CHAPTER VII.

MEASURES FOR DEFENCE CONCERTED.

Though Ethel and Rose had retired to rest, the hour was not late, and Captain Phillips, Mr. Basset, and Hawkshaw were still lingering over a glass of wine in the cabin, when Dr. Heriot entered it.

The pallor of his face, and the excited expression of his eyes, made them start with exclamations of surprise and inquiry; and their alarm increased when he filled up a glass with port and drained it, the crystal rattling against his teeth while he did so.

"Hallo, doctor, what the deuce is the matter?" asked bluff Captain Phillips, changing colour, or rather losing it partially. "You have been forward--eh?"

"Yes, sir; and have there heard more than enough to confirm our worst fears."

Phillips arose, and closed the cabin door. He then summoned from his berth Mr. Quail (as Mr. Foster, the second mate, had charge of the deck), and they, together with Mr. Basset and Hawkshaw, heard with undisguised consternation the result of the doctor's eavesdropping.

As for Hawkshaw, he had long endured the horrible conviction of guilt, with the still more gnawing sense or dread of perpetual suspicion in others. He loved Ethel, yet, as we have said elsewhere, at times he almost hated her for her coldness to him; but now his soul was full of terror--terror for her and for himself, as he knew he would meet with little mercy from the Barradas and their friends. Retribution for the crime he had committed at Acton Chine was about to come at last, and he had fallen into a trap of his own devising!

Neither Captain Phillips nor Mr. Quail were much astonished, though grieved and alarmed, by Dr. Heriot's tidings; but poor Mr. Basset's first thought was for his daughters--his young, delicate, and tenderly-nurtured girls; and already, in his excited imagination, he beheld them, after his own butchery, in the rude grasp of those lawless wretches, and subjected to the grossest indignities, far from help or human aid, upon the lonely sea, and in a floating hell--indignities the mere idea of which wrung the poor man's heart with agony.

To-morrow, to-night, even now, they might be advancing towards the cabin, intent on assassination and robbery!

The dread was maddening to the unhappy parent, who made a step towards his daughters' sleeping place, as if in anticipation, by thought and deed, to save them from the coming peril. He had no voice or coherence of thought for a time, and listened like one in a dream to the discussion or consultation now held by the officers of the ship.

After relinquishing his practice as a barrister in London, Scriven Basset had spent many years of ease and affluence at Laurel Lodge, and all unused to alarms or excitements, he felt himself totally destitute of the stamina or courage requisite for facing so sudden and perilous an emergency. Personal danger he might have confronted, for he had all the spirit of a gentleman; but at the thought of his daughters--the graceful and ladylike Ethel, the sweet and playful Rose--his soul seemed to die within him.

Cramply Hawkshaw's visage was paler than usual. He remembered the threats used towards himself, when Pedro Barradas so summarily appropriated his gold watch, and while trembling for Ethel, he began to think of means for quitting the ship, for the safety of his own person, of which--being all the property he possessed--he was rather disposed to be economical.

"The accursed--the bloody-minded villains!" exclaimed Captain Phillips, after a pause, while pacing to and fro. "This comes of having a coloured crew; and this is why they have been so sullen and insolent of late."

"And so lazy at work, too," groaned Mr. Quail.

"Lazy! they have done little else but take three turns a day round the long-boat, and then a pull at the scuttle-butt."

"For weeks there has been no work done," resumed Mr. Quail; "all our spunyarn and chafing-gear are worn out, and you might as well expect them to polish the chain-cable, or brighten up the best bower, as prepare for an emergency, or get the fellows even to wash or mend their own clothes."

"If a man-of-war hove in sight, I'd put an end to their sogering!" said Captain Phillips, still pacing about. "I'd make them toe the mark, and work the old iron out of them. I'd have them all seized up, and made spread-eagles of at the gangway, the coloured vermin."

