goeslike a fever. They had their square meal last night, and they are nottaking any this morning. I should not be afraid of them if I were you,captain."
"I never was," said I, bluntly; "I never was, doctor. There's notenough on my conscience for that. But I do believe you speak truly.Making love is more in their line this watch. Ask Dolly Venn there.From what I saw between him and little Rosamunda down below, lie's anauthority on that point. Eh, Dolly, lad," said I to him, "you couldmake love every day, couldn't you?"
The lad flushed all over his face at the charge, and Peter Bligh, hesaid something about "Love one another" being in the Bible, "which mustmean many of 'em, and not one in particular," says he. And what withthe laugh and the jest, and the new confidence which the sight of thosepoor driven devils put into us, we came all together to the sea's edge,and, scarcely cocking a rifle at them, we hailed the longboats and gottheir story.
"Ahoy, there! And what port d'you think you're making for?" cries PeterBligh, in a voice that might have split the waters.
They replied to him, standing up in the boat and stretching out theirsunburnt, hairy arms to us:
"Water!--water, mate, for the love of God!"
"And how do you know," cries Peter back to them, "how do you know thatwe've water for ourselves?"
"Why, Barebones saw to that," says one of them, no doubt meaning Czernythereby; "Barebones saw to that, though precious little of it thelubber drank!"
"He's off, is Barebones," says another; "oh, trust Barebones!Bones-and-Biscuits puts to sea last night, 'cause he's a duty toperform in 'Frisco, he 'as. Trust Bones-and-Biscuits to turn uprighteous when the trumpet blows!"
And another, said he:
"I wish I had his black head under my boot this minute! My mouth's allsand and my throat is stuck! Aye, mates," says he, "you'll moisten mypoor tongue--same as is wrote in the Scriptures!"
There were other entreaties; some of them spoke to us in French, themost part in German. Of the boats that were left, two had rowed awayfor the lesser gate, but five drifted about our rock and drew so closethat we could have tossed a biscuit to them. Never have I seen a crowdof faces more repulsive or jowls so repellent. Iron-limbed men, fatGermans, sleek Frenchmen, Greeks, niggers, some armed with rifles, somewith fearsome knives, they squatted all together in the open boats androared together for pity and release. Then, for the first time, I wasable to see how cruelly Czerny's gun had dealt with them in thedarkness of the night. It was horrible to see the bloody limbs, theopen wounds, the matted hair, the gaping faces of these creatures of adesperado's mad ambition. The boats themselves were splintered andhacked as though heavy hatches had beaten them. I could wonder nolonger that they called the truce; and yet, knowing why they called it,what was I to do? Let them set foot on the plateau, and we, but ahandful at the best, might be swept into the sea like flies from awall. I say that I was at my wits' end. Every merciful instinct urgedme to give them water; every prudent voice cried, "Beat them off."
"If there's fight in that lot, I'm as black as yonder nigger!" saidPeter Bligh, when he looked at them a little while, verycontemptuously. "Not a kick to-day among the lot of them, by Jericho!But you cannot give them water, captain," he goes on, "for you'velittle to give."
Clair-de-Lune, thinking deeper, was, nevertheless, for a stem refusal.
"Keep them off, captain, that's my advice," says he. "They verydesperate, dangerous men. They drink water, then cut throat. Make eardeaf and say cistern all empty. They think you die, and they wait, butcome aboard--no, by thunder!"
Now, I knew that this was reason, and when Doctor Gray and CaptainNepeen added their words to the Frenchman's I stepped down to thewater's edge and made my answer.
"I'll give you water willingly, men, if you'll show me where it is tobe found," said I; "but we cannot give what we haven't got, and that'scommon sense! We're dry here, and if it's bad luck for one it's badluck for all. The glass says rain," I went on; "we'll wait for ittogether and have done with all this nonsense."
They heard me to the end; but ignorant, perhaps, of my meaning theycontinued to whine, "Water, water," and when I must repeat that wehad no water, one of them, leaping up in the boat, fired his riflepoint-blank at Captain Nepeen, who fell without a word stone-dead atmy side.
