THE EXPULSION.
Hawkshaw's hand, as we have stated, fell unconsciously on the loaded
revolver which lay by his side, but was instantly withdrawn.
He had not the courage to die by his own hand, in the fashion to
which the old Romans were so partial in all their griefs and
difficulties. He looked up with a half-haggard and half-bullying or
defiant expression, as Captain Phillips, Mr. Quail, the doctor, and
Mr. Basset entered the cabin.
The latter gave him a long, steady, and withering glance, and after
knocking at the door of Ethel's little cabin or state-room, entered
it hastily. Then the varying exclamations of astonishment and joy
which were heard within it sounded as additional knells of
disgrace--they might be those of death to Cramply Hawkshaw; and now,
after surveying him long and sternly, Captain Phillips addressed him
with great deliberation.
Hawkshaw found himself regarded with horror and aversion, but no
ashes of fire were heaped upon his miserable head, for the good,
jolly captain was the only person who spoke.
"Sir, give me up that revolver."
Hawkshaw seemed to be stunned, and did not reply.
"The revolver, sir; do you hear me?"
"Why?"
"Never mind why or wherefore--they matter little now."
"I thought that we were all armed for a particular purpose."
Captain Phillips smiled bitterly.
"Yes," said he; "but you can be no longer trusted with arms on board
my ship."
"Indeed!" said Hawkshaw, who knew not very well whether to cringe or
bully, and pondered in his desperation.
"Yes; so surrender your arms. I'm an easy-going fellow, but one who
won't be trifled with, for all that. Your revolver!"
Hawkshaw reluctantly handed Captain Phillips the loaded weapon.
"Thank you. Now, sir, I must inform you that we have had a long
interview with the men in the 'tween-decks--those whom you so kindly
undertook to watch, though such a duty was scarcely necessary--and
after the revelations they have made, but chiefly after the account
given of you by Mr. Morley Ashton--you wince at the name, I see--you
can no longer remain in the cabin of the _Hermione_."
"Revelations! Did I not say that one--one at least--of these men was
mad?"
"You shall not be sent forward," continued the captain, "among my
crew, however congenial some of their spirits may be."
"What, then?" asked Hawkshaw, with undisguised alarm.
"You shall be secluded between decks till the end of the voyage, or
be sent on shore at the first land we make, in the hope that we may
never see you more."
"At the Cape of Good Hope?" asked Hawkshaw eagerly.
"I do not mean to touch at the Cape now, as we are so far to the
southward of it," replied the captain, little foreseeing that this
information was to have a fatal influence over all on board.
"Sir," replied Hawkshaw, gathering courage for a moment, "may I
remind you that my passage to the Isle of France----"
"Is paid for, you would say?"
"Yes--_carambi_!"
"By Mr. Ashton's money. Ha! ha! I have known of a man being
marooned on a rock in the Gulf of Florida--aye, or set adrift on a
hencoop, or in a punt, with three biscuits and a bottle of water, in
the middle of the South Pacific--a poor devil who was far less
criminal than you. I would to Heaven we had never seen you. No ship
with such a thorough-bred rascal on board could hope for a prosperous
voyage; and," continued the captain angrily, as his professional
superstitions came to memory, "the fact of having you with us
sufficiently accounts for the loss of our foremast after passing the
Madeira Isles, for the mysterious loss of poor Manfredi, and the head
winds we have uniformly encountered. Why, damme! we might as well
have had a parson, or an undocked Tom cat aboard. Seclusion from
among us is a punishment slight indeed for the crimes of which you
have been guilty, but chiefly for your double and dastardly attempts
upon the life of that young gentleman. You understand me, sir."
"I understand only, Captain Phillips, that your mind has been
poisoned by a parcel of infamous falsehoods, which, on the first
shore we make, I shall ram down the throat of him who uttered them
with a pistol-bullet!"
"I hope the person referred to will not be such a confounded donkey
as to exchange shots with a convicted assassin," replied Phillips.
"Assassin! I--I--I----"
Choking with sudden and uncontrollable passion, Hawkshaw sprang up
from the locker, his bloodshot eyes flashing with fire, his face pale
and haggard, the veins of his temples swollen like whipcord, and his
heart stung with the idea that Ethel in her little cabin could hear
all that passed. His voice, husky and inarticulate, failed him, but
his bearing was so threatening that Captain Phillips cocked the
revolver pistol, and said, sternly:
"If you attempt to strike me, I will shoot you down like a gull.
