For the Term of His Natural Life. Marcus Andrew Hislop Clarke

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СКАЧАТЬ which belied her words, and which penetrated even the sodden intellect of poor Blunt. He balanced himself on his heels for a moment, and holding by the moulding of the cabin, stared at her with a fatuous smile of drunken admiration, then looked at the glass in his hand, hiccuped with much solemnity thrice, and, as though struck with a sudden sense of duty unfulfilled, swallowed the contents at a gulp. The effect was almost instantaneous. He dropped the tumbler, lurched towards the woman at the door, and then making a half-turn in accordance with the motion of the vessel, fell into his bunk, and snored like a grampus.

      Sarah Purfoy watched him for a few minutes, and then having blown out the light, stepped out of the cabin, and closed the door behind her. The dusky gloom which had held the deck on the previous night enveloped all forward of the main-mast. A lantern swung in the forecastle, and swayed with the motion of the ship. The light at the prison door threw a glow through the open hatch, and in the cuddy, at her right hand, the usual row of oil-lamps burned. She looked mechanically for Vickers, who was ordinarily there at that hour, but the cuddy was empty. So much the better, she thought, as she drew her dark cloak around her, and tapped at Frere's door. As she did so, a strange pain shot through her temples, and her knees trembled. With a strong effort she dispelled the dizziness that had almost overpowered her, and held herself erect. It would never do to break down now.

      The door opened, and Maurice Frere drew her into the cabin. “So you have come?” said he.

      “You see I have. But, oh! if I should be seen!”

      “Seen? Nonsense! Who is to see you?”

      “Captain Vickers, Doctor Pine, anybody.”

      “Not they. Besides, they've gone off down to Pine's cabin since dinner. They're all right.”

      Gone off to Pine's cabin! The intelligence struck her with dismay. What was the cause of such an unusual proceeding? Surely they did not suspect! “What do they want there?” she asked.

      Maurice Frere was not in the humour to argue questions of probability. “Who knows? I don't. Confound 'em,” he added, “what does it matter to us? We don't want them, do we, Sarah?”

      She seemed to be listening for something, and did not reply. Her nervous system was wound up to the highest pitch of excitement. The success of the plot depended on the next five minutes.

      “What are you staring at? Look at me, can't you? What eyes you have! And what hair!”

      At that instant the report of a musket-shot broke the silence. The mutiny had begun!

      The sound awoke the soldier to a sense of his duty. He sprang to his feet, and disengaging the arms that clung about his neck, made for the door. The moment for which the convict's accomplice had waited approached. She hung upon him with all her weight. Her long hair swept across his face, her warm breath was on his cheek, her dress exposed her round, smooth shoulder. He, intoxicated, conquered, had half-turned back, when suddenly the rich crimson died away from her lips, leaving them an ashen grey colour. Her eyes closed in agony; loosing her hold of him, she staggered to her feet, pressed her hands upon her bosom, and uttered a sharp cry of pain.

      The fever which had been on her two days, and which, by a strong exercise of will, she had struggled against—encouraged by the violent excitement of the occasion—had attacked her at this supreme moment. Deathly pale and sick, she reeled to the side of the cabin. There was another shot, and a violent clashing of arms; and Frere, leaving the miserable woman to her fate, leapt out on to the deck.

CHAPTER X. EIGHT BELLS.

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      At seven o'clock there had been also a commotion in the prison. The news of the fever had awoke in the convicts all that love of liberty which had but slumbered during the monotony of the earlier part of the voyage. Now that death menaced them, they longed fiercely for the chance of escape which seemed permitted to freemen. “Let us get out!” they said, each man speaking to his particular friend. “We are locked up here to die like sheep.” Gloomy faces and desponding looks met the gaze of each, and sometimes across this gloom shot a fierce glance that lighted up its blackness, as a lightning-flash renders luridly luminous the indigo dullness of a thunder-cloud. By and by, in some inexplicable way, it came to be understood that there was a conspiracy afloat, that they were to be released from their shambles, that some amongst them had been plotting for freedom. The 'tween decks held its foul breath in wondering anxiety, afraid to breathe its suspicions. The influence of this predominant idea showed itself by a strange shifting of atoms. The mass of villainy, ignorance, and innocence began to be animated with something like a uniform movement. Natural affinities came together, and like allied itself to like, falling noiselessly into harmony, as the pieces of glass and coloured beads in a kaleidoscope assume mathematical forms. By seven bells it was found that the prison was divided into three parties—the desperate, the timid, and the cautious. These three parties had arranged themselves in natural sequence. The mutineers, headed by Gabbett, Vetch, and the Moocher, were nearest to the door; the timid—boys, old men, innocent poor wretches condemned on circumstantial evidence, or rustics condemned to be turned into thieves for pulling a turnip—were at the farther end, huddling together in alarm; and the prudent—that is to say, all the rest, ready to fight or fly, advance or retreat, assist the authorities or their companions, as the fortune of the day might direct—occupied the middle space. The mutineers proper numbered, perhaps, some thirty men, and of these thirty only half a dozen knew what was really about to be done.

      The ship's bell strikes the half-hour, and as the cries of the three sentries passing the word to the quarter-deck die away, Gabbett, who has been leaning with his back against the door, nudges Jemmy Vetch.

      “Now, Jemmy,” says he in a whisper, “tell 'em!”

      The whisper being heard by those nearest the giant, a silence ensues, which gradually spreads like a ripple over the surface of the crowd, reaching even the bunks at the further end.

      “Gentlemen,” says Mr. Vetch, politely sarcastic in his own hangdog fashion, “myself and my friends here are going to take the ship for you. Those who like to join us had better speak at once, for in about half an hour they will not have the opportunity.”

      He pauses, and looks round with such an impertinently confident air, that three waverers in the party amidships slip nearer to hear him.

      “You needn't be afraid,” Mr. Vetch continues, “we have arranged it all for you. There are friends waiting for us outside, and the door will be open directly. All we want, gentlemen, is your vote and interest—I mean your—”

      “Gaffing agin!” interrupts the giant angrily. “Come to business, carn't yer? Tell 'em they may like it or lump it, but we mean to have the ship, and them as refuses to join us we mean to chuck overboard. That's about the plain English of it!”

      This practical way of putting it produces a sensation, and the conservative party at the other end look in each other's faces with some alarm. A grim murmur runs round, and somebody near Mr. Gabbett laughs a laugh of mingled ferocity and amusement, not reassuring to timid people. “What about the sogers?” asked a voice from the ranks of the cautious.

      “D— the sogers!” cries the Moocher, moved by a sudden inspiration. “They can but shoot yer, and that's as good as dyin' of typhus anyway!”

      The right chord had been struck now, and with a stifled roar the prison admitted the truth of the sentiment. СКАЧАТЬ