CHAPTER XLIX.
THE TRIAL—HUNSTON'S PUNISHMENT.
"Pipe all hands on deck!"
"Aye, aye, sir."
The crew came tumbling up.
And when they were all assembled, Jefferson and Dick Harvey ranged them round in position, while Harkaway, with Hunston close by his side, stood forward to address them.
"My men," said he, "I have had you called together upon no pleasant errand. But it is a question of duty, and, therefore, pleasant or unpleasant, must be done. What we have to do is an act of justice, and I don't wish that anyone should be able to impugn my motives. I would not leave it in the power of any man to say that I ever behaved unjustly to my worst enemy."
"Hurrah!"
A ringing cheer greeted Harkaway.
"Now, my men, what I have to say to you concerns my own and my family history, perhaps, more than it does you. You have all heard my poor boy's adventures when he fell into the hands of the Greek brigands?"
"Aye, aye, sir."
"You know who it was that was instrumental in getting him condemned to death."
"It was that sneaking lubber, Hunston," cried several voices at once.
"It was. I need not enlarge upon all he has done to merit the worst punishment it is in our power to bestow, if ever he should fall into our hands—the worst I say, eh?"
"Yes,—him!" said a voice, with a very strong expletive.
The approval of the crew was perfectly unanimous.
In vain did Hunston look about him for one of those disaffected men of whom Joe Basalt had spoken.
Not a vestige of any thing like opposition to the general sentiments did he trace in any of those weather-beaten, honest countenances.
"Well," resumed Harkaway, "and what would you say if, after that I have forgiven him, taken him in hand and had him carefully tended and nursed, what would you say if even then he tried to wrong me—to ensnare innocent, well-meaning men, into a murderous plot against my life?"
"Why, I should say as he's the blackest-hearted lubber ashore or afloat," said one.
"One word more," said Harkaway. "What should we do to this wretch if we had him here in our power?"
"Give him a round dozen, to begin with," suggested Sam Mason.
"And then string him up."
A cheer came from a score of throats.
"Men," said Harkaway, "this is the villain, Hunston."
A pause.
The men were so thoroughly taken by surprise at this that they had not a word to say for themselves.
"I was anxious to spare him," said Harkaway, in conclusion, "for although he has always been false, treacherous, and cruel, I could not forget that he was a fellow-countryman, and that we were boys together. I would have returned good for evil, he refused it; I now mean to try evil for evil."
The men applauded this to the echo.
Joe Basalt and his comrade Jack Tiller passed the word forward from mouth to mouth.
They told their shipmates what had taken place, and so thoroughly incensed them against him that his life would not have been worth five minutes' purchase had Harkaway, Jefferson, and Dick Harvey absented themselves.
"Come," said Jefferson, "it is growing late; let us settle it off-hand."
"What is the verdict?" said Harvey, "Let the men decide."
Their decision did not take long at arriving at. As if with a single voice, the men responded—
"Death!"
A sickening sensation stole over Hunston.
There was enough in that to appal the stoutest heart, it is true, and he now felt that it was all over.
"Very good," said Harkaway, "His fate is with you."
"String him up to the yardarm at once, then," suggested Sam Mason.
"Tie him up by the heels and let's shoot at him."
"Let him walk the plank."
"No; hanging is better fun. It's a dog's death that he has earned, so let him have his deserts."
A rope was got and the end of it was flung over the yardarm, and a running noose made in it.
Then rough hands were laid upon the doomed man.
This aroused him into lifting his voice in his own behalf.
"Harkaway," he said, "do you know that this is murder—cold-blooded murder?"
"So is every execution, even if sanctioned by law."
"But it is done upon ample proof."
"We have proof enough."
"You haven't a single witness against me," said Hunston, eagerly.
"Plenty."
"Where's one? Let go, I tell you," he cried frantically, at the men who were dragging him towards the rope. "This is murder; you'll hang for it, Harkaway; you'll—cowards! all of you upon one."
But they did not pay much heed to his ravings.
"Do you hear, Harkaway?" he cried, "This is murder, whatever you call it. It will hang you yet; at the least, it will transport you for life."
Harkaway smiled.
"I shall not soil my fingers in the matter."
"It is your work!" now yelled Hunston, struggling with mad desperation.
"Then we'll all have a hand in it," said Harkaway; "we'll all pull together, so that no one can fix it upon his fellow—"
"You'll not escape," yelled the miserable wretch. "You'll swing for it yourself; you will, I swear. You have no witnesses; these two sailors are notorious liars."
