Read Ebook: Morley Ashton: A Story of the Sea. Volume 3 (of 3) by Grant James

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Ebook has 1186 lines and 52105 words, and 24 pages

"Ethel," said he, in a breathless voice, "love me as a friend, and I will protect--it may be, save you!"

"Love--friendship--Oh Hawkshaw, save me if you can, but talk not of love and friendship, after the awful past, and in presence of companions such as these," replied Ethel, shuddering.

"Alas! I feel that guilt gives a shame and horror, Ethel, which fail even to cure it."

"Your death-shot, wretch!--take that, and die!" cried Hawkshaw, as he fired his pistol full at the dark head of Pedro Barradas, who received the shot in his elbow, just as he raised the arm to protect his face.

"Malediction!" he exclaimed, with a howl of agony, as he dropped the limb, which was fearfully shattered. Then Hawkshaw--endued with twice his natural strength--for, when roused by passion, or nerved by danger, he wras no ordinary man--snatched Ethel amid the smoke, glided with her up the steps and through the forescuttle, and placed her in the arms of Dr. Heriot, who, with all her friends came rushing forward, for this episode did not occupy five minutes.

As Ethel was borne aft, a dozen of hands and arms came up through the forescuttle, and Hawkshaw was torn down within it.

"Gag him--lynch him--stick the 'tarnal varmint!" cried Badger, and the death shrieks of the miserable Hawkshaw were drowned amid the storm of maledictions which accompanied the shots and blows dealt him by the knives of Zuares, Badger, Quaco, and others; and again and again they continued to bury them in his body, long after he was dead.

It was Pedro's howl of agony, and the two first pistol-shots, that were heard by Morley as he staggered up, half-stunned, from the deck, and felt himself seized by Tom Bartelot.

All hurried below with Ethel. The cabin was regained, the barricades were again made fast, and our friends remained ignorant that one half the mutineers were in a state of helpless intoxication; that their leader had received a severe wound, which might prove mortal, and that the miserable Hawkshaw was being butchered without mercy in the forecastle bunks.

A SNARE LAID.

On Ethel the effects of all she had undergone--a terror equal to the menace of death--the memory of all she had seen, Pedro bleeding from the bullet of Hawkshaw, and the latter torn back to be butchered in the very den from which he had rescued her, produced fits of hysteria and violent sickness, requiring all the skill of Dr. Heriot to soothe and subdue them.

For a time she lay in a fainting fit as in a deep sleep, with her breathing so low that it could scarcely be perceived on a mirror. Morley was in an agony of alarm, lest she should never wake more; but this symptom was followed by strong convulsions, till tears relieved and left her very weak.

However, she was able to relate at intervals what had taken place, and how she had escaped the mutineers; after this, she was left for a time to the care of Nance Folgate, who was great in the use of burnt feathers, hartshorn, and asafoetida.

With Rose, on recovering from her swoon, joy for her sister's sudden restoration took the form of alternate showers of tears and bursts of ringing hysterical laughter, which were painful to hear and difficult to allay, so, between them, the poor doctor had his hands quite full.

Morley and his nautical friends, who had never seen anything of this kind before, were sorely puzzled by the turns and symptoms of Rose's ailment; for there is but little difference sometimes between the crying and the laughing of an hysterical young lady.

Physical and mental exhaustion at length brought on sleep, and Rose and Ethel lay with arms entwined, the terrible past and the dreaded future being alike committed to oblivion, unless when, at intervals, the latter seemed to see, in fancy, those grimy visages peering out from the dark berths, freezing her with affright, and Pedro's black and gloating eyes stupefying her with their terrible expression.

Gradually, however, both sisters were soothed, and calm with perfect sleep came together.

The sliding-door to the steerage was made fast by strong screws against all attempts by that avenue for the future.

"Well," whispered Heriot, as they withdrew into the cabin, "matters are improving for us forward."

"How?" asked Tom Bartelot gloomily.

"Pedro Barradas has his right arm shattered--you heard Miss Basset say so--and then there is Hawkshaw killed and flung overboard."

"Poor wretch!" said Morley.

"Two almost out of their rogues' mess," added Captain Phillips; "but I don't think Hawkshaw was very warm in their cursed business."

"His poor father, jolly old Tom Hawkshaw, of Lincoln's Inn, little foresaw an end so miserable for his only son. Poor Tom! how he did love that boy!" exclaimed Mr. Basset, wringing his hands, as he thought of his old friend.

"Judging from the state in which Miss Basset says she found those fellows forward," said Morrison, "I don't see why we shouldn't make an effort to recapture the ship, and make every one of them walk the plank."

"My very thoughts, Mr. Morrison," said Captain Phillips, with great earnestness; "but, as yet, they still outnumber us, and, unless by stratagem, I don't see a way in the matter--a fair trial of strength would only end in our own defeat."

