Kamasura, in nowise loath to bring his work to an end, stood back and
laid on the whip with redoubled vigor. The lash spatted sharply against
the raw and bleeding flesh. The screams sank into moans, and the moans
in turn declined to a mere horrible gasping of the breath. Even this
ceased at length, and the quivering of the body stopped. Kamasura
leaned over and slipped his hand under the body in the region of the
heart. When he straightened up again, he made a gesture of finality
with his crimsoned hands. The mate was dead.
They cut his body loose at once and pitched him over the rail, then
turned their attention to Van Roos. Sam Hall was the inspired man this
time, and according to his directions they lashed the body of the big
mate on the same blood-spotted hatch cover where Borgson had lain a
moment before, but this time the victim was placed upon his back. Hall
himself attended to the tying of Van Roos's head, and he performed his
work so ably that the mate could not change his position in the least
particle. He was literally swathed in ropes; so much so, in fact, that
it was difficult to see how he could be tormented. Sam Hall, however,
insisted that this was what he wanted, and the crew consented to let
him do his work.
"You've heard something, an' you've seen something," said Hovey at this
juncture to Campbell; "but what you've seen and heard isn't nothin' to
what'll happen to you unless you start handling the engines of the
_Heron_. Why, Campbell, I'm goin' to give you to the firemen!"
"Hovey," answered the engineer calmly, "the only place I'd run this
ship would be down to hell--your home port. That's final!"
The bos'n was white with rage.
"I'd like to tear your heart out an' feed it to the fish," he said,
stepping close to Campbell, and then, remembering himself, he moved
back and grinned: "But the men will find something better to do with
you."
He crossed the deck and held up a bucket of water toward Harrigan and
McTee. He raised a dipperful and allowed it to splash back in the
bucket.
"Well?" asked Hovey.
They merely stared at him as if they had not heard him speak.
"All right," said Hovey, quite unmoved, "there's plenty of time for you
to make up your minds. But if you wait too long--well, we'll come and
get him. And the girl, too!"
He laughed and turned away.
"I thought," muttered McTee, "that we could end it by simply dying--but
I forgot the girl."
"The girl," answered Harrigan, "and--and them! She's got to die before
we're too far gone. You'll do that to save her from--them?"
McTee moistened his parched lips before he could speak.
"One of us has to do it, but it can't be me, Harrigan."
"Nor me, Angus. We'll wait till tonight. Maybe a ship'll pass and see
us lyin' like a derelict and put a boat aboard, eh?"
"But if no ship comes, then we'll draw straws, eh?"
"Yes."
Two sharp, sudden cries now called their attention back to the waist of
the ship to the blood-stained hatch cover where Van Roos lay.
Sam Hall had approached the big mate with a knife in his hand. He
kneeled beside the prostrate body and fumbled at the face an instant.
No one had been able to make out the significance of his act. Then the
knife gleamed, and twice he plucked with one hand and cut with the
knife. The two sharp cries answered him. Then he rose; two little
trickles of blood ran down the face of the mate.
"Well?" asked Jacob Flint. "When does the game begin?"
"The game is just started," said Hall, "an' the sun will do the rest.
I've cut off his eyelids!"
They stared a moment in amazement, and then an understanding broke on
them. Every tribe of savages in the world has been accredited with this
ingenious torture which blinded their victim and usually drove him mad.
The sun was now climbing the sky rapidly, and already fell on the face
of the mate. The tropic sun which scorches and burns the toughest of
skins was now directed full on the pupils of his eyes.
The sailors sought comfortable positions and waited for a long
exhibition of pain, but they were mistaken. The torture acted far more
quickly than even the whip. There was no outcry. Not once during his
struggles did Van Roos make a sound from his throat, save for a quick,
heavy panting. Perhaps by contrast with the yells of Borgson, which
were still in the ears of the men, this silence was more horrible than
the most throat-filling shrieks. They could see Van Roos twisting his
head ceaselessly and vainly to escape that blinding light. His ruddy
face became swollen like the features of a drowned man. And that was
all that happened--only that, and the panting, the quick, choppy
panting like a running man. Finally one of the sailors rose with a
mallet in his hand.
"Where you goin'?" asked Hall ominously.
"Going to finish him."
Hall caught the fellow's arm.
"Listen!" he whispered, and such was the silence that the hoarse
whisper was audible all over the deck. "Don't you hear?"
And with one hand he kept beat for the quick breaths of the tortured
man. At that moment there was a long sigh, and the breathing stopped.
Hall strode angrily forward to his victim, but when he reached the
hatch, Van Roos was dead. A blood vessel must have burst in his brain,
and death was as instantaneous as though a bullet had struck him. So
they cut him free, and his body followed that of Borgson over the rail.
Then the eyes of the mutineers turned aft toward the wireless house,
and then back upon Campbell. Six victims remained. One of the firemen
slipped close to Hovey on naked feet. He did not speak, but his long,
thin arm pointed toward the engineer.
"Not yet," said Hovey, "not yet! Tomorrow if he doesn't give in, we'll
turn you loose on him."
The fireman grinned and went back on noiseless feet to his companions
to spread the good tidings. Hovey approached the wireless house.
"We've got one show left to offer, but we're savin' it till tomorrow,"
he said. "So brace up, hearties, and keep cheer. You'll see Campbell go
a way worse than either of these tomorrow."
"Wait," called Harrigan, suddenly roused. "D'you mean to say that you'd
try your hellwork on a kind man like Campbell?"
"A kind man like Campbell?" echoed Hovey, and then laughed. "A kind
man?"
And he retreated with no other answer, and left the fugitives aft to
the merciless, sweltering heat of the sun. By the time the sun went
down, they were so fevered by the need of water that they had not the
strength to bless the cool falling of the dark; they still carried the
fire of the sunlight in their blood.