In a moment, there stood the hapless wretch, looking about him with an expression that denoted the consciousness of danger, though it was not possible he could comprehend the precise mode of his execution. I went to him, and pressed his hand, pointing upward, as much as to say his whole trust was now in the Great Spirit. The Indian understood me, for from that instant he assumed an air of dignified composure, like one every way prepared to meet his fate. It is not probable, with his habits, that he saw any peculiar hardship in his own case; for he had, doubtless, sacrificed many a prisoner under circumstances of less exasperation than that which his own conduct had provoked.
“Let two of the 'niggers' take a turn with the end of the whip round the chap's neck,” said Marble, too dignified to turn Jack Ketch in person, and unwilling to set any of the white seamen at so ungracious an office. The cook, Joe, and another black, soon performed this revolting duty, from the odium of which a sailor seldom altogether escapes.
I now perceived Smudge looking upward, seeming to comprehend the nature of the fate that awaited him. The deeply-seated principle within him, caused a dark shadow to pass over a countenance already so gloomy and wrinkled by suffering and exposure; and he turned his look wistfully towards Marble, at whose command each order in succession had been obeyed. Our new captain caught that gaze, and I was, for a single moment, in hope he would relent, and let the wretch go. But Marble had persuaded himself he was performing a great act of nautical justice; nor was he aware, himself, how much he was influenced by a feeling allied to vengeance.
“Sway away!” he called out; and Smudge was dangling at the yard-arm in a few seconds.
A block of wood could not have been more motionless than the body of this savage, after one quivering shudder of suffering had escaped it. There it hung, like a jewel-block, and every sign of life was soon taken away. In a quarter of an hour, a man was sent up, and, cutting the rope, the body fell, with a sharp plunge, into the water, and disappeared.
At a later day, the account of this affair found its way into the newspapers at home. A few moralists endeavoured to throw some doubts over the legality and necessity of the proceedings, pretending that more evil than good was done to the cause of sacred justice by such disregard of law and principles; but the feeling of trade, and the security of ships when far from home, were motives too powerful to be put down by the still, quiet remonstrances of reason and right. The abuses to which such practices would be likely to lead, in cases in which one of the parties constituted himself the law, the judge, and the executioner, were urged in vain against the active and ever-stimulating incentive of a love of gold. Still, I knew that Marble wished the thing undone when it was too late, it being idle to think of quieting the suggestions of that monitor God has implanted within us, by the meretricious and selfish approbation of those who judge of right and wrong by their own narrow standard of interest.
CHAPTER XV.
1st Lord.—“Throca movonsas, cargo, cargo, cargo.”
All.—“Cargo, cargo, villianda par corbo, cargo.”
Par.—“O! ransome, ransome:—Do not hide mine eyes”
1st Sold.—“Boskos Thromuldo boskos.”
Par.—“I know you are the Muskos' regiment,
And I shall lose my life for want of language.—”
All's Well That Ends Well.