hammock, sending word by one of his shipmates to the officer of the watch that he was ill and unfit for duty. The second mate, instead of reporting the circumstance to the master, and having it inquired into, as was the proper course, jumped at once to the conclusion that the man was merely feigning sickness, in order to avoid the performance of his proper share of work; and, taking the matter into his own hands, he proceeded to the forecastle, armed with a "colt," and, dragging the unhappy seaman out of his hammock, drove him on deck, abusing him roundly the while in no measured terms, and setting him to work to grease the main-mast, from the truck downward.

The poor fellow, who was really ill, procured a pot of grease and started up the rigging, but, finding himself wholly unequal to the task of going aloft, descended again, and proceeding aft to the poop went up to the captain, who happened to be standing conversing with some of the passengers, and requested to be released from duty, repeating his plea of illness. The second mate had, however, in the meantime mentioned the matter to the captain, putting his own construction upon it; the request was therefore harshly and hastily refused, the refusal being accompanied by the assertion that the pleader was a mean, skulking, mutinous rascal, not worth his salt.

Lieutenant Walford happened to be one of the passengers standing near at the moment, and, as the dissatisfied seaman turned away, Walford turned to the captain and said—

"We in the army have a very short and simple method of dealing with fellows like that—we flog them; and, I assure you, it proves a never-failing cure."

The sick man heard this remark, so did the man at the wheel, and from that moment Walford was a marked man.

The captain turned round sharply.

"Do you?" said he. "Then by Jove I'll see if it will prove equally efficacious here. Mr Thomson, have that man seized up to a grating, and give him two dozen; I'll be bound he'll be well enough to go aloft after that; if he isn't, he shall have another couple of dozen."

Thomson, the second mate, at once sprang upon the man, and, seizing him by the collar, ordered the boatswain to call all hands.

This was done. The men were drawn up in the waist of the ship on the lee-side, the sick seaman was seized up at the lee gangway, and in the presence of all on board (except the ladies, who retired to the saloon in indignation and disgust) the unhappy man received his two dozen.

But here a further widening of the breach between the officers and the crew of the ship took place. The individual appointed to administer the flogging was the boatswain's mate, a great brawny Cornishman, named Talbot. This individual, when all was ready, bared his muscular right arm to the shoulder, and, grasping the cat firmly, measured his distance accurately with his eye; then stood waiting the command to begin. The captain, the mates, Walford, and one or two more of the on-lookers smiled their satisfaction as they witnessed these elaborate preparations for the infliction of a severe flogging; and the captain, willing to prolong the man's suffering as much as possible, allowed a long pause to ensue before giving the word.

At length he nodded to Talbot, who at once took a step back, and, giving the tails of the cat a mighty flourish in the air, brought them down upon the man's naked shoulders so gently that an audible laugh broke spontaneously from the entire crew at the ludicrous sight. The captain turned livid with fury.

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

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

"Put that fellow in irons at once!" shouted the captain, "and let him have no food except bread and water until further orders. You hear, steward? If he has anything more, I will make you responsible for it. I will teach him—and everybody else—that when I give an order, I will have it obeyed. Now, Rogers," to the boatswain, "take the cat, and give that skulking rascal at the grating the two dozen he so richly deserves."

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

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

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

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

The second mate waited for no more, but, whipping off his coat and rolling up his shirt-sleeves, snatched the cat out of Rogers' hand, and began at once to administer the punishment.

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

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

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

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

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

At dinner that evening the captain was urged by some of the passengers to represent to the commodore of the convoying squadron the insubordinate condition of the crew, and to request his assistance. This, however, he positively refused to do, roundly asserting his ability to command his own ship; but, as a matter of fact, the only reason for his reluctance to take this step arose out of the conviction that an inquiry would certainly follow as to the causes of the insubordination, from which inquiry, as he was very well aware, he and his officers could hope for nothing but a complete revelation of their own culpability.

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

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

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

The first thing to be done in the way of shortening sail, therefore, was to take in the studding-sails, which the crew, not being then aware of the danger which threatened the ship, proceeded to do in a very leisurely and deliberate fashion. Their next task was to haul down the smaller staysails, then to clew up and furl royals and topgallantsails. They were all aloft, in the act of stowing these sails, when the hurricane burst upon them. They fortunately saw its approach in time to save themselves, and, leaving the canvas drooping loose from the yards, hurriedly descended to the deck by way of the backstays, and were scarcely there when, with the first furious rush of the wind, the three topmasts went, one after the other in quick succession, the wreckage falling on deck and lumbering it fore and aft.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The second mate was not in the habit of speaking twice to those under him, and he did not attempt to do so now. Drawing his knotted "colt" out of his pocket, he descended the poop-ladder, and hurried forward as fast as the heavy rolling of the ship would permit, determined to teach the "howling thieves" a lesson they would not readily forget.

