‘Answer me, any of you!’ he shouted. ‘Don’t think I care how it goes. Treat me as you’ve dealt with those whose blood stains these decks, and I’ll thank you. I’m a convict--the most wretched of the wretches among you--and broken-hearted as none of you are. Use me as you will. But if I take charge, I’m captain; and if I’m captain, my will in what concerns the general safety is law. The general safety will be imperilled by the detention of the women and children. I, a fellow-convict and seaman, tell you this. Now answer me: Am I in command or not?’ ‘It was settled!’ howled Abram. ‘Johnson!’ cried Tom. ‘You at the hatchway there! Order the women and children on deck and pass them into the boat!’ Johnson kept silent. ‘Do what you’re told!’ shouted a voice. Then followed a hoarse, confused uproar from fifty throats: ‘Get ’em out of the ship!’ ‘Butler’s right! Who the plague wants to keep them?’ ‘It’ll lead to murder, and we want our liberty ashore.’ ‘Order the women and children on deck!’ cried Tom; whereupon some man--but it was not the convict Johnson--bellowed down the main-hatch. In a few minutes the women came up out of the ’tweendecks one by one, every woman with a child in her arms, for there were eight and eight, though every woman was not a mother. The poor creatures’ eyes were red with weeping, their faces white with fear. The husband of one of them had been killed that morning. They were dressed in bonnets and shawls. My heart was cold as I watched them. They went to the side and passed one by one down the gangway ladder; the great crowd of convicts looked on. Not a word was uttered whilst the women walked through the lane of armed men. As they entered the boat, their husbands eagerly clasped and kissed them and kissed the children; it was like a meeting of the survivors of some terrible disaster, and the tears stood in my eyes. The boat seemed crowded when the women were in her, though, at a pinch, another ten or twelve persons might have found space. ‘Off with you dow and bake roob for the other boats!’ shouted Abram. ‘Head right away and be th’kful you’ve falled idto the ’a’ds of hubade people! If you ha’g about dear us, s’elp be Peter, we’ll fire idto you!’ A soldier seized an oar and shoved the boat off. When she had gone clear by her own length, the soldiers threw over the remaining oars and began to row. It was about one o’clock in the afternoon; a long morning had been spent in getting that big boat out, storing, crowding, and sending her adrift. I looked around the sea; not the least breath of air anywhere dyed the molten resplendent surface that brimmed in a breast of delicate blue silver light into the morning distances. The soldiers rowed vigorously, as though all in the boat feared the convicts would play them some murderous trick if they hung within reach.