John Conroy Hutcheson

“ Captain Alphonse got his revolver out, when he and Don Miguel and I giving them a volley altogether, and the others supporting us with what weapons they had, we rushed the rascals off the poop quicker than they came up, the lot returning to the forecastle along with the ‘marquis,’ who, I was very glad to see, had cut his face considerably by his tumble. ”

“ There’s a big steamer! Look, look! there it is, and coming up to help us!’
“‘Where? where? Where is it? I cannot see it. Nonsense, Elsie; you are dreaming, my child!’ I said, looking out eagerly to where she pointed, but could see nothing. ”

“ Well, sir, after hoisting the flag the French sailor and I seized the opportunity to lash the helm amidships so as to keep the Saint Pierre on her course, for we could not spare him to do the steering, and Captain Alphonse and Don Miguel, with the plucky little Englishman and myself, had all our work to do watching the mutineers with our revolvers!
“After a time, as the rascals kept pretty quiet in their part of the ship, and as my poor little daughter Elsie had been a long time now shut up below, I thought she might come up on the poop to get a breath of fresh air while it was still light ”

“ You may bet your bottom dollar on that, sir! I aimed at that scoundrel the ‘marquis,’ but he jumped backward in his fright and his foot catching in one of the ringbolts, he tumbled right over the poop-rail on to the deck below; the shot I had intended for him dropping the black pilot, his constant companion, and who was invariably behind him. He dropped down as dead as a herring!
“Don Miguel, who luckily had just come up from the saloon, being handy with his revolver from the rough times he had experienced, like myself, in Venezuela, settled another darkie ”

“ He managed this sooner than he thought, and pretty smartly too, for the very next day he caught the noble scoundrel, who was his particular aversion, walking off with a pair of pistols from Captain Alphonse’s cabin. On Cato coming up and stopping him in the very act, the ‘marquis’ put down the pistols quickly, saying in his off-hand manner that he was merely examining the locks, remarking how well they were made. ‘But,’ said Cato, ‘guess he no bamboozle dis chile!’
“The following day, sirs, was the seventh of November, last Friday, that awful, that terrible day! ”

“ See how the black smoke comes puffing out of the chimneys.’
“I laughed at this.
“‘Little darling,’ said I, ‘there was no ship, and there are no “chimneys” on board ships at sea. Sailors call them funnels, my dearest one.’
“She pretended to pout on my thus catching her tripping in her talk. ”

“ Colonel Vereker seemed even more astonished by this question of mine than I had been by his reply to Captain Applegarth the moment before.
“My brave young sir,” said he, using this somewhat grandiloquent form of addressing me, I suppose, in remembrance of the slight service I had done him by swimming with the line to the drifting boat when we picked up him and his companion. “My little Elsie is tall and slight for her age, and her hair is assuredly of a golden hue, ah, yes! like liquid sunshine ”