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

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

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

"What the deuce?"

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

"Very neatly managed," remarked Talbot approvingly, as his gaze rested on the prostrate figure on the deck. "Now, mates, what's the next move? Come, Ned," to the boatswain, "you're to be our new skipper, you know; give us your orders, cap'n, and we'll be 'yours obejently.'"

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

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

The seamen having paraded on deck, and been, with the aid of a lantern, carefully inspected by the boatswain to ascertain that there were no recreant spirits among them now that the crisis had arrived, each man— excepting a half-dozen left in charge of the deck—was provided with a short length of well-stretched ratline, carrying which, they proceeded in a body to the saloon, and, entering the state-rooms, surprised in their sleep and secured without difficulty the whole of the male passengers, pinioned them firmly, and then, after depriving them of such weapons as they happened to possess, locked them up in their own cabins. The ladies were only disturbed so far as was necessary to make them acquainted with the fact that the ship had changed hands, and that, if they had only the good sense to acquiesce in the arrangement, they would be perfectly unmolested. The cook and stewards were also called, and, having been left in ignorance of the proposed mutiny lest they should inadvertently let the secret slip, addressed in somewhat similar terms; whereupon they at once declared their readiness to throw in their lot with the mutineers, and were forthwith sworn in.

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



CHAPTER SEVEN.

LIEUTENANT WALFORD FINDS HIMSELF IN AN EXCEEDINGLY UNPLEASANT POSITION.

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

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

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

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

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

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

"Very well," assented Rogers, "bring him along, too, mates; I intended to take him by hisself, but it don't matter; bring the whole four of 'em."

In a few minutes Captain Arnold, Nicholls the chief mate, and Thomson the second mate, with Lieutenant Walford, were ushered into the saloon, handcuffed, and guarded by eight armed mutineers.

"The prisoners is before the court," announced Talbot, in a loud voice, anxious to make the proceedings partake as much of the character of a ceremonial as possible.

The four men were then ordered to range themselves in line at the foot of the table, an order which, after a little hesitation, they sullenly obeyed.

Meanwhile, the mutineers, having been served with tobacco and brandy, had lighted their pipes and provided themselves, each man, with a stiff rummer of grog. A cursory observer would possibly have thought the scene grotesque; but the four men ranged at the foot of the table speedily detected in the countenances of their self-constituted judges, an expression of stern determination which caused their hearts to sink and their cheeks to blanch with sudden fear.

A low-toned consultation now ensued between Rogers and those nearest him, in which Talbot was summoned to take part. At its conclusion the latter withdrew a little apart, and Rogers, turning to the captain, said—

"Robert Arnold, yours is the first case. Who is the prosecutor?"

"I am," answered Talbot, "on behalf of the whole crew."

"Very good," acquiesced Rogers. "Benjamin Talbot, state y'ur case."

Upon this, Talbot stepped up to the cabin-table and said—

"On behalf of the whole crew of this here ship—the Princess Royal—I charges Robert Arnold, late skipper of the same, with havin' treated all hands before the mast in a most onjustifiable manner. As you're fully aweer, shipmates, we was short-handed when we left London; and at Plymouth the men-o'-war robbed us of four of our best hands, makin' us more short-handed still. Very well. Now what's the dooty of a skipper to his crew under such sarcumstances as this here? Why, I say his dooty is to make things as easy as possible for 'em. Instead o' which this here Robert Arnold, the prisoner as we're tryin', he goes and expects us to do as much work, and to do it as smartly, as if the ship was fully manned. And because we couldn't do it—as it stands to reason we couldn't—he goes and makes extra work for us by way of punishment; he robs us of our a'ternoon watch below; he stops our grog; he tyrannises over us in every imaginable way; he treats us like dogs and not like men, abusin' and bullyin' us, and goin' out of his way to hurt our feelin's; he refuses to listen to our just complaints; he encourages the first and second mates to sarve out to us the same sort of treatment as he gives us hisself, instead of takin' our part and treatin' us with justice; and he does all this not once in a way only, but from the very commencement of the v'yage. And, lastly, he orders a sick man to be flogged; laughs at the poor chap's sufferin's; and refuses to sarve out the necessaries to dress his wounds a'terwards. That, shipmates, is the charge I brings against Robert Arnold."

"You hears the charge agin the prisoner, shipmates all?" observed Rogers, glancing round the table. "Ben Talbot brings this here charge in the name of all hands; so, if there's any of yer as disagrees with what he've said, just stand up like men and say so."

A profound silence followed, no man making the slightest sign or token of dissent. "Very well," resumed Rogers; "nobody don't seem to have anything to say agin the charge. Now, you that agrees with Talbot, and thinks as he've stated the case fairly, hold up y'ur hands."

Every hand was at once and unhesitatingly raised at arm's length.

