The Kings Own | Page 6

ships who had hoisted the flag of
insubordination, and whose guns were trained ready to pour in a
destructive fire on the least sign of an attempt to purchase their anchor.
To the main deck they consequently repaired.
The scene which here presented itself was as striking as it was novel.
The after-part of the main-deck was occupied by the captain and
officers, who had come down with the few marines who still continued
steadfast to their duty, and one sailor only, Adams, who had so nobly
stated his determination on the quarter-deck. The foremost part of the
deck was tenanted by a noisy and tumultuous throng of seamen, whose
heads only appeared above a barricade of hammocks, which they had
formed across the deck, and out of which at two embrasures, admirably
constructed, two long twenty-four pounders, loaded up to the muzzle
with grape and canister shot, were pointed aft in the direction where the
officers and marines were standing--a man at the breech of each gun,
with a match in his hand (which he occasionally blew, that the priming
powder might be more rapidly ignited), stood ready for the signal to
fire.
The captain, aghast at the sight, would have retreated, but the officers,
formed of sterner materials, persuaded him to stay, although he showed
such evident signs of fear and perturbation as seriously to injure a cause
in which resolution and presence of mind alone could avail. The
mutineers, at the suggestion of Peters, had already sent aft their
preliminary proposals, which were, that the officers and marines should
surrender up their arms, and consider themselves under an arrest,
intimating at the same time that the first step in advance made by any

one of their party would be the signal for applying the match to the
touch-holes of the guns.
There was a pause and dead silence, as if it were a calm, although every
passion was roused and on the alert; every bosom heaved tumultuously,
and every pulse was trebled in its action. The same feeling which so
powerfully affects the truant schoolboy--who, aware of his offence, and
dreading the punishment in perspective, can scarce enjoy the rapture of
momentary emancipation--acted upon the mutineers, in an increased
ratio, proportioned to the magnitude of their stake. Some hearts beat
with remembrance of injuries and hopes of vengeance and retaliation;
others with ambition, long dormant, bursting from its concealed recess;
and many were actuated by that restlessness which induced them to
consider any change to be preferable to the monotony of existence in
compulsory servitude.
Among the officers, some were oppressed with anxious forebodings of
evil--those peculiar sensations which, when death approaches nearly to
the outward senses, alarm the heart; others experienced no feeling but
that of manly fortitude and determination to die, if necessary, like men;
in others, alas;--in which party, small as it was, the captain was
pre-eminent--fear and trepidation amounted almost to the loss of
reason.
Such was the state of the main-deck of the ship at the moment in which
we are now describing it to the reader.
And yet, in the very centre of all this tumult, there was one who,
although not indifferent to the scene around him, felt interested without
being anxious; astonished without being alarmed. Between the
contending and divided parties, stood a little boy, about six years old.
He was the perfection of childish beauty; chestnut hair waved in curls
on his forehead, health glowed on his rosy cheeks, dimples sported
over his face as he altered the expression of his countenance, and his
large dark eyes flashed with intelligence and animation. He was dressed
in mimic imitation of a man-of-war's man--loose trousers, tightened at
the hips, to preclude the necessity of suspenders--and a white duck
frock, with long sleeves and blue collar--while a knife, attached to a

lanyard, was suspended round his neck: a light and narrow-brimmed
straw hat on his head completed his attire. At times he looked aft at the
officers and marines; at others he turned his eyes forward to the
hammocks, behind which the ship's company were assembled. The
sight was new to him, but he was already accustomed to reflect much,
and to ask few questions. Go to the officers he did not, for the presence
of the captain restrained him. Go to the ship's company he could not,
for the barricade of hammocks prevented him. There he stood, in
wonderment, but not in fear.
There was something beautiful and affecting in the situation of the boy;
calm, when all around him was anxious tumult; thoughtless, when the
brains of others were oppressed with the accumulation of ideas;
contented, where all was discontent; peaceful, where each party that he
stood between was thirsting for each other's blood:--there he stood, the
only happy, the only