The Ocean Waifs: A Story of Adventure on Land and Sea

As each fresh hand came up out of the dark receptacle bearing the evidence of its owner’s fate, Le Gros was seen to cast hurried and anxious glances towards the tiny circle of horn, held between the thumb and forefinger, and each time that he saw the colour to be black his countenance appeared to darken at the sight.

When the twentieth button had been brought forth, and still the red one remained in the bag, the master of the ceremonies became fearfully excited. He could no longer conceal his apprehension. His chances of life were diminished to a point that might well inspire him with fear. It was now but six to one, – for there were only six more tickets to be disposed of.

At this crisis, Le Gros interrupted the drawing to reflect. Would he be in a better position, if some one else held the bag? Perhaps that might change the run of luck hitherto against him; and which he had been cursing with all his might ever since the number had been going through the teens. He had tried every way he could think of to tempt the red ticket out of the bag. He had shaken the buttons time after time, – in hopes of bringing it to the top, or in some position that might insure its being taken up. But all to no purpose. It would obstinately stay to the last.

What difference could it make were he to hand the bag over to some other holder, and try his luck for the twenty-first chance? “Not any!” was the mental reply he received to this mental inquiry. Better for him to hold on as he had been doing. It was hardly possible – at least highly improbable – that the red button should be the last. There had been twenty-five chances to one against its being so. It is true twenty black buttons had been drawn out before it, – in a most unexpected manner, – still it was as likely to come next as any of the remaining six.

It would be of no use changing the process, – so concluded he, in his own mind, – and, with an air of affected recklessness, the Frenchman signified to those around him that he was ready to continue the drawing.

Another man drew forth Number 21. Like those preceding it, the button, was black!

Number 22 was fished out of the bag, – black also!

23 and 24 were of the like hue!

But two buttons now remained, – two men only whose fate was undecided. One of them was Le Gros himself, – the other, an Irish sailor, who was, perhaps, the least wicked among that wicked crew. One or other of them must become food for their cannibal comrades!

It would scarce be true to say that the interest increased as the dread lottery progressed towards its ending. Its peculiar conditions had secured an interest from the first as intense as it was possible for it to be. It only became changed in character, – less selfish, if we may use the phrase, – as each individual escaped from the dangerous contingency involved in the operation. As the drawing approached its termination, the anxiety about the result, though less painful to the majority of the men, was far more so to the few whose fate still hung suspended in the scale; and this feeling became more intensified in the breasts of the still smaller number, who saw their chances of safety becoming constantly diminished. When, at length, only two buttons remained in the bag, and only two men to draw them out, the interest, though changed in character, was nevertheless sufficiently exciting to fix the attention of every individual on the raft.

There were circumstances, apart from the mere drawing, that influenced this attention. Fate itself seemed to be taking a part in the dread drama; or, if not, a very singular contingency had occurred.

Between the two men, thus left to decide its decree, there existed a rivalry, – or, rather, might it be called a positive antipathy, – deadly as any vendetta ever enacted on Corsican soil.

It had not sprung up on the raft. It was of older date – old as the earliest days of the Pandora’s voyage, on whose decks it had originated.

Its first seeds had been sown in that quarrel between Le Gros and Ben Brace, – in which the Frenchman had been so ignominiously defeated. The Irish sailor, – partly from some slight feeling of co-nationality, and partly from a natural instinct of fair-play, – had taken sides with the British tar; and, as a consequence, had invoked the hostility of the Frenchman. This feeling he had reciprocated to its full extent; and from that time forward Larry O’Gorman – such was the Irishman’s name – became the true bête noir of Le Gros, to be insulted by the latter on every occasion that might offer. Even Ben Brace was no longer regarded with as much dislike. For him the Frenchman had been taught, if not friendship, at least, a certain respect, springing from fear; and, instead of continuing his jealous rivalry towards the English sailor, Le Gros had resigned himself to occupy a secondary place on the slaver, and transferred his spite to the representative of the Emerald Isle.

