As we came gently alongside, an exclamation escaped Bob, who was standing forward, ready to heave a line on board or jump up the side with it, according to circumstances.
“There’s been some cursed foul play here, by the look of it, Harry,” exclaimed he.
Good heavens! what a sight met our horrified gaze as we leaped down upon the ship’s deck!
Some three or four and twenty corpses lay there, with the blood still slowly oozing in a few instances from wounds in various parts of their bodies.
The wounds were mostly inflicted by cutlasses and pistol-shots; but two of the bodies, apparently those of officers, had the heads almost severed from the trunks, the gashes having been evidently inflicted by a keener weapon than a ship’s cutlass. These bodies had the arms lashed tightly behind the back.
Too horror-stricken to speak a word, I walked aft, Bob following me, and entered the cabin, which was on deck, and from which I thought I heard a groan issuing. On entering, the first object I saw was the body of a young man, about four-and-twenty years of age, lying close across the doorway, and covered with wounds. His left arm was almost completely cut through; a long gash had laid his forehead open from above the right temple to the left eyebrow; a pistol-bullet had entered his forehead nearly fair between the eyes; and blood had evidently flowed copiously from his right breast. This body lay across three others, dressed in the usual attire of seamen.
On a sofa, which stretched entirely across the after-part of the cabin, lay the body of a young girl; and lastly, under the cabin-table, lay another body, from which, whilst we stood gazing in speechless horror at these evidences of diabolical atrocity, a faint groan issued.
Bob assisted me to draw the sufferer from under the table; and we then saw that he was an old man, grey-haired, and dressed in fine blue cloth garnished with gilt buttons, and a strip of gold lace round the cuffs of the jacket; no doubt the master of the vessel.
The cabin had, notwithstanding the ghastly appearance it presented, been the scene of a wild carouse, for the table was covered with glasses and wine and spirit bottles, and broken bottles and glasses littered the floor. I searched among the contents of the table until I found a bottle only partly empty, and from this I poured out a glass of its contents, which proved to be port, and managed with considerable difficulty to get a small quantity of the wine down the wounded man’s throat. The skylight was open, and the air, coming down through it in a cool gentle breeze, assisted the wine in restoring him to consciousness. He opened his eyes, and gazed round him vacantly for a moment or so, and then memory returned, and he burst violently into tears. We soothed him as well as we could, assuring him that we were friends, and that we would not leave him; and in a minute or two he recovered strength and composure enough to speak.
“Thank you, gentlemen, thank you,” said he, “but my time here is very short, and your well-meant efforts for my relief are not only useless, but they also increase my suffering. You are, I presume, from some ship which has come up with us since those fiends left. Kindly prop me up a little higher on the sofa, gentlemen, if you please, and I will endeavour to tell you what has happened before I pass away.”