a single light shone from the cabin. Some
one of the blacks, evidently acquainted with the use of matches
(through traders or missionaries, doubtless), had found a way of
lighting the cabin lamp. Pandemonium reigned there. Inflamed by rum,
furious efforts were made from time to time to burst through the
hatches.
Along towards morning, however, a certain degree of quiet began to
prevail. Perhaps the negroes were growing weary.
A light breeze had arisen that sent the schooner ahead. Gary had
determined to make for the nearest port, provided they could hold out
to reach it. He saw no chance to do aught to subdue and confine the
blacks with his reduced force. If they saved the vessel and their own
lives, they would do more than some of them expected.
One of the boats was chafing against the weather side of the ship.
Gary directed Ralph to drop both boats astern and fasten one behind the
other.
The boy obeyed, climbing down into the first boat in order to attach
the second to its stern. He made, as he thought, a half hitch of the
painter, then, drawing the second boat close to the first, he stepped
into it, and began bailing out the water that had filtered in through
the seams shrunken by exposure to the sun on the schooner's deck.
As he worked away, thoughts of his mountain home intruded strangely,
perhaps incongruously, upon his mind. Looking eastward a narrow rim of
moon was protruding over the ocean's rim.
Something reminded him of the way it used to rise above "Old Peaky
Top," just back of the cabin on Hiawassee. He straightened himself to
obtain a better view. A sharp report rang out behind him from the
vessel, and he felt a numbness under his shoulder.
"Reckon they must be trying to get out again," he muttered, glancing at
the ship's stern.
He was then sensible of a dizziness and a roaring in his ears. A black
savage face was glaring upon him from the window of the captain's
stateroom, from whence protruded the barrel of a rifle. After that his
sight grew dim; something wet trickled down on one of his hands, and
outward things became a blank. His last sensation was a comfortable
kind of sleepiness.
When Ralph came to himself he was lying in the bottom of the boat with
his head jammed uncomfortably under one of the thwarts. As he
scrambled up, his first thought was of what the captain would say to
his falling asleep in that way. But instead of rising, he stumbled and
fell. Then he
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