LITERATURE.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 5050, 12 September 1894, Page 1

LITERATURE.

THE GOOD SHIP MOHOCK.

[BY \7. CLABK BtTSBBLIi, Author of " The Golden Hope : A Romance of the Deep," " A Saa Queen," " The Wreck of the Grosvenor, "My Danish Sweetheart," &c, &3/1 (All Bights Beservtd.) Chapter V. UNDER HATCHES. The man that came into the saloon was the thin, wiry soldierly rogue with the yellow moustache. He stepped to the head of the table, olobo under the Bkylight, and on looking at him again I was as convinced that he was the man I had seen at my stepfather's as that my eyea were those I had viewed him with. He had made some change of apparel ; wore a cloth cap, a monkey jacket, tronsera staffed into seaboots, which gave him a theatrical, Bwaggering, look; a cutlass waa strapped to bis waiat, and the butt of a pistol showed under either pocket flap. He grasped no weapon, but then at the head oftheealoon etairoiee stood the seaman with the mcsket; we could Bee him clearly : he held the musket by the barrel, ! the butt end resting on the deck, and lounged in a posture tba*; hinted at plenty of savage alertness when a call should come. "Me and my mates," raid the nan, speaking in a steady, hoa-99 voice, and loosing about him fiercely, even to tbe suggestion of a squint under the wrinkles of bis scowling frown, "have got possession. I of this ship, and we mean to keep her. No harm's intended to you here." "Bufci3 that so?" cri9d Mrs Wills. He surveyed her figure, aad answered, loßolenfcly, "Ay, or I shouldn't havo said it." "Fray letua hear what is to be done with us? " exclaimed Moc signer. "There'll be no change," continued the man, talking in hifl threat as though he supposed tbathcaTseneßs lenta fresh terror to his aspect. " You'll fare the same a* you've been doing. You'll be allowed to take the air in Btnall comr. aiie«." "Are. our lives in peril?" cried the grasshopper, leaning forward and breaking into the question with , spasmodic vehemence. The sound of his voice and the pesture of his elbow was like a leap in the air. " That'll be your business, a aster, not ouinl" answered the fellow. "Keep you quiet, tbaV*B all." ; "But," exclaimed Monsignor, "how do you intf nd to dispose of us ? " "You'll be put a3hora,'* waa hia reply. "But where, sir, but where?" shonted Mr Jaokson, staring with greedy fearful eagernet s at the figure of the fellow. " I booked to New York. My.wirii iB simply to get there. I have many important engagements to falfil, aad their forfeiture mußt signify so serious a loss, that sooner — in short, if you will came aoy reasonable sum "-—the comedian began to sf ammer. "I don't think if 11 be New York with yer this voyage," interrupted the man. " But keep quiet. That's all you've got to do. You'll come to no hurt any of you, only you mnst give no trouble." Thus .speaking, he cast another angry look around and his eye lighting upon me, his faae I thought relaxed for an instant, "but the villain was quick with, his wits, aud *as coolly mounting the Bteps before I could have sworn he saw me. We iat or stood staring at one another. Then e aid Colonel Wills : "What in flames is meant? Did aiy man ever meet the like of so all-fired a fiend ? They mean to* alter the ship's course, anyhow." The actor lifted up his fist and let it fall. Monsignor west to the head of the table where tuj stepfather sat at meals, and looked at a tell-tale compass secured to a beam immediatly overhead. He looked and looked again. His face fell. A new tinge of paleness entered his tranquil handsome features, and he said in a low but clear voice : " The course is already changed." "Where are they steering us to ?." cried a lady. "The ship's course is now," exclaimed the priest, upturning his eyes to the tell-tale once more, "almost directly south." This announcement waa followed by a prolonged silence of consternation. "Is theie no remedy?" blubbered the hardofaoed woman with the children. " Won't they transfer us to another eirip ? What can they iulead by sailing us south?" and the poor thing's red eyes rolled about in their sockets, glaring and wild with fright. " Caa't you comfort us ?" cried Mrs Wills to the stewardess. "You're been to sea for years aad yeirs. Have you never had any experience of this sort before ?" "God forbid!" answered Mrß Yorrock,- --" Who; indeed, ever heard of the like happening in an American liner? " . "The captain may break out with the mates, and recover the ship," said somebody, at which everybody looked at me. I had nothing to say. What did it matter that the commander was my stepfather ? I sat silent and sick with fear and black suspicion. My memory preserves but little of the hurry, rage, confusion of talk that followed. The stewardess sail that it wa3 a piratical plot arranged in London before tbe ship sailed: she knew it by this token— there were no cutlasses in the vessel's arms' chest. . ' " Did they briDg them in the long-boat ?" shouted the colonel. "If so their intention was plain, and'll convict the captain and mates," he snarled through hia nose, " as confederates." " Hush, I beg of you, colonel ! " cried Monsignor, tossing his hands towards the Bkylight and looking at me. " Parcels of small arms may have been secretly shipped at the docks," exclaimed the stewardess. " Bub it's shocking, ladies and gentlemen, I'm sure, even to mention Captain Sinclair, the most reapeoted of commanders, and Mr Gordon, and Mr Tarnbull, as confederates." Thus ran the talk ; it spent itself quickly, however, by cause of most of the passengers being but half-dressed, and going to their bertha. At nine o'clock by the ealoon dial, the companion doors were opened, and the steward descended. The fellow on deck sentinelling the batch let u? eee that he wai on guard, by croßsiag and re-crossing the space of blue weather that ahone in the doorway, and bringing the musket-9nd down with a thud r,hen he halted. The steward Wag alone. The stewardess asked if his understrappers' were to bp allowed to help him ; he an&v/ered surlily, " No, thav was locked up along with the crew." He and the stewardess prepared tbe table for breakfast. There were but three or four of us in the saloon at the time, and we worried the man with question's. "Who's looking after the ship?" says the grasshopper. "The beast in the moustache, sir." « Are any of the ship's company helping ?" enquired Monsignor. "Nary man. Only the shipwrecked crew's oil deck, barring toe and tbe cook." There are twelve men," said Monsignor, "and four guard the hatches, and one is at tbe wheel, whilst one is in charge; that leaves' but six to turn the yards and warfc the s i!a of this big Bhip," and he sbrsgged his s'loulders. "fa tbe door of the berth the captain and the mates are in guarded ? " • I asked. " Yer, Bliss." t "What will the c?pteia do? " c ied the grartbo'-p r; " X allow by the looks of

