The Voyage of the Aurora Part 9

"I--I--I give you--my--my sacred word of honour, gen-gentlemen, that I was o-only in--jest. I nev-never believed for a--a moment that Cap-t-tain Arnold would t-take my remark seriously, or I as-sure you I would n-n-ever have uttered it. And besides, I re-real-ly believed that your--friend R-R-udd was--was only sh-h--er--ah--I beg your pardon gentlemen, I sc-scarcely know what I am saying, but--oh, gentlemen I don't be hard upon me--have mercy upon me, for G.o.d's sake! Spare my life, and you may do with me what you will."

He ceased, from sheer physical inability to utter another word, and, sinking upon his knees, stretched forth his quaking hands in a mute appeal for mercy.

This disgraceful exhibition of cowardice was _almost_ successful in winning for Walford an ignominious release. The mutineers were so unutterably disgusted that, for a moment, their impulse was to kick him out of the cabin like a craven hound and henceforward ignore his existence. But this impulse lasted only for a moment; they recalled to mind the insolent arrogance with which this same cowering creature had treated them when he deemed himself secure from retaliation; and they determined that, while his miserable life was not worth the taking, he should still receive so salutary a lesson as should effectually deter him from any repet.i.tion of the offence for the remainder of his life.

"Well, s.h.i.+pmates," exclaimed Rogers, breaking the painful silence which had followed Walford's shameful appeal, "what d'ye think? Is the pris'ner guilty or not guilty?"

"_Guilty_!" was the unanimous declaration of the a.s.sembly.

"Guilty? In course he is. And what's the punishment to be? Death?"

"Oh, no! Not death--not death, gentlemen. For the love of G.o.d, spare my life; I am not fit to die; I am not indeed. You see how young a man I am; why, I have never yet thought about dying. Mercy! mercy!"

shrieked the miserable wretch as he grovelled on his knees before them, and sought to clasp the knees of the man nearest him--an attempt which was repulsed with an oath, a look of unutterable loathing, a kick, and a brutal blow on the mouth.

"Come, lads, speak up," urged Rogers, wholly unmoved by the interruption, "say what the punishment's to be, and let's have done with it. I'm sick of this here, I am."

"Well," said Talbot, stepping forward, "I wotes that the prisoner be first made to go and axe poor d.i.c.ky's pardon. If he can't get it, why, let's string him up at the yard-arm to balance t'other one. But if d.i.c.ky likes to forgi'e him, well, we'll spare his life and redooce his punishment to two dozen at the gangway--same as he got for Rudd--and make him do Rudd's dooty 'til the poor chap's better; arter which the prisoner can be set to do all the dirty work o' the s.h.i.+p. How's that, s.h.i.+pmates?"

"Ay, ay, Ben; that'll do, bo', that'll do fust-rate. And he may thank his lucky stars at bein' let off so precious easy," was Rogers' reply; in which the remainder of the men laughingly acquiesced.

"Then you'd better step this way at once, young feller," remarked Talbot to the miserable Walford, "and see what you can do with poor d.i.c.ky. If he won't forgive yer, mind, it's all up with yer."

So saying he opened the door of the state-room in which Rudd was lying, thrust his victim into the apartment, and closed the door upon him.

The state-room into which Walford was thus unceremoniously ushered was divided from the saloon by a bulkhead with a door in it, the upper panel of which was fitted with sloping slats like those of the Venetian window-blinds of the present day; it was perfectly easy, therefore, for an occupant of the state-room to hear all that pa.s.sed in the saloon, and _vice versa_. As a matter of fact, Rudd, who was lying in his berth, broad awake, _had_ heard every word uttered during the course of the trial, and shrewdly suspecting that his s.h.i.+pmates were more anxious to thoroughly frighten than to actually hurt their fourth prisoner, and having, moreover, a trifling personal grudge against the man who had secured for him his flogging, he determined to have a little amus.e.m.e.nt at Walford's expense before according to him the pardon which he knew his s.h.i.+pmates expected of him. When, therefore, Walford staggered up to the side of the berth, and began eagerly and incoherently to stammer forth the most abject apologies and the wildest prayers for forgiveness, Rudd simply growled forth an oath and impatiently flung himself over in the berth with his back to the pet.i.tioner. This had the intended effect of causing Walford's apologies and prayers to be reiterated with increased eagerness and incoherence, to the hearty amus.e.m.e.nt of the men in the saloon.

