The Mutineers Part 18

He paused and again glanced from face to face. "What say, men? Are you with me?" he cried, raising his voice.

Meanwhile Captain Falk, aware that something was going on forward, shouted angrily, "Here, here! What's all this! Come, lay to your work, you sons of perdition, or I'll show you what's what. You, Blodgett, go forward and heave that lead as you were told."

In his hand Blodgett held the seven-pound dipsey lead, but he stood his ground.

"Well?" Falk came down on us like a whirlwind. "Well? You, Hamlin, what in Tophet are you backing and hauling about?"

"I? Backing and hauling?" Roger spoke as calmly as you please. "I am merely advocating that the men take charge of the s.h.i.+p in the name of the lawful owners and according to their orders."

As Captain Falk sprang forward to strike him down, there came a thin, windy cry, "No you don't; no, you don't!"

To my amazement I saw that it was old Blodgett.

"It don't do to insult the dead," he cried in a voice like the yowl of a tom-cat. "You can kill us all you like. It's captain's rights. But, by the holy, you ain't got no rights whatsoever to refuse a poor sailor a decent burial."

With a vile oath, Captain Falk contemplated this new factor in the situation. Suddenly he yelled, "Kipping! It's mutiny! Help!" And with a clutch at his hip he drew his pistol.

"'Heave the lead' is it?" Blodgett muttered. "Ay, I'll heave the lead." He whipped up his arm and hurled the missile straight at Captain Falk's head.

The captain dodged, but the lead struck his shoulder and felled him.

Seeing Kipping coming silently with a pistol in each hand, I ducked and tried to pull Roger over beside Blodgett; but Roger, instantly aware of Kipping's move, spun on his heel as the first bullet flew harmlessly past us, and lithely stepped aside. With a single swing of his right arm he cut Kipping across the face with a rope's end and stopped him dead.

As the welt reddened on his face, Kipping staggered, leveled his other pistol point-blank and pulled the trigger.

For the moment I could not draw breath, but the pistol missed fire.

"Flashed in the pan!" Roger cried, and tugged at his own pistol, which had caught inside his s.h.i.+rt where he had carried it out of sight. "That's not all--that's flashed in the pan!"

"Now then, you fools," Kipping shrieked. "Go for 'em! Go for'em! The bell's struck! Now's the time!"

So far it all had happened so suddenly and so extraordinarily swiftly, with one event fairly leaping at the heels of another, that the men were completely dazed.

Captain Falk sat on the deck with his hand pressed against his injured shoulder and with his pistol lying beside him where he had dropped it when he fell. Kipping, the red bruise showing across his face, confronted us with one pistol smoking, the other raised; Blodgett, having thrown the lead, was drawing his knife from the sheath; Roger was pulling desperately at his own pistol; and for my part I was in a state of such complete confusion that to this day I don't know what I did or said. In the moments that followed we were to learn once and for all the allegiance of every man aboard the Island Princess.

One of the men from Boston, evidently picking me out as the least formidable of the trio, shot a quick glance back at Kipping as if to be sure of his approval, and springing at me, knocked me flat on my back. I felt sure he was going to kill me when he reached for my throat. But I heard behind me a thunderous roar, "Heah Ah is! Heah Ah is!" And out of the corner of my eye I saw the cook, the meat-cleaver in his hand, leaping to my rescue, with Roger, one hand still inside his s.h.i.+rt, scarcely a foot behind him.

The man from Boston scrambled off me and fled.

"Ah's with you-all foh one," the cook cried, swinging his cleaver. "Ah ain't gwine see no po' sailor man done to death and me not say 'What foh!'"

"You fool! You black fool!" Chips shrieked, shaking his fist, "Stand by and share up! Stand by and share up!"

Neddie Benson jumped over beside the cook. "Me too!" he called shrilly.

"Bad luck or good luck, old Bill he done his best and was fair murdered."

Poor Bill! His martyrdom stood us in good stead in our hour of need.

