“Lave go, an' I'll do ut!” he screamed frantically. “Don't be cuttin' me throat! I'll do the deed! I'll do the deed!”
“See that you do it, then,” the captain threatened him.
Gorman allowed himself to be shoved forward. He looked at the boy, closed his eyes, and muttered a prayer. Then, without opening his eyes, he did the deed that had been appointed him. O'Brien emitted a shriek that sank swiftly to a gurgling sob. The men held him till his struggles ceased, when he was laid upon the deck. They were eager and impatient, and with oaths and threats they urged Gorman to hurry with the preparation of the meal.
“Lave ut, you bloody butchers,” Mahoney said quietly. “Lave ut, I tell yez. Ye'll not be needin' anny iv ut now. 'Tis as I said: ye'll not be profitin' by the lad's blood. Empty ut overside, Behane. Empty ut overside.”
Behane, still holding the tureen cover in both his hands, glanced to windward. He walked to the rail and threw the cover and contents into the sea. A full-rigged ship was bearing down upon them a short mile away. So occupied had they been with the deed just committed, that none had had eyes for a lookout. All hands watched her coming on—the brightly coppered forefoot parting the water like a golden knife, the headsails flapping lazily and emptily at each downward surge, and the towering canvas tiers dipping and curtsying with each stately swing of the sea. No man spoke.
As she hove to, a cable length away, the captain of the Francis Spaight bestirred himself and ordered a tarpaulin to be thrown over O'Brien's corpse. A boat was lowered from the stranger's side and began to pull toward them. John Gorman laughed. He laughed softly at first, but he accompanied each stroke of the oars with spasmodically increasing glee. It was this maniacal laughter that greeted the rescue boat as it hauled alongside and the first officer clambered on board.
A CURIOUS FRAGMENT
[The capitalist, or industrial oligarch, Roger Vanderwater,
mentioned in the narrative, has been identified as the ninth
in the line of the Vanderwaters that controlled for hundreds
of years the cotton factories of the South. This Roger
Vanderwater flourished in the last decades of the twenty-
sixth century after Christ, which was the fifth century of
the terrible industrial oligarchy that was reared upon the
ruins of the early Republic.
From internal evidences we are convinced that the narrative
which follows was not reduced to writing till the twenty-
ninth century. Not only was it unlawful to write or print
such matter during that period, but the working-class was so
illiterate that only in rare instances were its members able
to read and write. This was the dark reign of the overman,
in whose speech the great mass of the people were
characterized as the “herd animals.” All literacy was
frowned upon and stamped out. From the statute-books of the
times may be instanced that black law that made it a capital
offence for any man, no matter of what class, to teach even
the alphabet to a member of the working-class. Such
stringent limitation of education to the ruling class was
necessary if that class was to continue to rule.
One result of the foregoing was the development of the
professional story-tellers. These story-tellers were paid by
the oligarchy, and the tales they told were legendary,
mythical, romantic, and harmless. But the spirit of freedom
never quite died out, and agitators, under the guise of
story-tellers, preached revolt to the slave class. That the
following tale was banned by the oligarchs we have proof
from the records of the criminal police court of Ashbury,
wherein, on January 27, 2734, one John Tourney, found guilty
of telling the tale in a boozing-ken of labourers, was
sentenced to five years' penal servitude in the borax mines
of the Arizona Desert.—EDITOR'S NOTE.]
Listen, my brothers, and I will tell you a tale of an arm. It was the arm of Tom Dixon, and Tom Dixon was a weaver of the first class in a factory of that hell-hound and master, Roger Vanderwater. This factory was called “Hell's Bottom”... by the slaves who toiled in it, and I guess they ought to know; and it was situated in Kingsbury, at the other end of the town from Vanderwater's summer palace. You do not know where Kingsbury is? There are many things, my brothers, that you do not know, and it is sad. It is because you do not know that you are slaves. When I have told you this tale, I should like to form a class among you for the learning of written and printed speech. Our masters read and write and possess many books, and it is because of that that they are our masters, and live in palaces, and do not work. When the toilers learn to read and write—all of them—they will grow strong; then they will use their strength to break their bonds, and there will be no more masters and no more slaves.