him tbat he's not the man to allow his Bhip and her cargo, and a crowd of people more or lets important, to be walked off with and made away with by the dozen scabs -we picked off the sea." " Once men are under hatches they are powerles?," said Monsignor. "I tave read of a ship that was seizad by two Mala; s ; they ran amuck, the crew rushed beta?/., the Malays battened them down, and held undisputed poßses3ion for a week. ' Nothing saved the people but her appearance aloft; an inquisitive man-of-war approached, and the Malays sprang _eveibaard." "Steward, open thai skylight," Baid the colonel. " It's growing durned rammish down here." "They'll shoot me if I Bhow my head there," answered the steward. Moneignor, spreading a large yellow handkerchief upon the table, got en to it, aid Tan one of the frames up by its rack, calmly screwing it afterwards. No notice ■was paid to this on deck, though he f aid that the wiry man who stood at the weather mizzen rigging watched him. " What have they pirated this ship for ? Whar'a in her, anyhow ?" a,ikes the colonel. The steward, turning his pale face upon : his shoulder answered : " Ninety-eight thousand pounds in gold, sir." The grasshopper and the colonel -whistled low and long together, and the colonel, springing up, began to walk, whilst he shouted "By thunder! If I haven't always thought tbat money was a more dangerous cargo than gunpowder." (To be continued.)