At length Talbot opened the state-room door, and, thrusting in his head, said roughly--

"Here, come out of that, mister; you've worried poor d.i.c.ky quite long enough. If he won't forgive yer, why, he _won't_, and that settles it.

You've had a fair chance to see what you could do with him, and you've failed; we decided to give yer a quarter of a hour, and the time's up; so out you comes; d'ye hear?"

The next moment Walford was seized by the collar, and was being dragged roughly enough out of the state-room, when Rudd, pretending to relent, called out--

"There, take him away, Ben; but don't be too hard on him; I forgives him just this once, and I hopes he won't never do it again."

Walford, upon hearing these words, which seemed to him a reprieve from the very jaws of death, broke away from Talbot's grasp, and, rus.h.i.+ng back to the side of the berth, seized Rudd's hand, kissed it wildly, and burst into an uncontrollable pa.s.sion of tears, in the midst of which he was hustled unceremoniously out on deck.

CHAPTER EIGHT.

A DOUBLE TRAGEDY.

A moment or two in the open air sufficed to settle in some measure Walford's disordered faculties and to restore to him his reason, of which he had been pretty nearly bereft by the terror of the preceding half-hour.

He found himself in the midst of the--by this time--more than half-intoxicated seamen, none of whom appeared to be paying much attention to him, for they were all talking loudly together, discussing and arranging the details of the punishment of those whom they chose to regard as the two chief offenders.

The men were all greatly excited by the potations in which they had freely indulged during the mockery of a trial in the saloon, and their differences of opinion on some points were so strong that at one moment the proceedings seemed more than likely to be diversified by a pitched battle. Rogers, however, whose head seemed capable of resisting the effects of almost any amount of liquor, interposed between the belligerents, and by a determined exercise of his newly-acquired authority, and by most frightful threats of the chastis.e.m.e.nt which he personally would inflict on the first man who ventured to disobey him, succeeded at length in restoring some semblance of order. This achieved, he ordered a grating to be rigged in the larboard gangway, and that, when this was done, the chief mate should be seized thereto.

His orders were speedily carried out; and when the man Nicholls, stripped to the waist, was firmly lashed to the grating in readiness to receive his punishment, Rogers ordered that the second mate should be brought to him.

The miserable Thomson was thereupon led before him, and a more wretched spectacle than this man presented it would be difficult to find. His old bl.u.s.tering, bullying, overbearing manner had completely deserted him; the fear of death was upon him; and he s.h.i.+vered like a man in an ague-fit.

"You Thomson," said Rogers, addressing him in a calm matter-of-fact tone of voice, as if what he was about to say had reference only to some trifling everyday affair, "you was present at the trial of that man Nicholls as stands seized up to yonder grating, and you knows the punishment as it was decided for to give him. It was five and twenty lashes, well laid on; you hears that, _well laid on_. Wery good. Now, this here same man Nicholls, it seems to me, is in a sort o' way to blame for getting _you_ into your trouble. If he'd been a proper sort of man, understandin' that he owed a dooty to the _crew_ as well as to the owners of the s.h.i.+p, instead of encouraging you in your goin's-on agin us, he'd have took you o' one side, and he'd ha' said to you, 'Look here, Thomson, my good feller, you mustn't be too hard upon them poor sailor-men for'ard; you knows as they don't muster a full-handed crew, and so it don't stand to reason as they can do so much as if they _was_ full-handed; they're a decent enough willin' lot of men, and we mustn't axe too much from 'em. Just keep that in mind, and make things as easy as you can for 'em.' If he'd been a proper sort of man, I say, he'd have said some'at of that sort to you, now wouldn't he? And you'd have listened to him, and then you wouldn't have been in this here precious sc.r.a.pe as you're in now, would you?"

