Frere’s fishing expedition had been unsuccessful, and in consequence prolonged. The obstinacy1 of his character appeared in the most trifling2 circumstances, and though the fast deepening shades of an Australian evening urged him to return, yet he lingered, unwilling3 to come back empty-handed. At last a peremptory4 signal warned him. It was the sound of a musket5 fired on board the brig: Mr. Bates was getting impatient; and with a scowl6, Frere drew up his lines, and ordered the two soldiers to pull for the vessel7.
The Osprey yet sat motionless on the water, and her bare masts gave no sign of making sail. To the soldiers, pulling with their backs to her, the musket shot seemed the most ordinary occurrence in the world. Eager to quit the dismal8 prison-bay, they had viewed Mr Frere’s persistent9 fishing with disgust, and had for the previous half hour longed to hear the signal of recall which had just startled them. Suddenly, however, they noticed a change of expression in the sullen10 face of their commander. Frere, sitting in the stern sheets, with his face to the Osprey, had observed a peculiar11 appearance on her decks. The bulwarks12 were every now and then topped by strange figures, who disappeared as suddenly as they came, and a faint murmur13 of voices floated across the intervening sea. Presently the report of another musket shot echoed among the hills, and something dark fell from the side of the vessel into the water. Frere, with an imprecation of mingled14 alarm and indignation, sprang to his feet, and shading his eyes with his hand, looked towards the brig. The soldiers, resting on their oars15, imitated his gesture, and the whale-boat, thus thrown out of trim, rocked from side to side dangerously. A moment’s anxious pause, and then another musket shot, followed by a woman’s shrill16 scream, explained all. The prisoners had seized the brig. “Give way!” cried Frere, pale with rage and apprehension17, and the soldiers, realizing at once the full terror of their position, forced the heavy whale-boat through the water as fast as the one miserable18 pair of oars could take her.
* * * * * *
Mr. Bates, affected19 by the insidious20 influence of the hour, and lulled21 into a sense of false security, had gone below to tell his little playmate that she would soon be on her way to the Hobart Town of which she had heard so much; and, taking advantage of his absence, the soldier not on guard went to the forecastle to hear the prisoners singing. He found the ten together, in high good humour, listening to a “shanty” sung by three of their number. The voices were melodious23 enough, and the words of the ditty — chanted by many stout24 fellows in many a forecastle before and since — of that character which pleases the soldier nature. Private Grimes forgot all about the unprotected state of the deck, and sat down to listen.
While he listened, absorbed in tender recollections, James Lesly, William Cheshire, William Russen, John Fair, and James Barker slipped to the hatchway and got upon the deck. Barker reached the aft hatchway as the soldier who was on guard turned to complete his walk, and passing his arm round his neck, pulled him down before he could utter a cry. In the confusion of the moment the man loosed his grip of the musket to grapple with his unseen antagonist25, and Fair, snatching up the weapon, swore to blow out his brains if he raised a finger. Seeing the sentry26 thus secured, Cheshire, as if in pursuance of a preconcerted plan, leapt down the after hatchway, and passed up the muskets27 from the arm-racks to Lesly and Russen. There were three muskets in addition to the one taken from the sentry, and Barker, leaving his prisoner in charge of Fair, seized one of them, and ran to the companion ladder. Russen, left unarmed by this manoeuvre28, appeared to know his own duty. He came back to the forecastle, and passing behind the listening soldier, touched the singer on the shoulder. This was the appointed signal, and John Rex, suddenly terminating his song with a laugh, presented his fist in the face of the gaping29 Grimes. “No noise!” he cried. “The brig’s ours”; and ere Grimes could reply, he was seized by Lyon and Riley, and bound securely.
“Come on, lads!” says Rex, “and pass the prisoner down here. We’ve got her this time, I’ll go bail30!” In obedience31 to this order, the now gagged sentry was flung down the fore22 hatchway, and the hatch secured. “Stand on the hatchway, Porter,” cries Rex again; “and if those fellows come up, knock ’em down with a handspoke. Lesly and Russen, forward to the companion ladder! Lyon, keep a look-out for the boat, and if she comes too near, fire!”
As he spoke32 the report of the first musket rang out. Barker had apparently33 fired up the companion hatchway.
