Part 11 (1/2)

”Gentlemen,” says he, as unconcerned as if he were forecasting weather, ”gentlemen, I seem to have heard that the crew of my kinsman's s.h.i.+p have mutinied.”

We were nigh a thousand leagues from rescue or help that day!

”Mutinied!” shrieks La Chesnaye, with his voice all athrill.

”Mutinied? What will my father have to say?”

And he clapped his tilted chair to floor with a thwack that might have echoed to the fo'castle.

”Shall I lend you a trumpet, La Chesnaye, or--or a fife?” asks M.

Radisson, very quiet.

And I a.s.sure you there was no more loud talk in the cabin that day; only the long, low wash and pound and break of the seas abeam, with the surly wail that portends storm. I do not believe any of us ever realized what a frail chip was between life and eternity till we heard the wrenching and groaning of the timbers in the silence that followed M. Radisson's words.

”Gentlemen,” continues M. Radisson, softer-spoken than before, ”if any one here is for turning back, I desire him to stand up and say so.”

The St. Pierre s.h.i.+pped a sea with a strain like to tear her asunder, and waters went sizzling through lee scuppers above with the hiss of a cataract. M. Radisson inverts a sand-gla.s.s and watches the sand trickle through till the last grain drops. Then he turns to us.

Two or three faces had gone white as the driving spray, but never a man opened his lips to counsel return.

”Gentlemen,” says M. Radisson, with the fires agleam in his deep-set eyes, ”am I to understand that every one here is for going forward at any risk?”

”Aye--aye, sir!” burst like a clarion from our circle.

Pierre Radisson smiled quietly.

”'Tis as well,” says he, ”for I bade the coward stand up so that I could run him through to the hilt,” and he clanked the sword back to its scabbard.

”As I said before,” he went on, ”the crew on my kinsman's s.h.i.+p have mutinied. There's another trifle to keep under your caps, gentlemen--the mutineers have been running up pirate signals to the crew of this s.h.i.+p----”

”Pirate signals!” interrupts La Chesnaye, whose temper was ever crackling off like grains of gunpowder. ”May I ask, sir, how you know the pirate signals?”

M. de Radisson's face was a study in masks.

”You may ask, La Chesnaye,” says he, rubbing his chin with a wrinkling smile, ”you may ask, but I'm hanged if I answer!”

And from lips that had whitened with fear but a moment before came laughter that set the timbers ringing.

Then Foret found his tongue.

”Hang a baker's dozen of the mutineers from the yard-arm!”

”A baker's dozen is thirteen, Foret,” retorted Radisson, ”and the Ste.

Anne's crew numbers fifteen.”

”Hang 'em in effigy as they do in Quebec,” persists Foret.

Pierre Radisson only pointed over his shoulder to the port astern.

Crowding to the glazed window we saw a dozen scarecrows tossing from the crosstrees of Groseillers's s.h.i.+p.