The lance, which had a small barbed head, went right through the two cheeks of Mr. Rudderhead, who uttered a howl of rage and anguish, as he rushed back fairly "spritsail-yarded," as the sailor's said, and with his mouth so full of blood that he was soon speechless and well-nigh choked, for a labial artery had been cut, and when Dr. Strang removed the lance, by first sawing off its head, the hæmorrhage was so great that the crew began to think—if they did not precisely hope—that the wounded man would "slip his cable."
The wounds were dressed, a good horn of grog was next given him, and he was tucked into his berth, where, doubtless, his reflections would be of a somewhat mingled character. His visage had received a double wound, which, though he had not much beauty to mar, would render him unpleasant to look upon for the remainder of his life. He had no compunction for his treacherous conduct to Derval, even in the least degree, and he was chiefly occupied in surmising whether he had killed him outright, or if the savages were—like most of the South Sea islanders—cannibals, what they might do if they found him dead or alive; and, lastly, whether Mrs. Hampton would "come down handsomely" on learning that she was—as her letter had it—rid of him; then he savagely cursed his present plight, and lay growling on his pillow, while the breeze freshened and sail was made on the ship, and ere night fell upon the sea Turtle Island was out of sight.
And now to record the retribution referred to!
The arrow-wounds of Captain Talbot and others progressed most favourably under Dr. Strang's skilful treatment; but whether it was that the blood of Rudderhead was in an unhealthy state, or that the spearhead had been poisoned, it was difficult to discover, as the hurts he had received, so far from healing, grew daily worse and worse. His agony increased till it drove him to madness; he could neither eat nor drink. His face swelled up and became discoloured until he was something frightful to look upon, and times there were when his groans, prayers, and imprecations rang through the whole ship, and chilled the very souls of the men in the watches of the night.
To Dr. Strang it was soon evident that he was dying; but he had much vitality in him, and died hard, in his latter hours raving of the scuttled ship or the stowaway, of Derval Hampton, and many other persons and events. The wind was blowing a heavy and increasing gale, and the Amethyst was scudding under close-reefed topsails, in a perilous and chopping sea, when Rudderhead passed away, clutching the Captain's hands, as if he could retain him in this world, and passed from it, impenitent for the past, yet hopeless of the future; and the fiat of the doctor was that the ship could not be too soon rid of his remains.
At that crisis the brevity of even a funeral at sea was dispensed with, and he was thrown overboard to leeward, into the trough of an angry midnight sea, with four 9-pound shot at his heels—buried precisely as he had buried the poor stowaway boy, without a prayer, finding a grave "unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown."
As if his departure had been awaited for by the spirit of the storm, the latter lulled rapidly, and, when day broke, the cheerful cry of "Land ahead!" announced that the bold and rocky south-west cape of Tasmania was only ten miles distant, and bearing north-east, with the mountains, snow-capped ate that season, in the back-ground.
Next day saw the Amethyst working through D'Encastreaux's Channel, sixteen miles eastward of it, to her safe anchorage off Hobart Town, from whence the mail took home the intelligence of Derval Hampton's fate on Turtle Island. The fight with the natives there formed a passing newspaper paragraph, and, so far as he was concerned, there was an end of it.
When Greville Hampton—that sorely-changed man, whose god had become gold—heard of his eldest son's miserable fate, "some natural tears he shed," as memory went back to the little golden-haired boy that was wont to nestle at Mary's knee, in the little cottage which was as much a thing of the past as herself. Master Rookleigh Hampton heard of it with perfect philosophy, as became, he thought, a lad of his years; and Mrs. Hampton, as in duty bound, put on, for as brief a period as decency required, a most becoming suit of mourning. But there was one who, when he read of the event while glancing over the newspaper, really sorrowed for Derval—Lord Oakhampton, who, when he looked at his happy little daughter in her budding beauty, and thought of what might have been, and how nearly he lost her, could not but regret the untimely fate of the brave young sailor to whom he owed her life and safety, and said much to her on the subject that made the gentle girl feel deeply.
Four more years passed on, and the name and existence of Derval Hampton became almost forgotten in his father's house, or was, perhaps, remembered chiefly by his nurse, old Patty Fripp.