"Take that, you swab," cried Joe Basalt, dashing his fist in his face.
"They are greater curs than yourself," yelled Hunston; "such witnesses would swear away your own life for a glass of grog—witnesses indeed—"
He stopped short.
His glance fell upon two forms standing close by—young Jack and Harry Girdwood.
Both were dressed as he had last seen them in the mountain haunt of the brigands.
Hunston was still in ignorance of the rescue of the boys.
For all he knew, their bodies were rotting in their mountain grave in Greece.
They bent upon him the same sad and stern look which had been so efficacious before, and he cowered before them.
Appalled at the horrible phantoms come to mock him at his last moments, he clapped his hand to his eyes in the vain endeavour to shut out the sight.
Vain, indeed, for the sight possessed a horrible fascination for him, which no pen can describe.
"Down, and beg for mercy," said young Jack, solemnly.
"On your knees, wretch!" added Harry Girdwood.
"Hah!"
The two boys pointed together to the feet of Harkaway senior.
The condemned man caught at their meaning at once.
A wild cry of hope came from his lips, and he burst from the sailors who held him and threw himself at Harkaway's feet.
"Mercy, mercy, Harkaway!" he cried, piteously. "Have mercy, for the love of Heaven, as you hope for mercy yourself hereafter."
Harkaway gazed on him in silence.
"Look there," cried Hunston, wildly, pointing to where the two boys stood still in contemplation of the scene, "Look there; see, they are begging for mercy for me."
"Who? Where?" demanded Harkaway, in considerable astonishment
"Your own son, your own boy; don't you see him?" pursued Hunston, wildly.
"Look. No—It is my own fancy, my fear-stricken mind, which conjures up these horrible visions. Ugh!"
And he cowered down at Harkaway's feet with averted glance, endeavouring to shut out the fearsome sight.
"Take him away," said Harkaway to the men.
They advanced and laid hands upon him, but Hunston fought madly with them and clung to Harkaway's knees in desperation.
It was his last chance, he felt positive.
"Think, Harkaway, think," he cried again and again. "Remember our boyhood's days; remember our youth, passed at school together. We were college chums, and—"
"No; not quite," interrupted Dick Harvey in disgust. "We were at Oxford together, but never chums."
"You were never the sort of man that one would care to chum with," added Harkaway.
"Never!"
"Take him away."
Hunston gave a loud yell of despair, and gazed around him.
Again his glance was riveted by the sight of the two boys standing in the same attitude, and then horror-stricken, appalled, he sank upon the ground all of a heap and half fainting.
A miserable, a piteous object indeed.
* * * * *
"Hunston," said Harkaway, after a few minutes' pause, "you bade me think. It is my turn to bid you think. If your white-livered fears had not blinded your judgment, you would have known that your life is safe here."
Hunston raised his head slowly.
He gazed about him with the same vacant look, utterly Unable to realise the meaning of Harkaway's words.
"You jest," he faltered.
"We are not butchers," said Jefferson, sternly.
Humbled, degraded, though he was, these words of hope sent the blood coursing through his veins wildly.
Saved!
Was it possible?
Young Jack stepped out of the circle and approached the miserable wretch.
"When we last stood face to face, and when you ordered the Greek brigands to fire on us, Hunston, I told you that this would come about."
Hunston shrank affrightedly before the lad.
"I told you, Hunston," continued young Jack, "that the time would come when you would grovel in the dirt and beg your life from my father. That time has come, you see. Like the miserable cur that you are, you grovel and beg and pray in a way that I would never condescend to do to you. You have tasted all the horrors of anticipation, and that is worse than death itself. Now, perhaps, you know what I and my comrade Harry felt when you condemned us to death."
"We told you," added Harry Girdwood quietly, "that it would come home to you; it has."
During the foregoing, Hunston began to realise the truth.
They lived.
"Get up," said Jefferson; "it is time to end this sickening scene."
Hunston slowly rose to his feet
"Excuse me," said the captain, stepping forward, "but as captain of this ship—under your orders, Mr. Harkaway, of course—I can't see how it is possible to allow his offence to go unpunished. You are of course at liberty to forgive him for any wrong he may have done you all, but with all due deference I must set my face against winking at such offences as he has committed on board this ship."
"Listen to the skipper," added another of the crew.
"To let him off scot free would be to encourage insubordination and mutiny, in fact."
"Then I leave it to you, captain," said Harkaway; "I shall not interfere in your management of the ship."
Hunston's heart sank.
"Get rid of him at once," suggested Harvey.
