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Updated: August 24, 2024
It was in vain that they shouted to one another to stand by and come on, and that Tom Fillot bounded about, making his fists fly like windmill sails, while Mark's voice was heard above the din: they were thoroughly beaten.
"I thought it was all over with you, sir," said Tom Fillot, who, regardless of those over whom he had passed, had plunged aft and thrown himself upon the coxswain, bearing him and the young midshipman down into the stern-sheets of the boat, and holding the former till he was dragged away, laid in the bottom, and held down forward, in spite of his struggles and cries. "I thought so, too, Tom.
As the men went down Mark had another fall, but he gathered himself up, looking extremely vicious now, and while Tom Fillot was still struggling with the slavers, one of whom had got hold of his leg, another man made at the midshipman, and drove at him with a capstan bar, not striking, but thrusting fiercely at his face with the end.
The man at the wheel was so intent upon his song, and that which was going on forward, that he did not notice the sounds which were terribly loud to the midshipman's ear, till Tom Fillot had climbed up, was about to throw his legs over, but slipped. The noise he made in his slip was slight in the extreme, but unfortunately he uttered a sharp ejaculation as he saved himself from going down.
We must," said Mark; and after leaving the deck in charge of Stepney and Grote, of the latter especially, as Mark felt sure that he could be trusted now, he and Tom Fillot lay down under an awning they had rigged up, and in less than a moment they were both sleeping heavily.
"Say, messmates, hear that?" "Tom Fillot." "Ay, ay, sir." "Where are we?" "Dunno, sir. Here, I think." "But where is here, stupid?" "That's a true word, sir. I am stupid who's this?" "Dick Bannock, AB, it is," said the familiar voice of that seaman. "Know where we are, mate?" "No. Awake, I think." "Well, we know that," cried Mark, pettishly. "Yes, I remember now. I must have gone to sleep."
At one moment insane ideas as to the recapture of the schooner came to trouble him, and this brought to mind what ought to have been his first duty as the officer upon whom the command had suddenly fallen. "Tom Fillot," he cried, excitedly, "go round the boat as carefully as you can, and count the men, ourselves included. We ought to be eleven, ought we not?" "Let's see, sir.
You there, Fillot? I heered in a dull sort o' way, and then the poor lufftenant went down with a groan, and same moment I hears a scrufflin' forrard and aft, cracks o' the head, and falls. Minute arter there was a row going on in the fo'c's'le.
That night, so as to guard against their being passed by their friends in the darkness, lights were hoisted as a signal that would be pretty sure to bring them help; and this being done, Tom Fillot approached his superior respectfully, to speak him, as he called it, about the division of the watches.
Mark felt miserable, for, as Bob kindly told him afterwards, he looked just like an escaped lunatic, who had jumped out of a strait waistcoat into a middy's uniform. He felt as if the men were smiling in derision at his aspect, especially Tom Fillot and Dance, who were grinning, while Soup and Taters displayed nearly every one of their magnificent white teeth.
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