When Scaggs was finally able to stand and appraise the total extent of the damage, he was shocked to find that not one keg of food or water had been spared from the violence of the sea. Another disaster. The masts were reduced to a few shreds of canvas. He ordered Ramsey and Sheppard to take a count of the missing. The number came to twenty-seven.
Sheppard shook his head sadly as he stared at the survivors. “Poor beggars. They look like drowned rats.”
“Have the crew spread what’s left of the sails and catch as much rainwater as possible before the squall stops,” Scaggs ordered Ramsey.
“We no longer have containers to store it,” Ramsey said solemnly. “And what will we use for sails?”
“After everybody drinks their fill, we’ll repair what we can of the canvas and continue on our east-southeast heading.”
As life reemerged on the raft, Dorsett untied himself from the mast shrouds and gripped Betsy by the shoulders. “Are you harmed?” he asked attentively.
She peered at him through long strands of hair that were plastered against her face. “I won’t be attending no royal ball looking like a drenched cat. Soaked as I am, I’m glad to be alive.”
“It was a bad night,” he said grimly, “and I fear it won’t be the last.”
Even as Dorsett comforted her, the sun returned with a vengeance. Without the awning, torn away by the onslaught of the wind and waves, there was no protection from the day’s heat. The torment of hunger and thirst soon followed. Every morsel of food that could be found among the planks was quickly eaten. The little rainfall caught by the torn canvas sails was soon gone.
When their tattered remains were raised again, the sails had little effect and proved almost worthless for moving the raft. If the wind came from astern, the vessel was manageable. But attempting to tack only served to twist the raft into an uncontrollable position crosswise with its beam to the wind. The inability to command the direction of the raft only added to Scaggs’ mounting frustrations. Having saved his precious navigational instruments by clutching them to his breast during the worst of the deluge, he now took a fix on the raft’s position.
“Any nearer to land, Captain?” asked Ramsey.
“I’m afraid not,” Scaggs said gravely. “The storm drove us north and west. We’re farther away from New Zealand than we were at this time two days ago.”
“We won’t last long in the Southern Hemisphere in the dead of summer without fresh water.”
Scaggs gestured toward a pair of fins cutting the water fifty feet from the raft. “If we don’t sight a boat within four days, Mr. Ramsey, I fear the sharks will have themselves a sumptuous banquet.”
The sharks did not have long to wait. The second day after the storm, the bodies of those who succumbed from injuries sustained during the raging seas were slipped over the side and quickly disappeared in a disturbance of bloody foam. One monster seemed particularly ravenous. Scaggs recognized it as a great white, feared as the sea’s greediest murder machine. He estimated its length to be somewhere between twenty-two and twenty-four feet.
The horror was only beginning. Dorsett was the first to have a premonition of the atrocities that the poor wretches on the raft would inflict upon themselves.
“They’re up to something,” he said to Betsy. “I don’t like the way they’re staring at the women.”
“Who are you talking about?” she asked through parched lips. She had covered her face with a tattered scarf, but her bare arms and her legs below the skirt were already burned and blistered from the sun.
“That scurvy lot of smugglers at the stern of the raft, led by the murderin’ Welshman, Jake Huggins. He’d as soon slit your gullet as give you the time of day. I’ll wager they’re planning a mutiny.”
Betsy stared vacantly around the bodies sprawled on the raft. “Why would they want to take command of this?”
“I mean to find out,” said Dorsett as he began making his way over the convicts slouched about the damp planking, oblivious to everything around them while suffering from a burning thirst. He moved awkwardly, annoyed at how stiff his joints had become with no exercise except holding onto ropes. He was one of the few who dared approach the conspirators, and he muscled his way through Huggins’ henchmen. They ignored him as they muttered to themselves in low tones and cast fierce looks at Sheppard and his infantrymen.
“What brings you nosin’ around, Dorsett?” grunted Huggins.
The smuggler was short and squat with a barrel chest, long matted sandy hair, an extremely large flattened nose and an enormous mouth with missing and blackened teeth, which combined to give him a hideous leer.
“I figured you could use a good man to help you take over the raft.”
“You want to get in on the spoils and live a while longer, do you?”
“I see no spoils that can prolong our suffering,” Dorsett said indifferently.
Huggins laughed, showing his rotting teeth. “The women, you fool.”
“We’re all dying from thirst and the damnable heat, and you want sex?”
“For a famous highwayman, you’re an idiot,” Huggins said irritably. “We don’t want to lay the little darlins. The idea is to cut them up and eat their tender flesh. We can save the likes of Bully Scaggs, his sailor boys and the soldiers for when we really gets hungry.”
The first thought that struck Dorsett was that Huggins was making a disgusting joke, but the inspired evil that lurked in his eyes and the ghastly grin plainly demonstrated it was no play of words. The thought was so vile it filled Dorsett with horror and revulsion. But he was a consummate actor and gave an uncaring shrug.
“What’s the hurry? We might be rescued by this time tomorrow.”
“There won’t be no ship or island on the horizon anytime soon.” Huggins paused, his ugly face contorted with depravity. “You with us, highwayman?”
“I’ve got nothing to lose by throwing in with you, Jake,” Dorsett said with a tight smile. “But the big blond woman is mine. Do what you will with the rest.”
“I can see you’ve taken a likin’ to her, but my boys and I share and share alike. I’ll let you have first claim. After that, she’s divided up.”
“Fair enough,” Dorsett said dryly. “When do we make our move?”
“One hour after dark. At my signal we attack the soldier boys and go for their muskets. Once we’re armed we’ll have no trouble with Scaggs and his crew.”
“Since I’ve already established a place by the forward mast, I’ll take care of the soldier guarding the women.”
“You want to be first in line for supper, is that it?”
“Just hearing you talk about it,” said Dorsett sardonically, “makes me hungry.”
Dorsett returned to Betsy’s side but said nothing to her about the terror about to be unleashed by the convicts. He knew Huggins and his men were observing his every move, making certain he was not making a furtive effort to warn the Gladiator’s crew and the soldiers. His only opportunity would come with darkness, and he had to move before Huggins gave his signal to launch the horror. He lay as near to Betsy as the guard would allow and appeared to doze away the afternoon.
As soon as dusk covered the sea and the stars appeared, Dorsett left Betsy and snaked his way to within a few feet of First Officer Ramsey and hailed him in a hushed whisper.
“Ramsey, do not move or act as if you’re listening to anyone.”
“What is this?” Ramsey blurted under his breath. “What do you want?”
“Listen to me,” Dorsett said softly. “Within the hour, the convicts, led by Jake Huggins, are going to attack the soldiers. If they are successful in killing them all, they will use their arms against you and your crew.”
“Why should I believe the words of a common criminal?”
“You’ll all be dead if you don’t.”
“I’ll tell the captain,” Ramsey said grudgingly.
“Just remind him it was Jess Dorsett who warned you.”
Dorsett broke off and crawled back to Betsy. He removed his left boot, twisted off the sole and heel and removed a small knife with a four-inch blade. Then he sat back to wait.
A quarter-moon was beginning to rise over the horizon, giving the pitiful creatures on board the raft the look of ghostly wraiths, some of whom suddenly began rising to their feet and moving toward the prohibited area in the
