The Lottery of Death
Jane Porter had been the first of those in the lifeboat to awaken the
morning after the wreck of the _Lady Alice_. The other members of the
party were asleep upon the thwarts or huddled in cramped positions in
the bottom of the boat.
When the girl realized that they had become separated from the other
boats she was filled with alarm. The sense of utter loneliness and
helplessness which the vast expanse of deserted ocean aroused in her
was so depressing that, from the first, contemplation of the future
held not the slightest ray of promise for her. She was confident that
they were lost—lost beyond possibility of succor.
Presently Clayton awoke. It was several minutes before he could gather
his senses sufficiently to realize where he was, or recall the disaster
of the previous night. Finally his bewildered eyes fell upon the girl.
“Jane!” he cried. “Thank God that we are together!”
“Look,” said the girl dully, indicating the horizon with an apathetic
gesture. “We are all alone.”
Clayton scanned the water in every direction.
“Where can they be?” he cried. “They cannot have gone down, for there
has been no sea, and they were afloat after the yacht sank—I saw them
all.”
He awoke the other members of the party, and explained their plight.
“It is just as well that the boats are scattered, sir,” said one of the
sailors. “They are all provisioned, so that they do not need each other
on that score, and should a storm blow up they could be of no service
to one another even if they were together, but scattered about the
ocean there is a much better chance that one at least will be picked
up, and then a search will be at once started for the others. Were we
together there would be but one chance of rescue, where now there may
be four.”
They saw the wisdom of his philosophy, and were cheered by it, but
their joy was short-lived, for when it was decided that they should row
steadily toward the east and the continent, it was discovered that the
sailors who had been at the only two oars with which the boat had been
provided had fallen asleep at their work, and allowed both to slip into
the sea, nor were they in sight anywhere upon the water.
During the angry words and recriminations which followed the sailors
nearly came to blows, but Clayton succeeded in quieting them; though a
moment later Monsieur Thuran almost precipitated another row by making
a nasty remark about the stupidity of all Englishmen, and especially
English sailors.
“Come, come, mates,” spoke up one of the men, Tompkins, who had taken
no part in the altercation, “shootin’ off our bloomin’ mugs won’t get
us nothin’. As Spider ’ere said afore, we’ll all bloody well be picked
up, anyway, sez ’e, so wot’s the use o’ squabblin’? Let’s eat, sez I.”
“That’s not a bad idea,” said Monsieur Thuran, and then, turning to the
third sailor, Wilson, he said: “Pass one of those tins aft, my good
man.”
“Fetch it yerself,” retorted Wilson sullenly. “I ain’t a-takin’ no
orders from no—furriner—you ain’t captain o’ this ship yet.”
The result was that Clayton himself had to get the tin, and then
another angry altercation ensued when one of the sailors accused
Clayton and Monsieur Thuran of conspiring to control the provisions so
that they could have the lion’s share.
“Some one should take command of this boat,” spoke up Jane Porter,
thoroughly disgusted with the disgraceful wrangling that had marked the
very opening of a forced companionship that might last for many days.
“It is terrible enough to be alone in a frail boat on the Atlantic,
without having the added misery and danger of constant bickering and
brawling among the members of our party. You men should elect a leader,
and then abide by his decisions in all matters. There is greater need
for strict discipline here than there is upon a well-ordered ship.”
She had hoped before she voiced her sentiments that it would not be
necessary for her to enter into the transaction at all, for she
believed that Clayton was amply able to cope with every emergency, but
she had to admit that so far at least he had shown no greater promise
of successfully handling the situation than any of the others, though
he had at least refrained from adding in any way to the unpleasantness,
even going so far as to give up the tin to the sailors when they
objected to its being opened by him.
The girl’s words temporarily quieted the men, and finally it was
decided that the two kegs of water and the four tins of food should be
divided into two parts, one-half going forward to the three sailors to
do with as they saw best, and the balance aft to the three passengers.
Thus was the little company divided into two camps, and when the
provisions had been apportioned each immediately set to work to open
and distribute food and water. The sailors were the first to get one of
the tins of “food” open, and their curses of rage and disappointment
caused Clayton to ask what the trouble might be.
“Trouble!” shrieked Spider. “Trouble! It’s worse than trouble—it’s
death! This—-tin is full of coal oil!”
Hastily now Clayton and Monsieur Thuran tore open one of theirs, only
to learn the hideous truth that it also contained, not food, but coal
oil. One after another the four tins on board were opened. And as the
contents of each became known howls of anger announced the grim
truth—there was not an ounce of food upon the boat.
“Well, thank Gawd it wasn’t the water,” cried Thompkins. “It’s easier
to get along without food than it is without water. We can eat our
shoes if worse comes to worst, but we couldn’t drink ’em.”