Quit the cabin this instant, and if you would keep your heels out of
the bilboes, never let me find you aft the break of the quarterdeck."
Hawkshaw's hands were opened and clenched convulsively, as if his
fingers twitched for an object to grapple with, and on which to vent
the pent-up rage and shame that consumed him; yet he found that he
had no resource but to submit and retire, so he slowly left the
cabin, but with an air of defiance which so ill became him, and so
ill befitted his present predicament, that Phillips, the mate, and
doctor, knew not whether to pity or laugh at him.
But the whole episode was a painful one, as they could not forget, at
this climax of his humiliation, that this man, so summarily disgraced
and cast forth from among them as an unclean thing, had been for so
many months their companion and associate, their friend, and, to all
appearance, their equal.
He repaired to the quarter-deck, and the cool breeze that swept over
the morning sea gratefully fanned his flushed face and throbbing
brow. For a time he was blind with rage, and trod mechanically to
and fro over the very cabin wherein Ethel and Rose (now filled with
tumultuous joy by the strange tidings their father had brought them,
were making a hurried toilette); till the appearance of Mr. Quail,
who came to relieve the deck, to call the watch, to change the
helmsman, and have the log hove, recalled the stern order of Captain
Phillips, and, descending the break of the quarter-deck, he went
sullenly forward--a proscribed man.
As he did so a mocking laugh met his ear.
It came from Pedro Barradas--who had just relieved the wheel, and
who, being ignorant of the events that had transpired in the cabin,
naturally supposed that Hawkshaw had, as usual, quitted the
quarter-deck to avoid him.
For a moment this laugh stung him deeply; but many emotions were
conflicting in his breast on this miserable morning, so that he
scarcely felt anger at Barradas.
He had passed a sleepless night; but no sensation of weariness felt
he, as he clambered into the fore-rigging, and sat there to consider
his position--to watch the inmates of the cabin, and to avoid the
crew, until he could conceal himself somewhere for the night.
Oh, how he longed for its friendly shadow and concealment--longed for
it, while the beams of the morning sun gilded all the sea, and lit up
the full swelling sails of the _Hermione_.
Feverish, and madly excited by the many emotions which had convulsed
him since the moment in which he recognised the sleeping Morley
Ashton, and more especially by the terrible and wicked thoughts of
the past night, a longing for vengeance, or victory, rather--victory
at any risk or price--filled his heart, till he nearly became mad,
when thoughts of his rival's safety, restoration, and triumph were
contrasted with his own exposure, expulsion, and disgrace.
The crew, among whom he dared not venture, would soon learn the whole
story, and, knowing alike their reckless character and their
nefarious projects, he already felt, by anticipation, the sharp
stings of their fierce and brutal mockery, and the coming vengeance
of those he had contemptuously ignored--the Barradas.
"Why did I not put a bullet through my head before old Phillips took
away my pistol?" thought he. "Had I done so, by this time, perhaps,
I would have been peacefully at rest below the surface of that blue
and shining sea, instead of being perched up here, a moody wretch--a
miserable and disappointed outcast."
Slowly, slowly the sunny morning wore on.
He heard Joe the steward's bell--once a welcome sound--rung for
breakfast. The smoking ham and eggs, broiled chicken, tea and
coffee, were borne from the steaming galley, aft to the cabin; he
knew that the whole party, with their familiar faces, would be
assembled at table as usual; and others, too, he shrewdly
anticipated, would be there. Nor was he mistaken; for all the four
castaways were so much better this morning, notwithstanding the
recent disturbance, that they had quitted their hammocks, with the
intention of coming on deck.
Perhaps they had already begun to feel that necessity which so soon
impresses the sick or ailing on board of ship--the expediency of
getting well as soon as possible (especially in such a ship as the
_Hermione_); for, after a time, there is but little sympathy to spare
for useless hands, either fore or aft; "an overstrained sense of
manliness being the characteristic of seafaring men, or rather of
life on board ship."
Apart from these considerations, and being bodily better, the
knowledge that Ethel Basset was only separated from him by a few
planks worked a miracle upon Morley Ashton.