"Unanermous," pronounced Rogers. "Now, Robert Arnold, you've heard what's been charged agin yer, and you've seen that all hands of us agrees that the charge is just. What have yer got to say in y'ur defence?"

"Nothing," answered the captain; "except that I utterly disclaim your right to sit in judgment upon me or to criticise my actions in any manner whatsoever. Your conduct is in the last degree illegal and unjustifiable. You are a pack of mutinous scoundrels; and I warn you that a terrible punishment will surely overtake you if you persist in your defiance of my authority. If, however, you will return to your duty and deliver up to us, your duly appointed officers, the ringleaders in this disgraceful mutiny, I will undertake to overlook this most serious offence, so far as the rest of you are concerned."

"You hear what the prisoner says, shipmates," observed Rogers calmly. "Do you consider as he've made good his defence? Is it your opinion as he've justified hisself? Them as thinks he have, hold up their hands. Them as thinks he haven't, stand up."

The self-constituted judges with one accord rose to their feet.

"That'll do; you may sit down agin," remarked Rogers. "The prisoner is found guilty. The next question to be settled is the matter of punishment. Now, there's a many ways of punishing a man, some on 'em more severe than others. The most severest as I knows is death; death by hangin' from the yard-arm. Them as thinks the prisoner Arnold deservin' of this punishment, hold up their hands."

Two or three hands were hesitatingly raised, and, after a slight pause, lowered again.

"Do I understand as everybody thinks hangin' too severe?" inquired Rogers, glancing slowly round the table. "I do,"—as no hands were shown. "Well then, let's try something else. Perhaps, shipmates, some of yer's got a hidee as you'd like to put afore the court? If so, let's hear what it is."

"I thinks as it would be no more nor he desarves if we was to treat him for the rest of the v'yage as he've treated us from the beginnin' of it. He'd know then what it's like, and if he lives long enough to get the command of another ship, maybe he'll then know better how to treat his crew," observed one of the men.

"Not at all a bad idee," commented Rogers. "You've heard what Phil says; what d'ye think on't?"

"I thinks it's a capical notion," remarked one.

"I'm agreeable," intimated another.

"Ay; let's see how he likes that sort of thing hisself," remarked a third.

And so on; all hands intimating their concurrence in the suggestion.

"Wery good," remarked Rogers, when all had spoken. Then, turning to the captain, he said—

"Robert Arnold, the sentence of this here court is that you'm to be turned for'ard and conwerted into a 'hordinary seaman,' to do a hordinary seaman's dooties, and to receive just exactly the same treatment as you've sarved out to the hands since this here ship sailed from Hold England, namely, more kicks than ha'pence. And the Lord have mercy on yer miserable carcase!"

He paused for a moment on concluding this—in his opinion—impressive address, and then ordered that Arnold should be removed to the forecastle, and the chief mate brought forward.

This was done, and as Nicholls, the chief mate, stepped forward in answer to his name, his ashy pale face, his trepidation of manner, and his imperfect articulation all showed him to be labouring under a very agony of fear.

The charge against him was also preferred by Talbot in pretty much the same language as was used by that individual in his charge against the captain; the accusation in the present case, however, being to the effect that Nicholls, occupying as he did the influential post of chief mate, had, instead of using his influence with the captain to make matters as agreeable as possible for the men, countenanced, aided, abetted, and encouraged his superior in the adoption of a harsh and tyrannical course of conduct. Upon this charge he was found guilty; and his sentence was similar to that of the captain's, with the addition that he was to receive at the gangway twenty-five lashes, well laid on.

Thomson, the second mate, was now called forward; and the yell of fiendish delight which greeted him as the bully staggered up to the cabin-table, fairly caused his teeth to chatter with affright.

The charge against him was made by Talbot, who plunged eagerly into his task with a manifest gusto which had been well suppressed in the previous cases. The indictment was very similar to that preferred against Nicholls; but, in addition to all that the latter had been charged with, Talbot rapidly enumerated a long list of wanton cruelties and petty tyrannies which had sprung spontaneously and unprompted as it were from the second mate's own evil nature. At the conclusion of Talbot's address the men, without waiting for Rogers to formally charge them, sprang eagerly to their feet and clamorously declared the prisoner guilty.

The question of punishment was then referred to by Rogers; and the moment that he ceased to speak, the shout of "Death! Death! Hanging from the yard-arm," rang through the cabin. "And let him have five dozen at the gangway before he's strung up, just by way of payin' off Dicky Rudd's debt with interest," added a voice. The suggestion was carried by acclamation; and the miserable man was informed that the sentence against him would be carried into effect at the conclusion of the trial of the fourth prisoner, Lieutenant Walford, who was now commanded to stand forward.