"You're right, Rogers; I should not," eagerly exclaimed Thomson, his eyes lighting up with a gleam of fresh hope, as he thought he detected in the boatswain's speech some signs of relenting. "If Mr Nicholls had only put the matter to me as you have just now put it, I should never have given a single man of you the slightest reason for complaint against me. But he never did anything of the kind; on the contrary, both he and Captain Arnold encouraged me to believe you an idle, worthless lot of scamps, and to treat you as such. And that is the plain, simple truth, I swear it."

"Wery good," commented Rogers. "Then, you see, Thomson, you and us thinks alike, namely, that Nicholls in a kind of a sort of a way led you into this here miserable sc.r.a.pe. That bein' the case, we thinks it'll be only fair if _you_ gives him the twenty-five lashes--_well laid on_-- that the court have condemned him to receive."

Thomson looked eagerly into the face of the boatswain, hoping that in this proposal he saw a commutation of his death-sentence. Rogers returned the gaze with a look of grim satisfaction, which the second mate mistook for a half-drunken leer of benevolence; and, anxious above all things to propitiate this man, who undoubtedly held the power of life and death in his hands, he excitedly exclaimed--

"I'll do it! Give me the cat, and you shall have _no_ cause to complain of the way in which I will execute your sentence."

"All right; that's a bargain," agreed Rogers. Then, turning to the rest of the mutineers, he ordered them to fetch all hands on deck to witness punishment, "All hands exceptin' the ladies, I mean; they'd be shocked at the sight, pretty dears, and we must take care as they don't see nor hear nothin' as'd shock 'em, sweet, delicate creeturs," he added with a contemptuous laugh, which was echoed by his comrades as they staggered forward to drag the male pa.s.sengers on deck.

In a few minutes these were all mustered, Walford contriving, seemingly without attracting attention, to mingle with them and take up an un.o.btrusive position, from which he intended, if possible, to quietly effect a retreat at the first convenient opportunity.

When all was at length ready, the scene which presented itself was a sufficiently curious one.

The chief object of the picture was, of course, the figure of the unhappy chief mate, who, naked to the waist, stood firmly lashed to the grating, with arms and legs wide spread in the orthodox att.i.tude of a man about to be flogged. Opposite him, and some four or five feet distant, stood Thomson, his coat and vest laid aside, his s.h.i.+rt-sleeves rolled above his elbows, and the cat in his hand, with the knotted tails p.r.o.ne upon the deck. Around these two figures, in a compact ring, stood the gentlemen pa.s.sengers and the captain of the s.h.i.+p, a group of unwilling spectators of the outrage about to be inflicted; whilst outside them again, and completely hemming them in beyond all possibility of escape, crowded the half-drunken mutineers, armed to the teeth, and bandying brutal and obscene jests back and forth. Then there was the huge bulk of the disabled s.h.i.+p, surging madly forward like a hunted creature dizzy and reeling with terror, her s.p.a.cious decks knee-deep in the water which was incessantly pouring in over her bulwarks as she rolled gunwale-under; and for a background the mountainous seas careering swiftly past, with their lofty crests towering high and menacingly all round the s.h.i.+p, and the leaden-hued, stormy sky.

The deep and painful silence which prevailed was broken by Rogers' harsh voice remarking--

"Now, Thomson, you knows your dooty, which is to give the pris'ner on the gratin' five and twenty lashes, _well laid on_. So go ahead, my man, and let's see if you can't make him yell a bit louder than you did poor d.i.c.ky Rudd."

Thomson glanced at the speaker and nodded. The hope which he entertained of an eventual escape from death had thrown him into a state of terrible excitement, bordering almost upon madness; his ghastly pallor had vanished, and was now superseded by a deep purplish tinge, resulting from the violent rush of blood to the head; the veins upon his forehead stood out like cords, his eyes glowed like those of a wild animal, and his jaws were flecked with foam streaked with blood, which trickled from a wound in his lower lip, where in his terrible excitement he had unconsciously bitten it through.

