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

Indeed, there was no debate. All were unanimous that either Le Gros or O’Gorman should furnish food for their famishing companions, – in other words, that the combat, so unexpectedly postponed, should be again resumed.

There was nothing unfair in this, – except to the Irish man. He had certainly secured his triumph, when interrupted. If another half-second had been allowed him, his antagonist would have lain lifeless at his feet.

Under the judgment of just umpires this circumstance would have weighed in his favour; and, perhaps, exempted him from any further risk; but, tried by the shipwrecked crew of a slaver, – more than a moiety of whom leaned towards his antagonist, – the sentence was different; and the majority of the judges proclaimed that the combat between him and Le Gros should be renewed, and continued to the death.

The renewal of it was not to take place on the moment. Night and darkness both forbade this; but the morning’s earliest light was to witness the resumption of that terrible strife.

Thus resolved, the ex-crew of the Pandora laid themselves down to sleep, – not quite so calmly as they might have done in the forecastle of the slaver; for thirst, hunger, and fears for a hopeless future, – without saying anything of a hard couch, – were not the companions with which to approach the shrine of Somnus. As a counterpoise, they felt lassitude both of mind and body, approaching to prostration.

Some of them slept. Some of them could have slept within the portals of Pluto, with the dog Cerberus yelping in their ears!

A few there were who seemed either unable to take rest or indifferent to it. All night long some one or other – sometimes two at a time – might be seen staggering about the raft, or crawling over its planks, as if unconscious of what they were doing. It seemed a wonder that some of them – semi-somnambulists in a double sense – did not fall overboard into the water. But they did not. Notwithstanding the eccentricity of their movements, they all succeeded in maintaining their position on the raft. To tumble over the edge would have been tantamount to toppling into the jaws of an expectant shark, and getting “scrunched” between no less than six rows of sharp teeth. Perhaps it was an instinct – or some presentiment of this peril – that enabled these wakeful wanderers to preserve their equilibrium.

Chapter Seventy Seven.

A whispered Conspiracy

Although most of the men had surrendered themselves to such slumber as they might obtain, the silence was neither profound nor continuous. At times no sounds were heard save the whisperings of the breeze, as it brushed against the spread canvas, or a slight “swashing” in the water as it was broken by the rough timbers of the craft.

These sounds were intermingled with the loud breathing of some of the sleepers, – an occasional snore, – and now and then a muttered speech the involuntary utterance of someone dreaming a dreadful dream.

At intervals other noises would arise, when one or more of the waking castaways chanced to come together, to hold a short conversation; or when one of them, scarce conscious of what he did, stumbled over the limbs of a prostrate comrade, – perhaps awaking him from a pleasant repose to the consciousness of the painful circumstances under which he had been enjoying it.

Such occurrences usually led to angry altercations, – in which threats and ribald language would for some minutes freely find vent from the lips both of the disturbed and the disturber; and then both would growlingly subside into silence.

At that hour, when the night was at its darkest, and the fog at its thickest, two men might have been seen, – though only by an eye very close to where they were, – in a sitting posture at the bottom of the mast. They were crouching rather than seated; for they were upon their knees, with their bodies bent forward, and one or both of their hands resting upon the planks.

The attitude was plainly not one of repose; and anyone near enough to have observed the two men, or to have heard the whispered conversation that was being carried on between them, would have come to the conclusion that sleep was far from their thoughts.

In that deep darkness, however, no one noticed them; and although several of their companions were lying but a few feet from the bottom of the mast, these were either asleep or too distant to hear the whisperings that passed between the two men kneeling in juxtaposition.

They continued to talk in very low whispers, – each in turn putting his lips close to the ear of the other; and while doing so the subject of their conversation might have been guessed at by their glances, or at least the individual about whom they conversed.

This was a man who was lying stretched along the timbers, not far from the bottom of the mast, and apparently asleep. In fact he must have been asleep, as was testified by the stentorian snores that occasionally escaped from his wide-spread nostrils.

This noisy slumberer was the Irishman, O’Gorman, – one of the parties to that suspended fight, to be resumed by day break in the morning. Whatever evil deeds this man may have done during his life, – and he had performed not a few, for we have styled him only the least guilty of that guilty crew, – he was certainly no coward. Thus to sleep, with such a prospect on awaking, at least proved him recklessly indifferent to death.

