The shock was felt all through the vessel1, and Pine, who had been watching the ironing of the last of the mutineers, at once divined its cause.
“Thank God!” he cried, “there’s a breeze at last!” and as the overpowered Gabbett, bruised2, bleeding, and bound, was dragged down the hatchway, the triumphant3 doctor hurried upon deck to find the Malabar plunging4 through the whitening water under the influence of a fifteen-knot breeze.
“Stand by to reef topsails! Away aloft, men, and furl the royals!” cries Best from the quarter-deck; and in the midst of the cheery confusion Maurice Frere briefly5 recapitulated6 what had taken place, taking care, however, to pass over his own dereliction of duty as rapidly as possible.
Pine knit his brows. “Do you think that she was in the plot?” he asked.
“Not she!” says Frere — eager to avert7 inquiry8. “How should she be? Plot! She’s sickening of fever, or I’m much mistaken.”
Sure enough, on opening the door of the cabin, they found Sarah Purfoy lying where she had fallen a quarter of an hour before. The clashing of cutlasses and the firing of muskets9 had not roused her.
“We must make a sick-bay somewhere,” says Pine, looking at the senseless figure with no kindly10 glance; “though I don’t think she’s likely to be very bad. Confound her! I believe that she’s the cause of all this. I’ll find out, too, before many hours are over; for I’ve told those fellows that unless they confess all about it before to-morrow morning, I’ll get them six dozen a-piece the day after we anchor in Hobart Town. I’ve a great mind to do it before we get there. Take her head, Frere, and we’ll get her out of this before Vickers comes up. What a fool you are, to be sure! I knew what it would be with women aboard ship. I wonder Mrs. V. hasn’t been out before now. There — steady past the door. Why, man, one would think you never had your arm round a girl’s waist before! Pooh! don’t look so scared — I won’t tell. Make haste, now, before that little parson comes. Parsons are regular old women to chatter”; and thus muttering Pine assisted to carry Mrs. Vickers’s maid into her cabin.
“By George, but she’s a fine girl!” he said, viewing the inanimate body with the professional eye of a surgeon. “I don’t wonder at you making a fool of yourself. Chances are, you’ve caught the fever, though this breeze will help to blow it out of us, please God. That old jackass, Blunt, too!— he ought to be ashamed of himself, at his age!”
“What do you mean?” asked Frere hastily, as he heard a step approach. “What has Blunt to say about her?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” returned Pine. “He was smitten11 too, that’s all. Like a good many more, in fact.”
“A good many more!” repeated the other, with a pretence12 of carelessness.
“Yes!” laughed Pine. “Why, man, she was making eyes at every man in the ship! I caught her kissing a soldier once.”
Maurice Frere’s cheeks grew hot. The experienced profligate13 had been taken in, deceived, perhaps laughed at. All the time he had flattered himself that he was fascinating the black-eyed maid, the black-eyed maid had been twisting him round her finger, and perhaps imitating his love-making for the gratification of her soldier-lover. It was not a pleasant thought; and yet, strange to say, the idea of Sarah’s treachery did not make him dislike her. There is a sort of love — if love it can be called — which thrives under ill-treatment. Nevertheless, he cursed with some appearance of disgust.
Vickers met them at the door. “Pine, Blunt has the fever. Mr. Best found him in his cabin groaning14. Come and look at him.”
The commander of the Malabar was lying on his bunk15 in the betwisted condition into which men who sleep in their clothes contrive16 to get themselves. The doctor shook him, bent17 down over him, and then loosened his collar. “He’s not sick,” he said; “he’s drunk! Blunt! wake up! Blunt!”
But the mass refused to move.
“Hallo!” says Pine, smelling at the broken tumbler, “what’s this? Smells queer. Rum? No. Eh! Laudanum! By George, he’s been hocussed!”
“Nonsense!”
“I see it,” slapping his thigh18. “It’s that infernal woman! She’s drugged him, and meant to do the same for —"(Frere gave him an imploring19 look)—“for anybody else who would be fool enough to let her do it. Dawes was right, sir. She’s in it; I’ll swear she’s in it.”
“What! my wife’s maid? Nonsense!” said Vickers.
“Nonsense!” echoed Frere.
“It’s no nonsense. That soldier who was shot, what’s his name?— Miles, he — but, however, it doesn’t matter. It’s all over now.” “The men will confess before morning,” says Vickers, “and we’ll see.” And he went off to his wife’s cabin.
His wife opened the door for him. She had been sitting by the child’s bedside, listening to the firing, and waiting for her husband’s return without a murmur20. Flirt21, fribble, and shrew as she was, Julia Vickers had displayed, in times of emergency, that glowing courage which women of her nature at times possess. Though she would yawn over any book above the level of a genteel love story; attempt to fascinate, with ludicrous assumption of girlishness, boys young enough to be her sons; shudder22 at a frog, and scream at a spider, she could sit throughout a quarter of an hour of such suspense23 as she had just undergone with as much courage as if she had been the strongest-minded woman that ever denied her sex. “Is it all over?” she asked.
