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Ruby was the first to fall. As he stood at the wheel, indulging in pleasant dreams, a Frenchman stole up behind him, and felled him with a handspike. When he recovered he found that he was firmly bound, along with his comrades, and that the vessel was lying-to. One of the Frenchmen came forward at that moment, and addressed the prisoners in broken English.
They had listened more readily than he had expected; and his great wish now was to return there at some future day with missionaries, who might teach them to read about the matter themselves. He had just got back, when one morning Jack Handspike, who was on guard, observed a body of blacks approaching.
In attempting to drive the crew back from the boats, Chief Engineer Maxwell was instantly killed with a handspike, poor Hooper so badly wounded and beaten that he died half-an-hour ago and I myself wounded in the left arm. The crew have taken to the boats and two loads are now about half a mile from the vessel. The men are shouting. Something terrible must have happened " June 29.
"Oh! he's going home to Down East," said another; "so far eastward, you know, shippy, that they have to pry up the sun with a handspike."
I levelled the handspike at his head, but he dodged, and returned to the cabin by the way he came; and after that there were no more attempts at recovering the vessel. In five minutes more we were abreast of the Euphrosyne, Sir James O'Connor's frigate, which was now lying, with only her lower masts in, alongside of the hulk.
Then he rapped on the door with a bit of stick like a handspike that he carried, and when my father appeared, called roughly for a glass of rum. This, when it was brought to him, he drank slowly, like a connoisseur, lingering on the taste, and still looking about him at the cliffs and up at our signboard. "This is a handy cove," says he, at length; "and a pleasant sittyated grog-shop.
There was no doubt that the listeners were interested, and the man made an impressive gesture. "It was kind of scaring. There was a soft flippety-flop going on in the stern-house, and I slipped out a handspike. Then the skipper sees me. "'There's a drowned man crawling round the cabin with water running off him, he says.
I had a handspike in my hand with which I had been helping to roll the kegs. I struck with it, on the spur of the moment; the man went down on the spot, with a groan. As he fell I leaped back, ready for the next. I called out, 'Stretchers, lads; they want to take your captain? My lads gathered round me at once. But there was silence; not another creature to be seen or heard.
By pressing the board against the blankets, and jamming the handspike down between it and the outer corner of the bunk, the gush of water was stopped. "Here's another hole still more forward, I can see the water bubbling in," cried Jim, holding a lantern, which he had lit that he might look round, to the place. We stopped it as we had the first.
One sultry afternoon when Gaff was standing at the helm and the captain beside him, the men came aft in a body, and two of their number, with pistols in their hands, advanced to seize the captain. He saw at once what they meant to do, and, springing back, seized a handspike. "Lay that down and surrender, else I'll blow out yer brains," said one of the two, levelling his pistol.
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