‘So there!’ cried the woman who had just spoken, spitting the words at the young fellow. Meanwhile sharp orders were being delivered within the barricade. I took my chance of being reprimanded from the poop and went a little way along the alley, and saw all the convicts still massed, but in motion; they were descending the hatch, but one at a time, for there was room for no more. The body of the fellow who had been stunned was held by four of the prisoners. The doctor stood alone and apart within the inclosure, looking at the men as they swarmed slowly toward the main-hatch, filtering to their quarters. He was white, but stern and collected. Sometimes he spoke, pointing or moving his hand as though to insist on more order. He seemed a fearless figure, and though I disliked him, I could not but admire him. There were scores, perhaps, amongst those felons who would have made no more of felling him and kicking out his brains than of dashing an egg to the deck. I did not see Tom, so I went back to the recess, and just then an apprentice struck six bells. Ten minutes later, every convict was below and the main-deck clear; but I observed that when the guard came off the poop one of the soldiers passed through the quarter-deck gate to double the sentry at the main-hatch, and I heard another tell one of the women, as he went below to the barracks, that he was to do duty as second sentry at the prison door of the steerage bulkhead. CHAPTER XXVII SHE LISTENS TO A CONVERSATION All the time I was in the cuddy that day, whilst the captain and officers lunched, I kept my ears open, supposing that the talk would wholly concern the dreadful, tragic incident of the morning. But no man said a word on the subject. Perhaps they had talked it out before they came to the table, or perhaps they would not speak of it before me and the other stewards. I was greatly disappointed. I wanted to hear that the sentry had exceeded his instructions and was to be severely punished. It was horrible that a man should be empowered to shoot down a fellow-creature as the sentry shot down the poor mad actor. I had hoped that Captain Sutherland, whose heart was a British sailor’s, would ask the doctor and the officers why a sentry should be instructed to fire at a man for no worse crime than scaling a barricade and climbing on to the bulwarks of the ship. To kill a man for so behaving might be all very well in harbour, where a convict could contrive to swim ashore. But what dream of liberty could visit an unhappy wretch in mid-ocean, unless it were the freedom that death provides? And why should a convict be shot for attempting suicide? Out of mercy, that his blood might be upon the head of another instead of on his own?