The two men by the mast, – whose eyes were evidently upon him, – had no very clear view of him where he lay. Through the white mist they could see only something like the shape of a human being recumbent along the planks; and of that only the legs and lower half of the body. Even had it been daylight they could not, from their position, have seen his head and shoulders; for both would have been concealed by the empty rum-cask, already mentioned, which stood upon its end exactly by the spot where O’Gorman had rested his head.

The Irishman, above all others, had taken a delight in the contents of that cask, – so long as a drop was left; and now that it was all gone, perhaps the smell of the alcohol had influenced him in choosing his place of repose.

Whether or not, he was now sleeping on a spot which was to prove the last resting-place of his life. Cruel destiny had decreed that from that slumber he was never more to awaken!

This destiny was now being shaped out for him; and by the two individuals who were regarding him from the bottom of the mast.

“He’s sound asleep,” whispered one of them to the other. “You hear that snore? Parbleu! only a hog could counterfeit that.”

“Sound as a top!” asserted the other.

“C’est bon!” whispered the first speaker, with a significant shrug of the shoulders. “If we manage matters smartly, he need never wake again. What say you, comrade?”

“I agree to anything you may propose,” assented the other. “What is it?”

“There need be no noise about it. A single blow will be sufficient, – if given in the right place. With the blade of a knife through his heart, he’ll not make three kicks. He’ll never know it till he’s in the next world. Peste! I could almost envy him such an easy way of getting out of this!”

“You think it might be done without making a noise?”

“Easy as falling overboard. One could hold something over his mouth, to keep his tongue quiet; while the other – You know what I mean?”

The horrid act to be performed by the other was left unspoken, – even in those confidential whisperings.

“But,” replied the confederate, objectingly, “suppose the thing done, – how about matters in the morning? They’d know who did it. Leastwise, their suspicions would fall upon us, – upon you to a certainty, after what’s happened. You haven’t thought of that?”

“Haven’t I? But I have, mon ami!”

“Well; and what?”

“First place. They’re not in the mind to be particular, – none of them, – so long as they get something to eat. Secondly; if they should kick up a row, our party is the strongest; and I don’t care what comes of it. We may as well all die at once, as die by bits.”

“That’s true enough.”

“But there’s no fear of any trouble from the others. I’ve got an idea that’ll prevent that. To save appearances, he can commit suicide.”

“What do you mean?”

“Bah! camarade! how dull you are. The fog has got into your skull. Don’t you know the Irlandais has got a knife, and a sharp one. Peste! I know it. Well, – perhaps it can be stolen from him. If so, it can also be found sticking in the wound that will deprive him of life. Now do you comprehend me?”

“I do, – I do!”

“First, to steal the knife. Go you: I daren’t: it would look suspicious for me to be seen near him, – that is, if he should wake up. You may stray over that way, as if you were after nothing particular. It’ll do no harm to try.”

“I’ll see if I can hook it then,” responded the other. “What if I try now?”

“The sooner the better. With the knife in our possession, we’ll know better how to act. Get it, if you can.”

The last speaker remained in his place. The other, rising into an erect attitude, stepped apart from his fellow-conspirator, and moved away from the mast, – going apparently without any design. This, however, led him towards the empty rum-cask, – alongside of which the Irishman lay asleep, utterly unconscious of his approach.

Chapter Seventy Eight.

A foul Deed done in a Fog

It is scarce necessary to tell who were the two men who had been thus plotting in whispers. The first speaker was, of course, the Frenchman, Le Gros, – the other being the confederate who had assisted him in the performance of his unfair trick in the lot-casting.

Their demoniac design is already known from their conversation, – nothing more nor less than to murder O’Gorman in his sleep!

The former had two motives prompting him to this horrid crime, – either sufficiently strong to sway such a nature as his to its execution. He had all along felt hostility to the Irishman, – which the events of that day had rendered both deep and deadly. He was wicked enough to have killed his antagonist for that alone. But there was the other motive, more powerful and far more rational to influence him to the act. As above stated, it had been finally arranged that the suspended fight was to be finished by the earliest light of the morning. Le Gros knew that the next scene in that drama of death was to be the last; and, judging from his experience of the one already played, he felt keenly apprehensive as to the result. He had been fully aware, before the curtain fell upon the first act, that his life could then have been taken; and, conscious of a certain inferiority to his antagonist, he now felt cowed, and dreaded the final encounter.

To avoid it, he was willing to do anything, however mean or wicked, – ready to commit even the crime of murder!