‘Butler told me so. Masters showed fight when they killed the sentry and rushed on to the poop, and he was cut down. So Butler told me as we came here. The convicts got hold of the soldiers’ arms, and it was all done out of hand. And what’s to become of the ship?’
‘What will they do with the captain and the doctor?’ said Will.
‘Three convicts were dropped by the sentries,’ answered Will. ‘Suppose them dead. Then two soldiers. Then the lieutenant and Mr. Masters. The tally’ll run to near half a score, sir,’ said he, looking at the mate.
‘And you’re a cousin of this lady?’ said Mr. Bates.
‘I’m no lady on board this ship. Pray take heed, sir!’ I cried.
‘She has nothing to do with this business!’ cried my cousin. ‘She was afraid of losing sight of Captain Butler if she followed him in another ship.’
The poor man durst not ask questions, for fear of offending me.
I heard a kind of pounding, like the stroke of a pump or the hitting of timber. Mr. Bates put his head out of the door to listen. A dull, confused tumult of voices came down the hatch--wild cries as of mad or drunken delight; but I seemed to catch a level note in the hubbub, and supposed that the first delirium and wild-beast-like transports were passing.
Mr. Bates was about to shut the door, when he was arrested by a noise of rushing feet. He looked out, and said: ‘Here’s a mob of convicts streaming into the steerage!’
I pushed past him and took the door-handle from his grasp, opened the door wide, and stood in the way. The convicts were abreast of me in a moment, twenty or thirty of them. They shouted as they ran, using language which has gone from my memory. I guessed they had come to sack the cabins down here, from the nature of their shouts one to another; but they roared so hoarsely, their oaths were so plentiful and unintelligible, their speech so hard to understand, some of them being of the provinces, that I could only conjecture their designs. My voice, though contralto, was piercing and clear. I cried out: ‘Do you know who we are?’
‘Ain’t they Butler’s lot?’ shouted one of them.
‘Yes, the three of us,’ I cried. ‘He’ll be here in a moment, along with Barney Abram. We’re keeping out of the muddle above till you’ve found out who’s your friends.’