The Argosy, April 1912 — page 45: what you’re looking at

Machine-transcribed from the original scan — historical spelling and the odd misread are preserved.

AS THE DICE FELL. them ere the swiftest man could bound from its path of devastation. And they halted; pallid, muttering, dazed. For a moment the old man eyed them with an air of mildly malevolent triumph. He, the unconsidered feeble passenger, to whom none of the noisy throng had ever given a second thought, held all their lives in the hollow of his withered hand! A far greater man than he might have been par- doned for gloating. But the pause was only momentary. Then Mark Errol spoke again: “Captain Smith,” he called, “I have these rascals safe at your disposal. What is your will? Shall I fire?” “Not yet,” answered Smith, grasping the situation at once, as was his wont. ‘“ There may be no need. Let me disarm them first.” He stepped from the doorway. him back by main strength. ‘Are you insane?” I cried. “If you go out among them they will kill you like a sheep, for they know he will not fire on you. Let me go instead. Errol hates me like the plague. And if they attack me, he will not hesitate to blow me and them to kingdom come.” : I gave Smith no time to argue, but hur- ried out among the cowed mutineers. I snatched the swords from their unresisting hands, the dirks and knives from their belts; tossing the weapons back by the handfuls to the doorway, where Aquia gathered them and stowed them safely away inside the cabin. It was the work of only a minute or so to disarm the entire lot. ‘Then Smith sum- moned the shipmaster who, throughout, had remained cowering among the non- combatants. “Call up enough of your crew to take these men below,” he ordered, “and have them battened down there until we reach port. Take them two by two. The rest of you,” he added, to the helpless mutineers, “stand still! Errol, if one of them makes a move, fire.” Two by two they were led away, under escort of the cowed shipmaster and his sailors. When the last of them was gone, Smith folowed to the hatchway and called down it: “Vou will be glad to know the priming plug was fastened into the touch-hole of the culverin. Errol did not know enough to remove it. He could not possibly have I drew ol fired. That is why I bade him wait. You were all as safe from death as if you had been in St. Paul’s Cathedral. Brood over your own heroic courage while we batten down the hatch above you, you vipers with extracted fangs!” Two days later we reached the Canary Isles: where, at the agreed meeting-place, we found the two other ships of our expedition awaiting us. There was a great conference. The mutineers stated their grievances, and Smith roared his. Gosnold, Ratcliffe, and Newport sat in judgment, a judgment pal- pably swayed by the bulk of the three ship- loads of colonists, whose sympathies were all with the mutineers. Some were for hanging. Smith from the yard-arm; some for executing him as soon as we should reach America; some for marooning or sending him back to Eng- land. Gosnold pointed out that none of these pleasant suggestions were feasible. For, according to royal orders, no step of dras- tic justice could be taken until the colony’s officers were appointed. And that could not be done until we should reach Virginia. Then, by the king’s command, we were to open the sealed packet that contained the names of the officials appointed by his majesty to rule over us. As a compromise, Smith was placed under a sort of “honorable arrest,” which did not affect his freedom or personal authority, until we should reach Virginia. And, this arranged, we sailed onward. I foresaw more trouble the moment we should land. If Smith’s name were not included in the sealed packet’s list of officials (and there seemed no reason to be- lieve it would be), the officials would probably seek to curry favor with their colonists by ordering him to death or to banishment. And thus the new colony would be de- prived of the one man who could possibly save it from utter failure. If, on the other hand, Smith’s name, by any chance, should be among the officials, he was safe. For, desperate blackguards as many of them were, the colonists would not dare defy the king’s authority, nor lay violent hands upon one of his chosen officers. Such an act would bring swift and relentless punishment upon _ the offenders. I was seated on a coil of rope on deck (CO clooolk<