Frere's fishing expedition had been unsuccessful, and in consequenceprolonged. The obstinacy of his character appeared in the most triflingcircumstances, and though the fast deepening shades of an Australianevening urged him to return, yet he lingered, unwilling to come backempty-handed. At last a peremptory signal warned him. It was the soundof a musket fired on board the brig: Mr. Bates was getting impatient;and with a scowl, Frere drew up his lines, and ordered the two soldiersto pull for the vessel.
The Osprey yet sat motionless on the water, and her bare masts gave nosign of making sail. To the soldiers, pulling with their backs to her,the musket shot seemed the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Eagerto quit the dismal prison-bay, they had viewed Mr Frere's persistentfishing with disgust, and had for the previous half hour longed to hearthe signal of recall which had just startled them. Suddenly, however,they noticed a change of expression in the sullen face of theircommander. Frere, sitting in the stern sheets, with his face to theOsprey, had observed a peculiar appearance on her decks. The bulwarkswere every now and then topped by strange figures, who disappeared assuddenly as they came, and a faint murmur of voices floated across theintervening sea. Presently the report of another musket shot echoedamong the hills, and something dark fell from the side of the vesselinto the water. Frere, with an imprecation of mingled alarm andindignation, sprang to his feet, and shading his eyes with his hand,looked towards the brig. The soldiers, resting on their oars, imitatedhis gesture, and the whale-boat, thus thrown out of trim, rocked fromside to side dangerously. A moment's anxious pause, and then anothermusket shot, followed by a woman's shrill scream, explained all. Theprisoners had seized the brig. "Give way!" cried Frere, pale with rageand apprehension, and the soldiers, realizing at once the full terror oftheir position, forced the heavy whale-boat through the water as fast asthe one miserable pair of oars could take her.
* * * * *
Mr. Bates, affected by the insidious influence of the hour, and lulledinto a sense of false security, had gone below to tell his littleplaymate that she would soon be on her way to the Hobart Town of whichshe had heard so much; and, taking advantage of his absence, the soldiernot on guard went to the forecastle to hear the prisoners singing. Hefound the ten together, in high good humour, listening to a "shanty"sung by three of their number. The voices were melodious enough, and thewords of the ditty--chanted by many stout fellows in many a forecastlebefore and since--of that character which pleases the soldier nature.Private Grimes forgot all about the unprotected state of the deck, andsat down to listen.
While he listened, absorbed in tender recollections, James Lesly,William Cheshire, William Russen, John Fair, and James Barker slipped tothe hatchway and got upon the deck. Barker reached the aft hatchway asthe soldier who was on guard turned to complete his walk, and passinghis arm round his neck, pulled him down before he could utter a cry.In the confusion of the moment the man loosed his grip of the musket tograpple with his unseen antagonist, and Fair, snatching up the weapon,swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. Seeing the sentrythus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, leaptdown the after hatchway, and passed up the muskets from the arm-racks toLesly and Russen. There were three muskets in addition to the one takenfrom the sentry, and Barker, leaving his prisoner in charge of Fair,seized one of them, and ran to the companion ladder. Russen, leftunarmed by this manoeuvre, appeared to know his own duty. He came backto the forecastle, and passing behind the listening soldier, touchedthe singer on the shoulder. This was the appointed signal, and John Rex,suddenly terminating his song with a laugh, presented his fist in theface of the gaping Grimes. "No noise!" he cried. "The brig's ours";and ere Grimes could reply, he was seized by Lyon and Riley, and boundsecurely.
"Come on, lads!" says Rex, "and pass the prisoner down here. We've gother this time, I'll go bail!" In obedience to this order, the now gaggedsentry was flung down the fore hatchway, and the hatch secured. "Standon the hatchway, Porter," cries Rex again; "and if those fellows comeup, knock 'em down with a handspoke. Lesly and Russen, forward to thecompanion ladder! Lyon, keep a look-out for the boat, and if she comestoo near, fire!"
As he spoke the report of the first musket rang out. Barker hadapparently fired up the companion hatchway.
* * * * *
When Mr. Bates had gone below, he found Sylvia curled upon the cushionsof the state-room, reading. "Well, missy!" he said, "we'll soon be onour way to papa."
Sylvia answered by asking a question altogether foreign to the subject."Mr. Bates," said she, pushing the hair out of her blue eyes, "what's acoracle?"
"A which?" asked Mr. Bates.
"A coracle. C-o-r-a-c-l-e," said she, spelling it slowly. "I want toknow."
The bewildered Bates shook his head. "Never heard of one, missy," saidhe, bending over the book. "What does it say?"
"'The Ancient Britons,'" said Sylvia, reading gravely, "'were littlebetter than Barbarians. They painted their bodies with Woad'--that'sblue stuff, you know, Mr. Bates--'and, seated in their light coraclesof skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, must have presented a wildand savage appearance.'"
"Hah," said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable passage was read to him,"that's very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a cory "--a bright lightburst upon him. "A curricle you mean, missy! It's a carriage! I've seen'em in Hy' Park, with young bloods a-drivin' of 'em."
"What are young bloods?" asked Sylvia, rushing at this "new opening".
"Oh, nobs! Swell coves, don't you know," returned poor Bates, thusagain attacked. "Young men o' fortune that is, that's given to doing itgrand."
"I see," said Sylvia, waving her little hand graciously. "Noblemen andPrinces and that sort of people. Quite so. But what about coracle?"
"Well," said the humbled Bates, "I think it's a carriage, missy. A sortof Pheayton, as they call it."