* * * * * *
When Mr. Bates had gone below, he found Sylvia curled upon the cushions of the state-room, reading. “Well, missy!” he said, “we’ll soon be on our way to papa.”
Sylvia answered by asking a question altogether foreign to the subject. “Mr. Bates,” said she, pushing the hair out of her blue eyes, “what’s a coracle?”
“A which?” asked Mr. Bates.
“A coracle. C-o-r-a-c-l-e,” said she, spelling it slowly. “I want to know.”
The bewildered Bates shook his head. “Never heard of one, missy,” said he, bending over the book. “What does it say?”
“‘The Ancient Britons,’” said Sylvia, reading gravely, “ ‘were little better than Barbarians34. They painted their bodies with Woad’— that’s blue stuff, you know, Mr. Bates —‘and, seated in their light coracles of skin stretched upon slender wooden frames, must have presented a wild and savage35 appearance.’”
“Hah,” said Mr. Bates, when this remarkable36 passage was read to him, “that’s very mysterious, that is. A corricle, a cory “— a bright light burst upon him. “A curricle you mean, missy! It’s a carriage! I’ve seen ’em in Hy’ Park, with young bloods a-drivin’ of ’em.”
“What are young bloods?” asked Sylvia, rushing at this “new opening”.
“Oh, nobs! Swell37 coves38, don’t you know,” returned poor Bates, thus again attacked. “Young men o’ fortune that is, that’s given to doing it grand.”
“I see,” said Sylvia, waving her little hand graciously. “Noblemen and Princes and that sort of people. Quite so. But what about coracle?”
“Well,” said the humbled39 Bates, “I think it’s a carriage, missy. A sort of Pheayton, as they call it.”
Sylvia, hardly satisfied, returned to the book. It was a little mean-looking volume — a “Child’s History of England”— and after perusing40 it awhile with knitted brows, she burst into a childish laugh.
“Why, my dear Mr. Bates!” she cried, waving the History above her head in triumph, “what a pair of geese we are! A carriage! Oh you silly man! It’s a boat!”
“Is it?” said Mr. Bates, in admiration41 of the intelligence of his companion. “Who’d ha’ thought that now? Why couldn’t they call it a boat at once, then, and ha’ done with it?” and he was about to laugh also, when, raising his eyes, he saw in the open doorway42 the figure of James Barker, with a musket in his hand.
“Hallo! What’s this? What do you do here, sir?”
“Sorry to disturb yer,” says the convict, with a grin, “but you must come along o’ me, Mr. Bates.”
Bates, at once comprehending that some terrible misfortune had occurred, did not lose his presence of mind. One of the cushions of the couch was under his right hand, and snatching it up he flung it across the little cabin full in the face of the escaped prisoner. The soft mass struck the man with force sufficient to blind him for an instant. The musket exploded harmlessly in the air, and ere the astonished Barker could recover his footing, Bates had hurled43 him out of the cabin, and crying “Mutiny!” locked the cabin door on the inside.
The noise brought out Mrs. Vickers from her berth44, and the poor little student of English history ran into her arms.
“Good Heavens, Mr. Bates, what is it?”
Bates, furious with rage, so far forgot himself as to swear. “It’s a mutiny, ma’am,” said he. “Go back to your cabin and lock the door. Those bloody45 villains47 have risen on us!” Julia Vickers felt her heart grow sick. Was she never to escape out of this dreadful life? “Go into your cabin, ma’am,” says Bates again, “and don’t move a finger till I tell ye. Maybe it ain’t so bad as it looks; I’ve got my pistols with me, thank God, and Mr. Frere’ll hear the shot anyway. Mutiny? On deck there!” he cried at the full pitch of his voice, and his brow grew damp with dismay when a mocking laugh from above was the only response.
Thrusting the woman and child into the state berth, the bewildered pilot cocked a pistol, and snatching a cutlass from the arm stand fixed48 to the butt49 of the mast which penetrated50 the cabin, he burst open the door with his foot, and rushed to the companion ladder. Barker had retreated to the deck, and for an instant he thought the way was clear, but Lesly and Russen thrust him back with the muzzles51 of the loaded muskets. He struck at Russen with the cutlass, missed him, and, seeing the hopelessness of the attack, was fain to retreat.
