“I think he’s guilty, sir,” said Sennett.
Casement turned his quick glance on Roche.
“Same here,” said the doctor.
“The finding of the court,” said the captain after another pause, “is that the prisoner Billy is guilty of the murder of T. H.—what’s his name?—Biggar, at Sunflower Bay, on the blank day of September, 1888, and is condemned to be shot as an example to the island. Sentence to be deferred until I get the ship back from New Ireland, where I’ve to look into that Carbutt business and the outrage at MacCarthy’s Inlet, on the chance of the prisoner making a further confession and implicating others in his crime. The court is dismissed.”
“Beg pardon, sir,” said Pickthorn, looking up from his writing as the others rose to their feet. “What am I to call the case?—the Queen versus Billy what?”
“Billy nothing,” said the captain, savagely. “Call him William Pickthorn if you think it sounds better.”
The verdict of the court was explained to Jibberik, and the old rogue and his pair of friends were landed in the cove, the boat returning to find the ship with anchor weighed and the loosened sails flapping on the yards. In a few minutes she was steaming out to sea, and every one grew confident that Billy’s tongue would soon wag as he saw Sunflower Bay dwindle behind him. But the dogged savage stuck to his tale; he had but one reply to all inquiries, to all probing and pumping for further particulars of the murder. On his side the conversation began and ended with: “White fellow no good; I kill him.” On other topics he could be drawn out at will, and proved himself a most tractable, sweet-tempered, and far from unintelligent fellow. The men got to like him immensely, keeping him in perpetual tobacco and providing him with more grog than was quite good for him. In the fo’castle it was rank heresy to call him a murderer or to express any doubts regarding his innocence. He became at once the pet and the mystery of the ship, and his canvas cell the rallying-point for all the little gaieties on board. He played cards well, was an apt pupil on the accordion, and at checkers he was the master of the ship! And he not only beat you, but he beat you handsomely, shaking hands before and after the event, like a prizefighter in the ring.
Casement felt very uneasy about the boy; he grew more and more uncomfortable at heart, and it was the talk of the ship that the problem of Billy was weighing on the “old man” like a hundredweight of bricks. The whole business preyed upon him unceasingly and he dreaded each passing day that brought the execution ever nearer. Billy kept him sleepless in the steaming nights; Billy faced him like a spectre at his solitary board; Billy’s face blurred the pages of the books and magazines he had laid up for these dreary days in the Solomons. Casement visited his prisoner twice a day, against the better judgment that bade him keep away and try to forget him. He never said much after his first two ineffectual attempts to wrestle with Billy’s stereotyped phrase and to extort further information; but, chewing a cigar, he would stare the black creature out of countenance for ten minutes at a time, with a look of the strongest annoyance and disfavor, as though his patience could not much longer withstand the strain.
The officers were not a whit behind their captain. Billy’s artless ways and boundless good humour had won the whole ward-room to his side; and his grim determination to die, at once bewildered and exasperated every soul on board. The strange spectacle offered of a hundred men at work to persuade their prisoner to recall his damning confession, and on pins and needles to save him from a fate he himself seemed not to fear. The captain as good as told Facey that if the boy would assert his innocence he would scarcely venture to shoot him; and this intelligence Facey handed on to his client, and, incidentally, to the whole ship’s company. Never was a criminal so beset. Every man on board tried in his turn to shake Billy’s obstinacy, and to paint, in no uncertain colours, the dreadful fate the future held in store for him. One and all they retired discomfited, some with curses, others on the verge of tears. They swore at him for a fool; they cajoled him as they would a child; they acted out his last end with all fidelity to detail, even to a firing platoon saying “Bang, bang!” in dreadful unison, while a couple of seamen made Billy roll the deck in agony. The black boy would shudder and wipe his frightened eyes; but his fortitude was unshaken.
“White fellow no good; I kill him.”