“Thank ye, Captain Brand; I do feel dry. That stuff Babette gave me a while ago didn’t touch the right spot, and I’ll be glad to jine you.”
“Ah! bueno, my old friend; you shall drink something that will touch the right spot! What shall it be? you have only to name it.”
“I’ll take a toss of that old brandy you gave me the other day, if it’s the same to you, sir.”
“Oh, Master Gibbs, it’s all the same to me. Delighted I am to oblige you! Padre mio! a glass of old Cognac for our friend––a tumblerful; a wine-glass will do for me.”
The padre poured out the brandy as he was desired, handed the lesser glass to the captain, and the tumbler he placed in the locked hands of the victim. Slowly and painfully the subdued ruffian raised the glass to his mouth, careful not to spill a drop; then, before draining it, he cleared his throat, while at the same time the captain rose to his feet, his right foot resting a little on the heel, and held the wine-glass before him.
“Now, then, Master Gibbs, for a toss that will touch the right spot.”
“Ay, ay, captain!” said Gibbs; “and here’s forgiveness for the future.”
Scarcely had the words been uttered, and the liquor began to gurgle down the hairy throat of the manacled wretch, than the pirate before him pressed his foot with a quick, nervous action on the spring.
Like a flash the trap fell, carrying chair and man with it. The hinges of the hatch creaked, the wicker-work chair fell with a bound on the stone floor below, the heavy beam overhead gave a jarring quiver as the strong silk rope brought up with a shuddering surge on the cleat where it was belayed at the wall, and with a gasping, choking cry of pain mingled with the ring of the shattered tumbler on the pavement, the ruffian of a hundred crimes fell full three feet, and hung struggling in the death agony. With almost superhuman force he raised his clenched hands and struck his forehead till the 131 manacles were twisted like wire by the effort, spinning around too by the lopsided weight of his body, while the beam above yielded slightly to the strain, and the deadly cord, no longer squirming, but taut as a bar of iron, held the wretch in its knotted embrace, clasped tight around the throat. In a minute or two the hands ceased beating the inflamed face and head, and fell with a clank before the body; the legs gave a few convulsive twitches, a last and violent spasm shook the frame, and there Master Gibbs hung, a warm dead lump of clay.
While this murderous business was going on, and the poor crippled wretch was struggling in the jaws of death, the padre was chanting with his profane tongue from his open breviary the Salve Domine, and his patron coolly took down a telescope and swept it over the blue water to seaward. When, however, after a quarter of an hour had elapsed, and the body of their victim gave no more signs of life, the captain laid down the telescope as the padre closed his missal, and remarked quietly, while glancing critically down at the suspended body,