"Did you call, Captain Dinks--Mr Meldrum!" he cried, looking about and seeing nobody there. "I thought I heard someone call out for help!"
"I'm here below on the main-deck," shouted Mr Meldrum. "Call for assistance and come and help me at once. Poor Captain Dinks has been stabbed by one of the crew, and I fear he's dying!"
"Good heavens!" exclaimed Frank in startled surprise, staggered for the moment; but he did not stop long to think or act.
"Mr McCarthy!--Mr Lathrope!" he called loudly down the companion.
"Come up here at once and leave the ladies for the present. Something dreadful has happened!"
Then, without uttering another word, he jumped down alongside of Mr Meldrum on the lower deck; where, catching up a marlinspike that was handy, he rapped vehemently against the coamings of the hatchway, some of the hands having gone to bunk down there since the cargo had been partly removed, on account of the forecastle being quite untenable from the water that had accumulated there, besides which the waves were now washing over it freely.
"All hands ahoy!" sang out Frank. "Tumble up, men! Tumble up just as you are! There's murder afloat!"
"Stow that yelling!" cried the group around Moody, who did not wish to be interrupted yet awhile with their plans; but Frank took no notice of their observations, save that a contemptuous smile passed over his face as he compressed his lips.
"Who did it?" asked he of Mr Meldrum, looking down at the latter as he bent over the poor captain, supporting his head and shoulders still on his knee so that he might breathe more freely.
"That man there," was the answer, Mr Meldrum pointing to where Moody was standing in the centre of some ten others of the same kidney. "The same man whom Captain Dinks knocked down the other day for insubordination, and whom I saw threaten him afterwards, as I can swear.
If the captain dies, he will be tried for wilful murder, and hung, for it was no accidental blow, but a deliberately premeditated deed!"
"Oh, Bill Moody? I thought it was that scoundrel!" exclaimed Frank; and in a moment he had leaped fearlessly amidst the throng--with the marlinspike fortunately still in his hand, for he was otherwise weaponless.
"Stand back!" shouted one of the men warningly, pushing him away--not in any rough fashion, but as if to keep him out of harm's way. "We don't wish to do you any hurt, Mr Harness, but I'd advise you to leave Moody alone! He's desperate now and might cause you an injury; besides which, he's one of us, and we don't intend to give him up!"
"Don't you?" exclaimed Frank, flaming up and struggling with the man who held him back; while the would-be murderer, drawing another knife from his belt, stood apparently at bay waiting for him to come on.
"Hillo! what's all this yere muss about?" called out Mr Lathrope, appearing on the poop at this juncture; "whar's everybody!"
"Here, help!" said Frank. "The crew have mutinied and the captain has been stabbed. I'm trying to get hold of the murderer; but they're too many for me. Help, Mr Lathrope, help!"
"You will have it then, you young devil!" screamed out Moody savagely, making a plunge at Frank with the formidable knife that he had now drawn, which had a much longer blade than that with which he had stricken down the captain. "I'll soon stop your cursed yelling, my joker, and give you something better to cry for!"
"I guess not, sez Con," drawled out the American, the crack of his six- shooter echoing through the air at the same time that the knife fell to the deck from the miscreant's hand, which had been neatly perforated by a bullet. The instant he raised it above his head to strike Frank, Mr Lathrope catching sight of it, had "drawn a bead on it," as he would have expressed it, without delay. "No, sirree, I guess not, as long as old Zach hain't forgot to handle the shootin'-irons!" he continued. "I fancy, mister, I've spiled your murdering little game; an' now we'll go in for a rough and tumble, I opine!"
So saying, the American, not shooting again for fear of wounding Frank, was down on the main-deck in a jiffey and by the side of the brave young sailor who was tackling the mutineers so gallantly--Mr Meldrum also joining in the struggle, first laying down the now nearly lifeless body of the captain again on the deck, however, and drawing off his coat to place it under his head so as to raise it up. The trio were shortly afterwards reinforced by the arrival of Mr McCarthy, panting and out of breath, with the side of his monkey-jacket half torn off by Major Negus, who had caught hold of it in trying to prevent his rushing up the companion ladder on hearing Frank's cry for help, the good lady imploring him not to leave her to be murdered!
