Home > Authors Index > Edward Sylvester Ellis > Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys Story of the Sea and its Perils > This page
Adrift on the Pacific: A Boys Story of the Sea and its Perils, a fiction by Edward Sylvester Ellis |
||
Chapter 14. The Revolt |
||
| < Previous |
Table of content |
Next > |
|
________________________________________________
_ CHAPTER XIV. THE REVOLT For a brief while after the descent of the mate of the _Coral_, incased in his new diving armor, the four men above did nothing more than merely wait for his coming up. But all the time the parties were watching each other, for Captain Bergen was convinced that the crisis was at hand. The mutineers had learned where the oyster-bed was, and therefore could be no longer restrained by that consideration. They could get on without the diving-armor, though they saw how convenient it might be to have it; but, since it was connected with the shore, it could be drawn in and recovered if they should need it. The mate was down in the ocean, and the captain was standing on terra firma. What more favorable separation was likely to present itself? Here were three men against one, and the three had gained the secret which had restrained them so long. "I say," said Hyde Brazzier, "does the mate down there find things as he expected?" "We can tell that better after he comes up," was the reply of the captain, who kept his hand at his hip, where it could rest on the butt of his revolver. "But there is reason to believe that he isn't disappointed." "And he breathes through these pipes that lie here?" pursued Brazzier, while the expression on the face of Pomp and Redvignez convinced Skipper Bergen that serious mischief was coming. "You can see that without asking me," replied he, stepping back a pace or two so as to keep the men before him. "Well, if a man can't get what air he wants, what is likely to happen?" continued Brazzier, with an insolent swagger that was exasperating, following upon his fawning sycophancy. "Any fool would know that he would die." "Well, now that we've landed, I don't see as there is any need of a mate or a captain neither, with this crew--do you, boys?" And he turned toward his companions with a laugh. "Of course not. The best place for him is in Davy Jones' locker!" said Redvignez. "Now you is talkin' right!" was the characteristic comment of the negro, Pomp, who seemed the most eager of the three, when the mutiny had come to a head. It was evident that Brazzier had determined to drown the mate while he was below the surface. "The first man who interferes with those pipes I will shoot dead!" Captain Bergen spoke the words in a low voice, but there could be no mistaking his deadly earnestness. Feeling that the crisis had come, the captain determined to give the signal agreed upon with Abe Storms, which was a sudden jerk of the rope fastened to the one around the waist of the mate. The latter would understand that his presence above was needed at once. The captain was in the act of stooping over, when Redvignez sprang behind him with the stealth and agility of a cat, and struck his arm a violent blow. His purpose was to knock the revolver out of the captain's hand, so that he and his friends could secure the use of it. But he overdid the matter, for the revolver went spinning out of the captain's hand and dropped into the water, where it sank out of sight. Startled and shocked, he straightened up without giving the signal to Abe Storms below the surface. None of the party had any firearms, but Captain Bergen saw it would be madness for him to make any resistance. Without a moment's hesitation, therefore, he wheeled about and ran with all the speed of which he was capable. His flight was not altogether an aimless one, for he hoped to reach the schooner, lying an eighth of a mile away, far enough in advance of his pursuers to seize one of the rifles carefully concealed there, and to make defense against his foes. The instant he broke into a run, his pursuers did the same, uttering loud shouts, as if they were American Indians who were certain of their prey. For the time, it was a question of speed between pursuers and pursued. If the latter could reach the craft considerably ahead of the others, there was a chance of his making a successful defense against the three who were seeking his life. If he failed to attain the goal, he felt it would be all over with him, for they were not the men to show any mercy. Darting among the palm-trees, therefore, he strained every nerve to draw away from his enemies, while they strove, with equal desperation, to overtake him. It was a straight run, and comparatively an unobstructed one, for the palm-trees were far enough apart to give him a pretty fair course, which was of equal advantage to all parties. Perhaps it is possible, therefore, to imagine the anxiety with which, after running a short distance, Captain Bergen glanced over his shoulder to see how his pursuers were making out. But it is not possible to appreciate his consternation when he saw that two of them were outrunning him, and, as he had striven to his very utmost, the frightful truth was manifest that he was sure to be overtaken before he could reach the _Coral_. Those who were gaining upon him were Pomp, the negro, and Brazzier himself. But the fact that they were gaining upon him was no cause for the fugitive falling down and yielding without a struggle. He still had his sheath-knife, which he grasped with a despairing feeling as he realized, during those awful seconds, that complete, disastrous failure, instead of the brilliant success he had counted upon, had overtaken him at last. The pursuers gained rapidly, and not one-half the distance was passed, when all three of the men were almost within striking distance, for Redvignez was at the elbow of his companions. Captain Bergen looked over his shoulder, and was about to throw his back against a palm-tree, with the view of turning at bay and fighting to the last, when, like the historical John Smith of our own earlier times, his lack of attention to his feet precipitated the very fate against which he was struggling. His feet struck some obstruction, and being exhausted from his extraordinary exertion, he pitched forward and fell on his face. As he went down he was conscious of hearing two widely different sounds--one the exultant cries of the pursuers, and the other the terrified scream of a little girl. Captain Bergen attempted to rise, but Redvignez and Brazzier were upon him, and the knife of the latter was upraised with the purpose of ending the matter then and there forever, when the cry of the child was heard the second time, and little Inez sprang, like Pocahontas, between the uplifted arm and the intended victim. "Oh, don't hurt him! Please don't hurt him! Please, please don't hurt him, 'cause I love him!" pleaded the agonized child, with all the earnestness of her nature. The position of the prostrate captain attempting to rise, and the little one interceding for him, was such that the mutineer hesitated for the moment, for he could not strike without endangering her life. Seeing this, with the wonderful quickness which sometimes comes over the youngest child in such a crisis, Inez persistently forced her body with amazing quickness in the way of the poised knife as it started to descend more than once--the other two holding back for their leader to finish the work. Brazzier was a man of tigerish temper, and he became infuriated in a few seconds at this repeated baffling of his purpose. "Confound you!" he suddenly exclaimed, with a fierce execration. "If you will keep in the way, then you must take it!" The arm was drawn still further back, with the intention of carrying out this dreadful threat, when the wrist was seized in the iron grip of Black Pomp, who said: "Hold on, dere! None ob dat! De man dat hurts a ha'r ob dat little gal's head will got sot down on by me, an' mashed so flat dat he'll neber rose ag'in. Does you hear me, sah?" _ |
||