"A worse lot were never shipped, unless on board a Spanish pirate," said Mr. Quail, with another groan, as he thought of plump, jolly Mrs. Quail, and their five little Quails, at that moment, doubtless all a-bed in their pretty little rose-covered cottage near the Windmill-hill at Gravesend.

"Is there not one on whom we could depend?" asked Mr. Basset, in faltering accents.

"Not one, sir," replied Captain Phillips; "not one, except Boy Joe, the steward, and he is not worth much."

"We are in a desperate situation, certainly," said Heriot. "But I am most concerned for you and--and your daughters, Mr. Basset."

Tears started to the lawyer's eyes, and he wrung the young doctor's readily-proffered hand.

"And I, too, Mr. Basset, feel for you and your two dear girls--though perhaps this business may be all talk and sogering; yet I confess it don't look like it," said the captain. "Thank Heaven I am a bachelor, and have no one depending upon me but the son of my poor brother Bill, that was drowned in the Straits of Sunda, and my life is insured on his account, so that is all right; but these young ladies----"

Phillips paused, for Mr. Basset, who was reclining on the cabin locker, covered his face with his hands, and groaned aloud.

"We have no time to lose in preparing to meet these rascals," said Dr. Heriot, with growing confidence. "We must see what arms we can muster, and endeavour to use them too. D--n it, Captain Phillips, we must show fight in some fashion, and not all walk the plank without making some of them walk it also. I have a pair of good rifled pistols."

"And I have two six-barrelled revolvers and a fowling-piece," added the captain.

"Sixteen shots," said Hawkshaw, brightening a little. "We can barricade the cabin, and defend it with these against them."

"We are seven, including myself," said Phillips.

"Seven?" said Mr. Basset, looking up.

"Yes, sir; there are the two mates, the doctor, yourself, and I, Captain Hawkshaw, and Joe the steward."

"But they are eighteen in number, and armed too."

"Only with sheath-knives, so far as we know; but then there are hatchets, cleavers, handspikes, and capstan-bars, with anything else that will form a weapon."

"Oh that we were nearer the coast of Africa, that we might all get into a boat, and quietly leave the ship on a dark night!" said Mr. Basset, wringing his hands, while Dr. Heriot unlocked a case of pistols--the parting gift of his class-fellows on his leaving the old College of King James VI.--and proceeded at once to load and cap them, after which he put all the ammunition in his pockets.

"Fear for your girls bewilders you, sir," said Captain Phillips, in a low voice, to Mr. Basset. "That, perhaps, is natural; but to be landed on the coast of Africa might not mend matters much with you and them, if you fell in with some houseless Dutch bushmen or wild Cape Caffres; and as for me, I shall never quit my ship while a plank of her holds together."

"Captain Phillips," said young Heriot, with his teeth clenched, and his eyes flashing, as he thought of sweet Rose Basset, whose last kiss seemed yet to linger on his lip, "if they keep quiet until morning, I have a mind to call forward Pedro Barradas in front of the crew, tell him what I have overheard, and then, as an example, shoot him dead before the rest!"

The captain vehemently opposed this idea as rash, and added:

"You are very risky for a Scotsman; you would only perish under the knives and handspikes of the rest, and thus bring destruction the sooner on us all."

"Oh, if a man-o'-war would but come in sight!" groaned Mr. Basset.

"They are seldom so far off the Cape; and we are a good way to the southward of it already."

"Could we not sound the crew? All may not be so bad as the Barradas," said Hawkshaw.

"They are all alike, confound 'em!" rejoined Captain Phillips, as he brought from his cabin the two revolvers and the fowling-piece, all of which he proceeded quietly, but quickly, to load and cap.

The arms and ammunition were distributed among them, and Hawkshaw really handled the "six-shooter" like a man who was used to it, and, doubtless, when in Mexico, his life and his food had frequently depended on the goodness of his aim.

