The Red Rover & Other Sea Adventures – 3 Novels in One Volume. Джеймс Фенимор Купер

Чтение книги онлайн.

СКАЧАТЬ with him! overboard with them all!” cried the seamen, “he and his knaves together!”

      “Will you remain silent, and see murder done before your eyes?” exclaimed Mrs Wyllys, rushing from her place of retreat, and laying a hand eagerly on the arm of the Rover.

      He started like one who was awakened suddenly from a light sleep, looking her full and intently in the eye.

      “See!” she added, pointing to the violent throng below, where every sign of an increased commotion was exhibiting itself. “See, they kill your officer, and there is none to help him!”

      The look of faded marble, which had so long been seated on his features, vanished, as his eye passed quickly over the scene. The organs took in the whole nature of the action at the glance; and, with the intelligence, the blood came rushing into every vein and fibre of his indignant face. Seizing a rope, which hung from the yard above his head, he swung his person off the poop, and fell lightly into the very centre of the crowd. Both parties fell back, while a sudden and breathing silence succeeded to a clamour that a moment before would have drowned the roar of a cataract. Making a haughty and repelling motion with his arm, he spoke, and in a voice that, if any change could be noted, was even pitched on a key less high and threatening than common. But the lowest and the deepest of its intonations reached the most distant ear, and no one who heard was left to doubt its meaning.

      “Mutiny!” he said, in a tone that strangely balanced between irony and scorn; “open, violent, and blood-seeking mutiny! Are ye tired of your lives, my men? Is there one, among ye all, who is willing to make himself an example for the good of the rest? If there be, let him lift a hand, a finger, a hair: Let him speak, look me in the eye, or dare to show that life is in him, by sign, breath, or motion!”

      He paused; and so general and absorbing was the spell produced by his presence and his mien, that, in all that crowd of fierce and excited spirits, there was not one so bold as to presume to brave his anger Sailors and marines stood alike, passive, humbled and obedient, as faulty children, when arraigned before an authority from which they feel, in every fibre, that escape is impossible. Perceiving that no voice answered, no limb moved, nor even an eye among them all was bold enough to meet his own steady but glowing look, he continued, in the same deep and commanding tone,—

      “It is well: Reason has come of the latest; but, happily for ye all, it has returned Fall back, fall back, I say; you taint the quarter-deck.”—The men receded a pace or two on every side of him.—“Let those arms be stacked; it will be time to use them when I proclaim the need. And you, fellows, who have been so bold as to lift a pike without an order have a care they do not burn your hands.”—A dozen staves fell upon the deck together.—“Is there a drummer in this ship? let him appear!”

      A terrified and cringing-looking being presented himself, having found his instrument by a sort of desperate instinct.

      “Now speak aloud, and let me know at once whether I command a crew of orderly and obedient men, or a set of miscreants, that require some purifying before I trust them.”

      The first few taps of the drum sufficed to tell the men they heard the “beat to quarters.” Without hesitating a reluctant moment, the crowd dissolved, and each of the delinquents stole silently to his station; the crew of the gun that had been turned inward managing to thrust it through its port again, with a dexterity that might have availed them greatly in time of combat. Throughout the whole affair, the Rover had manifested neither anger nor impatience. Deep and settled scorn, with a high reliance on himself had, indeed, been exhibited in the proud curl of his lip, and in the spelling of his form, but not, for an instant, did it seem that he had suffered his ire to get the mastery of his reason. And, now that he had recalled his crew to their duty, he appeared no more elated with his success than he had been daunted by the storm which, a minute before, had threatened the utter dissolution of his authority. Instead of pursuing his further purpose in haste, he awaited the observance of the minutest form which etiquette, as well as use, had rendered customary on such occasions.

      The officers approached, and reported their several divisions in readiness to engage, with exactly the same regularity as if an enemy had been in sight. The topmen and sail-trimmers were enumerated, and found prepared; shot-plugs and stoppers were handled: the magazine was even opened; the arm chests emptied of their contents; and, in short, far more than the ordinary preparations of an every day exercise was observed.

      “Let the yards be slung; the sheets and halyards stoppered,” he said to the first lieutenant, who now displayed as intimate an acquaintance with the military as he had hitherto discovered with the nautical part of his profession; “Give the boarders their pikes and boarding-axes, sir; we will now show these fellows that we dare to trust them with arms!”

      These several orders were obeyed to the letter, and then succeeded that deep and grave silence which renders a crew, at quarters, a sight so imposing even to those who have witnessed it from their boyhood. In this manner, the skilful leader of this band of desperate marauders knew how to curb their violence with the fetters of discipline. When he believed their minds brought within the proper limits, by the situation of restraint in which he had placed them, where they well knew that a word, or even a look, of offence would be met by an instant as well as an awful punishment, he walked apart with Wilder, of whom he demanded an explanation of what had passed.

      Whatever might have been the natural tendency of our adventurer to mercy, he had not been educated on the sea to look with lenity on the crime of mutiny. Had his recent escape from the wreck of the Bristol trader been already banished from his mind, the impressions of a whole life still remained to teach the necessity of keeping tight those cords which experience has so often proved are absolutely necessary to quell such turbulent bands, when removed from the pale of society, the influence of woman, and when excited by the constant collision of tempers rudely provoked, and equally disposed to violence Though he “set down naught in malice,” it is certain that he did “nothing; extenuate,” in the account he rendered. The whole of the facts were laid before the Rover in the direct, unvarnished language of truth.

      “One cannot keep these fellows to their duty by preaching,” returned the irregular chief, when the other had done. “We have no ‘Execution Dock for our delinquents, no ‘yellow flag’ for fleets to gaze at, no grave and wise-looking courts to thumb a book or two, and end by saying, ‘Hang him.’—The rascals knew my eye was off them. Once before, they turned my vessel into a living evidence of that passage in the Testament which teaches humility to all, by telling us, ‘that the last shall be first, and the first last.’ I found a dozen roundabouts drinking and making free with the liquors of the cabin, and all the officers prisoners forward—a state of things, as you will allow, a little subversive of decency as well as decorum!”

      “I am amazed you should have succeeded in restoring discipline!”

      “I got among them single-handed, and with no other aid than a boat from the shore; but I ask no more than a place for my foot, and room for an arm, to keep a thousand such spirits in order. Now they know me, it is rare we misunderstand each other.”

      “You must have punished severely!”

      “There was justice done.—Mr Wilder, I fear you find our service a little irregular; but a month of experience will put you on a level with us, and remove all danger of such another scene.” As the Rover spoke, he faced his recruit, with a countenance that endeavoured to be cheerful, but whose gaiety could force itself no further than a frightful smile. “Come,” he quickly added, “this time, I set the mischief afoot myself; and, as you see we are completely masters, we may afford to be lenient. Besides,” he continued, glancing his eyes towards the place where Mrs Wyllys and Gertrude still remained in deep suspense awaiting his decision, “it may be well to consult the sex of our guests at such a moment.”

      Then, СКАЧАТЬ