by Max Brand
CHAPTER 35
Kamasura, in nowise loath to bring his work to an end, stood back andlaid on the whip with redoubled vigor. The lash spatted sharply againstthe raw and bleeding flesh. The screams sank into moans, and the moansin turn declined to a mere horrible gasping of the breath. Even thisceased at length, and the quivering of the body stopped. Kamasuraleaned over and slipped his hand under the body in the region of theheart. When he straightened up again, he made a gesture of finalitywith his crimsoned hands. The mate was dead.
They cut his body loose at once and pitched him over the rail, thenturned their attention to Van Roos. Sam Hall was the inspired man thistime, and according to his directions they lashed the body of the bigmate on the same blood-spotted hatch cover where Borgson had lain amoment before, but this time the victim was placed upon his back. Hallhimself attended to the tying of Van Roos's head, and he performed hiswork so ably that the mate could not change his position in the leastparticle. He was literally swathed in ropes; so much so, in fact, thatit was difficult to see how he could be tormented. Sam Hall, however,insisted that this was what he wanted, and the crew consented to lethim do his work.
"You've heard something, an' you've seen something," said Hovey at thisjuncture to Campbell; "but what you've seen and heard isn't nothin' towhat'll happen to you unless you start handling the engines of the_Heron_. Why, Campbell, I'm goin' to give you to the firemen!"
"Hovey," answered the engineer calmly, "the only place I'd run thisship would be down to hell--your home port. That's final!"
The bos'n was white with rage.
"I'd like to tear your heart out an' feed it to the fish," he said,stepping close to Campbell, and then, remembering himself, he movedback and grinned: "But the men will find something better to do withyou."
He crossed the deck and held up a bucket of water toward Harrigan andMcTee. He raised a dipperful and allowed it to splash back in thebucket.
"Well?" asked Hovey.
They merely stared at him as if they had not heard him speak.
"All right," said Hovey, quite unmoved, "there's plenty of time for youto make up your minds. But if you wait too long--well, we'll come andget him. And the girl, too!"
He laughed and turned away.
"I thought," muttered McTee, "that we could end it by simply dying--butI forgot the girl."
"The girl," answered Harrigan, "and--and them! She's got to die beforewe're too far gone. You'll do that to save her from--them?"
McTee moistened his parched lips before he could speak.
"One of us has to do it, but it can't be me, Harrigan."
"Nor me, Angus. We'll wait till tonight. Maybe a ship'll pass and seeus lyin' like a derelict and put a boat aboard, eh?"
"But if no ship comes, then we'll draw straws, eh?"
"Yes."
Two sharp, sudden cries now called their attention back to the waist ofthe ship to the blood-stained hatch cover where Van Roos lay.
Sam Hall had approached the big mate with a knife in his hand. Hekneeled beside the prostrate body and fumbled at the face an instant.No one had been able to make out the significance of his act. Then theknife gleamed, and twice he plucked with one hand and cut with theknife. The two sharp cries answered him. Then he rose; two littletrickles of blood ran down the face of the mate.
"Well?" asked Jacob Flint. "When does the game begin?"
"The game is just started," said Hall, "an' the sun will do the rest.I've cut off his eyelids!"
They stared a moment in amazement, and then an understanding broke onthem. Every tribe of savages in the world has been accredited with thisingenious torture which blinded their victim and usually drove him mad.The sun was now climbing the sky rapidly, and already fell on the faceof the mate. The tropic sun which scorches and burns the toughest ofskins was now directed full on the pupils of his eyes.
The sailors sought comfortable positions and waited for a longexhibition of pain, but they were mistaken. The torture acted far morequickly than even the whip. There was no outcry. Not once during hisstruggles did Van Roos make a sound from his throat, save for a quick,heavy panting. Perhaps by contrast with the yells of Borgson, whichwere still in the ears of the men, this silence was more horrible thanthe most throat-filling shrieks. They could see Van Roos twisting hishead ceaselessly and vainly to escape that blinding light. His ruddyface became swollen like the features of a drowned man. And that wasall that happened--only that, and the panting, the quick, choppypanting like a running man. Finally one of the sailors rose with amallet in his hand.
"Where you goin'?" asked Hall ominously.
"Going to finish him."
Hall caught the fellow's arm.
"Listen!" he whispered, and such was the silence that the hoarsewhisper was audible all over the deck. "Don't you hear?"
And with one hand he kept beat for the quick breaths of the torturedman. At that moment there was a long sigh, and the breathing stopped.Hall strode angrily forward to his victim, but when he reached thehatch, Van Roos was dead. A blood vessel must have burst in his brain,and death was as instantaneous as though a bullet had struck him. Sothey cut him free, and his body followed that of Borgson over the rail.Then the eyes of the mutineers turned aft toward the wireless house,and then back upon Campbell. Six victims remained. One of the firemenslipped close to Hovey on naked feet. He did not speak, but his long,thin arm pointed toward the engineer.
"Not yet," said Hovey, "not yet! Tomorrow if he doesn't give in, we'llturn you loose on him."
The fireman grinned and went back on noiseless feet to his companionsto spread the good tidings. Hovey approached the wireless house.
"We've got one show left to offer, but we're savin' it till tomorrow,"he said. "So brace up, hearties, and keep cheer. You'll see Campbell goa way worse than either of these tomorrow."
"Wait," called Harrigan, suddenly roused. "D'you mean to say that you'dtry your hellwork on a kind man like Campbell?"
"A kind man like Campbell?" echoed Hovey, and then laughed. "A kindman?"
And he retreated with no other answer, and left the fugitives aft tothe merciless, sweltering heat of the sun. By the time the sun wentdown, they were so fevered by the need of water that they had not thestrength to bless the cool falling of the dark; they still carried thefire of the sunlight in their blood.