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We
were so cowed by the sight that I think we should have
given the job up if it had not been for Prendergast. He
bellowed like a bull and rushed for the door with all
that were left alive at his heels. Out we ran, and
there on the poop were the lieutenant and ten of his
men. The swing skylights above the saloon table had
been a bit open, and they had fired on us through the
slit. We got on them before they could load, and they
stood to it like men; but we had the upper hand of
them, and in five minutes it was all over. My God!
Was there ever a slaughter-house like that ship!
Prendergast was like a raging devil, and he picked the
soldiers up as if they had been children and threw
them overboard alive or dead. There was one sergeant
that was horribly wounded and yet kept on swimming for
a surprising time, until some one in mercy blew out
his brains. When the fighting was over there was no
one left of our enemies except just the warders the
mates, and the doctor.

"'It was over them that the great quarrel arose.
There were many of us who were glad enough to win back
our freedom, and yet who had no wish to have murder on
our souls. It was one thing to knock the soldiers
over with their muskets in their hands, and it was
another to stand by while men were being killed in
cold blood. Eight of us, five convicts and three
sailors, said that we would not see it done. But
there was no moving Prendergast and those who were with
him. Our only chance of safety lay in making a clean
job of it, said he, and he would not leave a tongue
with power to wag in a witness-box. It nearly came to
our sharing the fate of the prisoners, but at last he
said that if we wished we might take a boat and go.
We jumped at the offer, for we were already sick of
these bloodthirsty doings, and we saw that there would
be worse before it was done. We were given a suit of
sailor togs each, a barrel of water, two casks, one of
junk and one of biscuits, and a compass. Prendergast
threw us over a chart, told us that we were
shipwrecked mariners whose ship had foundered in Lat.
15 degrees and Long 25 degrees west, and then cut the
painter and let us go.

"'And now I come to the most surprising part of my
story, my dear son. The seamen had hauled the
fore-yard aback during the rising, but now as we left
them they brought it square again, and as there was a
light wind from the north and east the bark began to
draw slowly away from us. Our boat lay, rising and
falling, upon the long, smooth rollers, and Evans and
I, who were the most educated of the party, were
sitting in the sheets working out our position and
planning what coast we should make for. It was a nice
question, for the Cape de Verdes were about five
hundred miles to the north of us, and the African
coast about seven hundred to the east. On the whole,
as the wind was coming round to the north, we thought
that Sierra Leone might be best, and turned our head
in that direction, the bark being at that time nearly

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