I RESCUE THE MATE.
Pale as marble, with his lower jaw relaxed and his eyes almost
closed, motionless as if dead, but, nevertheless, still breathing
slowly and heavily, poor Marc Hislop lay in his bed, the clothes and
pillows of which were saturated with blood; for he seemed to be
covered by wounds, and the crimson current had flowed over the piles
of his favorite books, which were scattered upon the cabin floor,
where they had been trod under foot by Antonio while overhauling the
repositories of the unfortunate proprietor.
Shuddering, and in haste, we lifted him from the bed, muffled him in
a blanket, and conveyed him, passive as a child, in our hands, from
the cabin.
As we passed out, for a moment it seemed as if the ruffianly Spaniard
repented of his temporary clemency; for when he saw the pale, bloody,
and insensible form of the poor fellow trailed past, he made an
ominous stride toward us, and threateningly clutched the haft of the
Albacete knife in his sash. Then waving his hand, almost
contemptuously, he said,--
"Basta--go, go--it matters little now, either to him or to me.
Demonio! I always strike deep."
Alarm and pity endowed us with unusual strength, and we bore the
speechless victim of Antonio up the steep stair to the deck, where
our crew, with muttered oaths of vengeance, and expressions of
commiseration, bore him into the forepart of the vessel. There a bed
was made up for him on deck; for coolness, an awning was rigged over
it, and we had his wounds examined.
We found a deep stab in the neck, most dangerously near the jugular
vein; a second in the breast, a third between the bones of the right
forearm, and a fourth in the left thigh; all had evidently been dealt
through the bedclothes, and with a savage energy of purpose.
"The poor lad is dying for lack of a doctor," said old Tom, who knelt
beside Hislop, handling his wounds with the tenderness of a woman;
"and if the whole British navy hove in sight, we haven't a rag of
bunting to shake out as a signal, since that rascally picaroon, the
Cubano, has cast every color and signal overboard.
"Well, Tom, he shan't die this bout," said Ned Carlton, hopefully;
"let us tie up his wounds as best we can, to belay the bleeding, and
give him something as a reviver."
"It's a blessing his old mother in Scotland don't see all this,"
added rough Tom Lambourne, with a tear in his eye; "poor Marc Hislop
is her only support, and a sister's too."
I thought now with compunction, how often his theories and pedantry
had bored me, and I resolved to be unremitting in my care of him.
The united medical skill of those honest souls, our crew, was very
small; however, the wounds were carefully washed in clean water;
their best shirts were torn into bandages, or folded into pads to
stop the bleeding; and in this they were quite successful.
A breaker of New England rum was hoisted out of the forehold, and its
head was instantly started. The liquor was very redolent of treacle;
but a glass of it mixed with water--the readiest stimulant that
occurred to the minds of the seamen--was poured between the parched
lips of the sufferer, who at last slept, in the pleasant atmosphere
formed by the awning which shaded him from the fierce sun, and in the
breeze that whistled past the bows as the _Eugenie_ still bore on her
new course, close hauled, with all her fore-and-aft canvas set, and
the white glittering spray flying over her cat-heads and dolphin
striker.
The terrible Cubano still kept possession of the cabin. His two
six-barrelled revolvers gave him twelve shots, and we were but nine
in all, as the captain, Roberts, and Will White had already perished
by his hand, and Hislop to all appearance was dying; thus Antonio
kept us all in subjection by his weapons, just as half a dozen
well-armed soldiers may control a mob of thousands.
So passed the night; the crew grouped forward, full of schemes for
vengeance, and he aft, full of triumph, ferocity, and cognac.
Next morning, I was on the quarter-deck, and when day broke, I became
aware, by a plashing sound astern, that we were towing something in
the dead water of the brig's wake. On looking over the taffrail,
what were my emotions on beholding the body of my kind friend
Weston--our good and hospitable captain--towed by the neck at the end
of a line!
Around the poor corpse, which was in its night-dress, the green waves
danced merrily in the golden light of the morning sun that was now
beaming over the sea, "refreshing the distant shores and reviving all
but him." Antonio in the night had cast it from one of the cabin
windows on the port side of the rudder-case, and through that
aperture the line to which it was attached was now run.
By the smoke of a cigar which ascended to the taffrail at times, I
discovered that the atrocious Cubano was sitting at the open cabin
window below me, watching and waiting to see the body devoured by
sharks; and I knew that he would shoot all who attempted to cross his
purpose, or who came within reach of his pistol. This prevented any
man from lowering himself over the stem, either to haul in the line
or cut it adrift.
"Demonio!" we heard him exclaim, when, by a sudden lurch of the ship,
the line parted, and the poor corpse went rolling and surging to
leeward.
"There he goes, and God bless him, although he's cut adrift without a
prayer or a sailor's winding-sheet," said Tom Lambourne, taking off
his hat, as the body bobbed like a fisherman's float on the waves for
a little space, and then disappeared in the long white track made by
the _Eugenie_, through the dark apple-green of the morning sea.
All the stories I had heard or read of Spanish revenge seemed
eclipsed by the atrocities of this fiendish Cubano.