Page 216 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

the party. Mrs. Vickers reported that she had observed a
great commotion on board the brig, and thought that the
prisoners must be throwing overboard such portions of the
cargo as were not absolutely necessary to them, in order to
lighten her. This notion Bates declared to be correct, and
further pointed out that the mutineers had got out a kedge-
anchor, and by hauling on the kedge-line, were gradually
warping the brig down the harbour. Before dinner was over
a light breeze sprang up, and the Osprey, running up the
union-jack reversed, fired a musket, either in farewell or
triumph, and, spreading her sails, disappeared round the
western horn of the harbour.
Mrs. Vickers, taking Sylvia with her, went away a few
paces, and leaning against the rugged wall of her future
home, wept bitterly. Bates and Frere affected cheerfulness,
but each felt that he had hitherto regarded the presence of
the brig as a sort of safeguard, and had never fully realized
his own loneliness until now.
The necessity for work, however, admitted of no indul-
gence of vain sorrow, and Bates setting the example, the
pair worked so hard that by nightfall they had torn down
and dragged together sufficient brushwood to complete
Mrs. Vickers’s hut. During the progress of this work they
were often interrupted by Grimes, who persisted in vague
rushes at them, exclaiming loudly against their supposed
treachery in leaving him at the mercy of the mutineers.
Bates also complained of the pain caused by the wound
in his forehead, and that he was afflicted with a giddiness
which he knew not how to avert. By dint of frequently bath-

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