Annie o' the Banks o' Dee Part 19

"Bah!" said a Spaniard, drawing his ugly knife. "Let us throat them.

Dead men tell no tales, you know. Take my advice."

But the marooning was finally decided on, and the mutineers retired to their bunks or to their duty.

Little did they know that the cabin-boy, with listening ears, though almost frightened out of his life, was hiding behind the winch and had heard every word they had said.

As soon as it was possible he escaped, and going at once aft, he reported in a frightened whisper all the details of the terrible plot.

"Horrible!" said d.i.c.kson.

"Strikes me," said Hall, "that there must be a Jonah on board, or a murderer. Let us draw for him, putting all names in a hat, and then lynch the fellow!"

"If," said d.i.c.kson, "there be a murderer on board, the fellow is that Finn."

"Seize the scoundrel at once, then," cried Hall, "and throw him to the sharks or put him in irons."

"No, I'll wait, and Williams shall be our spy."

Nearly all the mutineers were in the same watch, only one good man and true being among them. Norman played his game well. He knew that if suspected at all, they would be watched by night, so he chose broad daylight for the awful _denouement_. While the men were below at dinner, those in the cabin all having luncheon, then Norman suddenly gave the preconcerted signal.

The hatches were thrown on in a moment, and screwed down by two men, while the main band rushed aft and secured the saloon door.

"If you value your lives in there," savagely shouted the Finn down through the skylight, as that too was being fastened securely down, "you'll keep quiet."

Hall had both his revolvers out in a trice, and fired; but the skylights were closed, and no harm or good was done.

Next the mutineers threw open the fore-hatch, and at pistol point ordered every man into the half-deck cabin abaft the galley and abaft the sailors' sleeping bunks.

"I'll shoot the first man dead," cried Norman, "who does not look active!"

The communication door was then secured, and all was deemed safe. They would bear north now, and make for the nearest island.

The rum store was near the foot of the stair, or companion, and close to the stewardess's pantry. The key hung there, so more than a gallon of rum was got up and taken forward.

The engineers were told that if they did not crack on, they would be had on deck and made to walk the plank.

The Finn had not meant that any orgie should take place; but take place it did, and a fearful one too. The man at the wheel kept on for fear of death, and so did the engineers.

By twelve o'clock, or eight bells, in the first watch, the fellows were helplessly drunk and lying about in the galley in all directions.

Little Williams, the cabin-boy, had been overlooked. Wise he was indeed, for now he very quietly hauled on the fore-hatch--ay, and screwed it down. Then he went quickly aft and succeeded in releasing the officers. The men were next set free, and the door between secured aft.

In ten minutes' time every mutineer in the s.h.i.+p was in irons. Surely no mutiny was ever before quelled in so speedy and bloodless a manner!

"I knew," said Hall, "that we had a Jonah on board, and that Jonah is the double-dyed villain Christian Norman. Say, Captain d.i.c.kson, is it going to be a hanging match?"

"I am almost tempted to hang the ringleader," replied d.i.c.kson, "but this would be far too tragical, especially with ladies on board. Remember that, be his heart what it may, there is just one little good spot in his character. He dearly loved little Matty, and she loved him."

"Well, sir, what are you going to do about it? I'd like to know that."

"This. I cannot pardon any single one of these villains. The Scotsmen, indeed, are worse in a manner of speaking than the Finns or cowardly Spaniards. I shall mete out to them the same punishment, though in a lesser degree, that they would have meted out to us. Not on the inhospitable snow-clad sh.o.r.es of the Tierra del Fuego islands shall they be placed, but on the most solitary isle I can find in some of the South Pacific groups."

Now things went on more pleasantly for a time. The prisoners were not only in leg-irons, but manacled, and with sentries placed over them watch and watch by night and by day. These men had orders to shoot at once any man who made the slightest attempt to escape.

It was about a week after this, the _Wolverine_ had safely rounded the stormy Cape, and was now in the broad Pacific. A sailor of the name of Robertson had just gone on sentry, when, without a word of warning, Norman the Finn suddenly raised himself to his feet and felled him with his manacled hands. The strength of the fellow was enormous. But the ring of a rifle was heard next minute, and Norman fell on his face, shot through the heart.

He was thrown overboard that same evening with scant ceremony.

