ONE:"It became necessary to fire on the mutineers, and for this we raised the tarpaulins over one of the hatches. The smoke poured out in a dense mass and almost smothered us, and we could only see the forms of the men very dimly, like a ship in a fog. We fired, and continued to fire till[Pg 397] several of them had been shot down, and all their efforts to get at us were of no avail. There were about sixty men in the crew, and, as we had over a thousand coolies on board, we had numbers against us fearfully. But they had no fire-arms, while we had a good supply of rifles and pistols, with plenty of ammunition. At the time of the outbreak there were not far from a hundred coolies on deck; but we drove them forward, and kept so large a guard over them that they could not have done anything to help their friends below if they had been disposed to do so."We have only one hope, and even that is an illusion. Sometimes we think the makers will take us seriously in the end, and so perfect the mechanism that we shall be like them. But how can they? How can theyunlessunless"
ONE:A dreadful face, a face dull and dissipated, with horrible watery red eyes, yet full of malice and cunning and passion. There was a bristle of whiskers and a moustache, as if chin and razor had for days been strangers. As suddenly as the face had come it turned. A hand shot out from somewhere, as if seeking for the throat of the strange apparition, a fist was uplifted, and the figure disappeared, evidently going down before a cruel and crushing blow. The light vanished; it had probably been overturned and gone out.
ONE:As the victoria pursued its leisurely way, the spaces between the Blenheims and Chatsworths grew larger, the villas ceased to have but one window on each side of the front door: they stood farther back from the road, and were approached by small carriage drives culminating in what was known as the carriage sweep in front of the house, a gravelled space where a carriage could turn completely round. Two gates led to the carriage sweep, on one of which was painted In, and on the other Out, and the spaces surrounding the houses could justly be called grounds since they embraced tennis lawns and kitchen gardens with glass, and shrubberies with winding paths. Retired colonels must needs have private money of their own in addition to their pensions to live so spaciously, and Mr Keeling, even thus housed, was putting by very considerable sums of money every year. Into one of those carriage drives, advertised{14} to passers-by as the entrance of The Cedars (probably because there were three prosperous larch trees planted near the In gate), Mrs Keelings carriage turned, and after passing some yards of shrubbery stopped before a wooden Gothic porch. Both ladies appeared unconscious of having reached home till a small boy covered with buttons came out of the house and removed the light carriage-rug that covered their knees.