As he spoke Wilson had been boring a hole in one of the water kegs, and
as Spider held a tin cup he tilted the keg to pour a draft of the
precious fluid. A thin stream of blackish, dry particles filtered
slowly through the tiny aperture into the bottom of the cup. With a
groan Wilson dropped the keg, and sat staring at the dry stuff in the
cup, speechless with horror.
“The kegs are filled with gunpowder,” said Spider, in a low tone,
turning to those aft. And so it proved when the last had been opened.
“Coal oil and gunpowder!” cried Monsieur Thuran. “_Sapristi!_ What a
diet for shipwrecked mariners!”
With the full knowledge that there was neither food nor water on board,
the pangs of hunger and thirst became immediately aggravated, and so on
the first day of their tragic adventure real suffering commenced in
grim earnest, and the full horrors of shipwreck were upon them.
As the days passed conditions became horrible. Aching eyes scanned the
horizon day and night until the weak and weary watchers would sink
exhausted to the bottom of the boat, and there wrest in dream-disturbed
slumber a moment’s respite from the horrors of the waking reality.
The sailors, goaded by the remorseless pangs of hunger, had eaten their
leather belts, their shoes, the sweatbands from their caps, although
both Clayton and Monsieur Thuran had done their best to convince them
that these would only add to the suffering they were enduring.
Weak and hopeless, the entire party lay beneath the pitiless tropic
sun, with parched lips and swollen tongues, waiting for the death they
were beginning to crave. The intense suffering of the first few days
had become deadened for the three passengers who had eaten nothing, but
the agony of the sailors was pitiful, as their weak and impoverished
stomachs attempted to cope with the bits of leather with which they had
filled them. Tompkins was the first to succumb. Just a week from the
day the _Lady Alice_ went down the sailor died horribly in frightful
convulsions.
For hours his contorted and hideous features lay grinning back at those
in the stern of the little boat, until Jane Porter could endure the
sight no longer. “Can you not drop his body overboard, William?” she
asked.
Clayton rose and staggered toward the corpse. The two remaining sailors
eyed him with a strange, baleful light in their sunken orbs. Futilely
the Englishman tried to lift the corpse over the side of the boat, but
his strength was not equal to the task.
“Lend me a hand here, please,” he said to Wilson, who lay nearest him.
“Wot do you want to throw ’im over for?” questioned the sailor, in a
querulous voice.
“We’ve got to before we’re too weak to do it,” replied Clayton. “He’d
be awful by tomorrow, after a day under that broiling sun.”
“Better leave well enough alone,” grumbled Wilson. “We may need him
before tomorrow.”
Slowly the meaning of the man’s words percolated into Clayton’s
understanding. At last he realized the fellow’s reason for objecting to
the disposal of the dead man.
“God!” whispered Clayton, in a horrified tone. “You don’t mean—”
“W’y not?” growled Wilson. “Ain’t we gotta live? He’s dead,” he added,
jerking his thumb in the direction of the corpse. “He won’t care.”
“Come here, Thuran,” said Clayton, turning toward the Russian. “We’ll
have something worse than death aboard us if we don’t get rid of this
body before dark.”
Wilson staggered up menacingly to prevent the contemplated act, but
when his comrade, Spider, took sides with Clayton and Monsieur Thuran
he gave up, and sat eying the corpse hungrily as the three men, by
combining their efforts, succeeded in rolling it overboard.
All the balance of the day Wilson sat glaring at Clayton, in his eyes
the gleam of insanity. Toward evening, as the sun was sinking into the
sea, he commenced to chuckle and mumble to himself, but his eyes never
left Clayton.
After it became quite dark Clayton could still feel those terrible eyes
upon him. He dared not sleep, and yet so exhausted was he that it was a
constant fight to retain consciousness. After what seemed an eternity
of suffering his head dropped upon a thwart, and he slept. How long he
was unconscious he did not know—he was awakened by a shuffling noise
quite close to him. The moon had risen, and as he opened his startled
eyes he saw Wilson creeping stealthily toward him, his mouth open and
his swollen tongue hanging out.
The slight noise had awakened Jane Porter at the same time, and as she
saw the hideous tableau she gave a shrill cry of alarm, and at the same
instant the sailor lurched forward and fell upon Clayton. Like a wild
beast his teeth sought the throat of his intended prey, but Clayton,
weak though he was, still found sufficient strength to hold the
maniac’s mouth from him.
At Jane Porter’s scream Monsieur Thuran and Spider awoke. On seeing the
cause of her alarm, both men crawled to Clayton’s rescue, and between
the three of them were able to subdue Wilson and hurl him to the bottom
of the boat. For a few minutes he lay there chattering and laughing,
and then, with an awful scream, and before any of his companions could
prevent, he staggered to his feet and leaped overboard.