"Great God!" said I, "they've shot the captain dead."
The suddenness of it was awful; just a gun flashing, a gasping cry, anhonest man leaping up and falling lifeless. And then something thatwould never move or speak again. The crews themselves, I do believe,were as dazed by it as we were. They could have shot us, I witness,where we stood, every man of us, but, in God's mercy, they neverthought of that; and turning on their own man, they tore the rifle fromhis hand and, striking him down with a musket, they sent him headlonginto the sea.
"Witness we've no part in it!" they roared. "Jake Bilbow did it, and hewas always a bad 'un! You won't charge fifty with one man's deed! Tohell with the arms, mate--we've no need of 'em!"
Well, we heard them in amazement. Not a man had moved among us; thebody was untouched at our feet. From the boats themselves ruffians werecasting their rifles pell-mell into the sea. Never at the wildesthazard would I have named this for the end of it. They cast theirrifles into the sea and rowed unarmed about us. To the end of it, Ithink, they feared the gun with a fear that was nameless and lasting,nor did they know that the turret was empty--how should they?
It was a swift change; to me it seemed as though the day had conjuredup this wonder. None the less, the perplexity of it remained, nor couldI choose a course even under these new circumstances. Of water I hadnone to give; our own circumstances, indeed, were little better thanthat of these unhappy creatures in the boats about me. The sea floodedthe house below us; the great engine no longer throbbed; our women werehuddled together at the stairs-head, seeking air and light; the fogsloom heavy on Ken's Island; no ship's sail brought hope to our horizon.What should I say, then, to the mutineers, how answer them? I could butprotest: "We are as you; we must face it together."
* * *
Now, I have told you that both the greater and the lesser gates ofCzerny's house were hewn in the pinnacles of rock rising up above thehighest tides, and offering there a foothold and an anchorage; but youmust not think that these were the only caps of the reef which thrustthemselves out to the sea. For there were others, rounded domes oftide-washed rock, treacherous ledges, little craggy steeples, slopingshelves, which low water gave up to the sun and where a man might walkdry-shod. To such strange places the longboats turned when we wouldhave none of them. Convinced, may-be, that our own case was no betterthan theirs, the men, in desperation, and cramped with long confinementin the boats, now pushed their bows into the swirling waters; andfollowing each other, as sheep will follow a leader, they climbed outupon the barren rocks and lay there in a state of dejection defyingwords. Nor had we any heart to turn upon them and drive them off.Little did the new day we desired so ardently bring to us. The sky,gloomy above the blackening, angry seas, was like a mock upon ourbravest hopes. Let a few hours pass and the night would come again.This was but an interlude in which man could ask of man, "What next?"We feared to speak to the women lest they should know the truth.
The men crawled upon the sea-washed rocks, I say, and there thejudgment of God came upon them. So awful was the scene my eyes weresoon to behold that I take up my pen with hesitation even now to writeof it; and as I write some figure of the shadows comes before me andseems to say, "You cannot speak of it! It is of the past, forgotten!"And, certainly, if I could make it clear to you how Czerny's men wereforever driven off from the gate of the house that Czerny built, if Icould make it clear to you and leave the thing untold, that would I doright gladly. But the end was not of my seeking; in all honesty I cansay that if it had been in my power I would have helped those wretchedcreatures, have dealt out pity to them and carried them to the shore;but it was written otherwise; a higher Power decreed it; we could butstand, trembling and helpless, before that enthralling justice.
> They climbed on the rocks, forty or fifty of them, may-be, and lying inall attitudes, some stretched out full length, some with their arms inthe flowing tide, some huddled close as though for warmth, theyappeared to surrender themselves to the inevitable and to accept theworst; when, rising up out of the near sea, the first octopus showedhimself, and a great tentacle, sliding over the rock, drew one of themutineers screaming to the depths. Thereafter, in an instant, the wholeterror was upon them. Leaping up together, they uttered piercing cries,turned upon each other in their agony, hurled
The House Under the Sea: A Romance Page 43
