It is scarce necessary to tell who were the two men who had been thus
plotting in whispers. The first speaker was, of course, the Frenchman,
Le Gros,--the other being the confederate who had assisted him in the
performance of his unfair trick in the lot-casting.
Their demoniac design is already known from their conversation,--nothing
more nor less than to murder O'Gorman in his sleep!
The former had two motives prompting him to this horrid crime,--either
sufficiently strong to sway such a nature as his to its execution. He
had all along felt hostility to the Irishman,--which the events of that
day had rendered both deep and deadly. He was wicked enough to have
killed his antagonist for that alone. But there was the other motive,
more powerful and far more rational to influence him to the act. As
above stated, it had been finally arranged that the suspended fight was
to be finished by the earliest light of the morning. Le Gros knew that
the next scene in that drama of death was to be the last; and, judging
from his experience of the one already played, he felt keenly
apprehensive as to the result. He had been fully aware, before the
curtain fell upon the first act, that his life could then have been
taken; and, conscious of a certain inferiority to his antagonist, he now
felt cowed, and dreaded the final encounter.
To avoid it, he was willing to do anything, however mean or wicked,--
ready to commit even the crime of murder!
He knew that if he should succeed in destroying his adversary,--so long
as the act was not witnessed by their associates,--so long as there
should be only circumstantial evidence against him,--he would not have
much to fear from such judges as they. It was simply a question as to
whether the deed could be done silently and in the darkness; and that
question was soon to receive an answer.
The trick of killing the unfortunate man with his own knife,--and making
it appear that he had committed self-destruction,--would have been too
shallow to have been successful under any other circumstances; but Le
Gros felt confident that there would be no very strict investigation;
and that the inquest likely to be held on the murdered man would be a
very informal affair.
In any case, the risk to him would be less than that he might expect on
the consummation of the combat,--the _finale_ of which would in all
probability, be the losing of his life.
He was no longer undecided about doing the foul deed. He had quite
determined upon it; and the attempt now being made by his confederate to
steal the knife was the first stop towards its perpetration.
The theft was too successfully accomplished. The wretch on getting up
to the rum-cask, was seen to sit down silently by its side; and, after a
few moments passed in this position he again rose erect, and moved back
towards the mast. Dark as was the night, Le Gros could perceive
something glittering in the hand of his accomplice, which he knew must
be the coveted weapon.
It was so. The sleeper had been surreptitiously disarmed.
For a moment the two men might have been seen standing in juxtaposition;
and while thus together the knife was furtively transferred from the
hand of the accomplice into that of the true assassin.
Then both, assuming a careless attitude, for a while remained near the
mast, apparently engaged in some ordinary conversation. An occasional
shifting of their position, however, took place,--though so slight that,
even under a good light, it would scarce have been observed. A series
of these movements, made at short intervals, ended in bringing the
conspirators close up to the empty hogshead; and then one of them sat
down by it. The other, going round it, after a short lapse of time,
imitated the example of his companion by seating himself on the opposite
side.
Thus far there was nothing in the behaviour of the two men to have
attracted the attention of their associates on the raft,--even had the
latter been awake. Even so, the obscurity that surrounded their
movements would have hindered them from being very clearly comprehended.
There was no eye watching the assassins, as they sat down by the side of
their sleeping victim; none fixed upon them as both simultaneously leant
over him with outstretched arms,--one holding what appeared a piece of
blanket over his face, as if to stifle his breath,--the other striking
down upon his breast with a glittering blade, as if stabbing him to the
heart.
The double action occupied scarce a second of time. In the darkness, no
one appeared to perceive it, except they were its perpetrators. No one
seemed to hear that choking, gurgling cry that accompanied it; or if
they did, it was only to shape a half conjecture, that some one of their
companions was indulging in a troubled dream!
The assassins, horror-stricken at what they had done, skulked
tremblingly back to their former position by the mast.
Their victim, stretched on his back, remained motionless upon the spot
where they had visited him; and anyone standing over him, as he lay,
might have supposed that he was still slumbering!
Alas! it was the slumber of death!