More than once, slight collisions had occurred between them, – in which the Frenchman, gifted with greater cunning, had managed to come off victorious. But there had never arisen any serious matter to test the strength of the two men to that desperate strife, of which death might be the ending. They had generally fought shy of each other; the Frenchman from a latent fear of his adversary, – founded, perhaps, on some suspicion of powers not yet exhibited by him, and which might be developed in a deadly struggle, – the Irishman from a habitude, not very common among his countrymen, of being little addicted to quarrelling. He was, on the contrary, a man of peaceful disposition, and of few words, – also a rare circumstance, considering that his name was Larry O’Gorman.

There were some good traits in the Irishman’s character. Perhaps we have given the best. In comparison with the Frenchman, he might be described as an angel; and, compared with the other wretches on the raft, he was, perhaps, the least bad: for the word best could not, with propriety, be applied to anyone of that motley crew.

Personally, the two men were unlike as could well be. While the Frenchman was black and bearded, the Irishman was red and almost beardless. In size, however, they approximated nearer to each other, – both being men of large stature. Both had been stout, – almost corpulent.

Neither could be so described as they assisted at that solemn ceremonial that was to devote one or other of them to a doom – in which their condition was a circumstance of significant interest to those who were to survive them.

Both were shrunken in shape, with their garments hanging loosely around their bodies, their eyes sunk in deep cavities, their cheek-bones prominently protruding, their breasts flat and fleshless, the ribs easily discernible, – in short, they appeared more like a pair of skeletons, covered with shrivelled skin, than breathing, living men. Either was but ill-adapted for the purpose to which dire necessity was about to devote one or other of them.

Of the two, Le Gros appeared the less attenuated. This may have arisen from the fact of his greater ascendency over the crew of the raft, – by means of which he had been enabled to appropriate to himself a larger share of the food sparsely distributed amongst them. His ample covering of hair may have had something to do with this appearance, – concealing as it did the unevenness of the surface upon which it grew, and imparting a plumper aspect to his face and features.

If there was a superiority in the quantity of flesh still clinging to his bones, its quality might be questioned, – at all events, in regard to the use that might soon be made of it. In point of tenderness, his muscular integuments could scarcely compare with those of the Irishman, whose bright skin promised —

These are horrid thoughts. They should not be her repeated, were it not to show in its true light the terrible extremes, both of thought and action, to which men may be reduced by starvation. Horrid as they may appear, they were entertained at that crisis by the castaway crew of the Pandora!

Chapter Sixty Nine.

A Challenge declined

When it came to the last drawing, – for there needed to be only one more, – there was a pause in the proceedings, such as usually precedes an expected climax.

It was accompanied by silence; so profound that, but for the noise made by the waves as they dashed against the hollow hogsheads, a pin might have been heard if dropped upon the planking of the raft. In the sound of the sea there was something lugubrious: a fit accompaniment of the unhallowed scene that was being enacted by those within hearing of it. One might have fancied that spirits in fearful pain were confined within the empty casks, and that the sounds that seemed to issue out of them were groans elicited by their agony.

The two men, one of whom was doomed to die, stood face to face; the others forming a sort of circle around them. All eyes were bent upon them, while theirs were fixed only upon each other. The reciprocated glance was one of dire hostility and hate, – combined with a hope on the part of each to see the other dead, and then to survive him.

Both were inspired by a belief – in the presence of such an unexpected contingency it was not unreasonable – that Fate had singled them out from their fellows to stand in that strange antagonism. They were, in fact, convinced of it.

Under the influence of this conviction, it might be supposed that neither would offer any further opposition to Fate’s decree, but would yield to what might appear their “manifest destiny.”

As it was, however, fatalism was not the faith of either. Though neither of them could lay claim to the character of a Christian, they were equally unbelievers in this particular article of the creed of Mahomet; and both were imbued with a stronger belief in strength or stratagem than in chance.

On the first-mentioned the Irishman appeared most to rely, as was evidenced by the proposal he made upon the occasion.