"Something is worth tryin', sir--I'm precious weary o' bein' bottled down here, like a rat in the cable tier," said Noah Gawthrop, who was on his knees, lighting, and puffing with distended cheeks, at a fire in the cabin-grate, preparatory to boiling coffee, for the morning was far advanced, and no one thought of sleeping now, even on the cabin-locker; "but you see, your honour, unless we had 'em all in the bilboes, or shoved clean overboard, we could never be safe."

"Not even if we had them all secured in the bunks, and the forescuttle shipped and battened over them?" interrupted Morley.

"No, sir, not even then," replied Noah very emphatically.

"How so?"

"'Cos, if you didn't smother 'em, they'd set the ship on fire, that all on us might go to old Davy together. The greatest warmints on land and sea are them Espanoles, as comes from South 'Meriker--I knows 'em, I does."

"Egad, Noah is right," said Tom Bartelot; "and to get the weather-gage of these fellows we must try some other plan than fisticuffs."

During this time the crew were all heard on deck rumbling about, growling and uttering threats; and by the number of seas shipped over the bows, by the lurching and pitching of the vessel, it was evident to those below that the wind had freshened, and that an unsteady hand was on the wheel, as she was yawing, and steering wild.

"Dear papa--dear papa--kiss me. Sit closer, Morley dear," she said, in a sweet, low voice; "where is your hand, Morley?"

"Here--clasped on yours, Ethel."

"Oh, papa, if poor mamma only knew of all this!" she was beginning, when tears choked her utterance.

"Do not think of these things," whispered Morley, anxiously; "it is well she is not with us."

"Even her loss was merciful, though it nearly broke my heart, for all this would have killed her," said Mr. Basset, in a low voice.

"Oh, when will it end!--when will it end!" sobbed Rose.

"When we reeve some of those fellows up to the yard-arm, in the loop of a stout line," said Dr. Heriot. "I can't help feeling assured that we shall weather them, yet, and my countryman, Morrison, who, perhaps, has the gift of the second sight, among his other accomplishments, is of the same opinion," added Heriot, with a pleasant laugh to raise their spirits.

Ethel felt safe comparatively--protected and restored; but at what a price--a human life! The life of that misguided being who first cast a shadow on her path.

She recalled his last words and forgave him all, for his closing act had been one of devotion towards herself. But for him, she might, or must have been, destroyed. The imagination of all from which he had saved her made her shudder in her soul, and froze her very marrow! Poor Hawkshaw, she might almost call him now, as he had gone so summarily to his dread account, gashed with many a wound, and cast into the sea, without prayer, or shroud, or grave--cast with all his sins and errors on his head and on his soul!

She shuddered, we say, as she thought fearfully of these dire things, and clasped more tightly the kind hands of those who sat beside her.

Had Hawkshaw felt all this when the death-shot rang in his ears, and the assassins' knives were clashing in his body?

He must have felt this emotion; and Morley, with that conviction, and the knowledge that he had saved Ethel Basset at the price of his own unhappy existence, felt in his honest heart that he could freely forgive him all the past.

But this spirit of forgiveness by no means extended itself to Pedro Barradas, against whom he cherished the most undying vengeance, when he thought of the terror Ethel had suffered at his hands, and, more than all, the horrors she had escaped.

Meanwhile, the elder Barradas, maddened with the agony occasioned by his shattered limb, which none on board, save Dr. Heriot, could dress or reduce--for the fracture was compound, the ball and socket of the elbow being completely smashed--was scheming out revenge and fresh outrages, which he found a difficulty in putting in practice, as the same wound which reduced his bodily strength, and stung his soul with rage and pain, deprived him of the influence he formerly exercised over his companions--an influence that he maintained physically rather than morally.

He supposed that they must be several miles up the Mozambique Channel, and he remembered the Malay proas; thus every hour rendered the necessity greater for having entire possession of the ship and for destroying those in the cabin, for if but one of these escaped, he and all his companions might yet swing as pirates, and, knowing that Mr. Basset was a lawyer--a judge or legal functionary of high position--caused the crew to cherish a peculiar dread and aversion of him in particular.

There were times when, in the intervals of his bodily and mental fury--both of which the copious use of ardent spirits had greatly inflamed--he conceived the idea of running the ship ashore on the first land he made, or of setting her on fire in mid-ocean, that all might perish, and so frequently did he mutter of these things that Zuares, Badger, Sharkey, and the rest, knowing the desperation of his character, and the resolute cruelty of which he was capable, feared that he might put his terrible threats into execution.

As for asking Dr. Heriot to dress his wound, or by a touch of his skill to lessen the agony that wrung the bead-drops from his tawny brow, he never thought of such a thing! To expect an act of such mercy or generosity never occurred to his cruel mind as being within the compass of possibility; but he now conceived and prepared to execute a very subtle plan for gaining possession of Ethel Basset, and through her, as hostage, compelling Heriot to dress his shattered limb, after which he would destroy them all without mercy; and as these ideas occurred to him he gnashed his sharp white teeth and uttered a roar that was something between a laugh of savage exultation and a howl of agony.

MR. BASSET DELUDED.

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