"If we only take care and fire steadily, we may dispose of them all in case of an attack," said Dr. Heriot, who, with the captain, was the most resolute of the little band. "Our chief aim must be to prevent a surprise."

After a council of war, it was arranged that the ladies should be warned against leaving the cabin or venturing much on deck, and that they should be kept in ignorance of the why and wherefore.

That the seven men in the cabin should stand staunchly by each other, and never undress when lying in their berths, so as to be ready for instant service.

That one at a time should hold a strict watch on the companion-way and cabin door, and that all should keep their arms loaded and their ammunition constantly about them.

That as little canvas as possible should be kept no the ship, so that aloft she might be ready for any sudden emergency, squall, or catastrophe.

A large trunk, full of Mr. Basset's law-books (which next morning was to have been shot into the hold as lumber), was placed near the outer cabin door, and lashed by one of its handles to a brass ring-bolt, and so arranged that, sluing round the other end, it effectually barricaded the sliding-door that opened to the steerage and companion-ladder.

To defend this avenue in case of an attack, and so sell their lives as dearly as possible, or, it might be, to shoot all their assailants down in succession, were the simple but stern resolutions come to.

These preliminaries adjusted, the captain, armed with his revolver, took the first two hours' spell. The rest retired to their various berths, and lay down with their clothes on, and their weapons beside them.

The two hours passed away in silence.

The captain went on deck, and sent the second mate, Foster, below, in a not very enviable frame of mind, after hearing what was on the _tapis_, for, like Mr. Quail--

"He, poor fellow! had a wife and children-- Two things for dying people quite bewildering."

So, with a beating and anxious heart, he lay down on a locker, with a sharp hatchet under him--the only weapon that came to hand.

The ship was still going large, with the breeze abaft the beam, and the fore and main studding-sails set. Joe, the steward, was at the wheel; the light in the forecastle bunks was extinguished now, and the watch on deck were all grouped, in silence apparently, to leeward of the long-boat.

All seemed still for that night, or rather the remainder of the morning, when the captain warned the miserable Mr. Basset to take the next "spell," or watch, as sentinel at the cabin door.

Pale and sleepless, with bloodshot eyes, the poor man received the loaded revolver, with all the timidity and awkwardness of one who had never handled such a weapon before, and dreading lest it might explode of its own accord, like a loaded fire-wheel, and thus shoot himself and everybody else; but anon the thought of his daughters nerved his heart and steadied his hand.

Slowly, as if Time stood still, the minutes passed; and when, as usual, the ship's bell clanged at each half-hour on deck, it sounded in his ears and in his soul like the knell of doom!

So the poor father continued to watch in breathless anxiety; now pacing the carpeted cabin in miserable restlessness, then seating himself upon the stern locker, with the revolver on his knee, and his hands over his face, breathing an unuttered prayer for his darling daughters; now listening, keenly as a hunted hare, at the door of their little cabin, to hear their soft, low breathing. Anon, seeking the companion-way, as if the confined air of the ship stifled him, and looking up at the mizzen-rigging towering into the starry sky, where the mizzen-topsail, topgallantsail, and the driver, with the boom and gaff, spread between him and heaven like a broad gray cloud of canvas.

Then the thought of his dead wife, and their once dear happy home in England far away.

By a freak of memory, past hours of happiness, of joviality and frivolity--hours spent amid the flowery and leafy seclusion of Laurel Lodge, came crowding on him, with faces of friends, their voices, smiles, and little episodes; the green sunny lawn, the stately chase of Acton-Rennel, the Norman cross on Cherrytree Hill, and the great yew that shaded his wife's grave in that quiet old English churchyard, where he might never lie: all these came before him now, and he marvelled in his aching breast if the horrors that overhung him now were not a nightmare, and all a dreadful dream!

Ethel and Rose, so pure, so fair, so lovely, and so highly bred, to be in such peril; at the mercy of such men as those who formed the crew of the _Hermione_, and far from all human succour on the wide, wide, open sea.