“I dar yez,” said he, “to thry which is the best man. To dhraw them buttons is an even chance between us; an’ maybe the best man is him that’ll have to die. By Saint Pathrick! that isn’t fair, nohow. The best man should be allowed to live. Phwat do yez say, comrades?”

The proposal, though unexpected by all, found partisans who entertained it. It put a new face upon the affair. It was one that was not more than reasonable.

The crew, no longer interested in the matter, – at least, so far as their own personal safety was concerned, – could now contemplate the result with calmness; and the instinct of justice was not dead within the hearts of all of them. In the challenge of the Irishman there appeared nothing unfair. A number of them were inclined to entertain it, and declared themselves of that view.

The partisans of Le Gros were the more numerous; and these remained silent, – waiting until the latter should make reply to the proposal of his antagonist.

After the slight luck he had already experienced in the lottery, – combined with several partial defeats erst inflicted upon the man who thus challenged him, – it might have been expected that Le Gros would have gladly accepted the challenge.

He did not. On the contrary, he showed such an inclination to trust to chance that a close observer of his looks and actions might have seen cause to suspect that he had also some reliance upon stratagem.

No one, however, had been thus closely observing him. No one – except the individual immediately concerned – had noticed that quick grasp of hands between him and one of his partisans; or, if they had, it was only to interpret it as a salute of sympathy, extended towards a comrade in a situation of danger.

In that salute, however, there passed between the two men something of significance; which, if exhibited to the eyes of the spectators, would have explained the indifference to death that from that moment characterised the demeanour of Le Gros.

After that furtive movement, he no longer showed any hesitancy as to his course of action; but at once declared his willingness, as well as his determination, to abide by the decision of the drawing.

“Sacré!” cried he, in answer to the challenge of the Irishman; “you don’t suppose, Monsieur Irlandais, that I should fear the result as you propose it? Parbleu! nobody will believe that. But I’m a believer in Fortune, – notwithstanding the scurvy tricks she has often served me – even now that she is frowning upon me black as ever. Neither of us appears to be in favour with her, and that will make our chances equal. So then, I say, let us try her again. Sacré! it will be the last time she can frown on one of us, – that’s certain.”

As O’Gorman had no right to alter the original programme of the lottery, of course the dissenting voices to its continuance were in the minority; and the general clamour tailed upon fate to decide which of the two men was to become food for their famishing companions.

Le Gros still held the bag containing the two buttons. One of them should be black, the other red. It became a subject of dispute, which was to make the draw. It was not a question of who should draw first, since one button taken out would be sufficient. If the red one came out, the drawer must die; if the black, then the other must become the victim.

Some proposed that a third party should hold the bag, and that there should be a toss up for the first chance. Le Gros showed a disposition to oppose this plan. He said that, as he had been intrusted with the superintendence so far, he should continue it to the end. They all saw, – so urged he, – that he had not benefited by the office imposed upon him; but the contrary. It had brought nothing but ill-luck to him; and, as everybody knew, when a run of ill-luck once sets in, there was no knowing where it might terminate. He did not care much, one way or the other: since there could be no advantage in his holding the bag; but as he had done so all through, – as he believed to his disadvantage, – he was willing to hold on, even if it was death that was to be his award.

The speech of Le Gros had the desired effect. The majority declared themselves in favour of his continuing to hold the bag; and it was decided that the Irishman should make choice of the penultimate button.

The latter offered no opposition to this arrangement. There appeared no valid grounds for objecting to it. It was a simple toss of heads and tails, – “Heads I win, and tails you lose”; or, to make use of a formula more appropriate to the occasion, “Heads I live, and tails you die.” With some such process of reasoning current through the brain of Larry O’Gorman, he stepped boldly up to the bag; plunged his fist into its obscure interior; and drew forth —the black button!

Chapter Seventy.

An unexpected Termination

The red button remained in the bag. It was a singular circumstance that it should be the last; but such strange circumstances will sometimes occur. It belonged to Le Gros. The lottery was over; the Frenchman had forfeited life.

It seemed idle for him to draw the button out; and yet, to the astonishment of the spectators, he proceeded to do so.