Page 199 - for-the-term-of-his-natural-life

quote poetry. Bates, however—practical and calm— took
quite another view of the case. The bold project, so boldly
avowed, seemed to him a sheer absurdity. The ‘Dandy’ and a
crew of nine convicts navigate a brig round the world! Pre-
posterous; why, not a man aboard could work a reckoning!
His nautical fancy pictured the Osprey helplessly rolling on
the swell of the Southern Ocean, or hopelessly locked in the
ice of the Antarctic Seas, and he dimly guessed at the fate of
the deluded ten. Even if they got safe to port, the chances of
final escape were all against them, for what account could
they give of themselves? Overpowered by these reflections,
the honest fellow made one last effort to charm his captors
back to their pristine bondage.
‘Fools!’ he cried, ‘do you know what you are about to do?
You will never escape. Give up the brig, and I will declare,
before my God, upon the Bible, that I will say nothing, but
give all good characters.’
Lesly and another burst into a laugh at this wild proposi-
tion, but Rex, who had weighed his chances well beforehand,
felt the force of the pilot’s speech, and answered seriously.
‘It’s no use talking,’ he said, shaking his still handsome
head. ‘We have got the brig, and we mean to keep her. I can
navigate her, though I am no seaman, so you needn’t talk
further about it, Mr. Bates. It’s liberty we require.’
‘What are you going to do with us?’ asked Bates.
‘Leave you behind.’
Bates’s face blanched. ‘What, here?’
‘Yes. It don’t look a picturesque spot, does it? And yet I’ve
lived here for some years”; and he grinned.

1 For the Term of His Natural Life