“Nobody’s wanting you, Tim Parsons, or anybody else, to go pirating” was the rejoinder. “I was only talking about the thing in a general sort of a way. But, though, as you say, I never was a pirate myself, I happen to know that the trade ain’t quite such a bad one as you’d make out after all. First and foremost, there’s no occasion for murdering at all. ‘Dead men tell no tales,’ we know; but there’s ways of stopping the telling of tales without cutting men’s throats. There’s islands enough scattered about here and there quite out of the regular tracks of ships, the natives of which don’t see the colour of canvas once in a lifetime; what’s to prevent a pirate-ship landing her prisoners there? They’d have a jolly enough life of it in such a place, and be out of harm’s way. Then, as to work, I should keep just enough prisoners aboard to do all the rough, dirty work, and let my regular crew have easy times of it. And with such a ship as this, for instance, what need to be afraid of a man-o’-war, even if there weren’t a dozen ways of bamboozling the ‘gold-buttons,’ which there are. Then, as to going into port—that’s easy enough managed by a man with a good head-piece on his shoulders; and, as I was saying, a lucky six months’ cruise, and your fortune’s made. Then, what do you do? Why, you watches your chance, scuttles your ship some fine night when the weather’s favourable, and goes ashore with your swag, as a castaway seaman whose ship has sprung a leak and foundered. Pooh! don’t tell me. The thing could be easy enough done.”
“Then, I s’pose you’re one o’ those chaps who wouldn’t mind layin’ hands on other people’s goods?” quietly inquired Parsons.
“Ah! I see you’ve misunderstood me altogether, or you wouldn’t ask such a question as that, shipmate,” replied Williams. “No—if you mean by ‘laying my hands on other people’s goods,’ would I go to any of your chests and help myself—I would not. I’m not a thief; I’m as honest as ever a man here. You’ve got nothing in any of your chests, I reckon, but what I call necessaries—things a man needs and has a right to have. But—it may seem a strange thing to say, mates, yet it’s what I think—no man has a right to more than he needs of anything whilst other people have to go short. Why, for example, should some people have more cash than they know how to spend—and that, too, without working for it—whilst we poor sailor-men have to strive night and day, in fair weather and foul, just to keep soul and body from parting company? I say it ain’t fair; things ain’t evenly divided, as they should be. We’ve just as much right to ride about in a carriage as any of them swells ashore—we’re just as good men as they are—and if I had the chance I’d think I was doing no wrong to help myself to a little of their spare cash to make myself comfortable with. That’s what I think about it.”
“Ay, ay,” muttered one or two, “that sounds fair enough when you come to overhaul the thing in all its bearings.”
Others maintained silence; they instinctively recognised the falsity of Williams’ logic though their intellects were not acute enough to enable them to put their fingers on the weak spot. Others, again, shook their heads dissentingly. But Parsons, the irrepressible, after looking at Williams in blank surprise for a moment or two, broke out in a tone of mingled contempt and raillery:
“There, there, you’ve said enough, man; and now you’d better clap a stopper over all. You’re an uncommon smart man, Williams—I won’t deny it—almost too smart, it seems to me—and you’ve just been talking like this to give us an idee, as it were, of your smartness. You argufy like a lawyer, shipmate, there’s no mistake about that; but you can’t persuade me that you believe a single word of what you’ve been sayin’. Why, man, if you hadn’t already proved yourself to be the primest seaman and the most willing hand aboard this here dandy little hooker I’m blest if I shouldn’t almost be inclined to believe you was a Socialist. Pah!” and he spat contemptuously on the floor of the forecastle.
“There goes eight bells,” he continued, “and on deck we goes, the starboard watch. Whose wheel is it?”
Chapter Three.
The plotter at his work.
The little forecastle conclave made their way out on deck without waiting for the formality of a call; and, there happening to be no sail-trimming to attend to, and every prospect of a fine night, they made themselves as comfortable as circumstances would permit under the shelter of the bulwarks and elsewhere, excepting, of course, the man whose trick at the wheel it was and the look-out, the latter of whom stationed himself on the topgallant-forecastle, to windward, whilst the former went aft. The men broke up into little knots, some to smoke, some to chat, and some to snatch a cat-nap—if they could elude the vigilance of the second-mate, which they had already discovered was no very difficult achievement. The two apprentices in the watch were keeping a look-out in the waist, the one to windward and the other to leeward.
Williams and another man, named Rogers, lighted their pipes and settled themselves on the lee side of the deck, just forward of the fore-rigging, where they maintained a sort of perfunctory look-out on the lee-bow whilst smoking and chatting.
“I say, Josh,” began Rogers, in a low tone of voice, “don’t you think you pitched matters just a trifle too strong in the fo’c’s’le just now? Seems to me, mate, that you spoke out plainer than was altogether wise by way of a starter. If ’t had been me, now, I should ha’ felt my way a bit; talked more in a general sort of a way, you know. I tell you it fairly took my breath away to hear you rap out about piratin’ right off the reel. I’m afraid that chap Parsons ’ll get suspicious next time any thing’s said.”
“Yes,” Williams admitted, “I did overrun my ground-tackle a trifle; no mistake about that. Parsons sort of provoked me into it. But don’t you trouble; it’ll give the thing a start, and set the hands talking together; and as for Parsons, you’ll see I’ll put everything right next time we have a yarn together. He called me ‘smart,’ and he’s right; I’m a precious sight smarter than he gives me credit for being, ’cute as he is. And there’s no harm done; I could see that I’ve given some of ’em a new idea or two to overhaul and think about. I think that, even now, I could name three or four in our watch who’ll prove all right when the time comes.”
There was a great deal more said in the same strain which need not be repeated; the pith of the conversation has been given, and will suffice to suggest to the intelligent reader the idea that, even thus early in her first voyage, there was something radically wrong on board the Flying Cloud.
To the superficial eye, however, everything seemed to point to a prosperous voyage. The wind continued slowly but steadily to haul round from the northward, and by nine o’clock in the evening of the fifth day out the good ship, with a breeze at about due north and fresh enough to necessitate the stowing of all three skysails, was off Cape Finisterre and bowling along upon her course with studding, sails, from the royals down, set to windward, and reeling off her knots in a manner which caused the mates to stare incredulously at the line every time they hove the log.
As for the little party of passengers in the saloon, they were delighted—charmed with each other, with the captain, with the midshipmen, with the crew—who seemed to them an exceptionally smart and steady set of men—with the ship, and with the weather; with everything and every body, in fact, but the two mates, who both proved to be very disagreeable men. There had not been a single symptom of mal de mer among them, though the motion had been pretty lively during the passage across the Bay of Biscay; and by this time they had thoroughly settled down and become almost as perfectly at home in the ship as though they had been born on salt water. The gentlemen chatted, smoked, walked the poop, and played chess together, romped with the children, or read aloud to the ladies whilst they reclined in their deck-chairs and pretended to work, and otherwise made themselves generally useful.