"Look to your comrades; let not one of your fellows who has a spark of life escape your care. For the other carrion, fling it overboard, no matter whether it be dead or living."
These words I heard, for at that moment I was waking from my trance.
CHAPTER XVII.
I AM SHOT OUT OF ONE SHIP AND CRAWL INTO ANOTHER, WITH WHAT ADVANTAGE MAY YET BE SEEN.
My first feeling on recovering consciousness was of a great weight oppressing me, and this I presently found was due to two dead men lying athwart me, where they had fallen in their last agony. Using all my strength, it was as much as I could do to thrust him off—one fellow lying across my breast with his shoulder against my throat, and the other again across my middle, his arms thrown out upon the first.
The cause of my weakness was not that blow that had felled me, but the loss of blood from two wounds—one in my thigh and the other in the thick of my arm—which I had received without any knowledge on my part, and now for the first time discovered by my clothes being glued to those parts and a great smarting when I struggled to free myself from the weight of the dead bodies.
Being once more able to breathe freely, I lay back on the deck exhausted and faint with the effort, and slowly brought back to my mind what had happened. The silence on board, save for the sound of reveling from the black ship alongside, told me that the battle was over; and it needed but little to convince me how the fight had ended; but, thinking of my dear Lady Biddy, I presently set my hands, all stiff and sticky with blood, on the deck, and raised myself up, looking towards the coach. Then it was I saw Rodrigues and heard him order his men to cast all us poor fellows, whom he termed carrion, overboard, without regard to our being dead or living. Then, once more, a weariness as of death coming over me, I fell again on my back, with a giddiness in my head and despair at heart, which robbed me of all vigor, while the stench of spilled blood made my bowels heave with sickness. The pirates, coming now to clear the deck, took up one poor corpse, lifted him on to the bulwarks, and so bundled him over; and in this wise three or four more, when, seeing the labor before them, one fetched from below the wooden gangway wherewith they slide merchandise from a wharf down into a ship, which they now thrust through one of the upper deck gun-ports, making it fast with cords. This way, with less trouble and much quicker, they shot the "carrion" into the water, taking no heed if some poor wretch but slightly wounded did cry for pity and mercy, except by inhuman laughter and fiendish jests.
Two or three rascals came and carried off the corpses I had thrust from me, and then I knew my turn was come, and naught could save me, for I had no strength to help myself. And back came those two (who were new hands and so did not recognize me), and one kicking me over on my face, the other took up my legs by the knees, while the first laid hold of me by the shoulders, and so they bore me, like so much butcher's flesh to the cutting board, and flung me on to the slanting gangway. By this time the slope was all slippery with gore of blood, so that no sooner was I cast on than I slid down like a stone, and shot thence deep into the sea below.
Now, whether I owed it to the cold, invigorating virtue of the refreshing sea, the smarting anew of my wounds in the salt thereof, or the instinct which possesses nearly every creature to make one final struggle for existence in the presence of death, I can not say; only this I know, that no sooner had the waters closed over my head than energy returned to my spirit and strength to my limbs, and striking out manfully with my arms and legs, I shortly came to the surface of the water, not more than a couple of fathoms from the stern of the Faithful Friend.