In the meanwhile, Grimes and the other soldier had loosed themselves from their bonds, and, encouraged by the firing, which seemed to them a sign that all was not yet lost, made shift to force up the forehatch. Porter, whose courage was none of the fiercest, and who had been for years given over to that terror of discipline which servitude induces, made but a feeble attempt at resistance, and forcing the handspike from him, the sentry, Jones, rushed aft to help the pilot. As Jones reached the waist, Cheshire, a cold-blooded blue-eyed man, shot him dead. Grimes fell over the corpse52, and Cheshire, clubbing the musket — had he another barrel he would have fired — coolly battered53 his head as he lay, and then, seizing the body of the unfortunate Jones in his arms, tossed it into the sea. “Porter, you lubber!” he cried, exhausted54 with the effort to lift the body, “come and bear a hand with this other one!” Porter advanced aghast, but just then another occurrence claimed the villain46’s attention, and poor Grimes’s life was spared for that time.
Rex, inwardly raging at this unexpected resistance on the part of the pilot, flung himself on the skylight, and tore it up bodily. As he did so, Barker, who had reloaded his musket, fired down into the cabin. The ball passed through the state-room door, and splintering the wood, buried itself close to the golden curls of poor little Sylvia. It was this hair’s -breadth escape which drew from the agonized55 mother that shriek56 which, pealing57 through the open stern window, had roused the soldiers in the boat.
Rex, who, by the virtue58 of his dandyism, yet possessed59 some abhorrence60 of useless crime, imagined that the cry was one of pain, and that Barker’s bullet had taken deadly effect. “You’ve killed the child, you villain!” he cried.
“What’s the odds61?” asked Barker sulkily. “She must die any way, sooner or later.”
Rex put his head down the skylight, and called on Bates to surrender, but Bates only drew his other pistol. “Would you commit murder?” he asked, looking round with desperation in his glance.
“No, no,” cried some of the men, willing to blink the death of poor Jones. “It’s no use making things worse than they are. Bid him come up, and we’ll do him no harm.” “Come up, Mr. Bates,” says Rex, “and I give you my word you sha’n’t be injured.”
“Will you set the major’s lady and child ashore62, then?” asked Bates, sturdily facing the scowling63 brows above him.
“Yes.”
“Without injury?” continued the other, bargaining, as it were, at the very muzzles of the muskets.
“Ay, ay! It’s all right!” returned Russen. “It’s our liberty we want, that’s all.”
Bates, hoping against hope for the return of the boat, endeavoured to gain time. “Shut down the skylight, then,” said he, with the ghost of an authority in his voice, “until I ask the lady.”
This, however, John Rex refused to do. “You can ask well enough where you are,” he said.
But there was no need for Mr. Bates to put a question. The door of the state-room opened, and Mrs. Vickers appeared, trembling, with Sylvia by her side. “Accept, Mr. Bates,” she said, “since it must be so. We should gain nothing by refusing. We are at their mercy — God help us!”
“Amen to that,” says Bates under his breath, and then aloud, “We agree!”
“Put your pistols on the table, and come up, then,” says Rex, covering the table with his musket as he spoke. “And nobody shall hurt you.”
