_VIII--The Galley (in the hold)._
From his second swoon Tristram awoke to find the light of a lanternflashing in his face.
The _Merry Maid's_ flag had scarcely been hauled down before nightfell; and almost with its falling, while the men of the other galleyswere helping to clear _L'Heureuse's_ decks, they perceived lightstwinkling off the mouth of the Thames.
At once concluding that these were the lights of English men-of-warsent to pursue them, they used the utmost dispatch. Their firstconcern was to throw the dead overboard and stow the wounded in thehold. But so closely they were pressed by the fear of losing theirprize and being made prisoners, that it is to be feared as many ofthe living were thrown over for dead as of those who were dead inreality.
This, at any rate, came near to being Tristram's fate. For when thekeeper came to unchain the killed and wounded of his seat he wasstill without consciousness lying among the corpses, bathed in theirblood and his own.
"A clean sweep of this bench," said the keeper.
He and his fellows, therefore, without further examination, did butunchain the slaves and then fling them over. It was sufficient thatthe body neither spoke nor cried.
Tristram's comrades, it is true, were in no doubtful plight.The hand of death had impressed them beyond chance of mistake.They were thrown over limb by limb.
Tristram's was the only body that remained entire, and to allappearance he too was dead. Now, he had been chained by the leftleg, in which (as we have said) he was severely wounded. The keeper,not knowing that the chain had been blown away, grasped this leg inhis hand, felt for the ring and tried to wrench it open.
Fortunately he tugged so lustily and inflicted so sharp a pang in thewounded limb that Tristram opened his eyes and sobbed with theanguish of it. The fellow let go his grasp.
Then, suddenly perceiving what their intention had been, the pooryouth screamed out at the top of his voice:
"Please do not throw me over. I'm not dead yet!"
Upon this they carried him to a small chamber in the hold and tossedhim down among a heap of groaning wounded, upon a cable made up intoa _rouleau_, perhaps the hardest bed on which a sick man can lie.About him were stretched indiscriminately petty officers, sailors,soldiers, and slaves. The air could reach this den only through ascuttle about two feet square, and the heat and stench were thereforesomething intolerable. A surgeon was at work among the sufferers.Reaching Tristram at length, he stopped the bleeding of his woundswith a little spirits of wine. He had no bandages; nor did he comeagain to see if his patient were dead or alive.
But, indeed, our hero was past caring for this, and when he regainedconsciousness after a third swoon it was to find himself in otherhands.
For the pursuing English, aided by the wind (which had shifted alittle farther to the northward), had swept down upon the galleys andtaken them, with their prize, and were now towing them triumphantlyinto Sheerness.
The Blue Pavilions Page 19