Annie o' the Banks o' Dee
Page 15
skylightswere closed, and no harm or good was done.
Next the mutineers threw open the fore-hatch, and at pistol pointordered every man into the half-deck cabin abaft the galley and abaftthe sailors' sleeping bunks.
"I'll shoot the first man dead," cried Norman, "who does not lookactive!"
The communication door was then secured, and all was deemed safe. Theywould bear north now, and make for the nearest island.
The rum store was near the foot of the stair, or companion, and close tothe stewardess's pantry. The key hung there, so more than a gallon ofrum was got up and taken forward.
The engineers were told that if they did not crack on, they would be hadon deck and made to walk the plank.
The Finn had not meant that any orgie should take place; but take placeit did, and a fearful one too. The man at the wheel kept on for fear ofdeath, and so did the engineers.
By twelve o'clock, or eight bells, in the first watch, the fellows werehelplessly drunk and lying about in the galley in all directions.
Little Williams, the cabin-boy, had been overlooked. Wise he wasindeed, for now he very quietly hauled on the fore-hatch--ay, andscrewed it down. Then he went quickly aft and succeeded in releasingthe officers. The men were next set free, and the door between securedaft.
In ten minutes' time every mutineer in the ship was in irons. Surely nomutiny 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 isthe double-dyed villain Christian Norman. Say, Captain Dickson, is itgoing to be a hanging match?"
"I am almost tempted to hang the ringleader," replied Dickson, "but thiswould be far too tragical, especially with ladies on board. Rememberthat, be his heart what it may, there is just one little good spot inhis 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 cowardlySpaniards. I shall mete out to them the same punishment, though in alesser degree, that they would have meted out to us. Not on theinhospitable snow-clad shores of the Tierra del Fuego islands shall theybe placed, but on the most solitary isle I can find in some of the SouthPacific groups."
Now things went on more pleasantly for a time. The prisoners were notonly in leg-irons, but manacled, and with sentries placed over themwatch and watch by night and by day. These men had orders to shoot atonce any man who made the slightest attempt to escape.
It was about a week after this, the _Wolverine_ had safely rounded thestormy Cape, and was now in the broad Pacific. A sailor of the name ofRobertson had just gone on sentry, when, without a word of warning,Norman the Finn suddenly raised himself to his feet and felled him withhis manacled hands. The strength of the fellow was enormous. But thering of a rifle was heard next minute, and Norman fell on his face, shotthrough 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. Nowshall our voyage be more lucky and pleasant."
Ah! but was it?
The _Wolverine_ was purposely kept well out of the ordinary track ofships coming or going from either China or Australia. And luck or notluck, after ten days' steaming westward and north, they sighted anisland 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 probablyedible rodents, and fish in the sea. And here the mutineers weremarooned. Not without fishing gear were they left, nor without a smallsupply of biscuits, and just three fowling pieces and ammunition, withsome axes and carpenter's tools.
They deserved a worse fate, but Dickson was kind at heart.
Well, at any rate, they pass out of our story. On that island theyprobably are until this day.
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Everyone on the _Wolverine_ seemed to breathe more freely now, and thevessel was once more headed eastwards to regain her direct route toCalifornia and San Francisco.
For a whole week the breeze blew so pleasantly and steadily that fireswere bunked and all sail set. The very ship herself seemed to haveregained cheerfulness and confidence, and to go dancing over the sunlitsea, under her white wing-like studding sails, as if she were of averity a thing of life. Those on board soon forgot all their trials andmisery. The mutineers were themselves forgotten. Matty and Oscar (whohad recovered from his spear wound) resumed their romps on deck, andsurely 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 ships, however, though nowbearing more to the nor'ard. So far north were they, indeed, that thetwilight at morn or even was very short indeed. In the tropics, it isnot figurative language, but fact, to say that, the red sun seemed toleap from behind the clear horizon. But a few minutes before this onemight have seen, high in the east, purple streaks of clouds, changingquickly 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 tryto describe the evanescent beauty of those glorious sunsets.
Light and sunshine are ever lovely; so is colour; but here was light andcolour co-mingled in a transformation scene so grand, so vast, that itstruck the heart of the beholder with a species of wonder not unmixedwith awe. And the beholders were usually silent. Then all night longin the west played the silent lightning, bringing into shape and formmany a rock-like, tower-like cloud. It was behind these clouds of thenight that this tropical lightning played and danced and shimmered.
Then at times they came into a sea of phosphorescent light. It was seenall around, but brighter where the vessel raised ripples along thequarter. It dropped like fire from her bows, ay, and even great fishescould be seen--sharks in all probability--sinking down, down, down intothe sea's dark depths, like fishes of fire, till at last they werevisible only like little balls of light, speedily to be extinguished.
About this latitude flying gurnets leapt on board by the score on somenights, and a delightful addition indeed did they prove to the matutinal_menu_. Sometimes a huge octopus would be seen in the phosphorescentsea. It is the devil-fish of the tropics, and, with his awful head andarms, so abhorrent and nightmarish was the sight that it could not bebeheld without a shudder.
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The Pacific Ocean! Yes, truly, very often pacific enough; so much sothat with ordinary luck one might sail across its waters in a dinghyboat. But there are times when some portions of it are swept byterrific circular storms. Ah! happy is the ship that, overtaken by oneof these, can manage to keep well out and away from its vortex.
One evening the sun went down amidst a chaos of dark and threateningclouds, from which thunder was occasionally heard like the sound ofdistant artillery, but muttering, and more prolonged. The glass wenttumbling down. Captain Dickson had never seen it so low. The wind toohad failed, and before sunset the sea lay all around them, a greasyglitter on its surface like mercury, with here and there the fin of abasking shark appearing on the surface. Even the air was stifling,sickening almost, as if the foetus of the ocean's slimy depths had beenstirred up and risen to the surface.
All sail was speedily taken in, and by the aid of oil, the fires werequickly 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."
CHAPTER SIXTEEN.
SHIPWRECK--THE WHITE QUEEN OF THE ISLE OF FLOWERS.
To and fro, to and fro,
on the quarter-deck walked the imperturbableYankee, Mr Hall, quietly pulling at his huge cigar. He had seen theladies, and had told them straight that it was to be a fearful storm,and now he would wait to see what Fate had in store for them.
But more impatient far was Captain Dickson. Would steam never be gotup? He had an idea which way the storm would come, and he wanted tosteam southwards, and as much out of its track as possible.
At last the steam begins to roar, and now the screw revolves, and thegood ship cleaves its way through the darkness of sky and sea. Dicksonis somewhat relieved. He puts two men to the wheel, and sailors lashthem to it. Well Dickson knows that the storm will be a fearful one.
Who is this fluttering up along the deck? A little dot all in white--nothing on but a night-dress. Matty, of course.
"I lunned away," she explained, "and tomed (came up) to see thelightnin's flash."
"Oh, my darling!" cried Reginald, "you must