The Mutineers   By: Charles Boardman Hawes

A tale of old days at sea and of adventures in the Far East as Benjamin Lathrop set it down some sixty years ago

by Charles Boardman Hawes

Illustrated

To D.C.H.

TO PAY MY SHOT

To master, mate, and men of the ship Hunter, whose voyage is the backbone of my story; to Captain David Woodard, English mariner, who more than a hundred and twenty years ago was wrecked on the island of Celebes; to Captain R.G.F. Candage of Brookline, Massachusetts, who was party to the original contract in melon seeds; and to certain blue water skippers who have left sailing directions for eastern ports and seas, I am grateful for fascinating narratives and journals, and indebted for incidents in this tale of an earlier generation.

C.B.H.

CONTENTS

I IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR CANTON, CHINA

I My Father and I Call on Captain Whidden II Bill Hayden III The Man Outside the Galley IV A Piece of Pie V Kipping

II IN WHICH WE ENCOUNTER AN ARAB SHIP

VI The Council in the Cabin

VII The Sail with a Lozenge Shaped Patch VIII Attacked IX Bad Signs X The Treasure Seeker

III WHICH APPROACHES A CRISIS

XI A Hundred Thousand Dollars in Gold XII A Strange Tale XIII Trouble Forward XIV Bill Hayden Comes to the End of His Voyage

IV IN WHICH THE TIDE OF OUR FORTUNES EBBS

XV Mr. Falk Tries to Cover His Tracks XVI A Prayer for the Dead XVII Marooned XVIII Adventures Ashore

V IN WHICH THE TIDE TURNS

XIX In Last Resort XX A Story in Melon Seeds XXI New Allies XXII We Attack XXIII What We Found in the Cabin

VI IN WHICH WE REACH THE PORT OF OUR DESTINATION

XXIV Falk Proposes a Truce XXV Including a Cross Examination XXVI An Attempt to Play on Our Sympathy XXVII We Reach Whampoa, but Not the End of Our Troubles

VII OLD SCORES AND NEW AND A DOUBTFUL WELCOME

XXVIII A Mystery Is Solved and a Thief Gets Away XXIX Homeward Bound XXX Through Sunda Strait XXXI Pikes, Cutlasses, and Guns XXXII "So Ends"

ILLUSTRATIONS

" At 'em, men! At 'em! Pull, you sons of the devil, pull !"

Suddenly, in the brief silence that followed the two thunderous reports, a pistol shot rang out sharply, and I saw Captain Whidden spin round and fall .

We helped him pile his belongings into his chest ... and gave him a hand on deck .

" Sign that statement, Lathrop," said Captain Falk .

He cut from the melon rind a roughly shaped model of a ship and stuck in it, to represent masts, three slivers of bamboo .

[Illustration: " At 'em, men! At 'em! Pull, you sons of the devil, pull !"]

I

IN WHICH WE SAIL FOR CANTON, CHINA

CHAPTER I

MY FATHER AND I CALL ON CAPTAIN WHIDDEN

My father's study, as I entered it on an April morning in 1809, to learn his decision regarding a matter that was to determine the course of all my life, was dim and spacious and far removed from the bustle and clamor of the harbor side. It was a large room paneled with dark wood. There were books along the walls, and paintings of ships, and over the fireplace there stood a beautiful model of a Burmese junk, carved by some brown artist on the bank of the Irawadi.

My father sat by the open window and looked out into the warm sunshine, which was swiftly driving the last snow from the hollows under the shrubbery.

Already crocuses were blossoming in the grass of the year before, which was still green in patches, and the bright sun and the blue sky made the study seem to me, entering, dark and sombre. It was characteristic of my father, I thought with a flash of fancy, to sit there and look out into a warm, gay world where springtime was quickening the blood and sunshine lay warm on the flowers; he always had lived in old Salem, and as he wrote his sermons, he always had looked out through study windows on a world of commerce bright with adventure. For my own part, I was of no mind to play the spectator in so stirring a drama.