This frenzied creature nodded his comprehension of Rogers' command, and, gathering himself up like an animal about to make a spring, he drew the tails of the cat slowly through his closed left hand, measured his distance carefully, and, making a quick bound forward, brought the nine knotted lashes down upon the mate's naked shoulders with a demoniac strength which seemed to literally bury them in the quivering flesh.

The mate responded to this with a sharp yell, which was greeted by the mutineers with mocking laughter, Rogers remarking to Thomson that, "That was pretty well; but, you know, you can do a deal better'n that." The second stroke--but why go further with the description of the sickening scene? Let it suffice to say that when the inanimate body of the mate was cast loose from the grating, it bore the appearance of having been mangled by the teeth and claws of some savage beast rather than by a human being.

"So far, so good," observed Rogers. "That ends act the first. Now, Thomson, it's your turn, you know. Strip, my boy, without makin' any bones about it; and let's see if you can take y'ur punishment any better'n your superior hossifer."

The man spoke in a rallying tone of such geniality that Thomson grew more sanguine than ever as to the remission of the more serious part of his sentence, and, with a ghastly grin in response to Rogers'

patronising smile, he began to slowly strip. He even, after drawing his s.h.i.+rt over his head, summoned the courage to walk up to the grating, and, leaning his body upon it, to spontaneously stretch out his arms and legs to the proper position.

When the wretched man was securely "spread-eagled" on the grating, Talbot and another man were ordered to step forward and administer the flogging, which they did, relieving each other at the completion of every dozen lashes, until the entire fifty had been inflicted. The punishment was terribly severe; but the intense excitement under which the second mate laboured enabled him to retain his consciousness throughout, and even to stand without a.s.sistance on being cast loose. A stiff "reviver" of grog was administered to him by Rogers' order, and he was then told to dress himself.

The critical moment was now at hand when the miserable Thomson's state of torturing suspense was to cease, when he would know for certain whether these men were actually relentless, or whether, having already wreaked an ample vengeance upon him, they would be content to ignore the remainder of his sentence; which, after all, he was more than half-inclined to believe was nothing but a cruel hoax, arranged beforehand for the purpose of giving him a good fright.

Hopeful as he was, however, upon this score, he could not help feeling terribly anxious; and it was with the utmost difficulty that he controlled his quaking nerves sufficiently to replace his clothing without a.s.sistance. During the time that he was thus engaged, the circle which hemmed him in was maintained unbroken; the mutineers watching his motions with strong interest, and indulging freely in jocular comments and jeering encouragement as he winced and shrank at the chafe of his clothing on his lacerated back and shoulders.

At length he stood once more before them, fully clothed, his eyes glowing like carbuncles, his visage blanched, and his whole frame quivering with pain and the tensity of excitement and suspense.

"Wery good, Thomson; wery good indeed," remarked Rogers approvingly; "you've showed a great deal more pluck than any of us have ever give you credit for--so far. If you only behaves as well for the next ten minutes, we shall feel quite a respec' for y'ur mem'ry. Now, s.h.i.+pmates, and pris'ners all, for'ard we goes, to carry out the second part of the sentence."

At the word, two of the mutineers stepped forward, and, placing themselves one on each side of the second mate, linked their arms in his and led him forward, halting him just beneath the fore-yard; the remainder of the crowd following in a body and forming in a circle round him as before. Then, at Rogers' command, one of the mutineers separated himself from the main body, and in the course of a minute or two was seen leisurely ascending the fore-rigging with a tail-block in one hand and the end of a coil of light line in the other.

Thomson glanced upward at this man, and like a lightning-stroke the conviction flashed upon him that his doom _was_ indeed sealed--that the death-sentence pa.s.sed upon him was no grim and ghastly piece of jocularity, no hoax practised upon him to test his courage, but that it was spoken in cruel and bitter earnest. For a second or two his heart stood still, his head swam, his sight failed him, and a feeling of horrible nausea oppressed him. He realised at last that he was about to die; that, standing there on that reeling deck as he did in the full strength and prime of l.u.s.ty manhood, with all his energies mental and physical at their best, the sands of his life had so nearly run out that the few last grains were even now falling in the hour-gla.s.s of his fate.