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'I then invited the masters to come on board my ship, which they cheerfully consented to do, and were within a boat's length, when a cry of alarm broke from the steersman in the foremost boat.
Even as the boys watched, the commandant gave a signal and the sailors began hauling upward on the two heavy ropes. In a moment an oblong box, about two feet long, a foot wide and of the same depth, came dripping from the water. As it was brought to the boat's side two other men grasped it carefully and placed it in the bottom of the launch.
Stuart stood with the supposed fisherman at the door of the hut until the throbbing of the motor boat's engine had died away in the distance. Then, American fashion, he turned to the brown-skinned occupant with an air of authority. "Who is this man Cecil?" he asked. The phrase began boldly, but as he caught the other's glance, the last couple of words dragged.
As before noticed, there were two greenies in each boat, they being so arranged that whenever one of them "caught a crab," which of course was about every other stroke, his failure made little difference to the boat's progress.
Of the French, no one remained but the surgeon of the lugger, Raoul's steward and personal attendant, and Raoul himself. If to these be added the two Italians and their oarsmen, Carlo and his niece, with Winchester and his boat's crew, we enumerate all who now remained at the rocks. By this time the sun had sunk below the adjacent hills, and it was necessary to decide on some course.
"The more, the merrier," is the sailor's maxim; and a boat's crew of a dozen could take off all the hides brought down in a day, without much trouble, by division of labor; and on shore, as well as on board, a good will, and no discontent or grumbling, make everything go well.
A boat's crew of resolute men might beat back, with heavy loss, an over-eager onslaught of Indians in canoes, or push their slow, unwieldy craft from shore under a rain of rifle-balls, while the wounded oarsmen strained at the bloody handles of the sweeps, and the men who did not row gave shot for shot, firing at the flame tongues in the dark woods.
The boat's crew did not hesitate one second in obeying these orders. They knew by whom they were given, and there was no man in the great body of free companions who would disobey an order given by Blackbeard. They rowed to the position assigned them and sat quietly looking into the mouths of the two cannon which were pointed towards them.
As soon as the 'Southern Cross' had carried Bishop Harper back to Lyttelton, the Melanesian voyage was recommenced, this time with a valuable assistant in Mr. Benjamin Dudley. Mrs. Selwyn was again dropped at Norfolk Island, and five young Pitcairners were taken on board to serve as a boat's crew, and also to receive instruction.
They were fully two miles from the shore, whence it was scarcely possible anyone should have observed the accident, and they were an equal distance or more from the ship; thus the current might carry them far away before anyone could come to their assistance. A sea might get up and wash them off the wreck; or sharks might attack and devour them, for the boat's gunwale was only six inches awash.
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