Walford stepped up to the cabin-table with an assumption of firmness which was completely belied by the ghastly pallor of his countenance and the convulsive twitching of his white lips. Grasping the table with both hands, he said in a voice which he in vain attempted to render steady—

"Before you proceed any further in this matter I wish to remind you that I am merely a passenger on board this ship, and that I have nothing whatever to do with any quarrel which may exist between you and your officers. I have heard the charges which you have preferred against them, and I am wholly at a loss to understand in what way you associate me with them; you can scarcely suppose, I imagine, that the passengers would regard themselves as called upon to interfere in the management or discipline of the ship; for my own part, I have always considered you quite able to manage your own affairs, and quite capable of putting a stop to any injustice to which you might be subjected; you never appealed to me for help, and you therefore ought not to be surprised if I have held aloof."

He paused here for a moment and glanced anxiously round the table to note the effect of his address, and seeing, by the stern expression on the faces of the men seated at the table, that he had wholly failed to make a favourable impression, he hastily proceeded to add—

"Furthermore, let me remind you that I am an officer and a gentleman, the wearer of his Most Gracious Majesty's uniform, and in virtue of that fact I may claim—I do claim—to be in some sort his Majesty's representative, on board this ship. Any violence or indignity offered to me, therefore, is tantamount to offering the same to the king himself; and, as you are all fully aware, to offer indignity or violence to the king's person is high treason, a crime punishable with death. I hope, therefore, that you will pause and consider well the consequences of any hasty action which your present temporary assumption of power might betray you into, and that, before it is too late, and before you have too deeply inculpated yourselves, you will see the advisability of restoring to me my freedom."

If he expected this appeal to be of any benefit to him he was sorely disappointed, for the gloomy, repellent expression on the faces of his judges, was only deepened by his ill-advised address.

A moment or two of complete silence followed the utterance of his closing words; and then Rogers, looking him straight in the face, said—

"Well, pris'ner, have yer quite finished?"

"Surely I have said sufficient to demonstrate to you the impolicy, as well as the injustice, of making me suffer for the faults of others?" exclaimed Walford.

"Glad you think so," replied Rogers, with a sardonic grin. "Howsoever," he continued, "you may keep y'ur mind easy about one thing; we ain't goin' to make yer 'suffer for the faults of others,' as you calls it; you'll only be made to suffer for faults of y'ur own; and bad enough you'll find that, I reckon. Now, Ben, what's the charge agin this one?"

"I charges him," answered Talbot, "with havin' wilfully spoke the words what got poor Dicky Rudd two dozen lashes at the gangway, when the poor feller was 'most too sick to stand upright. If he hadn't spoke as likely as not the skipper had never ha' thought of it, and, so far as that goes, I believes that all hands of us is agreed that he wouldn't. Therefore I charges this here pris'ner with bein' the man what acshully got poor Dicky his floggin'."

"You hears, pris'ner, what the crew has against yer; what have yer got to say to it?" interrogated Rogers.

Walford had evidently either forgotten all about his ill-advised suggestion, or had believed the crew to be ignorant of it: he seemed to have thought that the utmost extent of the mutineers' complaint against him would be that he had not interfered in their behalf. When therefore he heard the charge against him, and realised the fact that he was wholly in their power, and utterly at their mercy, his courage—which at the best of times was only of a very flimsy and unreliable character— utterly gave way; he involuntarily turned his eyes for a moment upon the miserable second mate; recalled the fact that the wretched man had been doomed to a speedy and degrading death by the same individuals who were now sitting in judgment upon him; and a shameful panic took possession of him. An uncontrollable shivering fit seized his frame, he was obliged to clench his teeth together, to prevent them from chattering audibly; he glanced wildly round him as if seeking for some means of escape; and, after two or three ineffectual efforts to speak, he managed to gasp out brokenly through his clenched teeth and quivering lips—

"I—I—I give you—my—my sacred word of honour, gen-gentlemen, that I was o-only in—jest. I nev-never believed for a—a moment that Cap-t-tain Arnold would t-take my remark seriously, or I as-sure you I would n-n-ever have uttered it. And besides, I re-real-ly believed that your—friend R-R-udd was—was only sh-h—er—ah—I beg your pardon gentlemen, I sc-scarcely know what I am saying, but—oh, gentlemen I don't be hard upon me—have mercy upon me, for God's sake! Spare my life, and you may do with me what you will."

He ceased, from sheer physical inability to utter another word, and, sinking upon his knees, stretched forth his quaking hands in a mute appeal for mercy.

This disgraceful exhibition of cowardice was almost successful in winning for Walford an ignominious release. The mutineers were so unutterably disgusted that, for a moment, their impulse was to kick him out of the cabin like a craven hound and henceforward ignore his existence. But this impulse lasted only for a moment; they recalled to mind the insolent arrogance with which this same cowering creature had treated them when he deemed himself secure from retaliation; and they determined that, while his miserable life was not worth the taking, he should still receive so salutary a lesson as should effectually deter him from any repetition of the offence for the remainder of his life.