The first mate's brawny fists, hitting out right and left, did yeoman's service in the melee that ensued, and so did Mr Lathrope, while Frank and Mr Meldrum also fought well; but the four were powerless against Moody's gang, who numbered a round dozen and had, by battening down the main-hatch, prevented the loyal portion of the crew from coming to their assistance--when, of course, the tables would have been turned.
Fortunately, there was no knife used in the fray, beyond the one which Moody had so unceremoniously dropped, and thus further bloodshed was prevented; but some hard knocks were given and received, and the party from the poop did not come off scathless, Mr Lathrope having his rather long nose somewhat flattened and almost turned to one side by a blow from the sledge-hammer fist of one of the mutineers. Mr Meldrum had also been considerably mauled about, and Frank had a splendid black eye.
As for the first mate, who had gone into the very thick of it, he "hadn't a sound bone in the howl of his body from the crown of his head to the sole of his fut"--that is, according to his version of it!
The struggle did not last very long, the opposing forces being so unequally matched; so, as soon as Frank and his coadjutors had been borne down by the sheer weight of numbers, their conquerors hustled them into the corner of the deck under the break of the poop, where the captain was still lying, throwing them down beside him and telling them they had better keep quiet now they had had the worst of it, that is if they valued their lives. It was no empty threat, either; for, the mutineers emphasised the order by leaving two of their number on guard over them, with belaying pins in their hands, with which they were told to "knock them on the head" should they stir or call out--a command which they looked quite capable of executing.
The gang then proceeded to drag the long-boat to the opening in the broken bulwarks on the starboard side of the ship and launch her into the water, for it was a little smoother there on account of being inclosed like a sort of lagoon between the vessel and the reef. It was a ticklish job, for an occasional roller swelled into the boat from round the stern of the ship; while as the waves that broke over the forecastle and weather quarter of the _Nancy Bell_ washed through the vessel, they poured like a cascade from the inclined deck, threatened to swamp the little raft as she lay tossing uneasily alongside until the mutineers could complete their arrangements for embarkation.
There was not much to do, for, thanks to Captain Dinks' precautions, provisions and small water casks, or barricoes, had already been stowed in the bows and along the sternsheets of the long-boat; so, after chucking in one or two articles which they had brought up from below beforehand on the sly, amongst which was a good-sized barrel of rum, they proceeded to drop down into the boat one by one, Moody going first and the others following until the whole number, a round dozen in all, had got in--the two who had remained as sentries over the poop party being the last.
Then the little craft, which appeared loaded down to the gunwales, was shoved off with a cheer of bravado from the side of the ship, and was soon lost to the sight of those left behind. The latter, however, eagerly looked after the boat as it was rapidly borne towards the shore between the heavy rolling waves that raced after it, until it finally disappeared in the night gloom.
"Sure an' it's a good riddance they are!" exclaimed Mr McCarthy, rising to his feet and shaking out his legs to see how far they were capable of movement after the mauling he had received. "May joy go wid them!"
"I hope the hull durned crowd will git swallowed up in Davy Jones'
Locker afore they git ashore, I dew!" said the American fervently, stroking his nose tenderly and speaking more nasally than ever through the injury the organ had received. "Of all the tarnation mean skunks I ever kim across from Maine to California, I guess they're 'bout the right down slick meanest--not nary a heathen Chinese would ha' done what they hev! I'd tar and feather them, I would sure, if I hed the chance, right away!"
"Never mind them," interposed Mr Meldrum, whose first care after the mutineers had released him and gone over the side, was to raise up poor Captain Dinks' head again and feel his pulse. "I have no doubt they will meet with their proper deserts! Let us see to the captain now. I think he had better be moved into the cabin, for this night air is doing him no good; and, besides, we'll there be able to see to his wound better. However I shall want some assistance."
"I'll hilp you in a minit, sorr," ejaculated Mr McCarthy, who, as soon as he had satisfied himself that his limbs were pretty sound, had devoted his energies to opening the hatchway--"that is as soon as I've unkivered this limbo and let the other hands come up. Faix, an' if them divils had not battened it down and Boltrope and the Norwegee could a got at thim, it's too many for tbim we'd ha' been, I'm thinking!"