The reaction from the terrific strain of excitement left the weak
survivors trembling and prostrated. Spider broke down and wept; Jane
Porter prayed; Clayton swore softly to himself; Monsieur Thuran sat
with his head in his hands, thinking. The result of his cogitation
developed the following morning in a proposition he made to Spider and
Clayton.
“Gentlemen,” said Monsieur Thuran, “you see the fate that awaits us all
unless we are picked up within a day or two. That there is little hope
of that is evidenced by the fact that during all the days we have
drifted we have seen no sail, nor the faintest smudge of smoke upon the
horizon.
“There might be a chance if we had food, but without food there is
none. There remains for us, then, but one of two alternatives, and we
must choose at once. Either we must all die together within a few days,
or one must be sacrificed that the others may live. Do you quite
clearly grasp my meaning?”
Jane Porter, who had overheard, was horrified. If the proposition had
come from the poor, ignorant sailor, she might possibly have not been
so surprised; but that it should come from one who posed as a man of
culture and refinement, from a gentleman, she could scarcely credit.
“It is better that we die together, then,” said Clayton.
“That is for the majority to decide,” replied Monsieur Thuran. “As only
one of us three will be the object of sacrifice, we shall decide. Miss
Porter is not interested, since she will be in no danger.”
“How shall we know who is to be first?” asked Spider.
“It may be fairly fixed by lot,” replied Monsieur Thuran. “I have a
number of franc pieces in my pocket. We can choose a certain date from
among them—the one to draw this date first from beneath a piece of
cloth will be the first.”
“I shall have nothing to do with any such diabolical plan,” muttered
Clayton; “even yet land may be sighted or a ship appear—in time.”
“You will do as the majority decide, or you will be ‘the first’ without
the formality of drawing lots,” said Monsieur Thuran threateningly.
“Come, let us vote on the plan; I for one am in favor of it. How about
you, Spider?”
“And I,” replied the sailor.
“It is the will of the majority,” announced Monsieur Thuran, “and now
let us lose no time in drawing lots. It is as fair for one as for
another. That three may live, one of us must die perhaps a few hours
sooner than otherwise.”
Then he began his preparation for the lottery of death, while Jane
Porter sat wide-eyed and horrified at thought of the thing that she was
about to witness. Monsieur Thuran spread his coat upon the bottom of
the boat, and then from a handful of money he selected six franc
pieces. The other two men bent close above him as he inspected them.
Finally he handed them all to Clayton.
“Look at them carefully,” he said. “The oldest date is
eighteen-seventy-five, and there is only one of that year.”
Clayton and the sailor inspected each coin. To them there seemed not
the slightest difference that could be detected other than the dates.
They were quite satisfied. Had they known that Monsieur Thuran’s past
experience as a card sharp had trained his sense of touch to so fine a
point that he could almost differentiate between cards by the mere feel
of them, they would scarcely have felt that the plan was so entirely
fair. The 1875 piece was a hair thinner than the other coins, but
neither Clayton nor Spider could have detected it without the aid of a
micrometer.
“In what order shall we draw?” asked Monsieur Thuran, knowing from past
experience that the majority of men always prefer last chance in a
lottery where the single prize is some distasteful thing—there is
always the chance and the hope that another will draw it first.
Monsieur Thuran, for reasons of his own, preferred to draw first if the
drawing should happen to require a second adventure beneath the coat.
And so when Spider elected to draw last he graciously offered to take
the first chance himself. His hand was under the coat for but a moment,
yet those quick, deft fingers had felt of each coin, and found and
discarded the fatal piece. When he brought forth his hand it contained
an 1888 franc piece. Then Clayton drew. Jane Porter leaned forward with
a tense and horrified expression on her face as the hand of the man she
was to marry groped about beneath the coat. Presently he withdrew it, a
franc piece lying in the palm. For an instant he dared not look, but
Monsieur Thuran, who had leaned nearer to see the date, exclaimed that
he was safe.
Jane Porter sank weak and trembling against the side of the boat. She
felt sick and dizzy. And now, if Spider should not draw the 1875 piece
she must endure the whole horrid thing again.
The sailor already had his hand beneath the coat. Great beads of sweat
were standing upon his brow. He trembled as though with a fit of ague.
Aloud he cursed himself for having taken the last draw, for now his
chances for escape were but three to one, whereas Monsieur Thuran’s had
been five to one, and Clayton’s four to one.