"Well, shipmates," exclaimed Rogers, breaking the painful silence which had followed Walford's shameful appeal, "what d'ye think? Is the pris'ner guilty or not guilty?"

"Guilty!" was the unanimous declaration of the assembly.

"Guilty? In course he is. And what's the punishment to be? Death?"

"Oh, no! Not death—not death, gentlemen. For the love of God, spare my life; I am not fit to die; I am not indeed. You see how young a man I am; why, I have never yet thought about dying. Mercy! mercy!" shrieked the miserable wretch as he grovelled on his knees before them, and sought to clasp the knees of the man nearest him—an attempt which was repulsed with an oath, a look of unutterable loathing, a kick, and a brutal blow on the mouth.

"Come, lads, speak up," urged Rogers, wholly unmoved by the interruption, "say what the punishment's to be, and let's have done with it. I'm sick of this here, I am."

"Well," said Talbot, stepping forward, "I wotes that the prisoner be first made to go and axe poor Dicky's pardon. If he can't get it, why, let's string him up at the yard-arm to balance t'other one. But if Dicky likes to forgi'e him, well, we'll spare his life and redooce his punishment to two dozen at the gangway—same as he got for Rudd—and make him do Rudd's dooty 'til the poor chap's better; arter which the prisoner can be set to do all the dirty work o' the ship. How's that, shipmates?"

"Ay, ay, Ben; that'll do, bo', that'll do fust-rate. And he may thank his lucky stars at bein' let off so precious easy," was Rogers' reply; in which the remainder of the men laughingly acquiesced.

"Then you'd better step this way at once, young feller," remarked Talbot to the miserable Walford, "and see what you can do with poor Dicky. If he won't forgive yer, mind, it's all up with yer."

So saying he opened the door of the state-room in which Rudd was lying, thrust his victim into the apartment, and closed the door upon him.

The state-room into which Walford was thus unceremoniously ushered was divided from the saloon by a bulkhead with a door in it, the upper panel of which was fitted with sloping slats like those of the Venetian window-blinds of the present day; it was perfectly easy, therefore, for an occupant of the state-room to hear all that passed in the saloon, and vice versa. As a matter of fact, Rudd, who was lying in his berth, broad awake, had heard every word uttered during the course of the trial, and shrewdly suspecting that his shipmates were more anxious to thoroughly frighten than to actually hurt their fourth prisoner, and having, moreover, a trifling personal grudge against the man who had secured for him his flogging, he determined to have a little amusement at Walford's expense before according to him the pardon which he knew his shipmates expected of him. When, therefore, Walford staggered up to the side of the berth, and began eagerly and incoherently to stammer forth the most abject apologies and the wildest prayers for forgiveness, Rudd simply growled forth an oath and impatiently flung himself over in the berth with his back to the petitioner. This had the intended effect of causing Walford's apologies and prayers to be reiterated with increased eagerness and incoherence, to the hearty amusement of the men in the saloon.

At length Talbot opened the state-room door, and, thrusting in his head, said roughly—

"Here, come out of that, mister; you've worried poor Dicky quite long enough. If he won't forgive yer, why, he won't, and that settles it. You've had a fair chance to see what you could do with him, and you've failed; we decided to give yer a quarter of a hour, and the time's up; so out you comes; d'ye hear?"

The next moment Walford was seized by the collar, and was being dragged roughly enough out of the state-room, when Rudd, pretending to relent, called out—

"There, take him away, Ben; but don't be too hard on him; I forgives him just this once, and I hopes he won't never do it again."

Walford, upon hearing these words, which seemed to him a reprieve from the very jaws of death, broke away from Talbot's grasp, and, rushing back to the side of the berth, seized Rudd's hand, kissed it wildly, and burst into an uncontrollable passion of tears, in the midst of which he was hustled unceremoniously out on deck.



CHAPTER EIGHT.

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

A moment or two in the open air sufficed to settle in some measure Walford's disordered faculties and to restore to him his reason, of which he had been pretty nearly bereft by the terror of the preceding half-hour.

He found himself in the midst of the—by this time—more than half-intoxicated seamen, none of whom appeared to be paying much attention to him, for they were all talking loudly together, discussing and arranging the details of the punishment of those whom they chose to regard as the two chief offenders.

The men were all greatly excited by the potations in which they had freely indulged during the mockery of a trial in the saloon, and their differences of opinion on some points were so strong that at one moment the proceedings seemed more than likely to be diversified by a pitched battle. Rogers, however, whose head seemed capable of resisting the effects of almost any amount of liquor, interposed between the belligerents, and by a determined exercise of his newly-acquired authority, and by most frightful threats of the chastisement which he personally would inflict on the first man who ventured to disobey him, succeeded at length in restoring some semblance of order. This achieved, he ordered a grating to be rigged in the larboard gangway, and that, when this was done, the chief mate should be seized thereto.