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1
obstinacy
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| n.顽固；（病痛等）难治 | |
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trifling
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| adj.微不足道的；没什么价值的 | |
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unwilling
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| adj.不情愿的 | |
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peremptory
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| adj.紧急的，专横的，断然的 | |
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musket
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| n.滑膛枪 | |
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scowl
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| vi.(at)生气地皱眉，沉下脸，怒视；n.怒容 | |
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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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dismal
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| adj.阴沉的，凄凉的，令人忧郁的，差劲的 | |
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persistent
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| adj.坚持不懈的，执意的；持续的 | |
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sullen
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| adj.愠怒的，闷闷不乐的，(天气等)阴沉的 | |
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peculiar
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| adj.古怪的，异常的；特殊的，特有的 | |
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bulwarks
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| n.堡垒( bulwark的名词复数 )；保障；支柱；舷墙 | |
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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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mingled
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| 混合，混入( mingle的过去式和过去分词 )； 混进，与…交往[联系] | |
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oars
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| n.桨，橹( oar的名词复数 )；划手v.划（行）( oar的第三人称单数 ) | |
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shrill
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| adj.尖声的；刺耳的；v尖叫 | |
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apprehension
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| n.理解，领悟；逮捕，拘捕；忧虑 | |
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miserable
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| adj.悲惨的，痛苦的；可怜的，糟糕的 | |
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affected
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| adj.不自然的，假装的 | |
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insidious
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| adj.阴险的，隐匿的，暗中为害的，（疾病）不知不觉之间加剧 | |
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lulled
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| vt.使镇静，使安静（lull的过去式与过去分词形式） | |
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fore
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| adv.在前面；adj.先前的；在前部的；n.前部 | |
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melodious
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| adj.旋律美妙的，调子优美的，音乐性的 | |
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antagonist
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| n.敌人，对抗者，对手 | |
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sentry
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| n.哨兵，警卫 | |
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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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manoeuvre
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| n.策略，调动；v.用策略，调动 | |
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gaping
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| adj.口的；张口的；敞口的；多洞穴的v.目瞪口呆地凝视( gape的现在分词 )；张开，张大 | |
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bail
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| v.舀（水），保释；n.保证金，保释，保释人 | |
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obedience
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| n.服从，顺从 | |
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spoke
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| n.（车轮的）辐条；轮辐；破坏某人的计划；阻挠某人的行动 v.讲，谈（speak的过去式）；说；演说；从某种观点来说 | |
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apparently
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| adv.显然地；表面上，似乎 | |
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barbarians
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| n.野蛮人( barbarian的名词复数 )；外国人；粗野的人；无教养的人 | |
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savage
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| adj.野蛮的；凶恶的，残暴的；n.未开化的人 | |
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remarkable
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| adj.显著的，异常的，非凡的，值得注意的 | |
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swell
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| vi.膨胀，肿胀；增长，增强 | |
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coves
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| n.小海湾( cove的名词复数 )；家伙 | |
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humbled
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| adj. 卑下的，谦逊的，粗陋的 vt. 使 ... 卑下，贬低 | |
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perusing
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| v.读（某篇文字）( peruse的现在分词 )；（尤指）细阅；审阅；匆匆读或心不在焉地浏览（某篇文字） | |
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admiration
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| n.钦佩，赞美，羡慕 | |
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doorway
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| n.门口，(喻)入门；门路，途径 | |
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hurled
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| v.猛投，用力掷( hurl的过去式和过去分词 )；大声叫骂 | |
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berth
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| n.卧铺，停泊地，锚位；v.使停泊 | |
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bloody
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| adj.非常的的；流血的；残忍的；adv.很；vt.血染 | |
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villain
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| n.反派演员，反面人物；恶棍；问题的起因 | |
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villains
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| n.恶棍( villain的名词复数 )；罪犯；（小说、戏剧等中的）反面人物；淘气鬼 | |
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fixed
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| adj.固定的，不变的，准备好的；(计算机)固定的 | |
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butt
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| n.笑柄；烟蒂；枪托；臀部；v.用头撞或顶 | |
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penetrated
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| adj. 击穿的，鞭辟入里的 动词penetrate的过去式和过去分词形式 | |
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51
muzzles
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| 枪口( muzzle的名词复数 )； （防止动物咬人的）口套； （四足动物的）鼻口部； （狗）等凸出的鼻子和口 | |
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corpse
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| n.尸体，死尸 | |
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battered
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| adj.磨损的；v.连续猛击；磨损 | |
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exhausted
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| adj.极其疲惫的，精疲力尽的 | |
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agonized
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| v.使（极度）痛苦，折磨( agonize的过去式和过去分词 )；苦斗；苦苦思索；感到极度痛苦 | |
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shriek
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| v./n.尖叫，叫喊 | |
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pealing
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| v.（使）（钟等）鸣响，（雷等）发出隆隆声( peal的现在分词 ) | |
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virtue
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| n.德行，美德；贞操；优点；功效，效力 | |
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possessed
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| adj.疯狂的；拥有的，占有的 | |
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abhorrence
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| n.憎恶；可憎恶的事 | |
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odds
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| n.让步，机率，可能性，比率；胜败优劣之别 | |
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ashore
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| adv.在(向)岸上，上岸 | |
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scowling
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| 怒视，生气地皱眉( scowl的现在分词 ) | |
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