A mass of the convicts were coming toward the recess where the soldiers’ arms were. Gaining the steerage hatchway in a leap or two, I rushed into my cabin, and as I closed my door and bolted it I heard the prisoners shouting as they swarmed into the cuddy. Their footsteps thundered over my head. I saw myself in the wash-stand looking-glass, and was as white as milk. I was only sensible now of the horror that had seized me at the sight of the faces of the convicts. I stood with my hand upon my heart, holding by the side of the upper bunk, breathing fast and listening. But voices could not pierce the thickness of the deck-plank. Nothing took my ear but the confused tread and shuffling movements of feet overhead like to what I had heard when I lay in hiding, only softer because of the carpets.
A horrid fancy seized me. Shots had been fired. Suppose Tom had been wounded or killed! The handle of the door was violently tried and the door shaken and beaten upon. I cried out: ‘Who’s that?’
I rushed to the door and opened it, and Will entered. In the time that the door lay open I heard a great shouting and hoarse roaring, distant, as though a fierce struggle were happening on the main-deck, likewise a single musket-shot. This I heard whilst I let Will in. He was deadly white; his eyes were large and strange with a wild stare of horror.
For some moments he could utter no words.
‘No, but I have seen--but I have seen--oh, the bloody villains! One stabbed Chimmo in the throat, and they threw him overboard alive. He levelled his pistol and shot a man. He was mad to do it. He stood no chance. They wrenched the musket out of a sentry’s hand and bayoneted him and tossed him into the sea, alive like the subaltern.’
Horror overcame the poor fellow. The memory of the shocking sights seemed to paralyse him; his jaw moved, but he ceased to speak. I was horror-stricken too, but not as he, for he had beheld what he described. But impatience was rending my heart; I could not give him time.
The poor lad dryly swallowed and wiped his blanched lips and said huskily: ‘Yes; he told me to run to this cabin and keep with you. He’ll be here soon. He stays to save Mr. Bates’s life.’
‘The convicts will not hurt us,’ said I. ‘Tom stipulated for our safety.’