His orders were speedily carried out; and when the man Nicholls, stripped to the waist, was firmly lashed to the grating in readiness to receive his punishment, Rogers ordered that the second mate should be brought to him.

The miserable Thomson was thereupon led before him, and a more wretched spectacle than this man presented it would be difficult to find. His old blustering, bullying, overbearing manner had completely deserted him; the fear of death was upon him; and he shivered like a man in an ague-fit.

"You Thomson," said Rogers, addressing him in a calm matter-of-fact tone of voice, as if what he was about to say had reference only to some trifling everyday affair, "you was present at the trial of that man Nicholls as stands seized up to yonder grating, and you knows the punishment as it was decided for to give him. It was five and twenty lashes, well laid on; you hears that, well laid on. Wery good. Now, this here same man Nicholls, it seems to me, is in a sort o' way to blame for getting you into your trouble. If he'd been a proper sort of man, understandin' that he owed a dooty to the crew as well as to the owners of the ship, instead of encouraging you in your goin's-on agin us, he'd have took you o' one side, and he'd ha' said to you, 'Look here, Thomson, my good feller, you mustn't be too hard upon them poor sailor-men for'ard; you knows as they don't muster a full-handed crew, and so it don't stand to reason as they can do so much as if they was full-handed; they're a decent enough willin' lot of men, and we mustn't axe too much from 'em. Just keep that in mind, and make things as easy as you can for 'em.' If he'd been a proper sort of man, I say, he'd have said some'at of that sort to you, now wouldn't he? And you'd have listened to him, and then you wouldn't have been in this here precious scrape as you're in now, would you?"

"You're right, Rogers; I should not," eagerly exclaimed Thomson, his eyes lighting up with a gleam of fresh hope, as he thought he detected in the boatswain's speech some signs of relenting. "If Mr Nicholls had only put the matter to me as you have just now put it, I should never have given a single man of you the slightest reason for complaint against me. But he never did anything of the kind; on the contrary, both he and Captain Arnold encouraged me to believe you an idle, worthless lot of scamps, and to treat you as such. And that is the plain, simple truth, I swear it."

"Wery good," commented Rogers. "Then, you see, Thomson, you and us thinks alike, namely, that Nicholls in a kind of a sort of a way led you into this here miserable scrape. That bein' the case, we thinks it'll be only fair if you gives him the twenty-five lashes—well laid on— that the court have condemned him to receive."

Thomson looked eagerly into the face of the boatswain, hoping that in this proposal he saw a commutation of his death-sentence. Rogers returned the gaze with a look of grim satisfaction, which the second mate mistook for a half-drunken leer of benevolence; and, anxious above all things to propitiate this man, who undoubtedly held the power of life and death in his hands, he excitedly exclaimed—

"I'll do it! Give me the cat, and you shall have no cause to complain of the way in which I will execute your sentence."

"All right; that's a bargain," agreed Rogers. Then, turning to the rest of the mutineers, he ordered them to fetch all hands on deck to witness punishment, "All hands exceptin' the ladies, I mean; they'd be shocked at the sight, pretty dears, and we must take care as they don't see nor hear nothin' as'd shock 'em, sweet, delicate creeturs," he added with a contemptuous laugh, which was echoed by his comrades as they staggered forward to drag the male passengers on deck.

In a few minutes these were all mustered, Walford contriving, seemingly without attracting attention, to mingle with them and take up an unobtrusive position, from which he intended, if possible, to quietly effect a retreat at the first convenient opportunity.

When all was at length ready, the scene which presented itself was a sufficiently curious one.

The chief object of the picture was, of course, the figure of the unhappy chief mate, who, naked to the waist, stood firmly lashed to the grating, with arms and legs wide spread in the orthodox attitude of a man about to be flogged. Opposite him, and some four or five feet distant, stood Thomson, his coat and vest laid aside, his shirt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, and the cat in his hand, with the knotted tails prone upon the deck. Around these two figures, in a compact ring, stood the gentlemen passengers and the captain of the ship, a group of unwilling spectators of the outrage about to be inflicted; whilst outside them again, and completely hemming them in beyond all possibility of escape, crowded the half-drunken mutineers, armed to the teeth, and bandying brutal and obscene jests back and forth. Then there was the huge bulk of the disabled ship, surging madly forward like a hunted creature dizzy and reeling with terror, her spacious decks knee-deep in the water which was incessantly pouring in over her bulwarks as she rolled gunwale-under; and for a background the mountainous seas careering swiftly past, with their lofty crests towering high and menacingly all round the ship, and the leaden-hued, stormy sky.

The deep and painful silence which prevailed was broken by Rogers' harsh voice remarking—

"Now, Thomson, you knows your dooty, which is to give the pris'ner on the gratin' five and twenty lashes, well laid on. So go ahead, my man, and let's see if you can't make him yell a bit louder than you did poor Dicky Rudd."