On the other side of the deck there was a lively struggle from which came fierce yells as each man sought to persuade his friends to his own way of thinking:

"Stand by, lads, stand by--"

"----the b.l.o.o.d.y money!--"

"Hanged for mutiny--"

"I know where my bed's made soft--"

The greater part of the men, it seemed, were lining up behind Kipping and Captain Falk, when a scornful shout rose and I was aware that some one else had come over to our side. It was old Davie Paine. "He didn't ought to shame me in front of all the men," Davie muttered. "No, sir, it wa'n't right. And what's more, there's lots o' things aboard this s.h.i.+p that ain't as they should be. I may be poor and ignorant and no shakes of a scholar, but I ain't goin' to put up with 'em."

So we six faced the other twelve with as good grace as we could muster,--Roger, the cook, Blodgett, Neddie Benson, Davie, and I,--and there was a long silence. But Roger had got out his pistol now, and the lull in the storm was ominous.

CHAPTER XVII

MAROONED

That it was important to control the after part of the s.h.i.+p, I was well aware, and though we were outnumbered two to one, I hoped that by good fortune we might win it.

I was not long in doubt of Roger's sharing my hope. He a.n.a.lyzed our opponents' position at a single glance, and ignoring their advantage in numbers, seized upon the only chance of taking them by surprise. Swinging his arm and crying, "Come, men! All for the cabin!" he flung himself headlong at Falk. I followed close at his heels--I was afraid to be left behind. I heard the cook grunt hoa.r.s.ely as he apprehended the situation and sprang after us. Then the others met us with knives and pistols.

Our attack was futile and soon over, but while it lasted there was a merry little fight. As a man slashed at Roger with a case-knife, laying open a long gash in his cheek, Roger fired a shot from his pistol, and the fellow pitched forward and lay still except for his limbs, which twitched sickeningly. For my own part, seeing another who had run aft for a weapon swing at me with a cutla.s.s, I threw myself under his guard and got my arms round both his knees. As something crashed above me, I threw the fellow back and discovered that the cook had met the cutla.s.s in full swing with the cleaver and had shattered it completely. Barely in time to escape a murderous blow that the carpenter aimed at me with his hammer, I scrambled to my feet and leaped back beside Roger, who held his cheek with his hand.

I believe it was the cook's cleaver that saved our lives for the time being. Falk and Kipping had fired the charges in their pistols, and no one was willing to venture within reach of the black's long arm and brutal weapon. So, having spent our own last charge of powder, we backed away into the bow with our faces to the enemy, and the only sounds to be heard were flapping sails and rattling blocks, the groans of the poor fellow Roger had shot, and the click of a powder-flask as Falk reloaded and pa.s.sed his ammunition to Kipping.

"So," said Falk at last, "we have a fine little mutiny brewing, have we?"

He looked first at us, then at those who remained true to him and his schemes. "Well, Mr. Kipping, with the help of Chips here, we can make out to work the s.h.i.+p at a pinch. Yes, I think we can dispense with these young c.o.c.ks altogether. Yes,--" he raised his voice and swore roundly--"yes, we can follow our own gait and fare a d.a.m.ned sight better without them. We'll let them have a boat and row back to Salem. A voyage of a few thousand miles at the oars will be a rare good thing to tone down a pair of young fighting c.o.c.ks." Then he added, smiling, "If they meet with no Ladronesers or Malays to clip their spurs."

Captain Falk looked at Kipping and his men, and they all laughed.

"Ay, so it will," cried Kipping. "And old Davie Paine 'll never have a mister to his name again. You old lubber, you, your bones will be rotting at the bottom of the sea when we're dividing up the gold."

Again the men laughed loudly.

Davie flushed and stammered, but Blodgett spoke out bitterly.

"So they will, before you or Captain Falk divide with any of the rest. Ah!

Red in the face, are ye? That shot told. Davie 'd rather take his chances with a gentleman than be second mate under either one o' you two. He may not know when he's well off, but he knows well when he ain't."

For all Blodgett spoke so boldly, I could see that Davie in his own heart was still afraid of Kipping. But Kipping merely smiled in his mean way and slowly looked us over.

"If we was to walk them over a plank," he suggested, deferentially, to the captain, "there would be an end to all bother with them."

"No," said Falk, "give them a boat. It's all the same in the long run, and I ain't got the stomach to watch six of them drown one after another."

Kipping raised his eyebrows at such weakness; then a new thought seemed to dawn on him. His accursed smile grew broader and he began to laugh softly.