DREAD.
"What the devil is the matter?" asked Captain Phillips, as he hastily
donned his pea-jacket, and addressed Hawkshaw, who was seated on the
cabin locker, panting with excitement.
"Did you utter that dismal howl, Captain Hawkshaw?" added Dr. Heriot,
impatiently; "speak, sir, have you lost your voice?"
"Very nearly, and my senses too," groaned the other, whose cup of
shame and misery was well-nigh full now.
"What has happened?"
"Look at my hand!" said Hawkshaw, striving to gain time for
thought--to rally his scattered wits for the coming _dénouement_--for
an explanation, or a bold defiance.
"Well, what has happened?"
"It is almost bleeding--bitten."
"By what--by whom?" asked everyone at once
"A madman."
"Mad!" was exclaimed in wild tones by all.
"Yes," said Hawkshaw, through his clenched teeth, and with a glare in
his eye, that seemed somewhat akin to insanity; "one of those fellows
between-decks--one of those wretches we took off the raft (a curse
upon them all!) has bitten me."
"But which of them?" asked Heriot, who had now completely attired
himself.
"Oh, I don't know which, and I care not which," replied the wretched
Hawkshaw, as he rubbed and blew his breath upon his aching digits.
"And he actually bit you?"
"Yes; have I not already said so?"
"What were you doing?"
"Doing--adjusting the clothes upon him," replied Hawkshaw, after a
pause; "and look you, he has almost bitten my hand to the bone."
As he spoke he held up his right hand to the cabin lamp, and there
certainly were the marks of a row of teeth distinctly visible, for
Noah Gawthrop had been determined to give Morley's nocturnal
assailant a stamp by which he would know him again.
"For all that I know, he may have half strangled one of his
companions, in addition to this wild assault upon me," added the
Texan captain, as a sudden thought occurred to him, for in his
confusion he did not know how far he had assaulted Morley.
Heriot, a very sharp-witted and intelligent fellow, who, at his
native university, had met men from all parts of the world, and had
thus gained a considerable insight of human character, had been
scrutinising Hawkshaw keenly, and something in his manner, or in the
expression of his face, seemed to excite some vague suspicion--Heriot
knew not exactly of what--in his mind.
"To me this appears like an impossibility," he began; "excuse me
saying so, but what motive----"
"I know nothing of motives, Dr. Leslie Heriot," interrupted Hawkshaw,
becoming furious and desperate; "but this I know, that I may be
tempted to use my revolver with a vengeance, if I am molested again
by anyone on board this ship; be assured of that."
At this sudden outburst, Heriot gave a smile of well-bred surprise,
and glanced at the captain, who said:
"This is a most extraordinary and unaccountable affair, and must be
instantly inquired into. I am sure that the poor fellows looked
quiet enough when I saw them last. Steward--Joe, a lantern--quick!
Come, doctor, Mr. Basset--we'll see to this."
"Oh, Leslie," cried Rose, "take care, take care!"
"Oh, papa--dear papa, you, at least, must not go," added Ethel, who
had now put on her morning wrapper, or dressing-gown, and appeared at
the door of her little cabin.
"Pooh, pooh, Miss Basset, there is not the slightest cause for fear,
my dear girl," said the captain, laughing, as Joe lit a ship-lantern.
"But the poor man's sufferings may have made him vicious--wild."
"I'll take care of your papa, ladies; and bite the fellow's head off,
mayhap, if he bites him. Come, Captain Hawkshaw, and show us which
of the four is the culprit, and then, if need be, we shall get the
bilboes ready." *
* Iron shackles used on board ship to secure the feet of prisoners.
"No, no, I cannot," replied Hawkshaw, with a sullen and hang-dog
expression in his now white and livid face.
"What--you won't go?"
"No."
The captain looked at him with a smile of contempt.
"Lead the way, captain," said Mr. Scriven Basset, impatiently; for
his ideas of legal prerogative and position were gradually becoming
stronger as he drew near the scene of his future judgeship--the sunny
Isle of France. "I am anxious to see the end of this singular
affair."
"Oh, most accursed fate!" murmured Hawkshaw, as he sank upon the
stern locker. "All is over with me now!" he added, as Mr. Basset,
the captain, Heriot, and others quitted the cabin, to go forward
between decks, and then every minute that elapsed seemed at least an
hour.
The cabin appeared to whirl round him like a great revolving
cylinder; there was a confused hum of voices, that seemed to mingle
with the rush of many waters, in his ear.
Again his former thoughts of suicide occurred to him; but his soul
shrank within him at the idea of self-destruction. A loaded revolver
was close by; he glanced at it with haggard and wistful eyes. One
bullet would enable him to escape the coming shame, and by so doing,
he would gain a triumph--a ghastly victory over them all.
But then he thought of a suicide's grave in the midnight sea; shot
off a grating to leeward, without even a prayer, and shudderingly he
withdrew his hand, and closing his eyes, muttered, with quivering
lips:
"No, no--I cannot--I cannot."
At this moment a soft little hand was laid gently upon his, and
looking up he beheld Ethel Basset.
Ignorant of all this man's secret life; of his crimes committed in
wild and lawless lands; the wrong and cruelty of which he had been
guilty to herself and to Morley--she surveyed him with something of
pity, and he gazed at her bewildered, and in silence, thinking that
she never looked so lovely as at this terrible moment of his
humiliation and suspense.
She wore a loose and ample morning wrapper, of white stuff, spotted
with red; it was profusely frilled, and fitted closely round her
delicate throat, and her tapered white arms came softly out from its
wide falling sleeves. A white tasselled cord confined it at the
waist, and she had no ornament about her, save Morley Ashton's ring.
Turned hastily off her face, and behind her white and handsome ears,
her dark, glossy, and glorious hair fell in a long mass down her
back, and she was knotting it up with her right hand (thus showing to
perfection a smooth white arm and dimpled elbow), while her left, so
soft and small, rested on the hand of Hawkshaw; the hand that only
five minutes before had aimed a death-clutch at the throat of Morley
Ashton.
She gazed kindly and inquiringly into his pale and agitated face, for
his present wretched and guilty aspect astonished and perplexed her.
Her colour, always so delicate, was somewhat heightened beyond its
usual roseleaf tint, by the late excitement, and, as we have said,
Hawkshaw, with all his selfishness, with all his guilt and
bloodthirstiness, thought he never beheld her looking so lovely and
so pure as at this, to him, most terrible time.
She was about to speak, when several footsteps were heard coming
towards the great cabin, on which she retired hastily to her own, and
shut the door.
"Oh, my God! they are coming to denounce me! Peril--disgrace--ruin,
and no escape but death!" groaned Hawkshaw, covering his eyes with
one hand, while the other fell, by chance--or was it fatality!--on
the cold butt of the loaded revolver.