Thomson glanced at the speaker and nodded. The hope which he entertained of an eventual escape from death had thrown him into a state of terrible excitement, bordering almost upon madness; his ghastly pallor had vanished, and was now superseded by a deep purplish tinge, resulting from the violent rush of blood to the head; the veins upon his forehead stood out like cords, his eyes glowed like those of a wild animal, and his jaws were flecked with foam streaked with blood, which trickled from a wound in his lower lip, where in his terrible excitement he had unconsciously bitten it through.

This frenzied creature nodded his comprehension of Rogers' command, and, gathering himself up like an animal about to make a spring, he drew the tails of the cat slowly through his closed left hand, measured his distance carefully, and, making a quick bound forward, brought the nine knotted lashes down upon the mate's naked shoulders with a demoniac strength which seemed to literally bury them in the quivering flesh. The mate responded to this with a sharp yell, which was greeted by the mutineers with mocking laughter, Rogers remarking to Thomson that, "That was pretty well; but, you know, you can do a deal better'n that." The second stroke—but why go further with the description of the sickening scene? Let it suffice to say that when the inanimate body of the mate was cast loose from the grating, it bore the appearance of having been mangled by the teeth and claws of some savage beast rather than by a human being.

"So far, so good," observed Rogers. "That ends act the first. Now, Thomson, it's your turn, you know. Strip, my boy, without makin' any bones about it; and let's see if you can take y'ur punishment any better'n your superior hossifer."

The man spoke in a rallying tone of such geniality that Thomson grew more sanguine than ever as to the remission of the more serious part of his sentence, and, with a ghastly grin in response to Rogers' patronising smile, he began to slowly strip. He even, after drawing his shirt over his head, summoned the courage to walk up to the grating, and, leaning his body upon it, to spontaneously stretch out his arms and legs to the proper position.

When the wretched man was securely "spread-eagled" on the grating, Talbot and another man were ordered to step forward and administer the flogging, which they did, relieving each other at the completion of every dozen lashes, until the entire fifty had been inflicted. The punishment was terribly severe; but the intense excitement under which the second mate laboured enabled him to retain his consciousness throughout, and even to stand without assistance on being cast loose. A stiff "reviver" of grog was administered to him by Rogers' order, and he was then told to dress himself.

The critical moment was now at hand when the miserable Thomson's state of torturing suspense was to cease, when he would know for certain whether these men were actually relentless, or whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving him a good fright.

Hopeful as he was, however, upon this score, he could not help feeling terribly anxious; and it was with the utmost difficulty that he controlled his quaking nerves sufficiently to replace his clothing without assistance. During the time that he was thus engaged, the circle which hemmed him in was maintained unbroken; the mutineers watching his motions with strong interest, and indulging freely in jocular comments and jeering encouragement as he winced and shrank at the chafe of his clothing on his lacerated back and shoulders.

At length he stood once more before them, fully clothed, his eyes glowing like carbuncles, his visage blanched, and his whole frame quivering with pain and the tensity of excitement and suspense.

"Wery good, Thomson; wery good indeed," remarked Rogers approvingly; "you've showed a great deal more pluck than any of us have ever give you credit for—so far. If you only behaves as well for the next ten minutes, we shall feel quite a respec' for y'ur mem'ry. Now, shipmates, and pris'ners all, for'ard we goes, to carry out the second part of the sentence."

At the word, two of the mutineers stepped forward, and, placing themselves one on each side of the second mate, linked their arms in his and led him forward, halting him just beneath the fore-yard; the remainder of the crowd following in a body and forming in a circle round him as before. Then, at Rogers' command, one of the mutineers separated himself from the main body, and in the course of a minute or two was seen leisurely ascending the fore-rigging with a tail-block in one hand and the end of a coil of light line in the other.

Thomson glanced upward at this man, and like a lightning-stroke the conviction flashed upon him that his doom was indeed sealed—that the death-sentence passed upon him was no grim and ghastly piece of jocularity, no hoax practised upon him to test his courage, but that it was spoken in cruel and bitter earnest. For a second or two his heart stood still, his head swam, his sight failed him, and a feeling of horrible nausea oppressed him. He realised at last that he was about to die; that, standing there on that reeling deck as he did in the full strength and prime of lusty manhood, with all his energies mental and physical at their best, the sands of his life had so nearly run out that the few last grains were even now falling in the hour-glass of his fate. Then, in a single instant, the whole of his past life rose up before him, with every thought, word, and deed clearly and sharply reproduced. And, as it did so, the present world and all its concerns, its petty aspirations, ambitions, hopes, and strivings, dwindled away into the most contemptible insignificance; his mental vision cleared; he saw how full had been his life of great and noble possibilities—as are the lives of all of us, would we but allow ourselves to see that it is so— and he saw, too, how completely he had missed his mark; how very far his own evil passions had led him astray from the narrow and seldom-trodden path which, faithfully followed, leads to that highest possible attainment of humanity—True Goodness.