“Yes, thank God!” said Vickers, pausing on the threshold. “All is safe now, though we had a narrow escape, I believe. How’s Sylvia?” The child was lying on the bed with her fair hair scattered24 over the pillow, and her tiny hands moving restlessly to and fro.
“A little better, I think, though she has been talking a good deal.”
The red lips parted, and the blue eyes, brighter than ever, stared vacantly around. The sound of her father’s voice seemed to have roused her, for she began to speak a little prayer: “God bless papa and mamma, and God bless all on board this ship. God bless me, and make me a good girl, for Jesus Christ’s sake, our Lord. Amen.”
The sound of the unconscious child’s simple prayer had something awesome25 in it, and John Vickers, who, not ten minutes before, would have sealed his own death warrant unhesitatingly to preserve the safety of the vessel, felt his eyes fill with unwonted tears. The contrast was curious. From out the midst of that desolate26 ocean — in a fever-smitten prison ship, leagues from land, surrounded by ruffians, thieves, and murderers, the baby voice of an innocent child called confidently on Heaven.
* * * * * *
Two hours afterwards — as the Malabar, escaped from the peril27 which had menaced her, plunged28 cheerily through the rippling29 water — the mutineers, by the spokesman, Mr. James Vetch, confessed.
“They were very sorry, and hoped that their breach30 of discipline would be forgiven. It was the fear of the typhus which had driven them to it. They had no accomplices31 either in the prison or out of it, but they felt it but right to say that the man who had planned the mutiny was Rufus Dawes.”
The malignant32 cripple had guessed from whom the information which had led to the failure of the plot had been derived33, and this was his characteristic revenge.
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vessel
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| n.船舶；容器，器皿；管，导管，血管 | |
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bruised
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| [医]青肿的，瘀紫的 | |
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triumphant
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| adj.胜利的，成功的；狂欢的，喜悦的 | |
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plunging
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| adj.跳进的，突进的v.颠簸( plunge的现在分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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briefly
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| adv.简单地，简短地 | |
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recapitulated
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| v.总结，扼要重述( recapitulate的过去式和过去分词 ) | |
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avert
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| v.防止，避免；转移(目光、注意力等) | |
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inquiry
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| n.打听，询问，调查，查问 | |
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muskets
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| n.火枪，（尤指）滑膛枪( musket的名词复数 ) | |
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kindly
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| adj.和蔼的，温和的，爽快的；adv.温和地，亲切地 | |
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smitten
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| 猛打，重击，打击( smite的过去分词 ) | |
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pretence
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| n.假装，作假；借口，口实；虚伪；虚饰 | |
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profligate
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| adj.行为不检的；n.放荡的人，浪子，肆意挥霍者 | |
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groaning
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| adj. 呜咽的, 呻吟的 动词groan的现在分词形式 | |
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bunk
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| n.(车、船等倚壁而设的)铺位；废话 | |
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contrive
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| vt.谋划，策划；设法做到；设计，想出 | |
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bent
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| n.爱好，癖好；adj.弯的；决心的，一心的 | |
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thigh
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| n.大腿；股骨 | |
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imploring
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| 恳求的，哀求的 | |
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murmur
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| n.低语，低声的怨言；v.低语，低声而言 | |
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flirt
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| v.调情，挑逗，调戏；n.调情者，卖俏者 | |
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shudder
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| v.战粟，震动，剧烈地摇晃；n.战粟，抖动 | |
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suspense
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| n.（对可能发生的事）紧张感，担心，挂虑 | |
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scattered
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| adj.分散的，稀疏的；散步的；疏疏落落的 | |
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awesome
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| adj.令人惊叹的，难得吓人的，很好的 | |
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desolate
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| adj.荒凉的，荒芜的；孤独的，凄凉的；v.使荒芜，使孤寂 | |
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peril
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| n.(严重的)危险；危险的事物 | |
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plunged
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| v.颠簸( plunge的过去式和过去分词 )；暴跌；骤降；突降 | |
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rippling
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| 起涟漪的，潺潺流水般声音的 | |
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breach
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| n.违反，不履行；破裂；vt.冲破，攻破 | |
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accomplices
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| 从犯，帮凶，同谋( accomplice的名词复数 ) | |
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malignant
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| adj.恶性的，致命的；恶意的，恶毒的 | |
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33
derived
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| vi.起源；由来；衍生；导出v.得到( derive的过去式和过去分词 )；（从…中）得到获得；源于；（从…中）提取 | |
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