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"Yes, friends; all friends," cried a harsh voice, as the great, perfectly nude, black sprang up out of the hatchway, and threw down his heavy wooden bar, an example followed by the other, while, as the moon now shone full upon their convulsed and excited faces, Tom Fillot burst into a roar of laughter, rushed forward, and slapped first one and then the other on the bare shoulder, yelling out,
You will take charge here with Billings, Dance, Potatoes, and three of the blacks Soup drilled as his guard. It's a poor crew for you." "Best we can do, sir," said Tom Fillot, cheerily. "I'll have half the Americans on board with me." "Beg pardon, sir, don't." "But they are too many for you to have with your weak force."
"No; he'd say, `It's your duty, boy. In God's name go and do your best." "I'm ready, Tom Fillot," he said half aloud, as he felt for and seized the rudder-lines. "Now, my lads." There was a low buzz of excitement, and then, in obedience to an order, a couple of oars were softly thrust into the water. Dance stood ready, but there was no boathook, and he fretfully asked what he was to do.
It was with a mingling of satisfaction and disinclination that the lad obeyed; and as they stood about the open hatch, Mr Russell said, "We must give them time to find out that we are friends. This is my first experience, in spite of all our chasing, Vandean, and it is worse than I could have believed." "Signal from the Naughtylass, sir," said Tom Fillot. "Yes; the captain is getting anxious.
Mark answered the question by stumbling up the ladder till he could put his face over the combings of the hatch, and breathe the air blowing over the vessel, Tom Fillot following suit. "You look white as ashes, Vandean," said the lieutenant. "I had no business to let you go down. But the men are not dangerous?"
It was horrible in the extreme, Mark felt, but nothing else could be done, and the sufferers were committed to the deep by their more fortunate companions, with a few wails of grief and beatings of the breast. Then all was over, and the cleansing went on, till Mr Russell gave orders for the men to cease. "And pretty well time," grumbled Tom Fillot.
Show the light. Then there seemed to me to be a light walking about the deck with a lot o' legs, and I knowed that they were coming round picking up the pieces. Sure enough they was, sir, and they pitched all the bits of us overboard into a boat alongside; and I knowed we hadn't half kept our watch, and the Yankee skipper had come back and took his schooner." "Oh, Tom Fillot!" groaned Mark.
Strikes me they give them poor chaps a crack o' the head apiece, and knocked 'em down, same as they did we, but they wouldn't take the trouble to carry them and pitch them into a boat. They just chucked them overboard at once." "Oh, impossible!" cried Mark, excitedly. "They could not be such brutes." "What! not them, sir?" cried Tom Fillot, indignantly.
He glanced at Mr Russell, where he lay in his stupor, and recalled some words that officer had once said to him respecting the management of his followers: "Always use them as if their lives were of greater value than your own, Vandean," he said. "Never risk them recklessly." "And that would be recklessly," Mark said, half aloud. "You speak to me, sir?" said Tom Fillot. "Eh?
As the coxswain was speaking from out of the darkness, to the wonderment of all, Tom Fillot whispered quickly to his young officer, "It's the crack he got, sir. He'll be overboard if we don't mind. Poor chap, he has gone right off his nut." Creeping forward past the men, Tom made for where Joe Dance was speaking loudly, evidently under the belief that he was talking to a number of people around.
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