"I didn't see what they were after," said Frank, "or I would have slipped the cover before they secured it; but I wonder where Mr Adams is all this time? Surely he must have heard the row! He ought to have come to our aid."
"By the powers," exclaimed the first mate, "I niver thought of him till this blessid minnit! Where, in the name of Moses, can he be? I believe he wint down and turned into his cot when I did."
"He ain't jined them copperheads and left us in the lurch, hey?"
inquired the American. "I didn't kinder think it on him, though he wer sorter quiet and sly-like."
"No, sorr," replied Mr McCarthy, "Adams is a first-rate seaman and a good officer too! He would be the last man to join a mutiny. Something must have happened to him, I'm thinking."
"I wonder, too," said Mr Meldrum, "that my daughter Kate has not come up before from the saloon! She must have known that something unusual was taking place on deck from our calls for help and the report of your pistol, Mr Lathrope?"
"I'm durned if I know! I'm all in a tangle, I guess," answered the American; "but I'll go down and see, mister."
All this while, Mr McCarthy had been fumbling at the fastenings of the hatchway, where the remainder of the crew were supposed to be imprisoned; but when he and Frank Harness, who lent his assistance, had at last got off the cover by a violent effort, not a soul appeared, rushing up as they expected, nor was there any response to their summons--"All hands on deck!"
What could have become of them all?
The mysterious silence below was a proof that something unforeseen had happened!
CHAPTER TWENTY.
NOTICE TO QUIT!
The mystery, however, was soon solved.
Hardly had the strange disappearance of the crew from below been discovered, than the whole of the missing men, with Mr Adams at their head and Kate Meldrum bringing up the rear, rushed up the companion- ladder on to the poop with a loud "hurrah," as if with the intention of taking part in the contest with the band of mutineers:-- their mortification may be imagined when they found that, as the first mate expressed it in his happy Irish way, "they were jist in toime to be too late, sure!"
But, had the mutineers not so rapidly abandoned the ship, the arrival of his rescue party on the scene of action would no doubt have tended to considerably alter the complexion of events; and the credit of organising the force and bringing the men from such an unexpected quarter with so great a dramatic effect had to be shared equally between Miss Kate Meldrum and Snowball, the cook--Mr Adams being only admitted as a partner in the scheme at the last moment.
It seems that Snowball, while in the galley about midnight, had heard Moody talking to two or three of his especial "pals" in the port-watch; and, thinking from his knowledge of the man that he was up to some mischief, the darkey had listened--thereby indulging a propensity which was Master Snowball's weak point, that of being inordinately curious about other people's business!
He listened, however, to some purpose on this occasion, for he heard enough to learn that a large proportion of the crew intended, as soon as they saw a favourable opportunity, to seize the long-boat--which contained nearly all the provisions that had been got up from the hold-- and desert the ship before morning.
What was their intention in doing this the cook could not guess, but he imagined that they must have thought that they would perhaps have to work to save the cargo if they remained on board, whereas if they went off, as they planned, they would escape all supervision from the officers and be under their own control. Besides, he knew that Moody was anxious to pay off the grudge he had against the captain, for he heard him specially chuckle over the fact that if they took away the long-boat, the "old man" would never be able to leave the ship with all the remaining hands and the passengers, and the rest of them would all thus "sink together, and a good job too," as the bloodthirsty ruffian said.
Primed with this news, Snowball at first hardly knew how to make use of it for the benefit of those the mutineers intended to abandon; for, the men were all hanging about the galley, where he pretended to be asleep, and if he attempted to go aft then, where nothing was stirring and when no one called him there, it would have at once aroused their suspicions and, probably, precipitated matters.
Snowball was in a quandary. He could see no way of warning the unsuspecting captain; and yet, even while he waited, the cowardly gang who thus purposed to desert their shipmates might carry out their intention!
Presently, he heard Captain Dinks tell the mates and starboard watch that they might go below, and Mr McCarthy and the others went to their cabins aft while the "star-bowlines" tumbled down the main hatchway, all glad to have a spell of rest and be out of the bitter cold night wind which almost seemed to freeze their bones and pierce them through and through.