The Rogues Fall Out.
There is much of which my log might speak to tell the history of the seven days which followed upon our resolution. We had pledged ourselves to harass the Diamond Ship by night and day, and bravely had we done so. Incessantly now the messages passed from our deck to hers by way of her flags and instruments. Threats, defiance, insult—to these we became accustomed. A torture of suspense had been superseded by a dull submission to necessity. Joan Fordibras was a prisoner, and we could not lift a hand to save her. I did not trust myself to think what she had suffered or what those hours of alternating hope and suspense must have meant to her. No light came to me of the sunniest day. I could but wait and watch.
All this time we lay drifting some two or three miles, I suppose, from the great vessel which harboured the Jew and his company. Sometimes, when the night was moonless, we ran up boldly and spied the huge ship out, defying her untrained gunners and learning what we would of that which passed upon her decks. There was a cabin aft, I remember, which I named as Joan’s; and I would place her therein and depict her in my mind sheltered there from the Jew’s anger and the insults of his fellows. How changed she must be from the Joan I had seen upon the beach at Dieppe, the laughing little Thalia of the sandy shore—the Joan who had plied me with such earnest questions, looked up at me with eyes so full of doubt and the desire to believe! Nor could I hope to be in any sense the figure of her childish romance. She might not even know that White Wings followed her at all—possibly they kept her too close a prisoner to learn anything, which the guns did not tell her, of our pursuit and its consequences. Such must be my supposition as I watched the yellow light glowing in her cabin windows and said that Joan was awake and weary for my coming.
That which perplexed us chiefly was the evident indecision of those who commanded the great ship. At first we thought that they were steering her for a South American port; but after running for twenty-four hours almost due westward, they lay to once more and drifted, without apparent aim, whithersoever the tide of the South Atlantic would take them. What their purpose was I could but hazard by conjecture. Possibly they waited for another patrol from Europe—it may even be that refugees were upon the high seas, and that Imroth did not dare to desert them. I could but guess his reasons, I say, and guess-work helped me but little. The nameless ship guarded her secrets too close that I should hope to be the master of them.
Now, thus six days had passed, and I will take you to the morning of the seventh, when chancing to be on the poop at a very early hour, Balaam, our Scotch bo’sun, called my attention to the distant ship, and to something which was passing on her decks.
“There’s nae a pill for the parritch the morn,” said he in his dry fashion; “yon body’s fired no gun, sir, since yesterday noon. May be ’tis pure joy of heart. I’m not knowing rightly, but it’s sufficiently remarkable as you must be thinking.”
This was new, surely, and I gratified the good fellow by admitting as much.
“It looks as though she was running a bit short of ammunition, Balaam,” I said. “Has there been anything else you have noticed?”
“Naething in particular, sir. She’s fired a pop-gun or two, but, may be, she’s over merry the morn. You can hear them for yourself. Bide here a moment, and I’ll show you.”
He took his stand by the taffrail and pointed with a tarry hand at the distant ship. Day had broken propitiously with a fleece of cloud high in the heavens, and a simmer of splendid sunlight upon the chattering waters. The Diamond Ship, herself, lay distant perhaps a couple of miles from us. She had sails set to prevent her rolling, but not a vestige of smoke escaped her funnels, nor was there any indication of her being under steam. When I spied out her decks through my powerful glass, I perceived that they were crowded with men.
“Why,” I said, “they are fighting among themselves.”
“Ay, such kittle-cattle would likely take to that employment.”
“And the guns which they fired—why, it’s providential, man. Go and call Captain Larry at once.”
I am not habitually to be moved to any great display of mental exhilaration; but I confess that this amazing scene robbed me altogether of my self-possession. The surprise of it, the unlooked-for development, the vast possibilities of a mutiny amongst the Jew’s men had, it is true, suggested themselves to me in one or other of those dreams of achievement with which we all combat the duller facts of life; but that such a hope should be on the verge of realisation, that I should, with my own eyes, witness the beginning of the fulfilment of it, and hear the guns which justified my dreaming—that, I say, appeared to me the most wonderful thing that had happened since our voyage began.
“Larry,” I said, when he came up from the cabin—McShanus upon his heels, “they are shooting each other, Larry. I hope that the news distresses you——.”
He did not reply immediately, but focussing his glass, he directed it upon the distant ship. Timothy, in his turn, took his stand beside me, and clapping his hand upon my shoulder, answered for the Captain.
“I wish ’em honourable wakes. Did ye think of this docther?”
“Not as a probability.”
“And what would happen to Joan Fordibras if they quarrelled amongst themselves?”
“I dare not think of it, Timothy—she would be in her cabin. Why do you make me think of it? Are not the circumstances eloquent enough?”
He cringed away from me—excellent fellow that he was, and I knew that he blamed his own indiscretion—and spoke no further word for many minutes. All hands on the yacht had now come up to see a spectacle at once so terrible and unlooked for. Upon my part, I stood by the taffrail to watch the puffs of heavy white smoke and try to depict the tragedy then consummated on the decks of the Diamond Ship. What a scene of horror and bloodshed it must be! I could readily imagine that there had been two parties, and that they had come first to words and then to the arbitrament of deeds. Some of the Jew’s men, I said, had been for running to a South American port, others had been for standing by such of their comrades as Sycamore’s relief might bring. They fell to hot talk upon it, I might suppose, and then to blows. And now we could hear the crack of their rifles and could see the smoke of them soaring upwards amid the taut white sails even to the truck of the mainmast. What sights and sounds that curtain of the vapour must hide from us! And who shall wonder if the situation provoked us to a rashness without precedent. We had temptation enough, surely.
“Larry,” I said, “I am going to see what is happening yonder. Let Mr. Benson know that we shall want all the steam he can give us. There is no risk to anyone. Please let the men understand as much.”
“You are going up to the ship, sir?”
“Within a biscuit toss, and nearer perhaps——”
“It’s staking much, sir.”
“So little, Larry, that we’ll have our breakfasts while we watch them. Even Mr. McShanus, you observe, is not disturbed. I believe that he imagines himself in a theatre——”
But Timothy McShanus answered this for himself.
“Indade and I do,” said he, “and no more disturbed than a man at a hanging. Set a dish of parritch before me and ye shall see. Faith, should I weep tears because one thief is cutting another thief’s throat? Divil a tear at all.”
We laughed at this splendid earnestness, while Larry went up to the bridge, and Timothy himself came up to me and spoke a more serious word.
“Ye are easier in your mind,” he said, scanning my face closely. “’Tis good to see it, Ean, me bhoy. Ye don’t think Miss Joan will suffer—now, do ye?”
“She will suffer, but only in her fears, Timothy. The danger comes later, when this is over. I do not think of it because I hope to share it with her.”
“Good God, ye are not going on board, man?”
“I am going on board, Timothy—that is, if my judgment leads me to believe it possible. I’ll tell you in half-an-hour’s time.”
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