An hour passed; his pains and shrieks continued; albeit the latter now grew fainter and fewer. Nature could endure no more; his nervous system sank under pain and exhaustion, and he swooned.
The pirates removed him, and plied him with restoratives, and he gradually revived.
The suffering of the midshipman had produced a weakening effect upon him, such as disease produces on the strongest minds; it had destroyed his hot and fierce spirit. Yes, the pain of the body had conquered the resolution of the mind, and after the first torturing, the young officer was less spirited, less boisterous, and less impatient.
Animation had scarcely returned, when the wretched victim was again thrown on the spikes which, piercing through his fresh wounds, added still more to the agony which he had before endured. The pain this time was not bearable.
“Oh! save me from this,” the young man cried, convulsively, “kill me at once.”
“We want not your life, what good is that to us?” replied the junior officer in command of the pirates, “we wish only to hear about our captain, who may be at this moment undergoing the same pains as you.”
“Then remove me, and I shall speak. No, yes, no, yes.”
“You will then cease to play the fool at your own cost,” was the laconic and unsympathising reply of the above-mentioned officer, who, at the same time, dispatched one of his men to report that the prisoner was willing to speak.