Sylvia, hardly satisfied, returned to the book. It was a littlemean-looking volume--a "Child's History of England"--and after perusingit awhile with knitted brows, she burst into a childish laugh.
"Why, my dear Mr. Bates!" she cried, waving the History above her headin triumph, "what a pair of geese we are! A carriage! Oh you silly man!It's a boat!"
"Is it?" said Mr. Bates, in admiration of the intelligence of hiscompanion. "Who'd ha' thought that now? Why couldn't they call it a boatat once, then, and ha' done with it?" and he was about to laugh also,when, raising his eyes, he saw in the open doorway the figure of JamesBarker, with a musket in his hand.
"Hallo! What's this? What do you do here, sir?"
"Sorry to disturb yer," says the convict, with a grin, "but you mustcome along o' me, Mr. Bates."
Bates, at once comprehending that some terrible misfortune had occurred,did not lose his presence of mind. One of the cushions of the couch wasunder his right hand, and snatching it up he flung it across the littlecabin full in the face of the escaped prisoner. The soft mass struckthe man with force sufficient to blind him for an instant. The musketexploded harmlessly in the air, and ere the astonished Barker couldrecover his footing, Bates had hurled him out of the cabin, and crying"Mutiny!" locked the cabin door on the inside.
The noise brought out Mrs. Vickers from her berth, and the poor littlestudent of English history ran into her arms.
"Good Heavens, Mr. Bates, what is it?"
Bates, furious with rage, so far forgot himself as to swear. "It's amutiny, ma'am," said he. "Go back to your cabin and lock the door. Thosebloody villains have risen on us!" Julia Vickers felt her heart growsick. Was she never to escape out of this dreadful life? "Go into yourcabin, ma'am," says Bates again, "and don't move a finger till I tellye. Maybe it ain't so bad as it looks; I've got my pistols with me,thank God, and Mr. Frere'll hear the shot anyway. Mutiny? On deckthere!" he cried at the full pitch of his voice, and his brow grew dampwith dismay when a mocking laugh from above was the only response.
Thrusting the w
oman and child into the state berth, the bewildered pilotcocked a pistol, and snatching a cutlass from the arm stand fixed to thebutt of the mast which penetrated the cabin, he burst open the door withhis foot, and rushed to the companion ladder. Barker had retreated tothe deck, and for an instant he thought the way was clear, but Lesly andRussen thrust him back with the muzzles of the loaded muskets. He struckat Russen with the cutlass, missed him, and, seeing the hopelessness ofthe attack, was fain to retreat.
In the meanwhile, Grimes and the other soldier had loosed themselvesfrom their bonds, and, encouraged by the firing, which seemed to thema sign that all was not yet lost, made shift to force up the forehatch.Porter, whose courage was none of the fiercest, and who had been foryears given over to that terror of discipline which servitude induces,made but a feeble attempt at resistance, and forcing the handspike fromhim, the sentry, Jones, rushed aft to help the pilot. As Jones reachedthe waist, Cheshire, a cold-blooded blue-eyed man, shot him dead. Grimesfell over the corpse, and Cheshire, clubbing the musket--had he anotherbarrel he would have fired--coolly battered his head as he lay, andthen, seizing the body of the unfortunate Jones in his arms, tossed itinto the sea. "Porter, you lubber!" he cried, exhausted with the effortto lift the body, "come and bear a hand with this other one!" Porteradvanced aghast, but just then another occurrence claimed the villain'sattention, and poor Grimes's life was spared for that time.
Rex, inwardly raging at this unexpected resistance on the part of thepilot, flung himself on the skylight, and tore it up bodily. As he didso, Barker, who had reloaded his musket, fired down into the cabin.The ball passed through the state-room door, and splintering the wood,buried itself close to the golden curls of poor little Sylvia. It wasthis hair's-breadth escape which drew from the agonized mother thatshriek which, pealing through the open stern window, had roused thesoldiers in the boat.
Rex, who, by the virtue of his dandyism, yet possessed some abhorrenceof useless crime, imagined that the cry was one of pain, and thatBarker's bullet had taken deadly effect. "You've killed the child, youvillain!" he cried.
"What's the odds?" asked Barker sulkily. "She must die any way, sooneror later."
Rex put his head down the skylight, and called on Bates to surrender,but Bates only drew his other pistol. "Would you commit murder?" heasked, looking round with desperation in his glance.
"No, no," cried some of the men, willing to blink the death of poorJones. "It's no use making things worse than they are. Bid him come up,and we'll do him no harm." "Come up, Mr. Bates," says Rex, "and I giveyou my word you sha'n't be injured."
"Will you set the major's lady and child ashore, then?" asked Bates,sturdily facing the scowling brows above him.
"Yes."
"Without injury?" continued the other, bargaining, as it were, at thevery muzzles of the muskets.
"Ay, ay! It's all right!" returned Russen. "It's our liberty we want,that's all."
Bates, hoping against hope for the return of the boat, endeavoured togain time. "Shut down the skylight, then," said he, with the ghost of anauthority in his voice, "until I ask the lady."
This, however, John Rex refused to do. "You can ask well enough whereyou are," he said.
But there was no need for Mr. Bates to put a question. The door of thestate-room opened, and Mrs. Vickers appeared, trembling, with Sylvia byher side. "Accept, Mr. Bates," she said, "since it must be so. We shouldgain nothing by refusing. We are at their mercy--God help us!"
"Amen to that," says Bates under his breath, and then aloud, "We agree!"
"Put your pistols on the table, and come up, then," says Rex, coveringthe table with his musket as he spoke. "And nobody shall hurt you."
CHAPTER X. JOHN REX'S REVENGE.
For the Term of His Natural Life Page 22