The Russian was very patient, and did not hurry the man, for he knew
that he himself was quite safe whether the 1875 piece came out this
time or not. When the sailor withdrew his hand and looked at the piece
of money within, he dropped fainting to the bottom of the boat. Both
Clayton and Monsieur Thuran hastened weakly to examine the coin, which
had rolled from the man’s hand and lay beside him. It was not dated
1875. The reaction from the state of fear he had been in had overcome
Spider quite as effectually as though he had drawn the fated piece.
But now the whole proceeding must be gone through again. Once more the
Russian drew forth a harmless coin. Jane Porter closed her eyes as
Clayton reached beneath the coat. Spider bent, wide-eyed, toward the
hand that was to decide his fate, for whatever luck was Clayton’s on
this last draw, the opposite would be Spider’s. Then William Cecil
Clayton, Lord Greystoke, removed his hand from beneath the coat, and
with a coin tight pressed within his palm where none might see it, he
looked at Jane Porter. He did not dare open his hand.
“Quick!” hissed Spider. “My Gawd, let’s see it.”
Clayton opened his fingers. Spider was the first to see the date, and
ere any knew what his intention was he raised himself to his feet, and
lunged over the side of the boat, to disappear forever into the green
depths beneath—the coin had not been the 1875 piece.
The strain had exhausted those who remained to such an extent that they
lay half unconscious for the balance of the day, nor was the subject
referred to again for several days. Horrible days of increasing
weakness and hopelessness. At length Monsieur Thuran crawled to where
Clayton lay.
“We must draw once more before we are too weak even to eat,” he
whispered.
Clayton was in such a state that he was scarcely master of his own
will. Jane Porter had not spoken for three days. He knew that she was
dying. Horrible as the thought was, he hoped that the sacrifice of
either Thuran or himself might be the means of giving her renewed
strength, and so he immediately agreed to the Russian’s proposal.
They drew under the same plan as before, but there could be but one
result—Clayton drew the 1875 piece.
“When shall it be?” he asked Thuran.
The Russian had already drawn a pocketknife from his trousers, and was
weakly attempting to open it.
“Now,” he muttered, and his greedy eyes gloated upon the Englishman.
“Can’t you wait until dark?” asked Clayton. “Miss Porter must not see
this thing done. We were to have been married, you know.”
A look of disappointment came over Monsieur Thuran’s face.
“Very well,” he replied hesitatingly. “It will not be long until night.
I have waited for many days—I can wait a few hours longer.”
“Thank you, my friend,” murmured Clayton. “Now I shall go to her side
and remain with her until it is time. I would like to have an hour or
two with her before I die.”
When Clayton reached the girl’s side she was unconscious—he knew that
she was dying, and he was glad that she should not have to see or know
the awful tragedy that was shortly to be enacted. He took her hand and
raised it to his cracked and swollen lips. For a long time he lay
caressing the emaciated, clawlike thing that had once been the
beautiful, shapely white hand of the young Baltimore belle.
It was quite dark before he knew it, but he was recalled to himself by
a voice out of the night. It was the Russian calling him to his doom.
“I am coming, Monsieur Thuran,” he hastened to reply.
Thrice he attempted to turn himself upon his hands and knees, that he
might crawl back to his death, but in the few hours that he had lain
there he had become too weak to return to Thuran’s side.
“You will have to come to me, monsieur,” he called weakly. “I have not
sufficient strength to gain my hands and knees.”
“_Sapristi!_” muttered Monsieur Thuran. “You are attempting to cheat me
out of my winnings.”
Clayton heard the man shuffling about in the bottom of the boat.
Finally there was a despairing groan. “I cannot crawl,” he heard the
Russian wail. “It is too late. You have tricked me, you dirty English
dog.”
“I have not tricked you, monsieur,” replied Clayton. “I have done my
best to rise, but I shall try again, and if you will try possibly each
of us can crawl halfway, and then you shall have your ‘winnings.’”
Again Clayton exerted his remaining strength to the utmost, and he
heard Thuran apparently doing the same. Nearly an hour later the
Englishman succeeded in raising himself to his hands and knees, but at
the first forward movement he pitched upon his face.
A moment later he heard an exclamation of relief from Monsieur Thuran.
“I am coming,” whispered the Russian.
Again Clayton essayed to stagger on to meet his fate, but once more he
pitched headlong to the boat’s bottom, nor, try as he would, could he
again rise. His last effort caused him to roll over on his back, and
there he lay looking up at the stars, while behind him, coming ever
nearer and nearer, he could hear the laborious shuffling, and the
stertorous breathing of the Russian.
It seemed that he must have lain thus an hour waiting for the thing to
crawl out of the dark and end his misery. It was quite close now, but
there were longer and longer pauses between its efforts to advance, and
each forward movement seemed to the waiting Englishman to be almost
imperceptible.
Finally he knew that Thuran was quite close beside him. He heard a
cackling laugh, something touched his face, and he lost consciousness.