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Abacuck Pricket, sworn, says the ship began to return about 12th June, and about the 22d or 23d, they put away the master. Greene and Wilson were employed to fish for the company, and being at sea combined to steal away the shallope, but at last resolved to take away the ship, and put the master and other important men into the shallope.
While they were in the Strait, they managed to kill a few wild fowl occasionally; but the supply was so small, that they were obliged to limit the crew to half a fowl a day, which they cooked with meal; but this soon failed, and they were forced to devour the candles. The cook fried the bones of the fowls in tallow, and mixed this mess with vinegar, which, says Pricket, was "a great daintie."
Why, there was a buck I had shot in Hogley Woods, a magnificent pricket, and do you know how she had it sent to table? However, it is no matter now, for it is all over, and I don't think it was very nice of her brothers to starve me to death, though I did kill her." "Starve you to death? Oh, Mr. Ghost I mean Sir Simon, are you hungry? I have a sandwich in my case. Would you like it?"
He then besought them to delay the execution for three days, for two days, for only twelve hours; but they sternly refused. Pricket then told them, that it was not their safety for which they were anxious, but that they were bent upon shedding blood and revenging themselves, which made them so hasty.
Before he got into the boat, he went down to take leave of Pricket, who entreated him to remain in the ship; but the carpenter said he believed that they would soon be taken on board again, as there was no one left who knew enough to bring the ship home; and that he was determined not to desert the master.
The old foresters had different names for a buck during each successive year of its life, distinguishing the fawn from the pricket, the pricket from the sore, and so forth, as its age increased. Thus it is also in that illimitable but not trackless forest of moral distinctions.
Their mouths were full of the flex, for I pulled a piece of the garment from their jaws. I warrant thee, that when they brought him to ground thou fledst like a frighted pricket. 'And as for Gregory's gigantic paynim, said Fabian, 'why, he lies yonder in the guard-room, the very size, shape, and colour of a spider in a yew-hedge. 'It is false! said Gregory.
Hence, whatever reliance may be placed on the veracity of Pricket, it is due to the memory of Hudson not to overlook the circumstances by which his pen may have been biased. When Hudson and the men were deposited in the boat, the mutineers busied themselves with breaking open chests and pillaging the ship.
The account here given of the mutiny, is nearly in the words of Pricket, an eyewitness of the event. It is difficult at first to perceive the whole enormity of the crime. The more we reflect upon it, the blacker it appears. Scarcely a circumstance is wanting, that could add to the baseness of the villainy, or the horror of the suffering inflicted.
Greene, and Wilson, the boatswain, came in the night to Pricket, who was lying in his berth very lame, and told him, that they and several of the crew had resolved to seize Hudson, and set him adrift in the boat, with all on board who were disabled by sickness; that there were but few days' provisions left, and the master appeared entirely irresolute which way to go; that for themselves they had eaten nothing for three days; their only hope, therefore, was in taking command of the ship, and escaping from these regions as quickly as possible; and that they would carry their plot unto execution, or perish in the attempt.
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