"How?"
"Lower him in a boat; provision it for a month and set him adrift."
"Good."
"Do that," said Hunston, "and you consign me to a living death, worse than any tortures that savages could inflict." He remembered too well how he and Toro the Italian had been cast adrift from the "Flowery Land."
He had not forgotten the horrors of that cruise.
It was, in truth, as he said, ten times more horrible than death at their hands could be.
"My own opinion is," said the captain, "that his crime should be punished at once; such a crime should not be allowed to pass on board ship."
"What would you do?"
"Tie him up to a grating and give him four dozen lashes."
A wild storm of cheering greeted this proposal.
There was some feeble attempt at opposition upon the part of the Harkaway party, but this was overruled by the captain and crew.
"I'm not a cruel man, gentlemen," said the captain, "but I must side with the crew in this. Now, we'll give him every chance. I propose to let him off if there is a single voice raised in his favour."
Not a word was spoken.
"If any of you think, my men, that he should not be punished, he shall escape. Let any man stand forth and it shall settle it. I will allow him to escape and not question the motives of whosoever speaks for him."
Hunston looked anxiously around him.
Not a voice.
Not so much as a glance of pity did he encounter there.
His only hope was in the man that he had most wronged of all there present, and so in despair he turned to Harkaway.
But the latter moved away from the spot in silence.
Despair.
Rough, horny hands were laid upon him, and his coat and shirt were torn in shreds from his back until he stood stripped to the waist.
The grating was rigged for punishment, and the culprit was lashed securely to it.
"Barclay."
"Yes, sir."
"Stand forward."
"Here, sir."
"Take the cat."
"Yes, sir."
This was the youngest boy in the ship. The lad took the whip and poised it in his hand eager to begin operations.
"Joe Basalt."
"Yes, your honour."
"Time the strokes."
"Aye, aye, sir."
The boy Barclay now received his instructions, and noted the same most diligently.
"Strike well up, not too low. You understand, well across the shoulders."
"Yes, cap'n,"
"And don't be too eager or too quick. Let each stroke tell its own tale."
What were the miserable man's feelings when he heard his torture prepared thus, with such coolness and deliberation, we leave you to imagine.
A momentary pause then occurred, during which every one present looked on with mixed sensations of eagerness and dread.
"One!"
A whizzing noise.
Then a dull, heavy thud, as the thongs came in contact with the culprit's back and shoulders.
A gasp came from the spectators, a convulsive shudder from the suffering wretch himself.
And then his shoulders showed a series of livid ridges of bruised flesh.
"Two."
Down came the lash.
The blood shot forth from the right shoulder, where there was more flesh to encounter the cruel whip.
"Three."
A moan of utter anguish burst from the victim, whose blood streamed down his back.
A sickening, horrible sight to contemplate.
"Four."
"Hah!"
"Come away," exclaimed Harkaway; "come away from this. It makes me sick and faint."
"Yes," said Jefferson; "it is not to my taste."
"Nor mine."
"Nor mine," said Dick.
"This may be Justice, my friend," said Jack Harkaway "but it isn't English—it is not humanity."
"Five."
A cry came from the prisoner.
"Cast him loose!" cried Harkaway, "No more—no more!"
But the sailors did not appear to hear.
"Six."
"Have done, I say!" thundered Jefferson. "Enough of this!"
"Excuse me, sir," said the captain, "we have a duty to perform. I can understand that it is not pleasant to you, but—"
"Seven," sang out Joe Basalt, drowning every voice.
Down came the whip again.
And as the thongs struck the lacerated flesh of the wretched man he gave a piercing shriek.
It sounded more like the cry of some wild animal than the utterance of a human being.
"Eight."
"Fetch the doctor," exclaimed Harkaway.
Young Jack, who was secretly glad of an excuse to begone, ran off and brought the doctor up from below.
"Doctor Anderson," said Harkaway hurriedly, "I believe sincerely that this man has earned all he has had and a great deal more."
"Indeed he has," said Doctor Anderson.
"But I can't endure the lash. It is savage, it is unworthy of a civilised people—it must not go on. Stop it."
"How many has he had?"
The answer to this came at that identical moment from Joe Basalt's lips.
"Twelve."
As the lash came down, the body shook slightly, and then was quite still.
"Say that he can bear no more," said Harkaway. "They'll heed your report as the doctor."
"I shall only say the truth," said the doctor.
"You think so?"
"Of course. He has fainted. You'll kill him if you go on. Cast him loose, carry him to his berth."