Part 32 (1/2)

”Who goes there? Hands up! I have you covered. Move forward into the light. Oh, it's you, Smith! What do you want?”

”I've come to give myself up, sir. I'm sick of it. Very likely you won't believe me, sir, but I joined under compulsion to save my life. I didn't dare leave them so long as Captain Bothwell----”

”_Mr._ Bothwell,” corrected Blythe sharply.

”Mr. Bothwell, sir, I meant. He watched me as if I were a prisoner.”

”I think I noticed you on my bridge with a revolver in your hand,” the Englishman told him dryly.

”Yes, sir. But I fired in the air, except once when I shot the fireman who was killing Mr. Sedgwick over the wheel.”

I turned in astonishment to Blythe.

”That explains it. Some one certainly saved me. If you didn't it must have been Smith.”

”That's one point to your credit,” Blythe admitted. ”So now you want to be an honest man?”

”I always have been at heart, sir. I had no chance to come before. They kept me unarmed except during the fighting.”

His head bandaged with a blood-soaked bandanna, his face unshaven and bloodstained, Smith was a sorry enough sight. But his eye met the captain's fairly. I don't think it occurred to any of us seriously to doubt him.

Sam laughed grimly.

”You look the worse for the wars, my friend.”

Smith put his hand to the bound head and looked at the captain reproachfully.

”Your cutlas did it at the pilot-house, sir.”

”You should be more careful of the company you keep, my man.”

”Yes, sir. I did try to slip away once, but they brought me back.”

”Let me look at your head. Perhaps I can do something for it,” Evelyn suggested to the sailor.

While she prepared the dressings I put the question to Smith.

”Jimmie. Oh, yes, sir. He's down in the f'c'sle. Gallagher ran across him and took him down there.”

This was good news, the best I had heard since the mutiny began. It seemed that the boy had slipped out to get a shot at the enemy, and that his escape had been cut off by the men returning from the attack.

Judging from what Smith said the men were very down-hearted and in vicious spirits. They were ready to bite at the first hand in reach, after the manner of trapped coyotes.

”How many of them are there?” I asked.

”Let's see. There's the two Flemings, sir, and Gallagher, and the cook, and Neidlinger, and Mack, but he won't last long.”

”Do you think they're likely to hurt the boy?”

”Not unless they get to drinking, sir. They want him for a hostage. But there has been a lot of drinking. You can't tell what they will do when they're in liquor.”

I came to an impulsive decision. We couldn't leave Jimmie to his fate.