Their sodden and surf-beaten rags had all been thrown overboard, so
Morley was attired from the wardrobe of Dr. Heriot; the others were
supplied by the captain and Mr. Basset; and the appearance of Noah
Gawthrop, when rigged out in a black swallow-tailed dress coat,
belonging to the latter gentleman, with gilt buttons, and lappels of
watered silk, an old crimson velvet waistcoat, an ample pair of dark
tartan trowsers, and a sou'-wester of Mr. Quail's, was unique, and
excited considerable speculation when he came on deck.
Forgetting his "landlubber-like toggery," with sailor-like instinct,
Noah cast his eyes aloft, and critically surveyed all the rigging,
and a smile, that puckered up the wrinkles of his old face, showed
that the result of his scrutiny was satisfactory.
His remarkably ill-favoured visage was in no way improved by a patch
of black sticking-plaster, with which Dr. Heriot had covered a cut on
the bridge of his copper-coloured nose, the result of Hawkshaw's
random blow in the matutinal row between decks.
Descending the break of the quarter-deck, Noah went forward, to get
his breakfast with the crew, concerning whom the officers of the ship
deemed it yet unwise to give him any warning.
He had considerably recovered his strength, and was eagerly welcomed
by the seamen as he walked forward, and all gathered in a group about
him in the break of the deck at the forecastle bunks, clamorous to
hear his yarn about the loss of his ship--where she was from, where
bound to, what she was loaded with, and so forth--to hear all about
himself, and, though recorded last, not the least exciting topic on
which they wished enlightenment, was the cry that had come from
between decks in the first hour of the morning watch.
Noah, seated on the barrel of the windlass, with a tin mug of
scalding hot coffee, together with a slice of salt junk, and Quaco's
"plum-duff," after denouncing the tea and arrowroot of Joe the
steward, proceeded to give, in his own fashion, a rambling narrative
of all the recent events in which he had borne a part.
The words which he uttered did not reach the ear of Hawkshaw, in his
lofty perch; but suddenly all eyes were simultaneously cast aloft to
where he sat near the sling of the foreyard, and Noah threateningly
shook his clenched hand at him, while a roar of mocking laughter from
the crew--that bitter laughter which he so long dreaded--filled his
heart with rage and spite, that he nearly fell from his seat among
his tormentors.
For a time, it seemed as if all these villainous upturned faces--the
thick, African nose and sausage-like lips of Quaco, the glittering
eyes and olive face of Zuares Barradas, the hideous squat form of
Sharkey--a wretch with the life of Manfredi to atone for--Badger,
with his sunken orbs and great square jaw; Bolter, the
unhealthy-looking Canadian, and all the rest--had been turned into
mocking fiends, who would yet drive him to more desperate deeds, for
he was now expelled, cast forth from among those with whom he had
associated, without a prospect of return, or a hope of retrieving
himself.
"Is not life altogether a long comedy," says some one, "with Fate for
the stage-manager, and Passion, Inclination, Love, Hate, Revenge,
Ambition, Avarice, by turns, in the prompter's box?"
Hawkshaw felt bitterly in his soul that his life had been a tragedy,
in which the evil passions alone had played their parts by turns, and
sometimes all together.
What would the last scene of that tragedy be?
"Hallo, foretop there!" cried Bill Badger, the tall, lantern-jawed,
and odious Yankee. "Well, capting, I guess you're chawed up rayther.
Thunder and lightning! come, ship with us in the little game we've
got in hand. Jine us; you carn't do better now; and who knows but
you may get your gal with the black shiners, after all?"
"_El cuchillo primero!_ (My knife first)" said Zuares Barradas,
touching the haft of his Albacete knife with ferocious significance.
Honest Noah opened his eyes very wide at these singular remarks,
which were followed by another roar of brutal laughter. On this,
Hawkshaw, to get, if possible, beyond the reach of their
conversation, trembling in every limb with rage, and with a strange
blindness coming over his sight, as the old clamorous ferocity
gathered in his soul, while feeling that the mocking words had not
been uttered in vain--as they suggested certain ideas of probable
vengeance on his exposers--proceeded to climb farther up the rigging,
until he perched himself on the fore-crosstrees, his past experience
having made him seaman enough to achieve this.