Ah! how bitterly he repented him then of all his lost, or rather his cast-away, opportunities. From his earliest youth he had chosen to follow evil rather than good; he had turned persistently away from the right; and now there was neither time nor opportunity left him for reparation. The utter blankness and uselessness of his life stood revealed to him as one long, unbroken, unanswerable accusation; and, in his mad despair, he suddenly dashed aside the two men who held him in their custody, sprang with a single bound to the rail, and, placing his hands upon the top of the topgallant-bulwark, vaulted clear over it before a single hand could be outstretched to restrain him, and with a yell which evermore rang in the ears of those who heard it, threw up his hands and vanished for ever into the dark and terrible depths of his ocean-grave.

The little crowd of spectators stood for a few moments silent and almost stupefied at this sudden and tragic disappearance of the second mate from their midst. The occurrence was so totally unexpected that it in a measure sobered the mutineers, who regarded each other with some such expression as that of a group of school-boys terrified at the sudden occurrence of some disaster, the result of their own mischievous acts, and each anxious to shift the blame and responsibility from his own shoulders to those of the others.

The first to recover his self-possession was Rogers, who exclaimed with an obviously forced laugh—

"Well, curse me if that ain't a good un! What, in the name of all that's foolish, made the man do that? He might ha' knowed as we was only goin' to frighten him a bit. You'll bear me out, shipmates, that we was all agreed to go no further than the frightenin' of him a bit, and meant to let him off arter we'd made fast the rope, and let him stand with it round his neck a minute or two. Now, ain't them there the facts o' the case?"

"Ay, ay, Ned; you're right, bo'; that's just exactly how't was," was the reply.

"Nevertheless," answered Captain Arnold sternly, "you are as much murderers, every one of you, as if you had hanged the man—as you seemed about to do—or had taken him up and flung him over the side with your own hands. You drove him to his death; his blood is upon your hands; and you will individually be called upon to answer for your accursed deed, if not in this world, certainly in the next."

The men cowered like whipped hounds before the captain's denunciation, which they knew in their inmost souls to be just; for an instant they stood appalled before the awful conviction that they were indeed murderers, none the less guilty because their crime was unintentional; and, but for the swift intervention of Rogers, they would there and then, in their horror and remorse, have yielded up possession of the ship, and returned to their duty. But the boatswain, taking in at a glance the critical state of affairs, and fully realising his own perilous position as the ring-leader in the mutiny, rallied his men by exclaiming—

"There now, belay all that, you Arnold; we wants none of your preachin', and, what's more, we won't have it. And, shipmates, don't you take no notice of what he says; we never meant to take the second mate's life; we'd ha' stopped him from drownin' hisself if we could; and so it's just all gammon to talk about our bein' his—his—murderers. Now march the pris'ners down into the fo'c's'le again; clap the bilboes on 'em; shut down the scuttle upon 'em; and then come aft into the cabin, all hands, and we'll 'freshen the nip.'"

This proposal to "freshen the nip"—or take another glass or two of grog—was eagerly welcomed by the mutineers, who felt that they must have something to dispel those qualms of conscience which so greatly disturbed them; and in another quarter of an hour they were all—with the exception of two men at the wheel and one on the poop, who was supposed to be acting as lookout—once more assembled round the saloon-table, busily endeavouring to drown their sense of guilt in a flood of liquor.

The ladies—who had long before effected a retreat to their own state-rooms, where they had locked themselves in—were for some time allowed to remain unmolested; but when the libations in which the mutineers liberally indulged had at last achieved their desired effect, and the spirits of the men began to rise, one of the most reckless of them proposed that the ladies should be invited to grace the revel with their presence. The proposal was received with acclamation, and the unhappy women were forthwith ordered into the saloon. The poor terrified creatures at first made no response, hoping that if no notice were taken of them the intoxicated mutineers would forget all about them, and leave them in peace. But this hope was of short duration, for the mutineers, drinking deep and rapidly, soon grew excited, and, finding their repeated demands of no avail, staggered to their feet, and, breaking open the state-room doors, dragged forth their victims, compelling them to seat themselves at the same table and partake with them of the liquor with which it was bountifully supplied. The scene which followed is simply too shameful for detailed description. The men, inflamed by drink and rendered reckless by a feeling which none of them could entirely shake off—that they had already offended past all forgiveness—speedily grew more and more outrageous in their behaviour, until the orgie became one of such unbridled licence that one of the ladies—the young and lovely wife of one of the passengers imprisoned in the forecastle—in her desperation drew a pistol from the belt of the man nearest her, and, quickly cocking it, placed the muzzle to her breast, pulled the trigger, and sank upon the saloon floor a corpse, shot through the heart.