The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
General
The Junior Classics, Volume 5: Stories that never grow old
Children's literature
When I showed myself to the two hostages it was with the captain,
who told them I was the person the governor had ordered to look
after them, and that it was the governor's pleasure they should
not stir anywhere but at my direction; that if they did, they
would be fetched into the castle, and be laid in irons: so that,
as we never suffered them to see me as governor, I now appeared as
another person, and spoke of the governor, the garrison, the
castle, and the like, upon all occasions.
The captain now had no difficulty before him, but to furnish his
two boats, stop the breach of one, and man them. He made his
passenger captain of one, with four of the men; and himself, his
mate, and five more went in the other; and they contrived their
business very well, for they came up to the ship about midnight.
As soon as they came within call of the ship, he made Robinson
hail them, and tell them they had brought off the men and the
boat, but that it was a long time before they had found them, and
the like, holding them in a chat till they came to the ship's
side; when the captain and the mate entering first, with their
arms, immediately knocked down the second mate and carpenter with
the butt-end of their muskets, being very faithfully seconded by
their men; they secured all the rest that were upon the main and
quarter decks, and began to fasten the hatches, to keep them down
that were below; when the other boat and their men, entering at
the forechains, secured the forecastle of the ship, and the
scuttle which went down into the cook-room, making three men they
found there prisoners.
When this was done, and all safe upon deck, the captain ordered
the mate, with three men, to break into the round-house, where the
new rebel captain lay, who, having taken the alarm, had got up,
and with two men and a boy had got fire-arms in their hands; and
when the mate, with a crow, split open the door, the new captain
and his men fired boldly among them, and wounded the mate with a
musket-ball, which broke his arm, and wounded two more of the men,
but killed nobody. The mate, calling for help, rushed, however,
into the round-house, wounded as he was, and, with his pistol,
shot the new captain through the head, the bullet entering at his
mouth, and came out again behind one of his ears, so that he never
spoke a word more; upon which the rest yielded, and the ship was
taken effectually, without any more lives lost.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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