"I feel happier now," said Hall, "that even our Jonah is no more. Now shall our voyage be more lucky and pleasant."

Ah! but was it?

The _Wolverine_ was purposely kept well out of the ordinary track of s.h.i.+ps coming or going from either China or Australia. And luck or not luck, after ten days' steaming westward and north, they sighted an island unknown to the navigator, unknown to any chart. It was small, but cocoa-nuts waved from the summit of its lofty hills.

Here, at all events, there must be fruit in abundance, with probably edible rodents, and fish in the sea. And here the mutineers were marooned. Not without fis.h.i.+ng gear were they left, nor without a small supply of biscuits, and just three fowling pieces and ammunition, with some axes and carpenter's tools.

They deserved a worse fate, but d.i.c.kson was kind at heart.

Well, at any rate, they pa.s.s out of our story. On that island they probably are until this day.

Everyone on the _Wolverine_ seemed to breathe more freely now, and the vessel was once more headed eastwards to regain her direct route to California and San Francisco.

For a whole week the breeze blew so pleasantly and steadily that fires were bunked and all sail set. The very s.h.i.+p herself seemed to have regained cheerfulness and confidence, and to go dancing over the sunlit sea, under her white wing-like studding sails, as if she were of a verity a thing of life. Those on board soon forgot all their trials and misery. The mutineers were themselves forgotten. Matty and Oscar (who had recovered from his spear wound) resumed their romps on deck, and surely never did sea-going yacht look more snug and clean than did the _Wolverine_ at this time.

She was still far out of the usual track of s.h.i.+ps, however, though now bearing more to the nor'ard. So far north were they, indeed, that the twilight at morn or even was very short indeed. In the tropics, it is not figurative language, but fact, to say that, the red sun seemed to leap from behind the clear horizon. But a few minutes before this one might have seen, high in the east, purple streaks of clouds, changing quickly to crimson or scarlet, then the sun, like a huge blood orange, dyeing the rippling sea.

At night the descent was just as sudden, but my pen would fail did I try to describe the evanescent beauty of those glorious sunsets.

Light and suns.h.i.+ne are ever lovely; so is colour; but here was light and colour co-mingled in a transformation scene so grand, so vast, that it struck the heart of the beholder with a species of wonder not unmixed with awe. And the beholders were usually silent. Then all night long in the west played the silent lightning, bringing into shape and form many a rock-like, tower-like cloud. It was behind these clouds of the night that this tropical lightning played and danced and s.h.i.+mmered.

Then at times they came into a sea of phosph.o.r.escent light. It was seen all around, but brighter where the vessel raised ripples along the quarter. It dropped like fire from her bows, ay, and even great fishes could be seen--sharks in all probability--sinking down, down, down into the sea's dark depths, like fishes of fire, till at last they were visible only like little b.a.l.l.s of light, speedily to be extinguished.

About this lat.i.tude flying gurnets leapt on board by the score on some nights, and a delightful addition indeed did they prove to the matutinal _menu_. Sometimes a huge octopus would be seen in the phosph.o.r.escent sea. It is the devil-fish of the tropics, and, with his awful head and arms, so abhorrent and nightmarish was the sight that it could not be beheld without a shudder.

The Pacific Ocean! Yes, truly, very often pacific enough; so much so that with ordinary luck one might sail across its waters in a dinghy boat. But there are times when some portions of it are swept by terrific circular storms. Ah! happy is the s.h.i.+p that, overtaken by one of these, can manage to keep well out and away from its vortex.

One evening the sun went down amidst a chaos of dark and threatening clouds, from which thunder was occasionally heard like the sound of distant artillery, but muttering, and more prolonged. The gla.s.s went tumbling down. Captain d.i.c.kson had never seen it so low. The wind too had failed, and before sunset the sea lay all around them, a greasy glitter on its surface like mercury, with here and there the fin of a basking shark appearing on the surface. Even the air was stifling, sickening almost, as if the foetus of the ocean's slimy depths had been stirred up and risen to the surface.

All sail was speedily taken in, and by the aid of oil, the fires were quickly roaring hot beneath the boilers.

Higher and higher rose that bank of clouds, darkening the sky. Then--

"The upper air burst into life!

And a hundred fire flags sheen; To and fro they were hurried about, And to and fro, and in and out, The wan stars danced between."